Bejoe House

Abby and Blaine (the receptionist) playing on the front lawn.

This post is more for all of you Gladney families than for those who want to know what's happening in the Campbell World, sorry!  I wanted to take a minute to post on the Bejoe House, where we stayed in ET.  We, like so many Gladney families, wanted to stay at the Ayat House.  I had read lots of posts about how wonderful it was and the cost and accommodations sounded great.   But, the day we passed court 8 other families passed as well, so everyone was scrambling for reservations at the same time.   The Ayat was taken (it's really just designed for 1 family, possibly 2 small families.)  So, we looked elsewhere.  

We were traveling with Abby, so we needed a 2 room configuration of some sort.  We considered the New Flower, but we really wanted a private bath and that was only available with the master. We considered the Ethiopia Guest House, but it appeared to be a long way from everything Gladney.  We finally decided on the Bejoe, and we're glad we did.  Because the Bejoe has only been operating as a guest house for about 6 months, there is very little info available, but here's what we experienced.

The pros:

• The staff!  We fell in love with the cook and the receptionists.  They were all young adult women who were very friendly, spoke a good amount of English, worked diligently, and tried hard to serve any need we presented. 
  
  Abby with one of the receptionists and Marta, the cook
  
  
• The location!  We could walk to the supermarket, bakery, photo shop, internet cafe, and several restaurants in less than 10-12 minutes.  It is located about 10 minutes from the airport and seemed to be central to almost all of the places we needed to go.  We felt very safe in Bole, where it was located.
• The front lawn.  I know that sounds crazy, but when your cranky toddler is calmed by being outside, a lush patch of grass surrounded by beautiful flowers is very comforting. 
  
  This is Abby helping the gardener cut the grass!
  
  
• The kitchen.  Breakfast was provided, and the kitchen was available to us any other time.  So most days we ate in for either lunch or dinner.  We had taken tuna, peanut butter, easy mac, oatmeal, and lipton soup pouches.  We also boiled a dozen eggs for Abe at the beginning of the week, stuck them in the fridge, and they were his source of protein all week long.  I would suggest you take dishcloths (maybe the disposable kind with the dish soap in them) for doing your personal dishes.  I only ever saw sponges in the kitchen for dishwashing and I'm funny about that.
• The phone.  We tried a couple of different options for contact to the US, without success.  But the Bejoe staff allowed us to call direct from their phone for 12 birr per minute (about $1 a minute).  This worked perfectly for us and we just paid off our phone tab at the end of the week.
• Other adoptive families.  Because the Bejoe can accommodate 4 families, we had the chance to meet several other families, and it made for good conversation during down time. 

The rooms were very adequate.  They weren't anything fancy by American standards, but I think they were very nice for that area.  The housekeeping staff worked hard at taking care of us.  We stayed in the downstairs double room set-up which meant we had two rooms with full beds and we shared a bath between our two rooms.  They provided a crib.  We also had satellite TV, so we were able to get English news, as well as a few other English TV stations.  The nice thing about being downstairs is that there was a ground level entry which kept us from having to schlep our luggage up and down stairs.  If any traveling families have additional questions, feel free to e-mail me and I can try to answer them for you.  I am including a few photos as well!  Have a blessed trip!  

One of our rooms

Abe playing in the living room- he loved the coffee table!

Abby hanging out on the gate wall, above the gatekeeper's house

An upstairs bedroom

Our downstairs bath