Day 1

We arrived at Bole International airport at 03:00 and again had an interesting time with security – they seemed to object to the Guitar we had....and I hadn’t even played it yet!! They also wanted to search my bag which only contained clothes....Good job they didn’t ask us to explain the other bags which were full of footballs, tennis balls and other lightweight articles for the orphans. It reminded me of Brother Andrews prayer “You can make Blind eyes see Lord, can you now make seeing eyes blind(distracted) Lord”

Serawit and Belay met us at the airport and introduced us to the Addis Ababa road system. They seem to dig up the roads to fix water pipes but never re-tarmac them....It made for a very interesting and bumpy ride

Today we attempted to visit the orphanage, but a confusion in transport directions saw us heading off alone towards the centre of Addis Ababa without any Ethiopian money, no contact numbers for anyone, unable to speak the language and no idea of where we were going

Eventually we stopped the taxi van and decided that returning to Serawits house was the best option. Unable to talk to the drivers of the taxis/minivans and not knowing where to direct them, our only option was to walk. So we set off back down the road we had just been driven, took a wrong turning and were lost. This was the time we turned to prayer, and then noticed the bright blue Ethiopian orthodox church on the hill above the house we are staying in.

So with no consideration for where we were walking we headed in a direct line towards it. The gravel path narrowed and turned to mud, the house changed from brick to corrugated iron and eventually some young men stopped us and told us it was not safe for us to continue. Again we turned to prayer and asked God to look after us.

These young men led us don a narrow track, over a stream and eventually to the back of a new housing complex....where they pointed us in the right direction (maybe there are guardian angels after all)

We had obviously attracted much attention from the locals, especially the children, as they followed us like a scene out of “The Pied Piper!” They cried...”Ferengi!” which means “Foreigner!” We were probably the only white people some of the children had ever seen and they wanted to shake our hands and give us a high 5.

We arrived at the house just before sunset and the neighbours phoned Serawits family who arrive to let us in. Everyone was greatly relieved, except Vanessa who then realised that she did have the contact numbers after all.

If the rest of these 3 weeks are as adventurous as the first then we will all be shattered when we return