One day at a time...

I'm going to go ahead and force myself to write about this trip. It is difficult to explain, but for some reason, my head has not really allowed me to process all that I saw while in Ethiopia. The realities are hard to face, and I thought I was prepared for them! It was all heartbreaking, but the sliver lining is that there was hope everywhere in Africa. These people have far less than you can imagine. It's hard for me to face, sitting here in my air conditioned house, on a comfy couch, healthy kids, with access to clean water and Dr's... etc. I could go on and on. So now you know why I have been home a week and haven't even looked through all my photos yet. I have been in denial of the cruel reality that so many are living with.

But, that wasn't the purpose of this trip. I wasn't supposed to go, see poverty in the most extreme cases just to come home and convince myself it wasn't real. I went to experience it with my own eyes, use my own to hands to make a difference for someone, no matter how small, and I went to tell people about it. Not everyone goes to Africa, and I did, so I feel some responsibility to share what it was like. I'll start at the beginning - feel free to skip my poor story telling skills and look at the pictures.

I had never traveled around the world before, and I severely underestimated how miserable it would be. We flew from SLC to DC where Stacy and I met our team for the first time. Everyone thought we were sisters (some for almost the whole trip, and it didn't help that we packed a lot of the same clothes accidentally) and we became known as the girls from Salt Lake City. Almost the entire team was from Nashville, with 2 from Arizona and one from Chicago. We got to know each other for a few hours and then flew direct from DC to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital city. We stopped for fuel in Rome, but didn't get off the plane. This was certainly not the highlight of the trip, so I won't elaborate, but Stacy said it best when she said "seriously, this flight is one of the worst things that have ever happened to me." Dramatic, yes, but I fought off a few serious panic attacks, so it was no joke. We we so happy to get there, and have ALL our luggage make it as well.

A lot of you know this already, but we were all encouraged to bring as many donations as possible. My brother Landon made it his eagle project to collect over 2900 toys for Stacy and I to take. It was so wonderful and we packed over 200 lbs to give away. 3 days before we left, my mom came out with the toys and Stacy and I packed our suitcases full to the very last ounce, weighing and re-weighing our bags. Thank you so much to anyone who donated to Landon's project, I wish I could adequately describe how special it was to hand these toys out personally to kids who have nothing else to call their own.

So, after our 30+ hours of travel, we arrive in Addis and load up on a bus in true Ethiopian style. They threw our team of 22 people and probably around 88 pieces of luggage into and onto a bus and drove us to the Ethiopian Guest House where we stayed. "Took over" might be a better way of putting it though. The entire first floor reception area was full of our 50+ bags of donations that we pulled from every morning - for the entire 10 days. That poor staff just cleaned around our stuff everyday. Surprisingly, the jet lag wasn't bad at all, and we got in bed for our first night knowing we had an exciting first day in an orphanage in the city in the morning.

Coming soon, day one in Addis Ababa and a slap in the face with reality.