Useful Information for Traveling to Ethiopia

Hello everyone,
JF here. Well we are back from Ethiopia with Jacob Yeabsera and we are so happy to have him. The last two days have been something. I used to think that working in the Alaskan fisheries was the most exhausting thing I could do, but I think the new title may belong to bring a new baby home (after a 30 hour trip half way around the globe.) We are slowly getting our routines down and every day Jacob seems happier (and then we are happier).
I know Colleen is blogging about our trip, so I won’t go into our impressions and experiences (they were all great!) Instead I thought I would write a bit about info that other adoptive parents might find useful in planning their trip (I will probably amend this as Colleen and I remember stuff).

First of all, I think the most important thing for Colleen and I with our trip was that we tried to be as prepared as possible, and we tried to go with the flow once we got there. In retrospect we had no idea what was happening. We ended up making lots of decisions on the spot (e.g. “do you want to take your baby home today?”) Fortunately, between Abebe our lawyer, Wendy our driver, and Aster from the guest-house, everything went swimmingly for us (however, our new friends the Grinbergs had a slightly different experience - http://ethiopia.limbo13.com).

We started off by changing US$250 into birr (we had about 100 thanks to Wendy and Tim). We asked Wendy, our driver for help exchanging and he got as a 10 to 1 exchange rate to make it 2,000 b. We also used US$ for some of our expenses.
So here is what we spent money on:
1000 b Assorted souvenirs by Post-office (Outfit for Jacob Yeabsera, 3 Embroidered table cloths, etc.
$400 US Visa for Jacob Yeabsera
$190 Guest House tips (Driver, Cooks)
$80 Toukoul caregiver tips (and we brought them assorted scented lotions)
550 b Assorted souvenirs from Toukoul
$40 Ethiopian Visas
300 b Formula
253 b Coffee beans
100 b Minutes for phone
60 b Berberi peppers
49 b Wooden Ethiopian Cross
47 b Books
44 b Wine
43 b Baby bottles
35 b Cerelac baby food powder
34 b Internet access (15 minutes)
32 b Cold medicine prescription
27 b Baby wipes
17 b Shampoo
Totals: 2591 birr (~$260) and $710: $970 in total spent in cash

These are things we should have brought:
• More baby wipes
• More burp cloths
• More long sleeve shirts/warmer clothes
• More bottles
• Nipples w/ different flow rates
• (Colleen would actually recommend getting them in country)
• Sun hat for baby

These are things that we brought but did not use:
• ipod
• Travel Scrabble (we did use our travel cribbage board)

These are things that we brought that we were really glad about:
• Digital camera and camcorder
• Headlamp/Flashlight
• Oil of Olay face cloths
• Sim card phone


These are things we brought to donate to the Toukoul Orphanage:
• Anti-lice shampoo
• Assorted donated clothes
• Desitin
• Knitted infant caps
• Permethrin (for scabies)
• Rubber gloves
• Underwear (boys’ and girls', 2T-8)

While at the orphanage we asked what things they needed or what things we could tell other adopting couples would make good donations. They told us that they pretty much could get anything they needed so they didn’t have any real emergencies. However things that would make good donations included:
• Desitin
• Disposable diapers
• Hair-brushes
• Matchbox cars
• Permethrin
• Rattles
• Rubber/Soccer balls (or tennis balls)
• Sidewalk chalk
• Specimen cups (particularly for girls)
• Ziplock bags
The last two items they said were difficult to get and would come in particularly useful.

Again, we will add to this as we think of things. If anyone has questions about what we did or what we might advise, please comment and we will try to reply.