Coffee Ceremony

So here is the coffee ceremony.  We had a wonderful time with our newfound friends, Kiros and his wife, whose name is something like Natalia, though in Tigre, the language of the north where they come from. (An interesting aside, is that they speak Tigre to each other, but Amharic to their three children.)  First we had injere, the yeasty pancake made of a special grain called tef, with a sour flavor. It comes in huge circles which they tear up and give you pieces. You then use the injera as your silverware to dish up the wat. We had two kinds of wat. One was sliced beef with hot peppers, with sauce of the beef to put on it.. The other was yellow peas with onion, garlic, pepper, cooked until the peas were smooth.It was all delicious! (And we didn't get sick during the night after eating it either--Yeh!)

In the meantime, the charcoal brazier was lighted and the charcoal was cooking.  A young woman who lives with them, probably their cook or housegirl to help with the three kids, put green coffee beans in a small fry pan and heated them on the charcoal until they got smokey, started to smell burnt and smoke started pouring off the pan. Then she brought the pan over to us to smell, directly the smoke in our direction. As a guest, you are supposed to fan the smoke towards you to smell it and appreciate the odor. It does smell good!  Then she went outside in the courtyard and ground the beans with a mortar and pestle.She put grounds in the bottom of the little black pottery vessel you can see on the left side of the photos, resting in a metal holder. This black pot is the coffee pot. Even before roasting the beans she had put water in it and put it in the charcoal to heat for a long time.

Then when the beans were ground and put in the pot, she heated milk. Finally she poured the milk into the bottom of the demitasse cups, poured coffee on top of the milk and served it to us.  Most people add sugar, though we didn't. Fresh roasted cooked Ethiopian coffee can't be beat, I think!

Tonight we go to another coffee ceremony, so we will have a point of comparison. I'll report in!

We had another wonderful experience yesterday.  Belette, a man we met last year when we were here in Addis, who is a local pastor, came looking for us and volunteered to be our tour guide and take us around the city. We were thrilled.  So Thursday he is taking us for a few hours, and Saturday for the whole day. So we should get a much better opportunity to see more of the city, including some of the museums and tourist sites.

Birds, English and Greetings!

Good morning all!  Yesterday we had the little miracle of seeing some exotic birds right in our yard.  They stuck around long enough that I could get a couple of photos of one variety. It is called a red-throated bee eater and is a twittering little thing with florescent green on the back and orange on the belly.  Here are a couple photos of its front and back. I wish they showed the color more brightly, but I am happy I got such a close-up photo of the bird!

Also here is a photo of two cute little girls from the Sunday church service, sitting on their Mom's lap in choir.  The little girl on the right was wearing denim and cowboy boots--so cute.

I am loving teaching English to these seminary students. Dave, you asked why they study theology in English.  I think it is because the theology books are not translated into their language, Amharic, and also because their high school studies have been in English, so that is what they are used to for academic work. English is regarded as the language of instruction for university level classes.  It is interesting too that these theology students come straight from high school to study theology for three years.  They can get a diploma in two years or a certificate in three. That may be the same as a bachelor's degree/ There is also a program for a masters in Practical Theology here, and a student told me yesterday that it is the only one in the country.   Tuesday afternoon Jim and I attended the faculty meeting here, thankfully held only once a month so we don't have to go to any more of them!  Anyway. there were about 10-12 professors there, including Jim and me, and one other foreigner (from Missousi, who speaks Amharic).  The entire two and half hour meeting was conducted in English, not for our benefit, but they always have the meetings in English, we were told, because that is the language of instruction.

I find though that the English used by students needs a lot of work. I am drilling them this week on prepositions, conjunctions and negatives.  They have difficulty in knowing whether to use in, at, for, about--as you can imagine, it is difficult to learn. We have those things in our head from when we learned English as toddlers. So their writing is often stilted. But they are intensely interested in learning. I have offered special sessions for anyone in the advanced class who wants to come, twice a day,. at 1:30 and 5:00. 6 to 8 people come, and even leave homework with me to correct.  I hope my intense work with them will pay off.

Students in elementary and high school wear uniforms here, and it is fun to see them walking off to school in the morning in their uniforms, the little girls, especially, singing away, backpacks loaded, hair often braided in a hundred or so braids, and holding hands.  Affection is very accepted here. Children as well as men with men and women with women hold hands with each other as they walk down the street. It is not taken as anything but companionship and is very sweet to see.

Handshaking is a big deal.  One shakes hands every time you see someone, both on greeting each other and when you part. If you are well acquainted, you learn your heads toward each other as you shake hands and do a "semi-hug". If you want to show more affection, you shake hands and while doing so, learn into the left side of the head, then the right, then the left, then complete the handshake. It is common to put the left hand on the right arm while shaking hands with the right arm. That is a sign of respect. There is a whole litany of greetings too. How are you? How is your husband? How are your children? How is your mother How is your father? etc. etc.

Tonight at 6 we are invited to a coffee ceremony at the home of another faculty member. And tomorrow the President and his wife have invited us to a coffee ceremony, so we should learn how it works between these two wonderful opportunities.

Time for lunch. Today it is leftovers, since Addis comes Monday, Wed. and Friday. But she makes plenty so we eat well even on the "off days".

(Posted late because I couldn't get the internet to send yesterday!)

Here are some promised photos from the church service we attended Sunday with a group of Arouak people, a minority tribe here in Ethiopia, many of them refugees from south Sudan. They are, we understand, discriminated against here in Ethiopia because of their dark skin. But people of great kindness and joy. We see the drummers who played during the service, then one of the drums, beautifully decorated, which they used.  Also a photo of the choir, which sang with the drum accompaniment and in unison (no parts), but loudly and with joy. I took a video and wanted to put it on this blog, but when I tried this morning, I found that the internet reception is too slow, and it would probably take all day to load, according to my office colleague. So I'll post that once I am back in the states.

Our cook made us pancakes for lunch today, with European syrup (imagine--such a Western treat for us, though we do like Ethiopian cooking too!) plus papaya and mango.  Virtually every day we have tropical fruit and avocado to eat.  Here is a little sample of our typical meal, partly eaten though, kale, carrots and beans, wat (Ethiopian spicy meat sauce) and injera, the rolled "bread" used instead of silverware to wrap everything up and eat a bite at a time.

I am having a good time with my English students.  They ask for practice with prepositions, adverbs, negatives, verb tenses, etc. What a good exercise for me too.  So many things you just have to memorize in English, I think, which aren't obvious, or easily guessed.

I heard there is more snow in Minnesota. Everyday the weather here is the same.  Sunny, blue sky, about 50 in the morning, about 80 when the sun is fully above us, then again back to 50 when the sun goes down.Enjoy the snow! We are enjoying the warmth!

Another beautiful day in Ethiopia!  It is late Sunday afternoon as I write this. Jim is reading a bird book, trying to identify several exotic birds we have seen around our yard.  One is a wren-size ground bird that is irridescent turquoise and green. We saw it on the ground twittering away, not especially afraid of people. Next time I hope to have my camera ready.  The other is some sort of flycatcher that nests in our yard. We have seen 4 in the same tree at one time. Its tail is at least 10 inches long, though it is a bird no bigger than a robin.  There are also large white stork-like birds we see around the rooftops and sitting in trees.  And today a lovely bird with a downward curved long thin beak came right to our patio and dug into our flowerpots for nectar.  I'll see if I can identify them and let you know.

We attended a neighborhood church today which is a congregation for the Anouak people who come from southwestern Ethiopia. The tribe extends across the border into Sudan as well. They are very striking people, extremely tall (the man who translated the sermon for us was at least 6'9" or 10"), thin and very darkskinned, almost blue-black. We were invited from another instructor here, an American, who goes to their church every week. She said last year she invited them to her house for Easter dinner after church.  Women came to her house two days early and began cooking. So they had a real Easter feast of large bowls (served in gourds) of a maize-like grain with vegetables in it.  She said they served 140, including about 45 children.  Since it was raining somewhat that day, they all crowded into her little house, but had a wonderful time.

Church started at 9:30. They had to stop at noon, because there was a wedding in the church building that afternoon and they had to set it up.  What a wonderful joyous group of people.  About four young men played the drums, which were real African drums with skins stretched over wood frames--some of the wood frames were beautifully painted in red figures. I'll post photos tomorrow. The drums looked as if they had been played for 50 years, the skins beautifully worn and spots showing were fingers hit the beat time after time.  Two to four drummers played 4-5 drums, some with their hands, some with sticks. And there must have been three or four rythms going at the same time. Then the choir, half wearing purple gowns and the other half in green gowns, began a song by clapping the rythm with a single voice singing. Then the rest of the choir joined in, then the drums. The whole congregation began clapping and singing (everyone knew all the words--no books or bulletins) and pretty soon a little fancy footwork and some swaying was going on too.  There was a hymn sung (probably ten minutes each in length) between each activity, each Bible reading, the sermon, announcements, etc. One of the really moving things was when the worship leader asked if people had certain things they wanted the congregation to pray about.  Almost everyone had something of concern, and they made your heart ache. One had a close relative with a very serious illness, another had lost his home in a fire, another had concerns about a friend whose son had recently died, another spoke of a fight between two close relatives. It made Jim and me feel like we wanted to stretch out our arms and give all of them hugs and whatever they needed. Yet at the same time, they showed deep faith that their concerns when brought to God would be heard. There were four people there who have been working for the last thirty or so years to translate the Bible into their language and they announced that it is in its final reading at the published. There was great celebration about that. Now they have the Bible only in Amharic, but not their birth language, except that one of the translators said they have had the New Testament for quite a few years.

Many of them greeted us after the service with handshakes and sometimes hugs. They invited us to come back next week and invited Jim to preach. There was a couple there, both Anouak, who now live in Brisbane, Australia. She is a nurse and said she met her husband in India. He was the brother of a man in the congregation. Apparently there are about 180 Anouaks in Brisbane. Who knew?

So this was a wonderful warm and new culture we met today, and we're so thankful for their kindness and welcome.

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Another Carolyn, also an English teacher here, invited us to go with her this morning to the monthly craft sale sponsored by local NGOs. What fun!  Of course the NGOs are all busy helping different groups of Ethiopians, and a way to do that is to have them make crafts to sell, with proceeds going to the NGOs work.

So on a sunny morning we walked into the courtyard of a local church and saw a bazaar of brightly colored cloths, rugs, pottery, flowering plants for sale, lettuce and other fresh vegetables, pies, ice cream, jewelry, toys, embroidery—you name it.  The funny thing we both noted was all the white folks!  When we have been living in a world of black faces, the contrast is quite remarkable. I heard German, English, Swedish, Norwegian spoken and lots of friendly greetings. This monthly event is a gathering place for “foringes” as the Ethiopians call us to have a coffee and a chat together as they buy things to support local charities.  So we did a little shopping too—mostly for grandchildren.

It was a real treat to have some of the lettuce we bought for lunch. We haven’t had any since we got here. Of course we followed the recommended regimen and soaked it 20 minutes in water and bleach, then washed it off with purified water, dried it, and then it was ready for us to have as a salad. Delicious! Funny how you miss something so ordinary when it is hard to get.

We have been fortunate in not getting sick so far. Yesterday for the first time, both of us felt a little queasy and like something was upsetting our digestive tract. Jim took a “cipro” (antibiotic tablet) and it all went away. I felt better today without any medicine. We feel fortunate. But if it happens, as it may, we’re got the antidote, so all will be well. Addis is not a malaria zone, too high in altitude, so we don’t have to worry about that!

By the way, Addis means New, so Addis Ababa means New Flower. The city was named by the son of their 19th century king who kicked out the Italians and founded this new city. So our cook, also named Addis, bears the title "new".  Ethiopians use one name only, and it can be followed by their father's name. Women don't take their husband's name when they marry, but continue to use their father's name as a second name.  But in class, or in meeting someone, people are introduced as Tibebu or Misane or Windebu or Worku, without a second name.  The names are difficult for me though, because they are so different. I find if I can do a word association, I have a better chance of remembering.

Off for now. it is a beautiful afternoon and we are off to the cafe for a macchiato.

Hi all,

I have gotten some questions and reactions from several of you about my blog!  Thanks! It is much more fun to write when I know what people are wondering and can react to them.

You asked why students don’t show up for the first week of classes in the term. Jim and I don’t know.  Each class seemed to have about half come this week. We are told that the school is fining those who didn’t come this first week, but that it is a new policy so maybe people didn’t get the word. Some of them live a long ways away and have to travel by bus 12 or more hours on very bumpy roads to get here. Perhaps that is part of the reason.  Once here, they seem very diligent and interested in learning.

I met my English class last night. Students are in their first year of Theology study, which is taught in English. It meets 2 hours on Thursday, then nothing until the next Thursday. In my view, that isn’t a way to learn a language. I am told these people have studied 8 years of English already, but have been taught by non-native speakers so their speaking is poor and they have no confidence in their ability to speak.  I gave them a syllabus with lots of writing and speaking exercises built in. They were very excited about it. One thing they said was that in Ethiopia, shame is a big factor. They do not want to feel shame for their mistakes. I promised them no shame, as long as they didn’t laugh at the way I pronounced their names. I assigned two textbooks. One is a grammar book written by an Ethiopian, so it understands the differences between English and Amharic. I think it should help in teaching those differences.  I also assigned (and Jim and I bought for each student) a copy of Martin Luther’s Small Catechism. Since this is English for Theology Students, I thought that would provide a body of theology, written in simple terms, that they could use to do writing as well as oral presentations for class. The first exercise last night was to write a paragraph on what the first commandment meant to each of them.  Though the Mekane Yesus church is a Lutheran church, their faces looked blank when I showed them the book. They didn’t know anything about Father Martin or his catechism.

Today at lunch I met 11 students who are in a Masters of Theology program and the dean has asked me to meet with them to help in an intensive way with their English. This group is much more competent in English, but of course they have already gone through 3-4 years of school in English.   They knew what they wanted:  possessives, conjunctions, punctuation.  I agreed to be available 2 ½ hours a day 5 days a week for the next three weeks. They can come and see me in groups as many times each week as they want for oral and written exercises which I will correct. They were elated! So I am going to be really busy, but that’s what I want, and what a wonderful way to get to know some people here better!

Our big issue now is how to deal with all of the needy people we see here. Today two students of Jim’s spoke with him about their need for money to continue their studies. An elderly man came to our front door hoping to sell us acrylic paintings he had done. When I said I wasn’t sure, he said he needed medical attention for his ears, teeth, had a wife and children. It makes your heart cry. One of my English students, a Swedish woman, works with young street people who have lost their homes, families and have no money. She has worked with them five years. She said one of those women is now studying dentistry, so there are successes. Walking down the street, we met a man who teaches at a nearby deal school. He said he is working with an English teacher here at the seminary to help deaf women who need help to become independent. They work in homes as domestics and are often beaten by the wife and sexually abused by the husband. They can’t express themselves to defend themselves against such treatment. We were invited to visit this school for the deaf. I think that should be interested. My heart goes out to them.

Tomorrow, Saturday, we are going to a craft sale sponsored by some local NGOs. Should be fun to see what they have. We also hope to go to the National Museum, where Lucy, the world’s oldest skeleton, is on display.

The photo is of me with a big pan of green coffee beans, washed, and dried in the sun, ready to be roasted in a fry pan, like popcorn. Then we’ll grind and cook it.  Fun to do the process from beginning to end!

Construction, animals and coffee

Hi again,

Today my focus is on construction methods, animals on the four lane roads, and coffee.  The photos above illustrate each.  There are three photos of construction site. The one with Jim walking by the green and yellow fence shows scaffolding.  Apparently they are putting up the third floor of that building.  Scaffolding is of bamboo, with many many poles tied together with rope, then the concrete is poured, sets, and the scaffolding is taken down.  Seems like a merger of old and new world methods.  The first and second photos show workers building a building. In the first photo men and women are hauling cement to the second floor and laying it.  The second photo shows two worker sifting sand to get out impurities before the sand is mixed with cement and water and hauled up to that second floor.  See the little child playing nearby? One of the workers must be her mom.

Then you see a couple of cows in the median of a busy 4 lane road, completely oblivious of the traffic. Don't know how long they stayed there, but it was as long as we were around.  Up the road, a big traffic circle where three highways converge is being build.  Right on the side of it, still in a construction zone, we saw large herds of goats, surrounded by semis. Don't know if it was an impromtu goat market of what.

Finally, we have learned how to roast coffee from our cook Addis. She showed Jim how, just wash beans, put them in the fry pan and fry them (no oil) until they pop, smell like they are burning, and turn brown.  Then he ground them and we had fresh roasted coffee from heaven!! Wonderful!

Jim has taught both of his classes now. First class in Philosophy had 13 of 30 show up.  Next class, Reformation History, had 11 of 30, this despite the fact that this term the school announced it was penalizing students for coming late. We'll see what his next classes bring. I teach my first class, English, later this afternoon. I am supposed to have 9 students, so we'll see how many show up. Should be fun however many there are.

I love to get your comments on this blog. Ask me some questions. Tell me what you want to know. Either directly here or by email to nescar@gmail.com!

Photos

The photo above of lettering on a scarf is the local written language: Amharic. It is interesting to understand how the alphabet works.  Each horizontal line on the first panel of the scarf is a consonant. But each consonant gets changed in shape when a different vowel is added.  So the first letter U, when A is added to it looks like the second figure in the first line, when E is added, looks like the next, etc.  So in a sense, Amharic has many letters, but on the other hand, an alphabet much like ours, but vowels are combined with consonants to make modified forms of the letter.  That's about all I know about it so far.  I do know the word "ishi" means "okay" and we hear that a lot.

More later---

I have some more photos this morning.  First, three from our yard. The first is of me sitting in front, among the flowers, reading in the sunshine. I must admit, the first day we were here, I wasn't careful enough of the intense sun at this high altitude and got a sunburn on the back of my neck--just a strip which is now peeling. So I slather on the sunscreen now. You don't really think the sun is as hot as it is, but I think the altitude makes a big difference in its intensity.

 You'll also see a little garden shaped like a heart that Gutu the gardener has made. It is at the entrance to the front yard--very sweet. Plus a view of the front yard with the path down in front where students walk back and forth to their dormitory. It is fun to sit on the porch and watch the parade.  People are so affectionate here. In a two minute conversation they shake hands 7 or 8 times, hug when they see each other, other sides, and when they part. We hear these gentle greetings float up from the road. Fun!

Here are a couple of photos from the Ethiopian Orthodox parade we saw on Satuday. The parade was to celebrate Epiphany  You can see in the top photo that someone is carrying a large symbol, held high in the air.There were drums and everyone was singing. There is a blue truck in the background that sort of obscures the views, but the parade3 just walked around it, singing and chanting to the drumbeat.

Our cook Addis is a good cook!  She made pasta with mildly spicy sauce of carrots, onions and garlic yesterday, along with avocado, tomato, onion salad and banana, orange, strawberry salad. She comes three times a week, and cooks enough so that we have food for two days, until she returns.  She also made soup for our suppers those two nights. She also washes our clothes and keeps the floors and house clean. For all of this the pay she receives is $35 per month!  That gives you a feel for the difference in the economies.

Off to the Market

It's Monday. We met our cook, Addis Abata, this morniing at 8:30. She and I took off on foot for the market to buy some food. I had written a grocery list and used a little English-Amharic dictionary to translate the items on the list to her language.  She was a great shopper. I stood and watched while she picked out the best papaya, refused bananas that were too ripe, selected the soap she likes to wash clothes (out behind the house we have a cement room with a built-in washtub with a slanted washboard on the front. She fills the tub with soapy water that may have a little hot water added to it, then she scrubs them by hand, using the washboard.), tea, and a variety of vegetables. We visited the bakery, the fruit and vegetable stand, a dry goods place, a "supermarket" which was about 1/10th the size of a small SuperAmerica and had a variety of packaged goods, frozen meat and dairy products. We got yogurt there.

I was so happy to have someone communicate for me, pick the best, know which stores had which products, etc.  As we walked along the street, a busy four-lane road, a cow walked down the middle of it, semis heavily loaded veering around it. It sauntered over to the taxi-stand, where about 50 minibuses which carry people on regular routes were standing. It kinds of disappeared in the middle of that mass of vehicles. Seemed to be untended.  Yesterday I saw a whole herd of goats, maybe 50, walking down the main street of this section of town, but at least they had a herder following them.  Lots of kids came up to me to shake hands, but this time they also asked for money, and an older woman looked at me and put her hand to her mouth as if she were eating.  Addis called the shopkeeper and he made them leave.

:Last night the electricity went out about 11 pm and came back on about 6 this a.m. Jim moved a mattress into the living room so he could plug his sleep apnea machine into a line connected to the school's generator, so he could sleep uninterrupted. He is having a bit a trouble with the altitude. The air is thin up here at 7200 ft.

We're home for lunch now. It'll be fun to see what Addis has prepared with all those groceries. I am sure they'll taste different that what I would make--she knows how to use all the local spices!

More later---

Sunday in Addis

It’s Sunday, the 22^nd of January as I write, though I’ll post this tomorrow.  This has been the third day of clear blue skies and sunshine—up to about 80 by day, and down to the high 40s at night. Mountain air and being at 9 degrees north of the equator are the causes.  I saw canna lilies, calla lilies, hibiscus trees, vividly colored bourgainvillia bushes, roses on stems/branches about 12-15 feet tall, bright purple morning glories, and begonias of every hue. Seeing and smelling these in January makes me feel like I am cheating by propelling myself into summer early.

I woke at 3:45 this morning to the sound of the neighborhood loud speakers playing the Muslim call to prayer. It goes on for a long time, but eventually I drift off to sleep again. About 6:30 another loud speaker began chants of the Ethiopian Orthodox church. We had seen the Orthodox parade yesterday carrying banners and flags, celebrating Epiphany, which was a national holiday Friday.  The Orthodox dress in white for church, the women with their white gauze skirts and scarves with bright ribbon trim, and the men with white leggings and tunics, often carrying a stick, and with their hair wrapped in a white cloth.  Quite striking in the bright sunshine. These parading folks were singing and chanting in celebration. Kids in similar costumes ran alongside laughing and singing. Many strings of red, yellow and green flags were strung across the roadway. They celebrate the Sabbath on both Saturday and Sunday, and have a different calendar regulating their lives, thus Christmas, Epiphany and Easter are on different dates than we use.

We are settling into a nice house for our stay.  It isn’t an American or European house, of course, but has a serviceable sink, toilet and shower, good kitchen, lights for reading, comfortable beds and living room chairs.  No internet connection, though there is one for us in the office Jim will have at the seminary.  The term starts tomorrow, that’s why I’ll post this then, not Sunday. Classes are supposed to start Tuesday, though they say students float in anytime during the week, so not much teaching gets done the first week.  Jim will teach three course and I will teach Intermediate English, two sessions of two hours each per week.

There is a nearby café we have discovered which makes wonderful macchiatos—espresso with whipped steamed milk foam on top. Yesterday we wandered over there three times, I think.  A café here is generally table and chairs outside under canopies to shelter one from the sun.  All that coffee didn’t set us back much. Each cup costs 20 cents! Sure beats Starbucks, both in taste and cost! We’ll soon get brave and try some of their food. The injera, wat and lentil soup looked good. (And by the way, neither of us has felt at all sick yet.)

The sounds of this city are something you hear only in Africa, I think. We hear trucks rumbling down the nearby road, goats ninnying right outside our house, drummers practicing at the nearby “Music School of Jazz,” the loud speakers singing prayer calls all hours of the day and night, gentle voices talking on the road, a rooster or two crowing, children everywhere laughing and shouting, exotic birds calling,  radios playing, horns honking incessantly, much of it regulated by the rising and setting of the sun.

We heard some great stories today. We met a bunch of Scandinavians at the International Lutheran Church and they invited us along for lunch. Three couples, two Swedish and one Norwegian, had spent 30-40 years each living here and teaching or engineering. They raised their families here, returned to Scandinavia when they retired, but find a way to volunteer their services here each winter. They say they can’t stand the darkness and cold on northern winters anymore. They had all seen and been close to Haile Salassie when he was emperor, and experienced personally the harshness of the communist regime that overthrew him, and the “dirgue” which followed, a military dictatorship which went on killing sprees each night (about 3 a.m. they said) and threw the bodies into the streets for everyone to see on their way to work the next day. Things have been better since 1994, but elections aren’t viewed as fair.

You see scaffolding of bamboo everywhere supporting the glass, concrete and steel that will become modern office buildings.  These construction sites are often right next to hovels of tin and mud. Its hard to tell, really, because there are walls on either side of every street. Many of those walls open up by day to become stands selling virtually anything. There don’t seem to be many stores you walk inside of; rather the commerce is right on the street. As we walked down our nearby street today we saw a stand selling toilets, another coffeepots, another bananas and fruit, another shining shoes, then an internet café (simply tables set out on the sidewalk with cords running inside.

People are very friendly to us. Smiles are frequent as we pass on the street. Children often come up to us with hand outstretched to shake and they say, to show off their English, “Hi How are you, sir?” We live on the seminary campus and students come up and introduce themselves and welcome us. A nice feeling.

Enough for now.  Much more to tell in the next days.

Welcome to Ethiopia! Suddenly it is Friday and we sit in the warm sunshine. Must be about 75-80 degrees. The jacaranda and oleander trees are in full purple and pink bloom, the sounds of an African afternoon are in the air: dogs barking, drums beating from a nearby music school, peoples voicing floating through the air, doves cooing, goats bleating and the digging of a spade in the soil.  This is what the Ethiopians refer to as summer, which is opposed to the rainy season of May- September.

Our Minneapolis-Amsterdam and Amsterdam/Kartouhm/Addis Ababa flights went well.  We figured out we were en route for about 24 hours  and probably slept about two or three of those. So it felt great to fall into bed and sleep a full night last night. We went through customs in Holland in order to cross into the "unsecure" part of the airport to find the post office and mail a package to Jacob Ole, returning through immigration to the secure part of the airport. The immigration officer looked at my passport entry stamp and passport information, seeing that I had been in Holland for a total of 15 minutes, and said "Short stay!" with a smile.

We were welcomed with handshakes and hugs at the airport by the principal of the seminary here in Addis last night, along with the Secretary of the Mekane Yesus Church, and taken to our lodgings, a very nice house on campus which we are subrenting from a teacher here going back to the US for several months. So today we are learning the "ropes" from her before she leaves Sunday.

About to go for a walk and check out the local stores. Everything we'll need is apparently available within a block or two. Its season for plums, avocados and other fruits right now.  I guess the Dutch and the Israelis have huge farms south of the city, in the lower land--Addis is 7200 feet high--where they grow fruits, vegetable and flowers to send to Europe and Israel. It would be fun to see those sometime--near the "big lakes" and the Great Rift Valley, and not far from the coffee plantations. We have lots to learn about the land here. Fun.

Love to all, Carolyn

It's the day before we leave for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, via Amsterdam, so we are flinging summer clothes around, digging out suitcases, searching for computer cords and batteries and adapters.  My computer tells me the current temperature there is 79 degrees. We board tomorrow, Wed., Jan. 18 at 3:30 pm, arrive in Amsterdam in the early morning of the 19th, wait a few hours for the southern flight to Addis, and arrive in Addis, God willing, in the early evening. We will be met by a couple of wonderful gentlemem from the Makanu Yesus seminary. What an adventure.

I hope to keep a sort of journal of our adventures via this blog. We understand that the internet is a bit spotty, so may not be able to post all of the time, but I'll keep it up as best I can.  The photos below show us in the context we are leaving--you'll see us somewhere else next time!

Think of us and pray for us. I am sure in this 30 days we'll experience lots of adventures to report!

Carolyn