Bringing Home Elias

Ok, so i was right. Juli now wants to be a belly dancer for halloween. We had such an amazing time last night! We learned so many crazy things about Dubai. First their biggest sport is camel racing. And until 2 years ago they used 5 and 6 year old children from India and Pakistan as jockeys. Why from Indian and Pakistan? Because their parents would sell them for cheap. So sad. Well, a couple of years ago human rights activists succefully got them to stop using children and now...get this, they use remote controls for them!!!!!! A man drives next to them in a car with a remote control and directs the camel. The catch is that when the race is over a person needs to catch up with the camel and pull on his reigns to stop him because the remote control does not have a stopping mechanism. Otherwise the camel will just keep running on and on and on. LOL So nuts.

So, the safari was great! Our driver was from Africa and picked us up at our hotel around 3:30pm and we drove about 45 minutes to a desert conservation park getting to see so much of Dubai along the way.

When we go there, we got out for a rest while they took some of the air out of our tires to make the car ready for the sand. Then we got back in and off we went... It was an awesome experience. Of course, toward the end Juli started to get a bit sick so the driver was kind enough to take it a bit easy. 

We stopped once to watch the sunset over the desert and were told if you walked about 2 hours through the desert, we would be in another country of Oman.

Once we were done, we were taken to a traditional bedouin camp in the desert. It was one of the coolest things I have EVER experienced. I felt like i was in Bible times.

We sat at tables on the ground on pillows and ate a traditional Arabian style BBQ dinner, and wine and Juli and I got Henna drawings on ourselves. We took camel rides and Juli got to kiss one! She loved the camels! There were so many! They even haad a section where you could go smoke their tobacco from the golden urns and It was flavored of Apple they said. I guess there are over 25 flavors of tobacco here. Off course we weren't very interested in this, but I was neet to watch. It reminded me of that caterpillar from Alice in wonderland who smoked (or steamed as Juli would say). In fact, had to tell her to be quiet because as we were walking by at one point she yelled out at the top of her lungs..."you shouldn't steam, It's not good for you." Crack up she is.

Well, the finale of the evening was the belly dancer of course. She was from Russia we were told which made her even more intriguing to Juli.  She did a whole number and then was looking for an audience participant. Juli put her hand in the air and she got picked. You should have seen her shake it! She loved every minute of that night and so did we! It was a great family night. 

The next day we headed to the pools again. It was a fun day in the sun until i sliced my foot open on a chair and had to go to the clinic here. They could not put stitches in it because it was in between my toes, so they just bandaged it up and I have to keep it clean and open. That is just perfect...clean and open in Ethiopia. We'll see how that goes. Luckily I had a tetanus shot and have an antibiotic with me just in case. 

In a few hours we get up to head to the airport and off to Ethiopia. We Take off at 8:30am Dubai time. It is a 4 hour flight. We spend the day just getting settled and going to bed early.

Friday we meet Habtamu!!!!! Our World Vision child. We are so excited. We'll take lots of pictures! 

Good Night U.S.A.

Love, Heather, Eric, and Juli