Change of Plan Again - (Thursday 4th June)

Mr Messy was up bright and early (and even shaven!!!) this morning as
he was being picked up by the driver at 9am to go to the orphanage to
collect Assistant and then go and get baby's Ethiopian Passport.
However, at about 10 past 9 we got a phone call from Assistant saying
that the Passport still wasn't ready and that we would have to pick it
up at 3.30pm instead. She must have contacted the driver to let him
know as he didn't arrive!!

We had decided earlier in the week to try to arrange a barbeque at our
Guest House and all of us UK families to get together and chat and
relax. So this morning we talked to the Calm Guest House Manager and
he arranged for the barbeque and patio to be cleaned, to buy wood for
cooking on, and to buy the meat. The bill for the firewood and meat
was less than 300 birr to feed 14 of us!!!! WOW!!!! The American
family have said they will buy fruit juices and me and the kids are
going to walk over to Kaldi's when Mr Messy has gone out to buy a cake
between us all. It should be a lot of fun :-)

After baby's 2nd bottle of the day we put her down for a nap and me
and Mr Messy started to wade our way through the Visa application
form!! As its the same form for anyone applying for a British
Settlement Visa it is very long and has lots of irrelevant questions
and repetition, for people adopting!! There are guidance notes
available from the same site that we downloaded the Application Form
from, but we have managed to only bring half of them with us!!! It
took us a good hour to work our way through the form, and we have one
or two questions we aren't sure what we should answer, but we have
been told that the Visa Agents are very helpfull and knowledgeable so
we will ask them tomorrow when we visit to lodge our application. We
have got all our fingers and toes crossed that we do get baby's
Ethiopian Passport today, as we are getting so close to the weekend it
will delay things even further if we have to wait much longer!!!

Mr Messy has re-arranged his and Drama Teen's trip to where baby comes
from until Sunday. They will set off Sunday and drive all day, then
explore the town baby is from on Monday and Tuesday, and set off back
to the Guest House on Wednesday morning. Again this all depends on
getting baby's Ethiopian Passport today, and lodging the Visa
Application tomorrow, as Mr Messy has to be present when we apply for
the Visa (he's the one that earns the money, I just spend it lol).

We had various communication issues trying to get in touch with the
other UK families currently in Addis, so we weren't sure how many (if
any!!) would come to our barbeque. In the end one couple on their
first trip to meet their baby and sign and lodge their legal papers
made it. We, the other UK couple and the American family had a great
time chatting. Me and the other UK lady got roped in to preparing the
vegetables that had been brought along for the barbeque, which was
very funny as its our husbands who are the good cooks not us lol. We
and the Guest House ladies had a great time laughing and giggling
about it all. The Guest House ladies offered to prepare an Ethiopian
Coffee Ceremony for us, and that was a great treat, we all took lots
of photos :-) The young Guest House Manager got told off for
attempting to light the barbeque fire with petrol!!! The Guest House
ladies promptly took over and sent him away lol. We sat outside on
the patio eating and chatting until late at night, and had a great
time.