Jul 25 2011
Saying Goodbye
The last week in Africa was a flurry of food, hugs and kisses.
First we had a party for our friends. One highlight was sitting around in a big circle singing English pop songs together while Aicel played guitar. Even if someone didn’t know English, they did know Black Eyed Peas!
The idea to pose eating was theirs :).
Then we had dinner with a different family each night. Each family made a dish they thought I had really liked. The family above made two dinners!! Marc and I had no idea. We ate with half of the family and they served my favorite foods. I ate until I thought I would burst because I knew they had worked so hard for me. As I finished, my friend said, “Make sure you leave room for couscous.”
I must have looked alarmed because the family burst out laughing. The other side of her family wanted to serve us dinner too and were waiting in a apartment upstairs with another meal! (The meal pictured is meal #2.)
We also ate with Sanaa, Kamal and Doaa. It was hard to say goodbye to these friends. Doaa is Annada’s first real friend. I will never forget watching them crawl around pretending to be cats and cuddling together. (At least Annada was, Doaa might have had a different animal in mind.)
Sanaa waving goodbye as we walked away.
Our trip home was literally trains, planes and automobiles. We left our apartment early in the morning and rode a taxi to the train station. Took the train about an hour to the airport. Flew to JFK. Got in a van and drove to a conference in Washington DC. It took roughly 24 hours.
The worst part by far was the drive to DC. We started at 7 pm local time or midnight in Africa. It then took almost 8 hours to drive to our hotel. The car seat for Annada didn’t have straps to keep her in the seat so we had to rig it up with the seat belt. It was really a booster seat, so it sat almost straight up.
In this picture at the beginning of the drive it looked like I was able to wedge her in enough that she could sleep. But that only lasted an hour. It was so uncomfortable that she started crying in her sleep. I spent the rest of night holding her head up and my back and arms were numb quickly. Ugh. But I tell you this so that you can understand how amazing Annada is. Despite everything, the only time she cried was in her sleep.
Our team. We took this picture just before our last meal together.