General Observations on Ethiopia

The people are very nice. The currency, birr, is rounded up or down to a whole number. The exchange rate is around 16.75/1. During the week we counted 27 people peeing by the side of the road. (After seeing a few we started counting for entertainment purposes....) I saw one port-a-potty but don't know who uses it, if you have to pay, etc. Not many flies. The smog is horrible. I-wish-I'd-brought-a-mask horrible! Temps range from 50-70. Perfect weather in my book! There are berms in the center of roads going a long way so you have to u-turn a lot. If you pick a mission and focus, you will be successful. If you think too broad, and start out too big, you will burn out and fail. Health care is very inexpensive but tough to negotiate. Rich & Melissa are helping a little girl get medical treatment. They were sent to a place to get a test only to find that the machine has been broken for 4 months. Addis Ababa means new flower. The city is only 70 years old. The government owns all land. Everything is leased from them. There is construction everywhere. Scaffolding is eucalyptus -- steel scaffolding was the rare exception. There must not be any form of OSHA there! Painted corrugated walls around town are where the govt reclaimed land for new construction, displacing people. They have tried to find new housing for those evicted but it isn't always ready on time. A "squaty" is a toilet in the villages and probably some places in Addis. There are billboards around town. Some are more public service, like the one showing the merits of marriage. Interesting reflection of social issues.

Food in Ethiopia

Best bananas I've ever had. Sweet but not mushy. Makes sense as the bananas we get are picked before they are ripe and ripen on the way to America. Wish I'd eaten more of them. Juice drinks are very thick and not sweet. I liked the taste, but not everyone did. Soda is made with sugar, not corn syrup. Diet Coke is Coke Light, and is not found everywhere. Given the need to drink bottled drinks, I drank more soda in that week than I usually do in a year. Sprite is MUCH better than 7-Up over there. Need to do a corn-syrup version over here to see what I think. Bottled water at restaurants usually comes in small, medium, and large. Eggs are not very yellow and on a fried egg we usually couldn't identify a yolk. The yolks are apparently often small or whitish. Hearing that made me realize it is a result of whatever the chickens eat, and that was not a good thought. There aren't many restaurants that offer take-out. Drive-thrus don't exist. The coffee has a unique flavor. Since I only drink decaf, which they don't have, I couldn't drink enough to really acquire the taste. Shurro is a sauce there for meat and vegetables. I like the flavor. Injera comes in light and dark. I couldn't tell a difference in the taste between the two. It is made from a grain called teff. It provides fiber, iron, protein, and calcium. I describe injera as a tortilla-shaped bread of a spongy consistency with a sour taste like sourdough bread. Injera is used to scoop up food so utensils are not required. Feeding food to another person is a sign of friendship and acceptance. Cooking is an interesting process. People have a two-burner "stove" but that only works if you have power! There are things call injera-cookers for cooking injera. We had popcorn a lot. Cheap and easy. The government price controls some food items. Good for the masses, but I wonder how the producers can continue to produce the food.

Problem Solving Skills in Ethiopia

People in Ethiopia are not taught to think or problem solve. They learn rote responses to things in school. Many live day to day, so planning ahead isn't required. For example: The eight of us stayed in five rooms. One morning the hotel manager indicated that 3 of our rooms must be vacated as some other guests were coming and they didn't have room for both. They had found a place for our displaced people down the street (but they decided to stay at Rich & Melissa's.) That evening we met the people the hotel needed to make room for -- a group from South Dakota with a partner church in northern Ethiopia through Compassion International. They were there for one night. Given the option of having the people who were staying all week move out for a night, or making part of the group there for one night move down the street, which would you choose?? The latter option is the natural one for us, but not them. Even the 10-year-old I asked this could see the logical solution. Another example: At one restaurant I was thrilled that there were some cloth napkins with silverware in them on the table. (Granted, not enough for each of us, but better than most places where I had gotten used to wiping my hands on the tablecloth for lack of another option.) Three people ordered soup. The waitress came and took the wrapped silverware aware and left a spoon on the table. One of those people was having soup and food that would require a fork. and of course, she never brought napkins for those people. So, I totally get how one person can slow down adoptions without considering ramifications, communicating with others, etc.

Day 10: Traveling & HOME

Sleep some more. Caught myself drooling two times.

We are served breakfast, and then dinner. This is all before arriving in the US at 7AM so it seems so strange. Watch the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which is good.

Arrive in Washington DC and are happy to be in the US again!

Eddie & I are flagged in immigration b/c we admit we have been on a farm (at Selam, that great orphanage.) In customs I have to pull the shoes I wore out of my bag so they can be sprayed. This is amusing, as we stepped in more "agricultural products" in the streets of Addis from the variety of donkeys, sheep, and goats all over the place than we ever even saw at Selam.

Got a cup of decaf at Starbucks. Ahhhh! Chris got some Dunkin' Donuts and those, too, were incredible!

Lunch at Chili's, Too in the Chicago airport. The service was so wonderful!!! Napkins, extra napkins, silverware, fast, polite.... Joy!

The airport bathrooms were awesome, too! Automatic plastic seat covers, water & soap, paper towels. The little things!

Hard to stay awake on the flight, as it is our bedtime in Africa. Sour Dots from Lesley save the day!

Nashville! Eddie did not get his bag and Chris did not get one of his.

Are welcomed at home with signs the kids made and posted over our garage doors, and the kids hopping up and down in the garage as we pull in. Hugs and kisses and giggling and stories! My parents survived, too!

Ate dinner, which Lesley brought for us. Bless her for that!

And sleep in our own bed! Took two Advil PM and slept through the night.

Formatting

Forgive the formatting that makes this hard to read! Blogger is either adding extra lines or completely eliminating mine to make a run-on post! What is up with that?

Day Nine: NGO Bazaar, Nat'l Museum, Departure

Checked out of hotel. Melissa played her guitar and sang as we gathered at her house before breakfast.

Breakfast at German bakery. Here are the kids with Jessie.

To NGO (non-govt organization, usually mission-type groups) bazaar at one of the two English-speaking churches, the one Rich and Melissa attend. Beautiful building. Find some nice gifts and run into some of the people we have met this week -- Jerry & Christy & their kids, Corey & Melody and her mom. This bazaar is the last Friday of every month and a major gathering for the firenge (foreigners, like us.)

Lunch at Garden Paradise Terrace at Adam's Pavillion.

To Ethiopian National Museum. Are patted down by security, which I did not expect, and our bags are searched. Bathrooms were in an outside building. Disgusting to say the least. Stall doors that wouldn't close, no toilet seats, no toilet paper, no means of flushing the toilet other than using the pail in the trashcan full of water that served as a sink. I give Chris a lot of grief for not telling us to go somewhere else first!!!

Certainly not the Smithsonian. Claim to fame are the bones of "Lucy," the missing link. Bones that have travelled the world, in a downstairs room in a glass case without much to mark its (supposed!) significance. Old royal chairs, traditional weapons and clothing. Souvenir shop on the top floor -- but of course it wasn't open. You could get post cards, posters, or books.

Back to Rich & Melissa's. We take turns showering in her space ship shower. This link shows one like it. http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4054/4493845625_b7a4fb6de0_o.jpg We all find it quite amusing to see something like this in Ethiopia, as there is often no water, and what there is does not provide enough pressure to make a shower like this worthwhile! Amazing that people we have just met have welcomed us into our home so easily, but not so amazing as we have realized that almost any American is a friend when you are away from home. We learn that Vernon (the real first name of Seattle campus pastor Dale, which Eddie saw on his passport and shared) has a hair dryer. There are a lot of comments about his man-card.

Pizza for dinner. Again. Fourth time this week. We are tired of it, but it is easy.

To the airport. So much easier this time without all the extra baggage!!!! Flight back goes through Rome. No one deplanes, no one comes on, it is just a fuel stop. We have pondered that the stop is required because the plane needs more fuel to go against the jet stream, but heard from someone that it is really due to the fact that the runway is not long enough for the new plane to take off when full of fuel. This lack of planning would not surprise us after a week in Africa.

Security to get into the airport. Gate is behind another round of security but there are no bathrooms on that side. We wait as long as we can, go to the bathroom, and then go through.

Flight leaves around 10PM. I nap jerk before we even get off the ground and sleep fairly well all the way to Rome. There is a meal served, but I don't mind missing it as I am not used to eating in the middle of the night!

Day Eight: Meal Tickets & Govt Orphanages & Cultural Dinner

No photos for most of today. The mental pictures are enough for me and my descriptions will likely be more than enough for you. Wheat pancakes cooked by Melissa. We had a good chat while she cooked. Our team understood all week that the DFW people have been feeling the pain of loss of all they have worked on for two years. I realize through this conversation that they also feel failure. That never occured to me but I feel stupid for not realizing that additional depth of their pain. My compassion is deepened and I thank the Lord for giving me the opportunity to find that out. Coffee at Kaffe, the Ethiopian version of Starbucks. There is no decaf in this country so I still can't have any. Off we go to buy meal tickets for a feeding center, which we can distribute to people on the street. This is the only feeding center the DFW people know of in the whole city. They feed 1000 people a day and I know that is only a drop in the bucket. The name is the Hope Center, the same name as where we go to feed the homeless in Murfreesboro back home. We break up into two groups, each with an interpretter. We do our best to go up to people who appear to be in the most need. (In Addis you can NEVER look any direction without seeing a need. There is no unemployment insurance, no social security for the old, maimed, and injured. There is poverty beyond what I've ever seen. Someone in our group mentions that America is the only country where poor people can be fat. You don't see that here.) We talk with them through the translator, asking them about their need, talk to them about God (most are Orthodox Christian), give them meal tickets, and pray with them. It takes a lot of time because of the need to translate. Several people will not take the tickets. One woman I speak too gestures to indicate that she is pregnant and whispers something in our translator's ear. Only later does he tell me that she shared she is HIV positive, and that most women don't go in for the free C-section because the scar will let everyone know they are infected -- thereby passing it on to their babies. Sad. And I believe the first time I have ever met or touched someone HIV positive. Makes me think a lot, and wonder that it has been so long in my life before this happened. Lunch at Sishu. Stark contrast to what we just experienced, but I eat well as tonight is another traditional meal.... Meet up with Travis, another Gladney Adoption Agency employee, for a tour of the three government orphanages in Addis. Six million orphans. There have been MANY small private orphanages wherever we have been in the city. Still surprising that there are only three govt orphanages in Addis. From the conditions, perhaps that is a good thing. Our experience in Russia somewhat prepared us for this, but not quite.... Orphanage 1: Kolfe Five months ago there were 100 boys there. Now there are 300. Bunk beds lined up like an army barracks. Kitchen with three women to cook. Other than that, NOT A SINGLE OTHER ADULT IN THE PLACE. No administrator to greet us. No caretaker. 300 boys left to fend for themselves with a prison-like structure of groups/gangs. Boys age 6+. Can you imagine your six-year-old in this situation? Boys recognize Chris because he adopted Leul from there. One boy has saved Leul's report card from school. He kept it, never knowing that he would be able to pass it on, but I guess as a piece of his friend who had been saved. Saved from that place. Shows there are connections and friendship and caring underneath what you need to do to just survive. Learn that one couple who visited Kolfe when adopting found out the names and shoe sizes of all the boys and sent them new shoes, which are a treat indeed based on what we saw. A week later the shoes were gone. Corruption in some form. I get a lump in my throat just thinking about it. Orphanage 2: Kibebe Tsehi (or something like that) For children <5 or so. Much like infant homes where we got Daniel and Emily in Russia. Kids two to a bed. Some slept through our visit, some played with us. There are caretakers. We leave behind a roll of paper and crayons and pipe cleaners. I pray they will bring some joy. Orphanage 3: Kechene Girls ages 3+ and some boy siblings. Saw no caretakers near the dorms of the older girls but some with the littler kids. Kids asked to be picked up with arms outstretched. One little girl turns her back on me when I hold another child after she asked to be put down. There is playground, and trees. The nicest of the orphanages. Gets more government help, but that is relative. Cultural dinner at Yob Abyssinia. Tribal songs and dancing and Ethiopian food. We choose the buffet option. The dancing all starts from the shoulders. Different from anything I have ever seen. Dancer comes to our table and Chris and Tracy and Nicole try it out. A day of paradoxes.