Ajuuja Orphanage

Today we traveled down to Hawassa to see the orphanage where Holden stayed before we passed court and he was moved to WACAP House. It was a long, hot, and pretty harrowing drive. The mini van was *more* than packed with families even sitting on the floor. Several of the families got to meet birth families, but there was a mix up with us and with one other family, so our meetings weren't arranged. For some reason they thought we weren't coming down to Hawassa, so they didn't contact our families. We were disappointed, but they are going to try really hard to work out things for tomorrow.


After visiting the orphanage, we went to a city park. The monkeys were so friendly! Ben had a handful of peanuts in his hand and was feeding one monkey. He stopped feeding him for a minute to talk to some people, so the monkey tapped him on the knee, and when that didn't work, he started to try to pry his hand open so that he could help himself.


By the way, the net over the bed isn't just for looks. Hawassa is in the yellow fever and malaria region, so it's for keeping away the mosquitos.