Andrea's POV - Thursday

Day 3 and I SWEAR Ebba has been replaced by the fairies, as she is not the
same child. THIS child is BUSY. Happy, babbling, friendly child, with
energy to spare. Oh, Allison is going to have her hands full, for sure.
Ebba is a willful little thing, with a wickedly mischievous smile. So far,
we have learned that she does not like tuna (despite our being told that she
gets tuna), but does enjoy bananas, papayas, oatmeal, baby cereal, eggs, and
most definitely her bottle. She wasn't responding all that well to "no", so
we looked up "no" in Amharic (can't remember how it's spelled, but it's
pronounced "eye"), and tho that gets a response from Ebba, she turns right
back around and does the bad thing again. She had her first bath this
morning (in the kitchen sink), and got the pigtails taken out - the kid
looks pretty groovy with loose hair.

We had a free morning today, with a shopping expedition this afternoon. We
went to a coffee house, and bought coffee to bring home, then to a silver
jewelry store, where Allison got most of the gifts she needed to get. We
have taken to bringing a bag of fruit with us, to give to the women begging
with their babies - they approach the car when we are stopped in traffic,
and we pass a piece of fruit out the window - that seems to go as well as
anything, and assuages our guilt somewhat, but it feels really weird to do,
like playing at being a beneficent lady, giving alms to the poor. It
disturbs us enuf that we had another meal in tonite - ordering from the Ice
Blue AGAIN -but as Ebba was a mad thing, motoring all over the place, it
seemed a sensible choice. Ebba is now finally tiring (refused a nap this
morning), and Allison is trying to keep her awake at least til 8, so she
doesn't rise at the crack of stupid.

Speaking of the crack of stupid, I heard the call to prayers this morning at
sunrise, as I was briefly awake at just the right time. Kinda neat, makes
you realize you aren't in Kansas anymore. Well, that and pretty much
everything else. We stopped at the BMI office this afternoon to confirm our
tickets for the Addis-Heathrow return trip, and their computers weren't
working, so they were to call and leave a message at the guest house (I
should check on that). With any luck, we will either have an empty seat
beside us, or a bulkhead seat with sky cot. Regardless, I think Allison
will be spending A LOT of time walking up and down the aisles - looks like
we'll be on planes for close to 18 h on the 24h.

And, both Pia and Ian have warned us of the winter storms headed thru ON
this week/weekend - Ian is of the opinion that it may be stormy over
Christmas as well, so I am mentally crossing my fingers that the weather is
clear for my last leg home on Christmas Day - I'll be about ready for the
relative peace and calm of home by then, for sure, and I miss the furry
kids.

And now I'm feeling nappish, and tho there's all kinds of things to tell, I
can't think of them, so I will sign off for now. Hopefully, we will get
around to trying to locate the Cyber Easy Internet Cafe...Allison's
guidebook says it has the fastest internet connection on Bole Road, and a
little speed (and consistency - I've apparently lost a connection mid-email
once already) would be a nice thing - then we might actually attempt sending
PICTURES.

A