(Lukas writing) Yesterday was the end of term which means there was a humongous water fight. It was crazy. Before school, Vidas and some of his friends went to a store, and they bought balloons. Then at lunch they filled the balloons up with water, went to the top (4th) floor, and threw the water balloons out of the windows. That was what started the water fight. The teachers didn’t seem to care. When the first water balloons started hitting people, everyone either got a water bottle, lunch box, plastic bag, and I even saw one person had his book bag [View Full Entry]

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(Vidas writing) Something that you would never see in America is a couple of donkeys walking through an intense game of 15 and under boys’ soccer. Or kids playing basketball on a basketball court and another group of kids playing soccer on the same court at the same time. That’s what its kind of like during lunchtime and recess at our school. It’s like that because there are a lot of kids and very little space. At school the little kids running through basketball games usually get hit by the ball or accidently knocked over. But they run through anyway. The [View Full Entry]

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Orphanage Many of you have been very, very generous is sending packages to us and to distribute to the poor. Thank you, thank you. Here are pictures from the Abebech Gobena orphanage in Addis Ababa (www.agohelma.org.et) who is benefiting from your generosity. This orphanage is an impressively well run institution that not only takes care of orphans and vulnerable children, but has loads of women empowerment programs. The organization states that “Helping the children is not enough - we need to improve conditions so that women do not need to abandon or leave their children.” Makes [View Full Entry]

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I would describe Ethiopians as warm, friendly people, proud of their rich, long culture. They do have much to be proud of - they have never been colonized; coffee trees were first discovered here, and there are over 80 languages spoken here. However, their accompanying challenges are well known - extreme poverty and famine in the far rural regions. International aids pours into the country, and indeed there are many success stories of wonderful programs that are being implemented. I know that many of you are exceedingly generous in your donations and prayers to the international needy, so I wa [View Full Entry]

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I had the pleasure of attending a local HIV AIDS forum in the resort town of Awassa, 5 hours drive from Addis Ababa. The forum was for VSO volunteers working in the HIV/AIDS sector. We shared status of our work at our individual employers and discussed ideas for improvement. We learned latest facts of international aid money coming into Ethiopia. We learned that Ethiopia has a good track record of using the money responsibly and is thus awarded larger sums. (Other African nations who cannot account for the results obtained from the funds are penalized). The international aid sums seem staggeri [View Full Entry]

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(Tadas writing) You might be in Ethiopia if,... you wake up with mysterious itchy bumps on your midsection and ankles. Possible Explanation: Fleas. In various parts of Africa (and elsewhere around the world) there are fleas… fleas everywhere: busses, restaurants, your living room, your furniture,…and Addis Ababa (population ~ 3-5 million people) is no exception. Fleas are quite tiny. They have excellent jumping capabilities. They are parasites. They inflict itchy bites. They are not pleasant. Dogs don't even like fleas. They say that the fleas love fresh ferenge ( [View Full Entry]

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Kovas writing… Going to a professional sports game is always exciting. We went to the club soccer finals of Addis Ababa. We found out that there was this soccer game on Saturday, and through much confusion we got tickets. The stadium benches were cement stairs. There wasn't a scoreboard and no TV screen. This amazed us considering it was Ethiopia's national stadium. The actual soccer game was basically the same as at home, but there were many other things that reminded us that we were somewhere else. Ninety-nine percent of the spectators were middle-aged men. There were street [View Full Entry]

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Vasara dictating….When our family traveled south, one evening we were invited to go to a dance party with the Hamer people. The Hamers don’t wear too many clothes. The men wear short skirts and the girls wear animal skin skirts. They are very pretty. We drove with our jeep for 15 minutes into the desert. We arrived at a group of small huts. These huts are round and made out of grass and mud. There was no electricity so it was very dark. We kept our headlights turned on so that we could see. When we got out of the car, [View Full Entry]

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Ruta writing…Living in Ethiopia is fascinating from the perspective of seeing things you’d rarely see at home in Chicago. Sadly, this extends to the physical ailments of the Ethiopians. In the streets there are so many people with deformed limbs, golf ball size tumors in their necks, facial deformities, elephantitis in the leg, skin rashes, oozing conjunctivitis, etc. Strikingly, there are an amazingly large number of blind people, both functioning within business and schools, but also begging in the streets. How sad when even my untrained eye can identify untreated cataracts [View Full Entry]

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Vasara writing…when we drove to Arba Minch, we took a boat to Lake Chomo. It wasn’t so simple to just go to the lake. We first had to get our tickets from the National Park office. Mom and Dad weren’t happy because we had to pay tourist prices which is a lot of money. We drove 30 minutes through mud and swamp to get to the lake. A taxi coming back got stuck in the deep mud. 15 Ethiopian men pushed out the taxi. By this time it was getting late. We got into the boat and saw egret birds and [View Full Entry]

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