We’re just finishing up our first full day here in Addis.
On Thursday, we completed our travels from the US to Africa.
Katie and Susan made their way from San Francisco and set out to find not only the Ethiopian airlines gate but also Josh, Joe and Victoria who had arrived several hours earlier.
As with several members of our team, Josh, Joe and Victoria had never met each other. Joe admitted that he spent at least a few of his airport waiting hours wandering the airport terminal saying under his breath “Victoria, Victoria” and watching to see if anyone actually WAS Victoria. Karen and Stephen joined us this morning after a long day of travel from Norway, complete with 10+ hours in the airport in Paris. It was great to see them and wonderful to finally be all together as a team.
We had a great french toast breakfast prepared for us by Kidist and Hannah here in the guest house and then spent some time discussing our upcoming teaching schedule.
In the afternoon we were picked up by our private minibus and then went for a lunch at a local restaurant…that’s where the team picture was taken.
Our tour around town took us to the bank, the Hale Kewart church offices, the African Union building and the Hope Enterprises headquarters. We got to see the area where the street kids come for breakfast and where we’ll be helping them with English lessons.
We spent a few minutes with Dr. Minas who welcomed us and prayed for our team and then spent some time with Zenebe who helped us understand even more about our upcoming teaching responsibilities (yes there will be books!) and arranged for us to be served some amazing macchiato.
Stephen had tea. We stopped at an internet café and did a bit of email checking…some of us being more successful than others. Very slow connections here in Ethiopia but we’ll do our best to keep you updated and informed as frequently as possible.
During our spaghetti dinner back at the guest house we talked about some of the day’s highlights. We were blessed by our meetings with Dr. Minas and Zenebe and hearing how much they care about the people that HOPE serves here in Ethiopia but also how they so deeply care about us.
Our evening wound up with a bit of card playing, and lots of laughter with Stephen and Karen dressed appropriately in Norweigian ski caps. Good night from Addis.
P.S. If you could be any dessert what would it be and why?
P.P.S. Photos to come
