One Week In

Hi everyone,

We wrote the post below on the 14th. We've found that it is much
harder than we expected to access the internet here, so we're having a
lot of trouble sending any updates or replying to emails! Since we
wrote the post below, we've been able to see the babies' weight charts
over the last six weeks. Baby Girl has grown by a pound (she started
off at 2.1 kg, but is now 2.6) , but Baby Boy is still only just back
to his birthweight (2.5 kg). Today (as mentioned below) is weigh in
day, but it hasnt' happened yet - we are really praying for an
improvement.

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We've been in Addis a week now and are enjoying being here, one of our
favourite things is making it back to our "home" part of town. We
have made it across the city on a few occasions on the blue and white
minibuses which represent free enterprise transport in Addis. The
cost effectiveness of this form of travel (one birr each, about 5p)
and the sense of satisfaction in successfully navigating across the
city via it makes up for the complexity of it for us and the
discomfort of occasionally being compelled by desperation to ram
oneself into an already full space, without the ability to say much
more than "thank you", obviously not always the most appropriate term.

The minibuses are invariably well used blue and white Toyota Hiace
vans with two highly skilled operatives: the driver, obviously a very
important role but requiring the particular skills of being able to
drive as fast as possible and overtake as many other minibuses as
possible but yet be able to stop at any point to pick up a new
customer, preferably without losing their lead on the competition; and
the lad who mans the side door, leaning out shouting the destination,
(Bole Bole Bole!) constantly touting for custom and fitting customers
in all whilst avoiding being crushed by the sliding door when the
minibus makes its sudden stops.

We've today managed to sort out a document we required from the
British Embassy, not particularly easy as we found that we didn't have
the documents they wanted but we managed it on the second attempt
having been able to collect some papers from the orphanage director.
Needless to say we didn't combine the stresses of obtaining this
document with the complexity of travelling by minibus, we know our
limits- we got a taxi, and it still took the whole morning.

We weren't able to see our twins on Sunday so this afternoon's visit
was much anticipated (by us). Baby boy was in a determinedly sleepy
mood so I felt a little hurt when accused by a nanny of deliberately
waking him up. All the evidence clearly pointed to the fact that,
despite my best efforts, he was still not awake. Baby girl woke up,
drank a whole bottle of milk, went back to sleep and still he wasn't
awake. However my persistent singing did finally pay off and once he
woke up C, again with much persistence, persuaded him to drink a
significant portion of his milk quota. We had a good time but all too
short. Wednesday is weigh-in day. We are hoping that all our coaxing
with bottles over the last week will show some improvement in their
size.

Love to all,

John and Caroline