A full day of children

Today we spent the morning at Hannah's Hope and the afternoon at Bethzatha Orphanage. The morning at Hannah's Hope started with a lot of baby hugging. In the photo here you can see Sherridan Poffenroth with three out of the four babies she was tending to at the time. The babies all seemed to be thriving, thanks to the great care given by the Special Moms, who are the volunteer caregivers. After the babies were put back to bed, the crew conducted vacation Bible school craft activities for the older children and Jan Person told the story of David and Goliath as Bekele, who works at both orphanages, translated.

We had lunch at Kaldi's, which is unashamed of its role as a complete Starbucks knockoff, right down to the colors and logo. Some of our party had a fruit drink that was layered with guava, avocado and papaya juice, a representation of the colors of the Ethiopian flag.

The afternoon was spent at Bethzatha, where we did all kinds of activities for the kids. Like any group of 50 kids mostly 8 and under, they had varied socialization skills. Some just wanted to sit on your lap and be held, while others plunged into all the activities, from blowing bubbles to art projects to trying to hit a plastic baseball. Jan did story time again, this time with our driver, Wass, as a very animated translator. Jan and Bekki led the kids in singing all the preschool songs with their hand motions, and then the children serenaded us in the Amharic language.

We had a traditional coffee ceremony, with coffee beans cooked over the fire as we watched and hand-ground with a mortar and pestle.

Dinner was at Makush, which we were told was the best Italian restaurant in town. The Wades weren't with us for dinner, as they took a tour of the Bingham Academy and went to dinner with the director of Bingham to another "best Italian restaurant in town."

Sunday we will attend an Ethiopian church service and then head for Awassa, where we will spend three days painting rooms at the Bethzatha Orphanage there.