Sunday's events (continued) - from John

Today we woke up in Awassa, 6 hours south of Addis. It's hot & humid (think yellow fever and malaria) and right on Lake Awassa. We had a breakfast with some western and Ethiopian food - called felfel I think - it's injera bread ripped up with sauce and eaten with, of course, injera bread.

We then went on a hippo tour on the lake and took a rather rickety boat (we had to move people to the back of the boat because the front leaked too much with us up front). It was basically a wooden rowboat that could fit about 10 people with a canopy. After about a 40 minute ride we came upon a family of about 15 hippos in fairly deep water so we could mostly see their nostrils, ears & eyes. We hung out for a bit and a couple were getting mad at us and raised their whole heads up and splashed towards us. The guides got spooked and we took off - pretty amazing.

We got back to the shore and Alemu (our guide) told us we must hurry because we were late and Blen's birth mom was getting impatient and may leave. Here we are sight-seeing and may miss our only chance to ever meet the birth mom! So we hurry out and thankfully get there in time, but now we are now quite stressed and maybe not quite prepared.

We meet Blen's mom in the courtyard and just like so many Ethiopian women we've seen, she is beautiful. She seems very nervous (as are we) and we go into the manager's office and Wendy asks (through Alemu) our questions. Very intense and emotional. It may surprise those reading this that Wendy cried, but she did. Blen's mom was very reserved but she cried as well and she laughed a little too. We decided to keep the discussion between us and Blen at this time, to respect Blen's privacy, but we did take lots of photos & video. It was an amazing, exhausting, wonderful experience that we will always cherish, and I think will be great for Blen when she gets older. We were blessed to have this experience, as others in our group either didn't have the chance to meet the family, or had awful experiences with their families.

We then had an incredible lunch of ethiopian food. I had some kitfo (minced raw beef with spices and a little cheese blended in). It was incredible but may not have turned out so good a couple of hours after the meal.

We then went to a "coffee farm." We drove south out of town into the hills and stopped at a random traditional farm on the side of the road. Alemu (having never met them before) asked the owner of the farm which was basically 30-40 small, about 10-15 feet tall coffee bushes and bunch of false banana plants, which is called enset. The owner said yes and took us out to see it. I'm pretty sure 8 white faces walking around there was pretty rare and within minutes we had a crew of about 100 mostly kids following us around, hamming it up for the camerras. They loved to see themselves on the digital display and on the video display screens. The owner then let us into his house which is a traditional round hut with mud walls and a thatched roof. He let us walk through and take pictures and ask whatever questions we had. What an amazing experience.

We then went back and had a beer (St. George) on the roof of a building in Awassa with a cool breeze and a view of the sunset over lake Awassa.