Life has been good here. I think we have settled into a routine. We wake up, eat some breakfast (which I do not usually eat. I don't like cereal, and that usually is what we are given. Milk is not my fave. Then we either go to the school, or attempt to catch the minibus to get to the orphanage. lately we have not been able to catch them in the mornings. Apparently there is a shortage of minibuses, and by the time they get to our stop, they are packed full. After an hour of waiting Deanna and I give up. If we do not have to go to the orphanage, we have a bit of time before we have to go to the school. So today we went for a nice long walk, and got to explore Kore! Amare took us, and we had a very nice little walk. Since the kids in the school that we normally teach are on break, they have a program that any kid can come for the morning, and play, and have school. It is nice because Deanna and I have our own class, and we are able to teach anything, and not have to deal with another teacher in the room, just us! So we are able to teach American style, and have a lot of fun in the process.
We also have afternoons off, so monday we helped paint the new hospice center that Strong Hearts is opening. We were doing great, jamming to Deanna's Ipod, until Amare started a paint war. We got paint all over ourselves... which would have been fine, except the lack of running water at our house prevents us from taking a shower. I miss that a lot.
Here is a list of things I miss.
Running water.
Meat. That is not chewy, and suspicious.
Driving in my car.
I miss not feeling the freedom to safely walk around my living space barefoot.
Flushing toilets.
Being able to throw TP in the toilet.
TP, for that matter.
Target.
My Iphone.
Sandwiches.
I miss the smell of laundry detergent.
I still love Ethiopia. I am looking forward to getting out of the City for a bit. Possibly this weekend, or next. You can never get a real 100% answer here. But I think the country will be a nice change.
Here is deanna's recent blog: it pretty much sums up what we have been up to. My computer is about to die, and for some reason I can only charge it at home. My fancy converter does not work well.
A couple nights ago, Kendra and I were hanging out at King's Hotel for awhile, because we've discovered that they have wifi. Nice! It's much closer than the wifi cafe we had been going to, and cheaper because they let us just sit in the lobby and use our computers. And they pretty much just love our company. They do anything to make sure we're enjoying their internet to the fullest extent possible. Once when we were there, Kendra's battery was low on her laptop. The only outlet is behind the counter, so they not only used another cord to make it reach far enough, but they also got three men working on it when her plug wouldn't stay in. They even busted out duct tape. It was intense. They also apparently find Skype pretty interesting, because often we catch them watching or laughing at us. When Lee Ann was Skyping with me, she noticed that one of the hotel guys was just casually standing behind my chair watching. He was trying to play it cool, but it was totally obvious. Silly guy. Anyways, we had been hanging out at the hotel for awhile one night. To get home, we have to take two minibuses. We hopped on the first one, and got off where we catch the second. As we stood outside waiting to fight our way on, we decided we should just walk home. Why not? It was quite a beautiful night out (btw, you can see soooo many stars here...it's pretty awesome), and it's really not that far of a walk. In the end, it only took us about 30 minutes. It was hard work though, because it's a pretty steap uphill most of the way! When we were nearly home, we ran into one of our friends. He kept us company the rest of the walk, and we told him about how we stole Dundee's sheep the previous night. His response: "Okay." I think perhaps we confused him. Maybe because sheep stealing doesn't happen very often? Oh well, it happens.
So when we got home from our wonderful walk, we were reminded that we apparently have our own minibus now. There it was, just parked in our yard. It had been there the day before as well, but we didn't think it would stay...I mean, what the heck is a minibus doing parked at our house? But alas, it was still there. So we thought, well, we should obviously drive it. Amare, Mastasha and Desta were pretty excited about this. Mostly, I think, because they like laughing at us, the stupid Americans that get really excited about pretending to drive an old, rusty, broken van. So the boys laughed and took lots of pictures of us, and Kendra and I took turns being the driver and conductor. We basically had a fabulous time. Afterwards, we went inside and played some pretty exciting card games. We tried teaching Desta how to play spoons, but it took him a very long time to catch on. Like 15 rounds. Once he got the hang of it, he got serious fast. It was intense. Spoons were flying.
When we finished playing cards, Amare and Mastasha brought their new puppy over. Kendra was cuddling with the super cute little guy when she saw a little bug crawling in his fur. She said, "Um, does he have fleas?" and Amare answered, "Yes, I think so." I cracked up, Kendra changed her clothes. I sure hope she doesn't have fleas ;)
Yesterday, we went to the school in the morning. The kids who are normally at the school have this week off. The school provides an after-school program to a different group of kids. Since normal school is closed this week, the after-school program is during the morning. Kendra and I helped with that, which was a lot of fun! We taught some English and Math, and then played outside with them for a long, long time. The kids taught us a game that was very similar to Red Rover, and Kendra and I got pretty dusty and dirty playing!
When we got home, we had lunch and then headed over to a house that Strong Hearts is going to use for hospice care. They needed help painting the walls, and Kendra and I volunteered. Pretty soon after we started, a rather large paint fight broke out...thanks to Amare. Paint was everywhere. It was win-win though: We had a wonderful time attacking each other and in the end, it earned us a shower! After all, they couldn't let us sit around all covered in paint. Dundee took us to the gym, and....oh yay yay yay, we showered! We're feeling spoiled, because it's only (haha, "only") been a week since our last shower. We are a couple of lucky girls ;)
I'll end on that happy showering note for now...especially since I think this post is kind of a whole lot of nothing. But hey, not every post can be about something as exciting as freeing sheep...I can only steal so many animals, after all.
We also have afternoons off, so monday we helped paint the new hospice center that Strong Hearts is opening. We were doing great, jamming to Deanna's Ipod, until Amare started a paint war. We got paint all over ourselves... which would have been fine, except the lack of running water at our house prevents us from taking a shower. I miss that a lot.
Here is a list of things I miss.
Running water.
Meat. That is not chewy, and suspicious.
Driving in my car.
I miss not feeling the freedom to safely walk around my living space barefoot.
Flushing toilets.
Being able to throw TP in the toilet.
TP, for that matter.
Target.
My Iphone.
Sandwiches.
I miss the smell of laundry detergent.
I still love Ethiopia. I am looking forward to getting out of the City for a bit. Possibly this weekend, or next. You can never get a real 100% answer here. But I think the country will be a nice change.
Here is deanna's recent blog: it pretty much sums up what we have been up to. My computer is about to die, and for some reason I can only charge it at home. My fancy converter does not work well.
A couple nights ago, Kendra and I were hanging out at King's Hotel for awhile, because we've discovered that they have wifi. Nice! It's much closer than the wifi cafe we had been going to, and cheaper because they let us just sit in the lobby and use our computers. And they pretty much just love our company. They do anything to make sure we're enjoying their internet to the fullest extent possible. Once when we were there, Kendra's battery was low on her laptop. The only outlet is behind the counter, so they not only used another cord to make it reach far enough, but they also got three men working on it when her plug wouldn't stay in. They even busted out duct tape. It was intense. They also apparently find Skype pretty interesting, because often we catch them watching or laughing at us. When Lee Ann was Skyping with me, she noticed that one of the hotel guys was just casually standing behind my chair watching. He was trying to play it cool, but it was totally obvious. Silly guy. Anyways, we had been hanging out at the hotel for awhile one night. To get home, we have to take two minibuses. We hopped on the first one, and got off where we catch the second. As we stood outside waiting to fight our way on, we decided we should just walk home. Why not? It was quite a beautiful night out (btw, you can see soooo many stars here...it's pretty awesome), and it's really not that far of a walk. In the end, it only took us about 30 minutes. It was hard work though, because it's a pretty steap uphill most of the way! When we were nearly home, we ran into one of our friends. He kept us company the rest of the walk, and we told him about how we stole Dundee's sheep the previous night. His response: "Okay." I think perhaps we confused him. Maybe because sheep stealing doesn't happen very often? Oh well, it happens.
So when we got home from our wonderful walk, we were reminded that we apparently have our own minibus now. There it was, just parked in our yard. It had been there the day before as well, but we didn't think it would stay...I mean, what the heck is a minibus doing parked at our house? But alas, it was still there. So we thought, well, we should obviously drive it. Amare, Mastasha and Desta were pretty excited about this. Mostly, I think, because they like laughing at us, the stupid Americans that get really excited about pretending to drive an old, rusty, broken van. So the boys laughed and took lots of pictures of us, and Kendra and I took turns being the driver and conductor. We basically had a fabulous time. Afterwards, we went inside and played some pretty exciting card games. We tried teaching Desta how to play spoons, but it took him a very long time to catch on. Like 15 rounds. Once he got the hang of it, he got serious fast. It was intense. Spoons were flying.
When we finished playing cards, Amare and Mastasha brought their new puppy over. Kendra was cuddling with the super cute little guy when she saw a little bug crawling in his fur. She said, "Um, does he have fleas?" and Amare answered, "Yes, I think so." I cracked up, Kendra changed her clothes. I sure hope she doesn't have fleas ;)
Yesterday, we went to the school in the morning. The kids who are normally at the school have this week off. The school provides an after-school program to a different group of kids. Since normal school is closed this week, the after-school program is during the morning. Kendra and I helped with that, which was a lot of fun! We taught some English and Math, and then played outside with them for a long, long time. The kids taught us a game that was very similar to Red Rover, and Kendra and I got pretty dusty and dirty playing!
When we got home, we had lunch and then headed over to a house that Strong Hearts is going to use for hospice care. They needed help painting the walls, and Kendra and I volunteered. Pretty soon after we started, a rather large paint fight broke out...thanks to Amare. Paint was everywhere. It was win-win though: We had a wonderful time attacking each other and in the end, it earned us a shower! After all, they couldn't let us sit around all covered in paint. Dundee took us to the gym, and....oh yay yay yay, we showered! We're feeling spoiled, because it's only (haha, "only") been a week since our last shower. We are a couple of lucky girls ;)
I'll end on that happy showering note for now...especially since I think this post is kind of a whole lot of nothing. But hey, not every post can be about something as exciting as freeing sheep...I can only steal so many animals, after all.
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