Ethiopia

---

Salama,

Hello again, we hope you have all been well.

Since we last wrote Dig Deep has made progress. We have ordered both wind pumps and they should be delivered within 6 weeks, hopefully. This week also saw the completion of the foundations in Endonyo Narasha in preparation for the arrival of the 40 ft tower.

On Monday we will start work on the 70 000 litre tank in Sakutiek. We have decided to build a stone tank as although they are more expensive they can hold a lot more water, more durable and are more resistant to any potential vandals.

As we said in the last blog we took 2 weeks off to go on holiday as the wind pumps take 8 weeks to deliver and there wasn’t much we could be doing for Dig Deep in the 2 weeks immediately following the order.

We visited Ethiopia for a quick trip round the historical circuit in the north. Although a more challenging place to travel, primarily because of the language barrier, poverty and there wasn’t really a tourist infrastructure, we saw some amazing sites in a country that feels like another world from East Africa.

We visited the Orthodox Christian monasteries on Lake Tana. Lake Tana is the 3rd largest lake in Africa and 10th largest in the world and has a maximum depth of 14m. The monasteries were pretty old.

From here we continued north up to Gonder / Gondar. We loved it. The laid back atmosphere was a big contrast, and very welcome after a few hectic days in Addis Ababa. Gonder /Gondar is the old capital, and home to the magnificent royal enclosure, which dates back to the Queen of Sheba’s time, and has palaces and castles spread out within the enclosure. Our guide was also a teacher and invited us back to talk to his classes. We were presented with an array of questions, ranging from “do you believe in love or money? “, “Would you want to be Prince Charles or Princess Diana?” to “If you were swimming in a lake and someone stole your clothes, what would you do?”

Gonder to Lallibella was a 2 day bus journey. The 13hour journey on the first day was pretty miserable; although we were driving through some spectacular mountain scenery we were crammed in with less leg room than a battery chicken. We stayed in a semi converted stable that night for 75 p for both of us. You get what you pay for.

Lallibella was lovely. It’s home to 11 rock hewn churches, all chiseled out of the ground. They were amazing, and even walking around them we couldn’t get our heads around how they had been hand crafted. The market was like what shopping in biblical times must have been, you could even buy a donkey.

Harar was our next stop. A long way east it is pretty different from the orthodox towns we had been in, and was predominantly Muslim. We went having been told it was a walled town that could rival stone town in Zanzibar. It wasn’t everything we hoped for. However we did see a man feeding “wild” hyenas at night. It was mental, we had a go and however used to being fed they are it was still a bit scary to get so close to them.

Back to Addis Ababa, home to the world’s best natural history museum. Taxidermitisation was the main theme. Animals that couldn’t be taxidermitised were shoved in jars, literally shoved and if there was any spare space they put more of the same species in the jar, which was only half filled with the preserving liquid. The Aardvark was split at the chest because it hadn’t been sewn up all the way, and the leopard was bulging in weird places as every nook and cranny in its skin had been filled.

Ethiopia was cold, rainy and tough to travel in, but we had some exceptional experiences somewhere that was like no where that either of us had ever been before.

Back in Kenya it felt like we had come home. The challenges kept coming though as
Jo was diagnosed with malaria and tonsillitis having traveled from Addis Ababa to Narok feeling like death. She is making a good recovery and will hopefully be back, up and about in time to come to Sakutiek on Monday.

The rescue centre is a hive of activity as the girls come and go for their summer holidays. Fun as it is to have so many happy people here they are still teenage girls and have played the same song on repeat for the whole week! It blares out the dining room window so there is no escape! As a special treat an American woman also staying here for August bought everyone a goat, we had a really nice lunch but passed up the offer of stomach, fat and intestine for dinner.


Lots of love

We'll add some photos next time

---