In the morning, I am sitting in preschool with New Kid on my lap. He and I have become best friends, and he is my little shadow. We are listening to the kids recite the alphabet when suddenly, he starts making all kinds of crazy faces and cracking himself up. It’s impossible to be mature when you have a three-year-old sitting on your lap, rolling his eyes around and sticking his tongue out at you. It’s also a very good sign that he’s acclimated to the orphanage and will be fine.

At night, we go to big AHOPE for program. It is my turn to tell a story, so I tell the story of Rumplestiltskin. Before I start, Abebe tells the kids that they will vote on who has told the best story: me, T or M, and when he says it, I give the kids menacing eyes and point to myself, to get my message across. Some of them nod seriously, and others laugh and shake their heads. I vow to punish them later for this audacity.

I tell the story, which some of the kids already know. Abebe, who is translating the story, cannot say Rumplestiltskin for the life of him, which cracks up all the ferenge, who have been teased for our misprounounciations of Amharic words. I mean, really. How hard is it to say Rumplestiltskin?

My story is obviously the greatest, and I even make one of the bigger girls jump when I get to Rumplestiltskin’s fit of rage. I ask Abebe about the voting for days to follow, and even though he giggles when I tell him that I will win because my story was awesome, he never has the kids vote. This is because my story was clearly the best, and he doesn’t want to publicly embarrass T and M.

After I finish my telling of the greatest story ever told, the kids have dinner. At the beginning of our stay in Addis, M told us that the highest compliment you can get from Ethiopians is to be hand fed by them, because it means they really love you. The little kids have stuck food in my mouth countless times, but never the older ones. One of the older girls, whom I don’t know very well, calls me over and pops a piece of bread and honey into my mouth. I tell her thank you, and as I am still chewing the bread, another girl calls me over to feed me.

In no time at all, T and M and I are running back and forth around the room, so that all the kids can feed us. I am touched beyond words. Here I am, an American in a poverty-stricken country, being hand fed by orphans. I try not to think about it too much, or else I will surely burst into tears and frighten them all away. Instead, I open wide, chomp and swallow, over and over, thinking about how I have never felt so loved in my whole life.