May 29th

Woke up at 0700. Not the greatest sleep last night due to noisy neighbors. Actually falling asleep ok but if I get woken up it is difficult to go back to sleep. That is really the only jet lag I am suffering from. We met the rackaways for breakfast and then at 0915 we head to the care center. On arrival there are no kids to be found because all the little ones are being bathed. We meet Siter Almaz and she sends someone to get BOTH boys out of school. We thought only Ajura was in school but Ahmi goes too I guess. Aura was very shy towards me yesterday but when they came through the gate both boys had big smiles on their faces and came straight to us for hugs. Ajura even reached out for my hand. I was snuggling Ahmi and the nannies told him it was bath time so it was. Great opportunity to spend time alone with Ajura. Karl pointed to Ajura's shirt and Ajura said "tiger"!! This shocked us both because we didn't think he knew any English as of yesterday. After Ajura's bath he had a different shirt on that had dolphins on it, when we pointed he said "fish." Such proud parents!! While waiting for Ahmi, Ajura was pulling Karl's leg hair and cracking his and Karl's knuckles. Then he noticed Karl's ring and my ring and grabbed both our hands and touched our rings together. I welled up with tears. What a touching moment provided by two little hands. We played with bubbles and Karl played soccer N basketball. While I was taking a family photo of the rackaways another little boy was trying to get into the photo. Karl pointed at the boy and asked Ajura in Amharic what the boy's name was and Ajura thought he was pointing at me and said "Mimi." That was the first time my son called me "Mimi." What a feeling. We played some more and for about 5 minutes Ahmi let me rock him and he shut his eyes and just relaxed. We need to get a rocking chair at home. When our two hours was up we went to Yared's office briefly to discuss court and have our visas copied. We made arrangements for a trip up to Entoto mountain today at 1500. Our drive back to the guest house was kinda icky because it was extremely smoggy downtown today. When we got to the Addis View Karl's buddy Abraham showed up so I went to take a nap while he is out exploring. 2135. At 1500 we met up with the rackaways and our driver drove us to Entoto mountain which elevation is 10850 feet. O top of the mountain is a museum, palace, and orthodox catholic church. The women were all dressed in long skirts and head scarves. We paid 50 burr to get into the museum. Our driver accompanied us the whole time and insisted the tour guide to restart the tour in english for us. Very nice gesture but it made me feel like a pushy American and I hate that. All of the items in the museum were catholic religious icons, ceremonial dress and books along with items of the former kings and queens of Ethiopia. After the museum tour our guide then showed us the former palace and overlook of the city. The air is so polluted here that you just see a hazy view of the city. The palace is very interesting because although the crowns and attire of the royal family have diamonds and rubies the palace was very small and humble. Eucalyptus trees are planted everywhere because they grow fast and provide good lumbar, however they need a lot of water so they dig trenches around the trees to collect water. Very interesting. On the drive back we pass through the market where we will go tomorrow. We then go to Top View restaurant. Er nice place but we arrived too early. People eat late here. So the menu was pretty slim so we all had cheeseburgers and fries and coke. It was very good though. Our driver picked us up and we headed to the guest house early to get some good sleep. Tomorrow will be a long day!