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Published: February 27th 2008
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Leaving Addis
Loading up the cars early on Thursday morning Al has been so diligent getting the blog up and running I thought I’d better start adding some comments and also get it up to date. I thought we’d have time in the first few weeks to work on this and we’d have a easy paced introduction to the country, when I’d have to keep myself entertained reading my books and watching episodes of Dawson’s Creek and recuperating after a hectic few months in the UK, what a naive women I am, it’s been none stop since we got here. We’ve not been in Ethiopia for 1 month yet and it’s been a whirlwind, of introductions, training, travelling, new houses, new jobs, new friends, new food and new routines, I could write for pages about each day of the past few weeks, suffice to say it’s been amazing, beautiful interesting and challenging, instead of many pages here’s a top ten of some of the day to day things I’ve been experiencing:
The Good, the bad and the lovely 1. The toilet - There’s no flush and a faint waft of toilet that lingers around the bathroom most of the time.
2. The shower - It’s cold, it’s cold and it’s
We're heading out West
A refreshment break in Ambo seven o’clock in the morning!
3. The mosquito net - One of us is going to wake up one morning and find we’ve been garrotted by it, we’re finding living with a mosquito net challenging, OK, it must be quite a funny scene to see us before we go to bed and when we get up grappling with it, but I suppose we need to remember we are privileged and lucky to have one!
4. Smiley Children - beautiful, friendly, polite children, who shout out feureunj (foreigner) at you and laugh and giggle when you smile and wave, we’re celebrities here you know.
5. Lovely work colleagues - When anyone walks in the room or you pass them in the corridor you stop, shake hands, have a chat, ask how things are going, everyone is very friendly and always keen to help you struggle through a few Amharic phrases, what lovely welcoming people everyone in Assosa has been
6. Mosques and Churches - audible from our house and singing from 5.30am, that’s dedicated.
7. Bugs - It started off OK, but there seems to be more and more, Al say’s the spiders will eat the mosquitoes so we have to
learn to live with them, which would be OK, if they weren’t so big and hairy looking and jumping and they weren’t in my bed.
8. The Temperature - really warm, but with an occasional light breeze on the good days - nice!
9. Walking to work - Al has a two minute walk to work and I have a 3 minute walk, we get quite excited about that, and still manage to be late
10. Animals - Goats, cows, dogs, chickens, just rambling around the streets, past your house, eating a bit of grass, walking down the path, just roaming all around the place. The there’s the cats - we have a garden of cats, a few big (ish) mewing ones, and a whole load of tiddlers, I’m trying hard to entice them in the house so they will be mine, and I will love them, and stroke them, and love them and feed them, and love them. But instead they use our garden as a litter tray and are too scared to come anywhere near me - humph!
Food 1. Avocado - mmmm, yum, 4 birr a kilo, that’s the equivalent of about 25p
2. Cheese
Steven and Sara
Another refreshment stop Day 2 - there isn’t any. Well, OK there’s cheese slices that we brought from Addis Ababa or Laughing Cow from Assosa - who knew yucky processed cheese would be such a treat.
3. Fresh baked bread - for lunch every day. Lovely.
4. Red Onions - by the basket load and very tasty, I’m adding them to everything except our morning porridge at the moment.
5. Tomatoes - also bountiful, they look a bit green, but taste yummy, especially in fresh bread sandwiches with a cheese slice and some onion!
6. Pumpkin - stew, tastes so good anytime, Al reckons it’s the huge quantities of oil and salt that are added - I don’t care, it just tastes goo,oo,od.
7. Coffee - buying nasty instant at astronomical prices cause we can’t grind the local stuff, but when you do have the local stuff it’s espresso style and damn lovely
8. Peanut butter - Al’s favourite treat at the moment, well that and the bombolino - deep fried dough with your morning coffee break for the uninitiated
9. Injeura - A large pancake like bread made from tef (Ethiopian native grain) yeast and water, it’s got a spongy texture and can sometimes
taste sour, It’s OK, but I couldn’t eat is all the time, the Ethiopians eat a lot of it, even injeura stuffed with injeura!
10. Shiro - Spiced chick pea dhal - a taste sensation for us vegetarians and a staple food here in Ethiopia, especially on fasting days when no one eats meat (that’s Wednesday and Friday)
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