Travel Tips

If only he had worn his tan pants and black pumps!

Writing about our trip to Ethiopia feels a bit daunting but I know some of you are traveling yourselves soon so I will start with a few travel tips.

1) We brought a LOT of stuff. Typically I pride myself on packing light but this just wasn't the trip for that. Also, don't under estimate how much time it takes to figure out how to get all your stuff into the few bags that you are allowed without outragous additional fees. Here are a few of the things I thought I could have done without but ended up being really glad we brought:

• 10 outfits plus 5 pairs of jammies per child – We could have gotten by with 7 or 8 outfits but I was glad to have back up. If we had not been staying at a guest house that did our laundry every day this would not have been enough clothing for our 8 days with the boys.
• 10 diapers per child, per day – We had about 20 leftover but I was ok with that.
  
• Baby carriers – I thought that they might be too old for these but they loved them and they were an absolute lifesaver at the airport and when Taye was sick.
  
• Baby blankets and soft cuddly stuffed animals – I wondered if they would be too old for these things too but they wanted them at night and at nap time, and again, when Taye was sick I was so glad I had them.
  
• Face cloths – On a whim I decided to throw in a few face cloths, thinking about how soothing a hot or cool face cloth can be depending on the weather, and thinking it might be a good bonding tool. The boys loved it and we used these a lot (once Taye got sick I wished I had brought more than three).
  
• Stickers! – Thanks to everyone for the great advice about stickers. We used many to thwart tantrums on the plane home.
  
• Little backpacks – They took up a lot of room in our luggage but the boys loved them and they were a great place to store the toys we brought. The Legos were their favorite toy.
  
• Mac & Cheese, Miso Soup, Cliff Bars – Let’s face it, eating in a country where you might come down with salmonella or giardia makes meal time somewhat stressful. Once in a while it was nice to just have something to eat that we didn’t have to worry about. Someone else in our travel group brought tuna fish which I thought was a great idea too and I wished that I had thought to bring some oatmeal.
  
• Pedialite – we brought the powdered version and needed every grain of it

2) I also brought lots of first aid and medicinal items that we did not use. At the end of our trip I handed over a big bag of Band-Aids, Neosporin, ringworm meds, scabies cream, sunblock, bug spray, etc., along with the leftover food that we had brought. Our agency was grateful to have it all.

3) Emirates is very strict about baggage limits and weights. With all the stuff we wanted to bring we ended up being three bags over our baggage allowance but we decided to take our chances with extra fees. Our agency had given us a letter explaining that we were bringing humanitarian aid, which I showed at the check-in counter. They told us that the humanitarian aid would have been ok if we had called ahead, which was the first we had heard of that, but after turning up the humor and the charm they conceded and allowed us to bring the extra luggage without any additional fees. Our recommendation, though, is CALL AHEAD if you find yourself needing extra bags.

4) If you are flying Emirates and leaving from JFK there is an Emirates desk near the check-in counter where you can get your visas and hotel vouchers for your layover in Dubai. This is far preferable to figuring all this out 14 hours later once you get to Dubai. I am not sure if this is an option if you are connecting through JFK but it’s worth asking about.

5) I was very glad I learned some Amharic. If you are adopting toddlers here are some words I recommend committing to memory:

• Gobez – literal translation is “so brave” but it is basically the go to word for “good job”
• Rah-BECK? = are you hungry?
• Bah-KAH – means “enough”. Can be a command or a question.
• Mah-TAH, mah-TAH – “night, night”. I don’t think it was the phrase they were used to but they knew what it meant and now they say it to us at the appropriate times.
• Ka-ka (number 2) and shint (number 1). Ok, I am not a fan of either of these words, and I am from a family that got by without having to say much on this subject, but adopting two year olds has made this a necessary part of every day conversation, like it or not...
• Attafrah = "don't be afraid", Ishey = "it's ok" or just "ok", Leahzeck = "can I hold you". When I first met Dash I said a combination of these three phrases to him and he reached his little arms up for me to pick him up.
• Our boys favorite foods are “Dabo” (bread), “Moose” (bananas), “Biscuits” (graham crackers), “Woohah” (water) and “Juice” (juice). They also like milk, string cheese, oranges and pasta (tomato and cheese sauce) but I don’t know the Amharic for these things. One child is very suspicious of new food and his fall back food is bread dipped in water or milk (bluck!). Surprisingly they don’t want the injera we bought last week or the Ethiopian dishes we learned to cook!
• Ama-sah-gah-nah-low = thank you
• Mackeenah = any form of transportation
• Koom means stop, but the word didn't really register with our boys.
• Yellum = "I don't have any" or "I don't have to" as in:
• Us, "Do you have to go potty?"
• Boy, "YELLUM!" or
• Boy, "DABO!"
• Us, "Yellum"
• Naht = "Come here"

We spoke a lot of amharic with them while in Ethiopia but toward the end we started transitioning to English. Over the past week they have learned how to say:

• Hot
• I love you
• All gone
• Night night
• Doggy
• Duncan, Lucy and Porter (our doggies)
• Banana
• Oops
• Oh my goodness
• Breakfast
• Please
• Thank You
• Hi
• Goodbye
• Yes (pronounced Yeeeesh!)

Wow, so proud of them! Now that it's down on paper is seems like so few words yet there is so much communication happening around here. We speak to them in English and they mostly speak Amharic yet I think we understand each other about 98% of the time.

6) The most useful English word we taught them was "please". Most of what they want to communicate to us is a request (aka a demand!) and the simple introduction of the word "please" has gone a long way toward allowing requests of many kinds to happen in a positive fashion, making for a much happier family. The way we taught them was during a particularly loud tantrum on day two. Taye wanted something that was out of his reach. I held up the object to Mark who said, "please?", then I handed it over and he said "ama-sa-ganalow/thank you". Then I did the same. We played this out a few times back and forth and both boys got the hang of it. Now we just need to remind them and the yelling (them) and crying (me) has been cut in half!

Ok, there is more, but this is all I can muster for now! It is quite remarkable how much energy it takes to parent two year old boys! Mah-tah, mah-tah!!