This is Hannah......
This is Kyle... K Y L E.. he can spell it himself.
Completed another year's cookie baking extravaganza!! We made 7 kinds this year, including 6 X the recipe for the candy cane cookies... I literally spent the entire afternoon rolling pink and white ropes to make the canes! My hands are permanently stained from red food coloring. A big thank you to Jay for entertaining all the kids and Kp for keeping me supplied with coffee and grilled cheese. I seriously think I might make one or two dozen if we didn't do this insanity every year. If you live nearby, stop by for cookies and milk. :)
So today was not a good day... the last two weeks before the holiday break are always difficult. I do a large community outreach project to help get gifts for many of our students... and the organization is enough to send you over the edge. Then today, I had a little girl who spent an hour running around the school from us and we eventually ended up on the floor. Then to end the day, another student started picking up chairs, banging them on the file cabinets and systematically destroying his classroom and throwing it at me and his teacher... which led to an extra hour of paperwork and then my little Neon which I just got back last night decided it was no longer going to tell me how much gas I have or what speed I'm going...
33 million people are infected with the HIV virus. 22 million of them are in the continent of Africa. What can you do to help? Read. Share. Get tested. Sponsor. Donate. Adopt. Everyone can do something.
I got the nicest Thanksgiving note from Sr. Donna in Awassa. She spent the day cooking for her girls, who normally cook for them-- enjoying food coming from their gardens. Her girls are making rosaries to help support their new home-- Heartland Girls. This is a picture of one of them. Sr. Donna is sending me examples of some of the other girls' work as well as lots of information about them and her organization. I will post about it when I get it.. unfortunately Addis is the only place with a post office that can mail out packages according to Sr. Donna.
We were heading back from Sodere, the hot springs where we took all the Big AHOPE kids swimming for a field trip. We were in a big bus and I was sitting up front with big sister, one of the kids who was being adopted to America. The staff yelled to get my attention because they knew I wanted to take pictures of any animals... and suddenly in front of our bus on the road is a huge herd of camels... probably close to 50 or more. So I grab my camera and as I'm snapping pictures, big sister says to me, "are there no camels in America?" So I said, "well, in the zoo, but no not on the road.".. she replies, "oh, no pretty camels in America." sort of sad... but I wanted to say that you will have so many wonderful adventures in your new home and I hope you will also come back to Ethiopia one day...
AHOPE does a really nice going away party. Jen and I had ours together the night before she left. Abebe and Galila spoke about our volunteer work and one of the older boys had the kids sing. Then we each had to say at least 20 words in Amharic. The kids were so nice and tried to help me but they just made me forget the ones I already had in my head. I can't believe I forgot wolfram... it's my favorite word!!! Then we each got to speak, I couldn't get out all I wanted to. We got cards from the kids and scarves from AHOPE and Charlene. We ate food and hung out, it was a good party.
A soon to be family, keep in your thoughts.Two of the older girls, have a referral placement. Well, the younger sister had an appendicitis and went in to have her appendix removed and there were complications and she lapsed into a coma. Thankfully, her soon to be adoptive mother was contacted and she flew out about a week after surgery. She stayed at our guest house. Our little girl is
doing better but still has a long way to go and she cannot go home with her mom until at least September due to the new TB test regulations. So, her mom who is amazing and I am so glad I got to meet, had to go home last week and just has to wait. Tigist, our nurse
reports that they are supposed to start physio and hopefully she will be able to be transferred to a hospital that can do more rehab. Her big sister is really being a trooper but it is scary and I want everyone to keep her in their thoughts.
Okay, first of all, watches are a huge hit at AHOPE. They want to wear your watch, play with the buttons, reset it-- very fascinated.
Tuesday night, Big AHOPE had awards night for improvement in school this semester, after school English class and hygiene. The kids who were honored got to go up front and receive a package. In most of the packages, were watches from our watch collection!!! They were very
excited about their watches and were wearing them proudly.
Then us volunteers, Carly, Marissa, Jen and I put on a marrionnette
puppet show that Carly put together. It is an African story about a chief and his daughter-- it went really well. Carly is a teacher in NY from a Waldorf school and amazingly creative.
Alert
Alert is the Leprosy hospital and training center and you can walk
there from our house. They have a craft workshop with patients who
weave, embroider and knit. But the amazing thing is that many of these
people are missing fingers. But such beautiful work and a very serene
setting in the woods.
Fistula Hospital/A Walk to Beautiful
We finally got an appointment to tour the fistula hospital, that is
featured in A walk to Beautiful. We had such a good tour guide who was very knowledgeable about birth injuries. They have a craft workshop for women who are not able to be healed completely, so they can learn a trade. They have formed four outreach centers to reach women in rural Ethiopia. It is a beautiful facility with a garden that looks like it belongs in a botanical garden, which apparently is run by Dr. Hamilton, herself, who we saw on the premise. The facility is very clean and the women look well cared for. They are given literacy and numeracy classes as well as skills training, physio, and emotional counseling. Very moving day.
Travis picked us up at the guest house and we headed across town to the Gladney foster care centers. Once Gladney feels that they will be able to find a family for a child, they move them to their centers. They have one for 0-6 months, two for 6months to 3 years and one for the older kids. We got to pick up some of the Gladney adoptive families from this week. This is the day that they bring their kids back to the care centers to say goodbye to the nannies. Each child has a special " Mama" or "Papa who has really bonded with the child and
they buy them a special traditional outfit and they dress them to sort of present them to their new families. The families that we met were great and varied from adopting babies, to twin toddlers, to an older sibling group to one young lady who I am guessing is close to 17!! The ratio of caregivers to babies is amazing . When we went into the baby room, a nanny handed me a baby to hold. They were really beautiful and happy babies. Then the kids in their adorable outfits had to say goodbye to their caregivers, who were crying. One special "Papa" was very attached to the little boy twin. They brewed coffee and made popcorn and the families got to talk and then we went to lunch with them. It was a very happy day!!!
Making Suns and Singing at the CDC
At the CDC on Thursday, the kids had clearly been practicing with Girma, the nurse-- You are my sunshine and did a great job. Then we had the big kids make suns and the little kids make hearts, faces and clouds. I hope they use it for their family day. Then they sang all kinds of songs they know including Make Bananas which is this funny song all of AHOPE knows. Girma the nurse is great!!! I spent time talking with the oldest girl there, she is simply beautiful and wants to be a doctor.
Sodere- the Hot Springs
After our trip to Vera's, Jen decided that she wanted to sponsor a field trip so we took the Big AHOPE kids to Sodere, the hot springs resort on Monday. It is about 2 1/2 hours away and we rented a big bus so we all fit well. To keep the kids occupied, we brought material for
friendship bracelets, and Carly taught them finger knitting. We stopped for snack right before we got there in front of a World Vision site and ate the most delicious bread that is baked in some leaf. Sodere has an olympic sized heated swimming pool. Most of our kids
changed into suits and jumped in the shallow end. I was the only volunteer who would go in the water and it was so much fun. Sassy loved that I could swim with her skinny little body attached to my neck. I tried to help some of the older girls to float and kick their
feet. They were so very impressed that I could swim from one end to
the other. There are also all these little monkeys all over Sodere, just hanging out, stealing your things. After swimming, all us girls headed to the hot showers, oh my, I lasted like minutes. Then we ate a great big lunch and ice cream.
Hossana
Abebe mentioned that he needed to go to Hossana ( a small town about 2-3 hours away from Addis) last Sunday but was sort of vague as to why, but he invited us. Jen got sick but I went. When I got to Little A, there was a van full of people going. Doctor, who is apparently the
AHOPE doctor and is the pediatric oncology specialist at an Addis Hospital, three male friends of Abebe's, a female friend of his and the driver. So we take off and the countryside is very pretty. We stopped at a very local place for lunch-- I had shiro as the rest of
the group were eating tibs(small pieces of goat). Doctor had to go eat somewhere else because he is Muslim. After tea, we got back into the car, and the two guys in the back bought chat and proceeded to chew that for the rest of the day... I will blog about chat at some point, but suffice to say, it would be like chewing a plant, doesn't look appealing. But they had to stop two more times that day for chat. So we are back in the car and it is already maybe 2pm and suddenly they yell, here it is. They had been talking about some organization
Mothers to Mothers, so I thought maybe we'd be stopping at an agency, but no we stopped by a hut on the side of the road. No idea how they knew we were at the right hut. There is a pregnant woman there who has been making pottery and a slew of kids. Abebe asked me to start taking pictures. I took a ton of pictures of the kids who loved it and then they asked me to take pictures of some of the kids with malnutrition and other ailments for the doctor.Then the moms wanted their picture taken, so cute. We are maybe there 45 minutes and no one but the doctor and Abebe speak to anyone. And we leave, random... I am still not sure why we went but it was a fun day and great to be out of the city. Of course, coming home, we had to stop for coffee and so the doctor could pray... but I am getting used to having no idea what I am doing or where I am going.Hyenas
After a full day of driving( I will post about the trip soon), we
arrive in Harrar. We stop at our hotel and get ready to meet the hyena man. We drive into the walled part of Harrar after dark and stop and get out. And there they are, about 9 hyenas, medium sized I guess, not that I am an expert. The man has a bucket of meat and a stick. Now, I was a little dissapointed that our hyena man did not feed them with his mouth. He did put the stick in his mouth and feed them, but still. The hyenas ignored us and our huge headlights and we stood about 6
feet from them taking pictures. Then it was the audiences turn to feed them and there were about 8 of us who took turns feeding them with a stick. You hold the stick out and the hyena man sort of signals them and then they come up and jump up and eat it off the stick. Sometimes they end up with the stick in their mouths as well. I fed about 3 or 4 pieces of meat to my hyena, who really look like homely dogs. It was a great experience and I am very glad I went. Plus I thought I'd be more aprehensive but I wasn't.
Since our trip got postponed, we headed to Sholla Saturday morning. I needed to give the kids the books from our book fair I forgot last time and wanted to read some of the penpal letters from 207. The kids were watching this really bad movie about an American girl who goes to a UK boarding school. The special project manager sat down with us and
the girl who does hygeine. We came up with a list of supplies and then she took me to a small market and a stall and I purchased two big boxes of laundry detergeant, 6 jars of vaseline, 10 bottles of hair
oil and 9 combs. We came back, I shared my pictures of the Goodwin kids, read a book, and read some of the letters. The kids raised their hands and answered questions about what they wanted to be when they
grow up, what they wanted our kids to know about Ethiopia, what books they like and what fruit they eat. They were an excellent audience. As I was leaving, this beautiful, smart little girl asked for my email
and gave me hers. I am so excited to have my kids write to her. The kids followed us out and walked us to the mini bus. I may come back with more hygeine supplies if I have time. I love the Sholla Children's Library and Ethiopia Reads!!!!!
I came home from Game Night at Big AHOPE, all ready to shower and go to bed, then get up early for our flight to Harrar. At about 9:45pm,
Jen came back into the house with bad news. Ethiopian Airlines called
to say that our flight was cancelled, not delayed, cancelled!!!! We tried calling the tour company but of course couldn't get through. So we got up and went to the Hilton at 7am-- but of course the girl working at the tour company couldn't possibly help us without her manager-- even though we said that a driver, her driver was supposed to pick us up at the Harrar airport at 8:30am. So we went to Ethiopian Airlines where they told us we were rescheduled for Sunday at 4pm.
Less than 2 hours before we were due to return to Addis. So we went to the pastry shop to drown our sorrows in chocolate crossaints and hot cocoa. When finally our tour manager(mind you, she couldn't figure out how to use the credit card machine when we made our reservations) arrived, she was like "yes, my branch manager called to say your flight was cancelled, but it is too late because I paid for your hotel and the driver rented the car and went to the airport(HELLO WE WERE IN YOUR OFFICE at 7AM!!!). So we would lose 50% of our money for cancelling. So we went back to Ethiopian Airlines to see if we could
get out Saturday AM and save part of our trip, but no despite the fact
that there were 3 flights between the two days, we were on the Sunday afternoon flight. Yet they were confused when we tell them we want a refund. So now we had to decide what to do, so we went back to see about a driving tour of Harrar at another tour company. We ended up booking with them for a three day driving trip next weekend. All in all, we had to spend 6 hours at the Hilton, Jen says "oh well, this is Africa" but I think it is ridiculous!!!!!
You are my Sunshine!!!
We were asked to work with the kids at the CDC on something for their family day. I decided we could teach them You are my Sunshine. I didn't realize Melaku, the social worker there meant we should work with all 70 of them, but he did so he and Girma, the nurse gathered all of the kids and we started teaching them the words. Have I mentioned that I am fairly certain I am tone deaf?? And we have to keep singing alone so the kids could get the tune. The kids actually giggled the first time we sang. But they learned the words pretty quickly. Next week, we will make crafts to go with the song.
Castelli Restaurant
We went to a great Italian restaurant in Piazza on Friday. It is
called Castelli, white tablecloths, red roses, very fancy, quite the
date night dinner-- Jen and I were laughing about that.I had homemade raviolini that was spinach, some filled with cheese,
some with cheese and spinach, delicious crusty bread, a creamy tomato sauce with Italian mushrooms, a glass of local red wine and hazelnut gelato. YUM!!!!
Addis Ababa Restaurant
Thursday night, since we were already in Piazza, we thought we'd try the Addis Ababa restaurant which is written up in both Lonely Planet and Bradt. We walk into a packed place and everyone went silent. Patrons just stared at us and eventually started motioning for us to sit with them. We got seated finally and ordered fasting food for me and tibs for Jen. It was clearly a local establishment, there was even a wedding party there having their dinner. And our entire bill
together was $7 USD.
I probably could not tell you where the Sholla Children's Library is located, our taxi driver had to call the Library twice and then the manager had to walk to the main road and walk us back, but once I got there, I absolutely loved it!!!! There are two covered tents with tables and chairs with kids reading in them, a reading garden with 4 big tables with umbrellas, trees, flowers and kids at all the tables with books. Inside there are three rooms with books, labeled by category and call number. Lots of tables, lots of books, and plenty of young people. There is a conference room, offices for the staff, a media room and posters of all the previous Ethiopia Book Weeks and their themes. In the back is storage and a hygiene room. This is so cool. The kids can come bring their laundry and do it in their new washing machine. They have a man who cuts the boys hair and a woman who styles the girls and even a little barber chair with a mirror. This happens on Saturdays.
Many of the books are older, so they could certainly use new books, it kind of reminded me of the kids section of the DG library from when I was a kid. Sintayehu, the Library Manager showed us around and explained their program. He is great and so enthusiastic. He kept asking me if I knew Yohannes Gebregiorgis, the founder and one of last year's CNN heroes. I know "of" him, but no I don't think I'll be giving him a call when he is back in country next week. Sintayehu
reports that they really could use good quality new books from the US
as well as hygiene items for their Saturday program.
We stayed and read with some of the groups outside(I went with both of my housemates, Marissa and Jen). The kids read in Amharic and some of them tried in English. One group of grade 8 boys were excellent in their reading to me and told me that I read very fast... gee I suppose I sound like I'm talking fast as well. They added about 20 words to my Amharic notebook. Oh and they also wanted to know why I was not married at my advanced age of 34... yes, I told them my mother wonders that as well. :) Sintayehu asked if I would come back on a Saturday when they have their largest group of children, read to them and read them some of the Goodwin kid's penpal letters. I also got contact info for the Donkey Mobile Library in Awassa. Ethiopia Reads and Sholla were the recipients of the Goodwin School penny drive this year. We raised $503 and then my friend Amy's school, Irving School in Oak Park raised money during their spring literacy event and donated $900.
What can you do to help??
My friend Wendy mentioned suggesting ways our at home readers could continue to help. Today, I am suggesting you check out Ethiopia Reads,
www.ethiopiareads.org, where they will take both cash donations and
donations of new or gently used books, they give you ideas of what
kinds of books on their site. And my other suggestion today is Kiva, www.kiva.org, the group that does microfinancing. While last time I looked, there were no
opportunities in Ethiopia, but I really think micro financing is a smart and successful way to help people. And the cool thing is that once your loan is repaid, you can reloan it to help someone else!!!
Blog Fame
A couple of days ago, Abebe called Jen and I as we were leaving the
guesthouse to go to Big A and said he had some friends from Chicago he wanted us to meet at Little A. When we got there, we realized that actually it was this very nice family from Virginia who had stumbled upon my blog. Scott, Jennifer and their 6th grade daughter Evelyn brought donations for AHOPE after finding my blog while doing research on adoption and Ethiopia. They are also planning on visiting the fistula hospital with donations to deliver as well. Great family with a great desire to help. They have a blog that I will link to when I get home and put up a picture with my newest blog "fans". It was a very nice surprise.
Happy 4th of July
I want to wish everyone a very happy 4th of July in America. I will be spending my 4th in the walled city of Harrar, visiting the hyenas. I will post when I return. Thanks for all the emails and Wendy, thanks for calling the other morning(your evening).
NGO Bazaar
At the International Evangelical Church, once a month there is a bazaar with all the NGO's selling products. There were representatives from the Women Fuelwood Carriers Project, Alert Hospital, Former Leprosy groups, Disabled crafters, Women for Change, Women's Development Project and lots of others, all great organizations and amazing handicrafts. We all went nuts with shopping and even with a big purchase for myself(this great quilt), I only spent about $140 US.Ferengi's In the RainOne day, Jen and I were at Kaldi's getting a coffee, writing and cutting out crafts, and we decided it was time to go home-- of course, it instantly started raining and we do not have rain coats or wellies. Do we stop like every Ethiopian? No, we keep going and it starts to hail... and they are hard and hurt. We are soaking wet, people are motioning to us to come under the awnings, mini buses are stopping and yelling at us, but at this point we are cold, wet and dirty and there is no point in stopping. We make it home and Selam and our guard cannot stop laughing. Later after the rain stopped, we had to go out again and Selam kept pointing to our wellies and saying chammas, like take your shoes. Well, we made quite the spectacle, with our wellies and raincoats on a mini bus in the sun. One person even asked us what are shoes were called. When we said they were chammas for the zenob(rain), we got some very funny looks.
We made paper crowns with the kids at Little A. Jen cut them out, the
kids decorated them and then we taped them together. They all put them
on. Mr. Amharic made one for me to wear. Then the caregivers started
making them for the babies, so at least they seemed to like this
activity. We took pictures of all the kids outside with their crowns.
It was a royal success!!!
On Friday we got to visit the three government orphanages in Addis.
Jen met the in country rep for Gladney, which is an adoption agency
based in Ft. Worth, Texas, when she was at the airport and he took us.
He takes each group of adoptive parents when they come to pick up
their children at the Gladney Foster Care centers. Kolfe is for older boys, most of whom are past the age for adoption. No other agency takes their adoptive families to visit because it is not possible to adopt these boys. They are from about 14-21. They can stay there as long as they are in school. Gladney has set up a scholarship program and for about $600 US, it pays for school, books and transportation. It is very bleak there. There are not even tables and chairs in the cafeteria. There is a small garden, some chickens, the hope was that the boys could help support themselves. Travis told us a story about two friends who got in a fight and one boy got killed
with a metal pipe, but it was simply because they are a bunch of
teenage boys with little direction and just one director and some
kitchen staff. Next we went to Kebetsehay, which is for younger boys and girls. It appeared to be rather run down and there were so many children.
Probably double the amount of kids per room as AHOPE. The baby room
was meant to pull heartstrings. There were about 25 babies in the
room, some crying, some silent, some holding out their arms. I held
one little girl who was sturdy and smiled, but when I had to leave,
she was so sad. The older kids all yelled for their pictures to be taken. You have to wonder if they know that is the way to have someone know about them for adoption. Finally we went to Kechene which is mostly for older girls but there are also some babies. It is an old orphanage for the Deaf building and the girls keep their rooms nice. It is pretty bare in the common areas, but on a pretty piece of land with trees and woods.
Travis says most of the babies will find homes, with the exception of
the those with special needs, but beyond age 4 is pretty slim.
It was a rough day but I'm glad I went.
Mr. Amharic
One little boy at Little A, I will refer to as Mr. Amharic, as he
spends a lot of his time, pointing out items and telling us the word
in Amharic. He is very patient and will repeat the word. For example,
shoes are chammas. When we first got to Little A, Mr. Amharic seemed
very unhappy and if you were with another child, he would try to hit
you, which was very concerning. The only activity that he liked was to pretend box-- where he would hit your hands when you put them up, like he was boxing. But with the more time we've spent with him, and let him teach us, he has definitely warmed up. He is really such a great kid who is actually very patient and able to wait for us now that he has decided that we are friends.
Girma, Our Internet Saviour
Girma, the owner of the internet site is awesome. We stop most days we have power and ask Internet allay and he will say yes, or yellum,
which is without or not working. It is slow but super cheap, like
$1.20 US an hour. He also does copies and laminating. And he always
stays close by to help trouble shoot.
Today(Wednesday, June 24th), we went back to Vera's with Big AHOPE for the field trip with the kids jeans day money. I was a little concerned
that the big kids would think it was babyish but boy was I wrong. They
were very happy to be there. Abebe said he told them the night before and he didn't think they slept which I thought was super cute. They rode the rides, ran around and took tons of pictures, they loved taking pictures with their friends. At lunch, I was helping Abebe figure out what everyone wanted to eat, pizza or burgers. So he's ordering and I was questioning how he was going to order a whole pizza for every kid and was that a good idea, but he insisted it was. Well, we get to lunch and believe it or not, almost all the kids ate their whole pizza!!! They pick up a slice, roll it like a rolled sandwich(which unless you know my mother, you have no idea what that is) and put it in their mouths. I guess you could say they eat pizza sort of like they eat injera. Marissa, the repeat volunteer said that it is partially because some of the kids didn't use to have enough food so they eat everything put in front of them. But the kids were great, very polite and they all thanked me and
Goodwin. One of my favorite( I know you shouldn't have favorites...:)) at Big AHOPE is Sassy. She is 7 and has pretty good English. She even asked me how old I was and when I put up the fingers, she was able to repeat my math in Amharic. I let her wear my sunglasses and that was a big
hit, very, very cute!!!!
Mini Buses
All over Addis, are these blue and white vans that people either call
mini buses or mini taxis. They hold about 12-16 people, depending on
how many they try to squeeze in. There is a driver and a man who
stands inside, opens the door, collects your money and yells the
destination out the window, so you know which one to get in. Each ride
which is usually from one neighborhood to the next is between .75 Birr
and 2 Birr. For your conversion: 2 Birr= 20 cents US.
I've been trying to figure out a way to differentiate the kids in my
posts and I was going to use their first initial but I'm getting
confused as many of the kids have the same names, so I think I'm going
to give them each a moniker(is that the right word??) when I talk
about them, so for example, Little S from my previous post will be
Sunshine....
Sunshine Update
A couple of days ago, Jen got an AHOPE forum message(all my forum
messages go to my excite account and we can all guess how that works
here!!) but anyhow the message said that this mom just passed court
and officially has adopted her daughter and is just waiting for the TB
test, so she doesn't know when she will get to travel, but wanted an
updated supply list to collect for AHOPE.
Well, Jen wrote her right back and asked if she would be willing to
let us know who her daughter was. And she did and guess what it is
Sunshine!!! We are so excited that she has a home-- I can't wait for
her mom to come and meet her.
Community Development Center Update
We ventured out for our first solo visit to the CDC on Thursday, June
25th. This involves a minibus to Mexico, then one to Piazza, then one
to Yohannesburg. On our third lag of the trip, Jen sat next to this
cute brother and sister, about 9 and 11. They were clearly delighted
that three Fereng were on their bus. They wanted to talk to us and
asked as everyone does if we were sisters and if they could go to
America with us. I had two bouncy balls with me in my bag and I gave
them to them. They thought that was very cool. Turns out, they were
getting out at the same spot, so they started walking with us. Then
they ask us if we know AHOPE and it turns out, they go to the CDC. So
we walk with them, as they are bouncing their super balls all over the
place. The little girl puts her arm around my waist and says "I'm HIV,
do you know?". I almost started crying right then and there. To feel
that you have to identify yourself immediately as that, not as a
smart, cute, funny kid but as a medical diagnosis.
Okay so Disney is currently rolling over in his grave! Sunday, we took the kids to this place called Vera's Wonderland, which is essentially Addis' version of Kiddieland, with poorly drawn Disney characters. How many of you have been to Kiddieland in Melrose Park??? Well those same archaic rides exist over here, just fewer. There were this really spooky paintings of Disney characters, like Goofy has fangs but the kids were super excited. We got pictures of them on the big slide, the Dumbo ride, the swinging ship and the bumper cars. They ate tons of fries, pizza, Fanta and ice cream. I got to ride the ferris while with the twins and S. who are all about four years old. Didn't I hear that our Kiddieland is closing, must take Juliet when I get back, who's in???
Lesson Plans
Okay, we finally had this volunteer meeting that was super helpful in figuring out what we are all going to be doing. We are definitely
doing activities and arts and crafts at Little A and teaching those
two classes at Big A.
So lesson plans or rather lesson plans on the fly.... as Jen and I
spent the morning planning our ESL conversation lessons as well as our crafts and activities. She made a crown that we plan to make with the little kids and I made a spider to go along with the Itzy Bitzy Spider which they know in both English and Amharic. I think we did fine but I wish I'd known what I'd be doing before I left as I would have brought ready made activities from school. Too bad, you can't get Oriental Trading Company to deliver here!!!!
Chamaki
Chamaki or juice in English is very popular here. It is really just
pureed fruit-- delicious or etofitel in Amharic!!! My favorite so far is strawberry, though pineapple is quite good as well. I am not a convert yet of the mixed juice which includes avocado, but we shall see. This has really been as close to fruit as I've gotten, though I do keep looking at all the hanging bananas but can't find any that are yellow enough or rather with a tinge of green.
Odds and Ends
In case you haven't read, try emailing me at tjones6575@gmail.com, it appears faster.
If you are trying to call me -- best between 12-1pm your time or
10:30-11:30pm your time.
I got a comment from a Miss S, who was a former volunteer, I'd love to fill you in, just email me.
Thanks for all the comments and emails, you guys rock!!!
As this is a project that I have started the year off with many times,
we decided to have the kids at Little AHOPE make namesigns for their
beds. These were just simple construction paper signs with lines in
the middle for their names and then room to decorate. We made examples
with Jen and Tiffany. The kids got really excited but we didn't
realize that even some of the older ones who attend school did not
know how to spell their names so that was a bit of a problem but the
kindergarten teacher came and helped out tremendously!! So she may
feel that we do not write our letters and numbers correctly(more on
that later) but seemed to like this activity.
While it was a bit chaotic and less structured than I usually insist
on back home, the kids had a great time. Then I helped them hang up
their signs with duck tape and took their pictures. They were very
proud of themselves, especially some of the boys, which was sort of
surprising. You will all love seeing the pictures, they are
adorable!!!
On Saturday, Jen and did a tour with NTO tours. Our guide was
awesome!! We got driven around in a white SUV, very fancy, like the
UN. Our guide really encouraged us to take pictures which is great
since we feel awkward taking pictures of people. We first went to
Melka Quntture, a place that was partially excavated and had an open air museum. Next was Adadi Marium, or St. Mary's church, which is a rockhewn cave church, similar to the style at Lalibela. Finally we
went to this place that had grave markers that looked like stonehedge. But the best part of the trip was that he drove us out of Addis and into the countryside where we got to see huts and mud houses and goat herders. We saw tons of donkeys with yellow plastic waterjugs on their backs. Lots of kids came up to our windows, that is difficult. He took us to a market in one of the small towns and showed us raw Teff and spices. It was great to be at the market and have him shoo away the throngs of people who began following us asking for money. Now, I
absolutely understand offering a Birr to someone if you'd like their
picture, but come on for taking pictures of your spices!!! Everything is right out in the open, piles of grains, fruits, vegetables, shoes, etc. We went to lunch at the Lemmon Hotel for muton and eggs. I tried one piece of mutton, aka roasted goat and that was enough for me. But they did have crusty rolls with the injera that was very tasty and a coffee ceremony afterward.I loved seeing kids wave to us from their huts or playing soccer or this strange form of volleyball in the yards of their little walled in communities. All in all, a splendid day!!!
