Just outside Addis....

A story from my trip to Awassa....

Once I got off the bus, I started walking and keep walking and couldn't seem to find the hotel that I was looking for from Lonely Planet, so I keep walking and eventually I stumble upon the Post Rendevous restaurant which was written up in LP. So I decide to stop for a juice and figure what to do next. While I'm there, I see an older woman, clearly a foreigner with this great big bag speaking English with the waiter. So I wait until she's done eating and ask her if she knows where the Pinna Hotel or Mountain Snack(where the donkey library is supposed to be) and she says "I know both and you are lucky because I have time to show you." So she helps me pay my bill and starts talking. Her name is Sr. Donna Frances, originally from California, here in Ethiopia starting an orphanage for HIV+ teen-age girls outside Awassa, in rural Southern Ethiopia.

She showed me how to take the little bushots(3 wheeled cabs) and we went to Pinna 2 where the owner says that "due to graduation this weekend, there are no rooms." So we go next door to Pinna 1, where we get the same answer which is starting to freak me out, but Sr. Donna just calmly asked if I needed to be in such a nice place and starts asking if he can call other hotels. Now mind you, the hotel she says at has squat toilets-- so I'm hoping for something in between. Well, lo and behold, he finds a room at his hotel, when faced with being asked to start searching down a room. I book that, which is only 98 birr, or about $9-10 USD. Sr. Donna shows me her information for Heartland for Girls, which has great long term transition plans. She hopes to be fully open by January.
Next she shows me Mountain Snack, which is a little hotel/cafe right next to the Awassa Reading Room, where we go meet Hidar(librarian) and make plans to meet to see the DML in the morning. Then Sr. Donna and I go next door to have a coffee and cake. We go in and we bump into a Peace Corp volunteer and a VSO volunteer that she knows and join them. Sr. Donna invites me come see her compound if I had time(sadly I didn't this trip) and we talked about partnering with my school. Mr. Peace Corp invited me to pizza and beer that night with the rest of the volunteers.
It was a wonderfully divine meeting... and I am so grateful that I met Sr. Donna, and she was so helpful in me having such a wonderful time in Awassa. And kept me from having to hang out at a cafe all night!!! Apparently there is a college in Awassa and everyone had their families in that weekend, there really were no rooms.

SPARK VENTURES

Thursday night I went to the most amazing fundraiser. It was for an organization called Spark Ventures. They are an not for profit that supports Hope Ministries in Zambia. It was founded by three friends after they went on a trip to Zambia. One of these co-founders is college friends with my friend Sally. They formed this organization barely three years ago and have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The fundraiser was at the Chicago Cultural Center and was super swanky. There was a signature cocktail(the name of the night was Spark Blue), a silent auction of items from Zambia, the Mighty Blue Kings played and they put on a great video/slide production explaining their vision and partnership. Their goal is to provide leadership development and sustainability.

Check out their website, I'm not going to do it justice!!! www.sparkventures.org

I'm Back....

Okay, I've decided to start writing again.. I have lots more stories from this summer -- sprinkled in with whatever new comes to me.. I doubt anyone is still reading but if nothing else it will help me to remember.

Oh and sorry about the music... I can't figure out how to take it off the blog. I put the song on literally like the day before I left this summer and then I didn't have access to the blog all summer, poor Claire was posting for me. But now that I'm back on it, wow, didn't realize how quickly Toto could start driving you crazy.

Coffee Ceremony

Nobody can say that there is no hospitality in Ethiopia. Selam threw a beautiful coffee ceremony on Tuesday of our last week. It starts with fresh grass and flowers on the floor and Selam sitting on a little stool next to a charcoal stove. She grilled and boiled corn on the cob for us which was delicious, made popcorn and then began making coffee. We had just had our first cup(you have several) when Ninacachu(the AHOPE driver) stopped by and he had Sr. Minor(AHOPE nurse) and a bunch of our teen girls with him. They came in for coffee and let me tell you Big Sister(from my earlier post) is quite the hostess!!! Then they left and Samy, my favorite guard had tea while we had another cup of coffee. It was so beautiful and Selam gave us gorgeous scarves- I love mine, I wore it to take Jen to the airport that night.

Donkey Mobile Library

During my weekend to Awassa-- great city and I got there all alone in a 5 1/2 hour bus trip. So wish I would have done this earlier, as I realized how easy it was to travel independently through Ethiopia- I made it to the Donkey Mobile Library!!!!

I walked over to the Awassa Reading Room to meet with Hidar, who works there. She brought along her brother Desta to help translate and we headed over to the first of the donkey carts. There are 6 of them and they drive them(is drive the right word for donkeys?) into different neighborhoods and then park them, open them up and set up little stools. The kids then can come read books or check them out by filling out a little card. There were already about 10 kids there at 9:30am reading. They get about 70 kids at that cart each day. I gave the little readers stickers, that was a hit. Then Hidar and Desta took me to a second donkey cart which is parked in the grounds of a government school that does not have a library. I got to peek into the school as well. Wow, our kids do not know how great they have it in the states.

Then when we headed back to the Awassa Reading Room, there were about 15 more kids there on a Saturday morning reading books-- very cool. They all got stickers and I cannot tell you how much I love this program and Ethiopia Reads.

I am home!!!

Hi,
I want to thank everyone for following in my journey this summer. I am officially home, have been for almost a week and a half. Still trying to go through all of my amazing photographs. I am going to continue to post some more entries I didn't get to this summer and hopefully put up some photos. I cannot post photos of the kids at AHOPE but trust me they are amazing and I'd love to share them with you personally when I see you all.

A couple of more thank you's:
My dear friend Claire, who was the only reason you all could read my blog this summer, she would get emails from me and post them along with some pretty funny pictures she found-- I was unable to get on Blogger due to the Ethiopian government.

Pete, for loaning me his amazing camera-- the photos prove that it is fab-- cause I am not a fantastic photographer.

Kathy Shaw, my old principal for her donation this summer. I will post soon about many of the wonderful things all your money was spent on!!!