Pictures....take two

Dial up is very frustrating. I'm doing my best to get these on here. There is a chance that I can find broadband somewhere, but I doubt it. Some of the hotels might have it, I'm not sure. Either way, I can hopefully load some of these pictures on here because I have made them quite small.

In other news, tomorrow will be the first day for me in Sendafa. I am more than excited. If I get the pictures to work on here, there should be some good ones to put on here.

This is a picture of the family I am staying with. The boy in front is Nathy (pronounced Na-tea), he is a handful, a lot of fun...but let's just say he's a handful - he says that him and I are best friends, so he is always asking me to play Uno or chess with him, or help him with his English. He's a funny kid. Next to him is Dr. Frew's father, it's actually his house where I am staying, it is right next door. The lady is Dr. Frew's wife, Frehiwot. The next guy, I don't know who he is, he doesn't live here. The last one is Dr. Frew himself, one of the best people I have ever met.

Good, it worked. This is a picture of me and my friend Eshete, he just graduated.

Here is a picture of Eshete and his neice.

This is a picture of a few girls who were at Eshete's graduation party. Once they got over their fear of my white face, red hair and big camera, they loved having their picture taken.

Another picture of the girls.

This is a picture of Birhanu and his wife and daughter. Birhanu is another one of our staff over here. He is a very fun guy, he's laughing and making jokes all the time. They had me over to their home for a Coke and banana the other day. Ethiopian's sure do love their bananas, I think we eat them at most every meal. They're delicious, tree ripened.

Well, that's all for now. It's late and I need to be up early. Sorry that this post is so haphazard, I think that Adam is much better at formatting blogs than I am. Ha.

Be well.

Pictures!

Well, here's some pictures.
Dial up is very slow.

This is my bed where I sleep. Note the bottled water, that's so I don't get sick, ha.

Ok, I give up. This is the only picture that I could actually upload. I've been sitting here for one hour. I'll try later today or tomorrow. Sorry that it's not a very exciting picture.

Be well.

Ethiopian Churches Are Amazing

Yesterday we went to Eshete's graduation party. There was wonderful food (the doro wat was awesome and there was also kitfo). I got some good pictures there. I will have to edit them on my laptop to make them small enough to upload on a dial up connection. If all goes well, I might have them later. Though, I think we are going out to eat kitfo (raw beef, or semi cooked beef dish, it's my favorite) tonight for Frehiwot's birthday.

This morning we went to church. Ethiopians sure do love going to church, they shout and sing and praise and make all kinds of noises. And they also dance around like it's nobodies business. I didn't understand the words at all, but a little bit was translated to me. The sermon was on Jonah. Even though I understood very little, it was still a beautiful service.

I'm sorry that I have not posted any stories about Ethiopians yet. Mostly it is because I have only been with people that I know so far. Once I start going to the village, I will have more personal stories about people. I hope that the blog has not been too boring so far (but I am sure it has been, ha). Even so, it will be better in a few days after I start taking trips to the village.

Be well.

A slow one

Today and tomorrow will be very slow and relaxing. Today I am going to one of my Ethiopian friend's college graduation. His name is Eshete and he is part of my church's staff over here. Afterwards we will be going to his home for a meal and fellowship. It should be very nice.

Tomorrow we will be going to church. I visited this church when I was here in January and it is simply wonderful. I will most likely not understand more than a few words that they are saying, as was the case last time, but I think that it will still touch me. The people here are very enthuasiastic about their religions and it is quite refreshing to see this.

Yesterday was a very busy day. We left about 8:30 in the morning to visit all kinds of different officials. We had to hand in the year end reports for the projects that we are doing. These reports include how much money was spent, how much is left, what was accomplished, etc. They are very big reports, probably at least 100 pages. After we finished with that we had to go and pay the monthly income taxes (they pay these at the end of every month, so 12 times a year). At most of these stops I had to wait in the car because I was American. Some of these visits would take a very long time, as much as 1 hour to do a very simple job.

We also made time to stop for coffee (Ethiopian coffee is so good). We bought some donuts for tea time in the afternoon, stopped at a local library, picked up a lot of medications for the medical clinic in a week. I'm sure that there are things that I am forgetting to say. But, we stopped at home for lunch, other than that we were out all day until about 4 or 5 pm.

I went on a walk last night with Frew and his wife, Frehiwot. We visited there church, they are currently doing construction there to make the auditorium bigger. It looks very nice, they just poured the concrete for the stage.

I have been enjoying myself very much, it has been so wonderful to spend most of my time here so far with the family I am staying with. We eat meals together, watch TV, play uno, do puzzles, talk, take walks, etc. They have really made me feel like I am part of their family, It has been wonderful.

The food has been fantastic so far. We eat injera for every meal (this morning we had scrambled eggs which we ate with injera, no forks). I think that it will take me a long time to get sick of this food, I like it very much. It is interesting that in America we eat so many different kinds of foods, so it takes a while to get used to eating the same basic thing every meal, every day.

Still working on the pictures, maybe tomorrow I will be able to post some.

Hope you are all well.

Early Morning

I woke up this morning, rolled over, looked at the cell phone and it said 4am (I couldn't tell what time of the day it was because the window that is in my room is covered, so no light gets in, which is great for sleeping). So, I tried to roll over and go back to sleep, but this didn't work. I ended up never falling back asleep. It's ok, I was supposed to be up at 8am anyway. But then I realized that my cell phone was wrong, it was an hour fast. So I had 5 hours to kill. It was actually kind of nice having that much time to myself in the morning. I got to read, write and listen to a few songs.

I'm about to head out with Dr. Frew to visit some gov't offices. We have to hand in some year end reports for the projects that we are doing. It is an awful lot of paperwork. After that, I don't know what else we will do. Maybe do some sightseeing in Addis, drink some coffee. Who knows?

Mark, I hope that the text is fixed. It was set to have black text on a black backround, what idiot set that up? :)

I'll do my best to get some pictures on here sometime. It's been overcast most of the time that I have been here and the connection that I am using is dial up and they only have 900 minutes per month before they have to start paying extra. So, I don't want to use too much.

All for now, almost time to head out.

First day in Addis

Hello,

Well, I made it here just fine. It was a really long travel and the route I took was rather unproductive (Philly to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to London, London to Beirut, Beirut to Ethiopia...I actually flew over London on the way to Frankfurt and over Frankfurt on the wait to Beirut...oh well, it saved money, ha). It was actually rather nice having all of that time to myself, alone time has been hard to come by this summer and I realized how much I missed it. I got a lot of reading done along the way; I finished The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and started on My Ishmael. Both were enjoyable. I also watched the figure skating movie with Will Ferrell, that guy from Napolean Dynamite...it was actually pretty funny.

So, I got settled in last night around 4am (my trip was delayed about 2 hours somewhere along the way). Needless to say, I slept like a baby. I have my own room here, which is rather nice. I woke up at 1pm today and ate some homeade injera and wot...it was simply wonderful. It's kind of cold here and rainy (which is to be expected, it is rainy season after all).

It looks like I probably won't be going into Sendafa until Monday. Dr. Frew (the man that is in charge of my church's project over here and the person whom I am staying with) wants to conserve some money and there are some things that need to be taken care of in Addis Ababa first. So, I'll have a few days to settle in here before I start working in the village again. I'm very excited to see Sendafa and see what has changed since I have been there last. Apparently there has been a lot of construction going on, so it should look quite different.

It's been a nice day so far (I've only been up for about 2 hours). But I sat around talking with Dr. Frew and his father about worls issues, Christianity, the condition of this country, the condition of America...it was a nice conversation. It's good to reunite with friends.

I guess that's all that I have to say for now. I should have pretty regular access to the internet, so it shouldn't be too long until I post again.

Hope all is well with all of you,
take care