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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 Rain

One 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.

Crowns

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!!!

Kolfe, Kebetsehay, and Kechene

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.

Update

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.

Thank you Goodwin School!!!!

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.

Monikers or AKA names for the kids

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.

Vera's Wonderland

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!!!