Day Four: School Tour & Selam Tour

Slept fairly well considering.... Rock hard mattress (actually a board with 2 inches of foam on top.) Gave me a backache every night. Interesting noises in the night: barking and fighting dogs, car horns, and 5AM call to prayer (thought it was the Muslims but it was actually the Orthodox Christians -- who knew they chanted over loudspeakers, too?)

Breakfast at the hotel. I ordered scrambled eggs with toast and got something unrecognizable -- not yellow, but brown and red. I ate a bite and new it wasn't eggs and couldn't take another bite. Eddie traded with me and he ate it! His omlette was more like a fried egg but at least we could tell what it was. Found out later that it was probably scrambled injera with tomato sauce. (Injera is the sour, cold, spongy flat bread that is a staple there.) Pancakes ordered by others look like rubbery crepes. The egg sandwich appears to be the way to go. Al Jazeera on TV at the cafe! Our tub has a crack in the bottom and the water goes ... somewhere....

We are invited to visit the school the DFW kids attend, the best school for Ethiopians in Addis and only a short walk from Rich & Melissa's. 750 students, 60 on scholarship. Kids are taught in English but learn Amharic. Learn that school from first grade on is free, but you must go to Kindergarten and you must pay to go to Kindergarten. Get to see a bunch of kids at recess, including some of the DFW kids. They recognize that we are there with their people and they are possessive about us. The little girl who befriends Eddie pushes any other child out of his lap.

DFW kids are easy to recognize because southern Ethiopians have much darker skin than the people from the Addis area.

Plans for lunch at an orphanage where girls who are aging out run two restaurants (national and international - European) to learn a skill. We ate something like a sweet potato egg roll; thick, brown, gravy-like soup that might have been French Onion; tomatoes with cheese and dressing; meat, zucchini, and potatoes; sweet bread for dessert.

Got a tour from the Director. What a story! She was adopted by a Swiss family, living in Switzerland for 13 years and the moved back to Ethiopia 25 years ago when there was a great famine. Started with 28 kids she didn't know how she was going to feed. Saw the first shipping container she ever received from Switzerland, full of building materials and clothes for the kids. Now 260 kids ages 6+ live on 100 acres of land and there are another 350 kids in villages. 1091 kids go to an on-site school, and many go for free. Mostly girls came up to shake our hands.

They have a farm and sell produce, a green house and sell plants, cows and sell ice cream (Ethiopians don't drink milk.) The grounds are beautiful -- flowers and trees all over, well kept. The kids live in a "family" of 25 kids and 2 parents in one house, with a large outside play area and small garden. Very nice.

There are women from the streets who come during the day to dry spices, weave cloth and baskets, and sew. There is a clinic for the orphans, staff and their families, and some others.

There was an English copy of a book the Director's mother wrote and I bought a copy for about $2.50. (I finished it while there. Tells of the family's move from Switzerland to Israel, and ends with their move to Ethiopia. I am so curious about the rest -- how the Director got adopted and such, but the second book is not available in English and I don't read German! Bummer!!!)

So inspirational to see what can be accomplished!

Dinner at a pizza place with the five kids of Levi & Jessie and Rich & Melissa so they can have a date night.

Eddie & I and Charles & Diane get to stay in our rooms for the night, but the other three rooms have to be vacated because they are double booked. (Chris has a room, Nicole has a room, and the two guys from Seattle sleep in single beds in a room.) The hotel has plans for them to stay some other place down the street, but they opt to stay at Rich & Melissa's instead.

This is Rich & Melissa's compound. As you can see, there are no yards to speak of.