Museum and Merkato

Greetings from Addis! This is Victoria and it’s my turn to give today’s update.

We have enjoyed our time in Addis and getting to know our team better. We ate breakfast this morning with Ray and Laurale, the couple who run this guest home. It was fascinating to hear many of their incredible experiences they have had over the last 38 years they have been in Ethiopia. After breakfast, we were treated to a visit by a man named Mango who brought over many ostrich eggs to sell. We couldn’t pass up an opportunity like this! The eggs sold for 35 birr, which is only $4 in US dollars. Afterwards, we took a drive with Pastor Matheos to Ethiopia’s National Museum. Lucy, the fossilized hominid (basically an archeological discovery that has been identified as the link between prehistoric and modern man) discovered in 1974, was featured here. Many beautiful and intricate paintings, pottery, clothing and jewelry were also on display. It was interesting to learn more of Ethiopia’s history through the museum. We had fun together and many funny photos were taken. (Look for those in a later blog entry!)
Our next stop was the merkato -- East Africa’s largest market. Getting there was quite an adventure as cars are merging and honking from all directions and people and donkeys are walking and crossing the street from everywhere. You could find pretty much anything here, from produce to clothing, paper or possibly even animals. Saturday is the busiest shopping day, so we were grateful to have Pastor Matheos as our guide throughout the market. The hardest part for me was seeing the kids’ faces pressed against our car window, begging for money or selling things like gum or bracelets.
This afternoon, we had the opportunity to relax and continue to build relationships with our other team members. We ended our day with dinner, visiting with a few missionaries staying here and playing many different games together. We have had a great time getting to know each other these last few days, and even though many of us just met this week, to me it feels like we’ve known each other for a long time.
We are looking forward to visiting the International Evangelical Church tomorrow, and starting our work projects on Monday.

Our first full day

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

Time and calendar

Hey, just so you aren't too confused....
I set the time zone on our blog to be Addis time...so it looks like the most recent post was at 8:31 am on Wednesday when in fact, here in Callifornia it is 10:31pm Tuesday.....so...that means that Addis is 10 hours ahead of West Coast time. Another interesting fact for all of you keeping track, Ethiopia uses a different calendar than we do.
They have a 13 month calendar year, which is why the travel posters say "Come to Ethiopia for 13 months of sunshine!" They also are currently in the year 1999 so another travel poster says, "Come to Ethiopia and be 7 years younger!" Their New Year's Day is celebrated in September so the country is currently wrestling with the challenges and potential disruption that the Millenium will bring...anybody here remember Y2K?
Oh, and they use a different "clock" too so that their day begins at 6am but their watches will say 1am.
Glad I could clear all that up for you! And you thought all we had to worry about was jet-lag!

Travel is underway

Our travel has begun.
Karen and Stephen are getting ready to leave Oslo on their way to begin their journey to Africa where they'll arrive on Friday morning. Joe has left for his red-eye to Washington DC where he'll arrive tomorrow. Victoria will get one more night to sleep in her own bed before leaving Chicago tomorrow bound for DC.
Josh is still getting packed ;.) but flies tomorrow from LA to Washington.
Katie and I will be at the airport in San Francisco tomorrow for our morning flight to DC.
The five of us will board our Ethiopian airlines flight on Wednesday evening and we'll arrive in Addis at 7pm on Thursday. After all the planning and arranging from all across the country it will be great to finally all be together and begin our ethiopiasummer when Karen and Stephen join us on Friday. We'll take a team photo so you can see the 'before" shot!
Next post will be from the other side of the world!