To Addis and Back (Part 7) Final Evening

The last night the entire group of traveling families (minus a few exhausted parties) went for a dinner and dancing show, including a coffee ceremony and traditional injera basket tables and Ethiopian fare.

It was fun, with the added challenge of eating a meal on 1 foot stools with a band of merry infants along!

The kiddos loved the music, and Charlie danced her first dance.

As soon as Charlie saw injera (the Ethiopian spongy and sour bread made out of the teff grain, one of the few local grains that grow here) she grabbed a roll and tried to shove it in her mouth. Therefore I thought perhaps the nannies had already started the kids on injera at a very early age, or it's a genetic taste (because most babies I don't think would like how sour it is) passed down through hundreds of generations of Ethiopians.. I allowed her to eat small pieces of it as it tuns to mush in the mouth. Don't worry, it looks like she is stuffing great gobs of it in her mouth, but I was watching carefully and broke up the pieces so she wouldn't choke.

When we got back to the Guest House, all the staff asked how we enjoyed the show and seemed very invested in our enthusiasm, so we were enthusiastic. In reality, most of us left before the coffee ceremony, as it was going on 3 hours by then and the infants (and kids by then) were wilting fast. In all, it was a lovely goodbye to Ethiopia. Most of us were ready to leave, to start our new family life back home, but there was definitely a sadness at taking Charlie away from her birth home and her culture and everything she had known for her entire life.

Tomorrow I will write about the plane ride home, 28 hours non-stop, door-to-door traveling, along with some tips for those of you who are about to make the trip.