Ethiopia Day Three - Getting to Know You

Elias slept very well the first night, waking up only once for a bottle (they apparently still wake the babies at night for a bottle at the House of Hope). We were then woken up again by the Orthodox and Muslim calls to prayer. They are much louder and longer on the weekends. That lasted from about 4 to 6am and by that time it was almost breakfast time, so I just got up and took a shower.

We were lucky that there were other families staying at our guest house whose children had been at the House of Hope with Elias. Side Note: The House of Hope is our Agency's transitional home where children are taken (usually from the orphanage) after they are a referred to a family from our agency. This helped his transition greatly when he saw some familiar faces at breakfast that morning. One of the children was older and had come to play with the toddlers in his room often, so they already had a connection. She was able to get him to smile for the first time since meeting us - that meant at lot to me to see him smile.

The rest of they day was just spent around the guest house getting to know Elias and the other families. By the end of the day we were able to get him to smile on our own.