March 14th I left the good 'ole US to embark on an amazing journey to meet Callie and Chance for the first time. If you've read my blog, you'll know that I have never travelled across the ocean. I'm happy to report that I made it safely to my destination without any delays and WITH my luggage. The travel was tough! I flew from JFK into Abu Dhabi for my major flight. I discovered that they feed you so much on international flights that it's difficult to get any sleep! I did doze on and off. At one point I woke up, looked out the window and we were flying over the dessert. That was so surreal, a memorable moment for sure. I did doze off in the Abu Dhabi airport only to wake up and find that my flight was boarding... oops!
I landed at 2am in my destination city on Monday Morning (6pm Sunday night home time). My driver was there to pick me up and took me directly to my apartment. The apartment was very nice and had heated floors, which I soon discovered I was not overly fond of. They kept the apartment VERY warm (it was in the 50's outside during the day for most of my trip) and there was no thermostat. The heat made me feel sick to my stomach at times. That combined with the crazy driving left me feeling ill my the end of my first day. Thankfully I was OK while I was meeting the children though.
I got a few hours of sleep, then I had to wake up and get ready to go to my meeting to get invited to meet the children. The in-country team stocked my fridge with enough food for a few breakfasts. I had ham and cheese on some amazing bread as well as water and yogurt. The food was very good! The meeting went well, both children were available (yay!) and I would get to meet them that afternoon. After the meeting another mother and I went out to lunch where i had some fruit filled, chocolate drizzled crepes. Yum! Then it was off to meet the children.
Chance and Callie live in different orphanages, however, Callie grew up in the one Chance is in. Because the two orphanages are run by the same organization, they were able to move Callie to Chance's orphanage for the week. That allowed me much more time with both children! I don't think the caretakers understood how overwhelming meeting both children at once would be. They brought Callie right in, no warning. She was quite shy, not very interested in me at first. She had a purse with her and showed it and the contents to me. As she was doing that, they brought Chance in and sat him on the table in front of me... Trying to meet Chance, keep him safe on the table and also trying to interact with Callie was no easy task! Callie was content to play with her purse for a few minutes. I brought a few toys over for Chance to play with, I also gave them to Callie to play with us.
I brought out the photo book for Callie to look through, she flipped through the pictures several times while the Sisters had me feed Chance his mashed fruit. This boy can eat and is none too happy if I didn't get it to him quick enough. I was trying to talk to Callie and feed Chance at the same time, that did not go over well since Chance wanted my attention all to himself, since I had the food! I gave Callie my phone and she attached herself to it. Callie is smart and she figured the phone out pretty quickly. She could get to the camera and photos without a problem by the end of the visit. And she likes to take selfies!
After Chance ate, the Sisters put down a mat on the floor to play on. The three of us sat down on it to play. Callie was busy looking through my phone and would occasionally interact with Chance and myself. She was very sweet with him although didn't know her own strength at times.
We played on the floor for a while which made things a bit easier but honestly, it was better when Callie decided she would rather go upstairs with some of the older kids. It was at that time that I got to focus on Chance for a while and play. He is very happy, has the cutest laugh (not all that different from Claudia's) and likes to be tickled. They brought all of the young children over to the mat for prayer time, and then they all played for a little while. Oh how sweet these children are! Several of them climbed right over to interact with us.
Callie came back downstairs and I asked the Sisters to allow me to spend time with just her. Chance had to get ready to dinner anyway. Callie focused much more on me at that point. She came out of her shell and showed me her true colors. This child is a clown! She seriously cracks me up, she knows when she is being funny and silly, and does it on purpose. We took lots of selfies together and she had me take pictures of her making silly faces. By the end of the visit she was very comfortable with me and could not take her eyes off of me. She was pointing to pictures that I brought saying "My Papa, My Mama, My dog." She found old videos on my phone and was laughing at videos of Claudia.
I was able to eat dinner with Callie and spend a good amount of one on one time with her. She is full of spunk and was hilarious when she broke out of her shell.
That first day with the children was amazing and the rest of the week just got better as they got to know me and get more comfortable with me.
I wish I could post pictures but for the privacy of the children I am unable to do so at this time. I'll write more about my trip later...
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| My welcome food :) |
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| First breakfast in country, so good! |
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| My first lunch, crepes! |
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| And... my first coffee (latte really) |
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