Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Recovery Day

I'm writing this entry on Tuesday but it's for Monday the 9th. We just got in yesterday and we pretty tired the whole day so we ended up turning in early on Sunday, slept for what seemed like 6 hours and it turned out to be about 80 minutes, dozed some more until 2:30 and then was wide awake the rest of the night so I read for about 4 hours.

Monday night was a little better. I struggled to stay awake until 9PM local time, proceeded to sleep hard for about an hour and a half, then woke again at 2AM briefly and then fell back to sleep until about 4:15. Up again reading for anoutehr 3 hours. I finished my book though.

As for during the day on Monday, Chrissy and I spent a lot of time with Gezeghan in the morning. I had some time alone and learned he is a great mimic and can kick a soccer ball (watch out Sammy).




We did a little shopping at the basket market and at the Sabahar Silk Factory. The silk factory is pretty cool. This time we got to see the butterfly-looking things that spin the silk into little pods, then the workers stretch, roll, and twist it into usable material. They make all sorts of scarfs, shawls, table settings, etc etc. They do everything there including the natural dying and the weaving on special looms.




The little "pods" that the moths make

These are the real silk "factories".  They were still moving

They pull the silk out into strands and then wind it up

Then they're dyed

lastly they use their special looms to make the finished product

Felt like we were starting to get our legs underneath us a little today. It's still pretty difficult to get used to the poverty, the squalor, the poor air quality. But, as I mentioned back in October, they are building and improving things quite a bit in the city. Lots of new construction.

Anyway, tomorrow is the big day where we go to the US Embassy to get our travel visa back to the States for Gezaghan: he's our son officially, but he;s still an Ethiopian citizen, and just like Sammy did, he has an Ethiopian passport -- hence the need for the visa.

More tomorrow.

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