july 8, 2010

We have been incredibly busy the last few days, and then, on top of that, we've had very iffy electricity the last few days, so it didn't bode well for emails being sent. We had more times the last few days without electricity than with. Let me tell you that it is very disconcerting to be taking a shower in a well-lit bathroom and suddenly have the lights go out.

We are on the way to Dese or Dessie - I have seen it spelled several different ways. That is what happens when you try to write Amharic words using the Roman alphabet. There are very few words that are spelled consistently - even major cities! We left at 7 am and will be "on the road" for the next 10 days. We will be in Dessie tonight, then on to Lalibela for a few days and Gondar. We'll come home via the Blue Nile Falls. We were originally supposed to go to Axum, but it was too far and too expensive to be able to fit it in the grant. That's okay - I think we'll be overloaded on Ethiopia history as it is. Lalibella and Gondar were both capitals at different times in history. Lalibella is famous for a series of rock-hewn chuches and Gondar is famous for having something along the lines of 40 churches along with ruins of a bunch of castles.

The last few days have been really busy. The highlights:
*speaker from the ministry of Education.
*a visit to Addis Ababa University school of music for a look at some traditional instruments and a demonstration (very cool!)
*A talk by a man named Ibrahim about how the Muslims have been treated and persecuted in the past in Ethiopia.
*Walked around a mosque at the Mercato, a large market. It is about 1 mile square and gave us lots and lots of experiences with beggars and pickpockets (no one was successful getting money from our pockets, but it was pretty uncomfortable).
*Dinner at a really nice traditional Ethiopian restaurant for injera and wat (bread and stew) and a demonstration of traditional music and dance from various areas and tribes in Ethiopia.

We just drove past a banana plantation!

More highlights:
*Visited the first all-girls school in Ethiopia. It is where two of our organizers lived as children when their parents came to Ethiopia to work as Presbyterian missionaries and then where one taught as an adult.
*Art day! We heard a talk by two artists about their work and about traditional Ethiopian art.
*Went to a museum at Addis Ababa University (the main campus, this time) that is in what used to be Emperor Haile Sallise's palace. It had information about life in Ethiopia in different areas of the country, traditional art and traditional instruments. It was a really good museum.
*Got caught in a major traffic jam. We decided that they must not require cars to pass an emissions test.
*Went to a grocery store to stock up on a few things for the trip
*Talk about curriculum links and things we might want to buy when we're on the trip north for our classrooms.

So that is the good, and busy, news. The bad news is that last night I got really, really sick. Thank God for immodium and zofran! I'm doing much better than I was this morning, though, so I think I'll survive. Fortunately there were snacks for the whole bus that included something very much like Saltine crackers! Yahoo!

Okay, so hopefully things are going well at home. I hope Archie is behaving and that Joshua hasn't broken any more bones. ;) Will email again when there is time.

Alica