One day we were able to go visit the care center where our niece Liya lived for her first 6 months of life! It was so great to be able to see where she lived and meet some of the nannies who took care of her. In the picture above, you can see the nannies from the house she lived in for 4 months holding pictures of her now! My sister sent the pictures with us in hopes that we would be able to give them to the nannies. They all remembered her and we told them how she can run around and how sassy she is now!
Charlotte and I had a fun time playing with the babies!
The nannies made us coffee. Strong and dark. Yum.
Another day we were able to visit the Hamlin Fistula Hospital in Addis Ababa. It was founded by Reg and Catherine Hamlin, two Australian OB/GYNs, and is a world-renowned center for treating obstetric fistulas and training physicians to surgically repair them in other hospitals. An obstetric fistula develops when a woman is in labor for too long and the baby's head puts pressure on the tissue in the birth canal and cuts off the blood supply, causing the tissue to die. This creates a hole between the bladder and the vagina or the rectum and the vagina, which then allows urine or stool to leak continually through the hole. As you can imagine, this is not a pleasant problem to have, and usually their husbands leave them and they can no longer get a job. Usually, the baby has died in the process as well, so the woman is also mourning the loss of a baby. In Ethiopia, most women's identities are closely tied to their family and ability to bear children. An obstetric fistula strips them of both of those things. The Hamlins became passionate about bringing new life to these women by surgically repairing fistulas. Their work is truly amazing! Catherine is in her mid to late 80s and she still operates! We saw her at church the very first week we were in Ethiopia, and it was like a missionary celebrity sighting! :) If you are interested in learning more, please visit http://www.hamlinfistula.org, or read Catherine's book "The Hospital by the River." There is also an amazing documentary about the Hamlins and the hospital called "A Walk to Beautiful." 
On a less serious note, we had macchiatos at "Tomoca" after our visit to the Hamlin Fistula Hospital. They were amazing! Ethiopia is said to be the birthplace of coffee. As the story goes, a shepherd noticed his goats were acting frisky after eating some berries off of a plant. The shepherd tried them and noticed he felt more energetic too. Eventually someone had the bright idea to roast and then boil the beans in water, creating what we know as coffee. Matt is glad that someone thought of that. :) Ethiopia is proud of the fact that they were never colonized, but they were briefly occupied by the Italians at one point. Lucky for us, the Italians introduced several lovely things like pasta, pizza, and espresso makers.
See, here's the pizza! For Matt's birthday we went out to an American-style restaurant (Island Breeze, for those of you who may know something about Addis) and had pizza. Yum!
And here is our lovely Charlotte, holding some of the toys we bought at the bazaar one weekend. From left to right, a horse made out of twine (?) wrapped around wires, an ibex made in the same fashion, and a hippo made out of leather (which belongs to Kristi, and is probably her favorite purchase in Ethiopia, with the exception of her hippo potholder). :)I thought I was going to post the remainder of our trip all at once, but I'm tired and it's late, so there will have to be an Ethiopia, part three and maybe also a part four. Goodnight!
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