There was a wild poinsettia tree growing in their courtyard! I know that is a random thought, but I had never seen one live after Christmas!!!! At my house we are lucky if they live for a month during the Christmas season!!
After we stayed and played for a while, we headed South of Addis to Wolisso. Now I know I had told you we had went to rural parts of Addis before, but this was the COUNTRY! They even have the malaria mosquitoes! Here, everyone has to use mosquito nets when they sleep.
We saw so much beautiful scenery here. It was breathtaking. Here's a few snapshots!! Take a look!
One thing that I find remarkable here in Ethiopia is that their cows, ox, goats, sheep, and donkeys AIMLESSLY wander all over the streets and the countryside.
They ROAM at times with no owners or shepherds in sight. We saw this everywhere- the city, the country, even in the trashdump! I would ask our guides who's 5 donkeys are those as they walked past us and he would say who knows! He says the animals know where they live and they will eventually go home. Ha! Ha! So funny! Same goes with the cows. They just wander around, through traffic, or wherever and the people here barely notice. Now the Americans, we notice, we snap pictures with our cameras; we have never seen anything like this! On our way back from South of Addis I can not begin to tell you how many animals were almost road kill! Our bus driver was well experienced in dodging all types of God's creatures!!! Whew!
Ok, so back to my story... out here in the fields heading to Wolisso it is literally like stepping back into the Old Testament in the Bible. This is a much harder life here. The fields are filled with oxen, wooden plows and workers tilling the earth. It was a beautiful sight to see!
We were excited about the possibility of seeing MONKEYS here in Wolisso, but only one trip member saw them and she saw 2 monkeys (so she says--ha ha Jodi!) (We believe you!!).
Now this definitely wasn't the same AFRICA that we read about in books that I had anticipated on visiting. I thought HOT and loads of safari animals. Quickly we learned these descriptions of AFRICA were NOT found in Ethiopia!
Ethiopia was 50-70 degrees while we were there and it rained all the time on our 10 day trip!(it is their winter right now and their rainy season.) There were days we were freezing and other days it felt GREAT! I love me some 70 degree weather! Soaking wet at 50 degress.. not so much! Ethiopia sits at VERY high elevation so it stays pretty comfortable and tolerable for this part of AFRICA year round. I think I read somewhere their highest temps are like 85 degrees in their summer! NICE! Addis Ababa's elevation is HIGHER than Denver. It truly is way up in the mountains, which is why we didn't have to worry about Malaria while we were here in the city! For some reason only the countryside mosquitoes have that! I was thankful too, beacause Robby was covered in mosquito bites after the first day here. Ugh! I was a worrysome mama until someone told me the difference! His blood must be sweet, because I didn't get one bite!
We didn't see any safari animals ( we did see some camels tied up in the back of a truck, but I hardly thinks that counts!)
Addis Ababa is the capital of Ethiopia and it is the center of a very busy city. There is new construction GALORE going on here! Apparently, the Chinese are coming and buying land at very good prices here. There are hotels, guesthomes, supermarkets, restaurants and coffee shops. Things are still way backwards when it comes to technology. The Ethiopians use trees as their scaffolding on buildings.
Only on the Chinese owned buildings do you see metal scaffolding like here at home. Most of the construction is done by hand, using very little heavy machinery to do the lifting and hauling. That is all done by hand! The only heavy machinery we saw was in the trashdump, so these buildings take a LONG time from start to finish.
There are open air butcher shops with meat hanging on every corner- no air conditoner folks blowing on this meat- flies and all come free!!!
There are vegetable markets EVERYWHERE! All one needs here is a blanket to lie out their vegetables for sale that day, and wa-la, you have a store front! I LOVE this city and this country! I can't wait to go back! We ARE going back! It was the trip of a lifetime and I can't wait for Philip and my daughter to see it! This mission trip with Ordianry Hero is going to happen again next year! I would encourage YOU to go! It will be life changing! I experienced a different KIND of love on this trip and I know that will make me a better mom and wife. I hope I complain less about things that don't really matter. I just FEEL different. I want to help others in need MORE and worry about what I don't have LESS. We had people on our trip from all over the country. We had people on our trip that were single, some married, a pair of newlyweds, brand new moms, first time moms, seniored moms, teens, widows, and even a rapper who is about to start a tour. We pretty much covered the gamet. Don't think you can't go next year? You know you want to!!!! :)
We went to the last orphange visit and loved on the kids. Kelly, our trip leader with OH, got more pictures of the kids WAITING to be adopted! This means they are paper ready and are jsut waiting on someone to PICK them! She took photos so that she can advocate for them on their behalf here at home and hopefully find loving families for them here at home! If you are interested in seeing photos of these children, just go to the Ordinary Hero Blog and sign up for the SPEAK UP campaign. You will get emails showing the photos and the children's stories of why they are in an orphanage waiting....
Only one day left to blog about. What a beautiful country! I really can't wait to go back!!
No comments:
Post a Comment