I forgot to mention... I peed in a hole today! At the lake, there were bathrooms. But not bathrooms that you would think of. You know, a toilet and all. It was a very tiny room with two raised platforms for your feet, and a hole between them. A small hole, so no worries about falling in. Although by the time I was desperate enough to use the hole, falling in was not really on my mind.
There are some epic stories on Deanna's blog, and since she is a great writer, and I am more into posting pics of Facebook, please enjoy this copy and paste from her blog (I don't think this will become a normal thing. I just need to stop being distracted by other things...)
Yesterday Kendra and I made a fantastic investment. While looking around in the "children's toys" section of a supermarket for some entertainment (for ourselves, yes) we came across a couple things that could provide hours of joy at our house. We purchased two badminton rackets and a birdie, and a frisbee. Super exciting. Obviously when we got home, we had to play right away. We went out front and whipped out our brand new frisbee, only to discover that this was no ordinary frisbee. It was, in fact, a flying dick. Right there on the front in nice big letters is "FLYING DICK". What a fabulous English mistake. I mean that's just kind of epic. Soon, I'll have a picture up on Facebook for you.
Anyways, we had a wonderful time with our flying dick. Amare and Desta joined right in, though they weren't so good at it. Desta may have never thrown a frisbee in his life, I'm not sure. But he's getting better. What he is really good at it getting the frisbee when we accidentally throw it over a giant concrete wall or on top of his "house" (see the sheep blog post for a description of where Desta lives - we're big fans of his place). After some frisbee, we busted out the badminton rackets and started playing. We only have two rackets, but Desta decided to use the frisbee as a third. This is why we are fans of Desta - he just jumps in at random times and when we're doing stupid stuff (i.e. sheep stealing?), no questions asked. Not that he could ask questions if he wanted to, because he doesn't really speak English. Like at all. We use a lot of sign language, broken English, and the few Amharic phrases that we know to try to explain things (okay, but really Kendra and I know a lot of Amharic. Soon we'll be fluent, thanks to Amare and Ready!). So, long story short, we're very happy with out badminton and flying dick. In fact, tonight we played a mean game of Monkey in the Middle with Ready and Amare and our flying dick. It got intense. I may have some injuries.
And now for the megabus story. Mom and Dad, I know hitchhiking is bad. And please remember that I'm a smart girl, and I don't do stupid things (not dangerous-stupid, at least). Remember the minibuses that Kendra and I take everywhere? Well, sometimes, just on the rare occasion, a minibus is actually a megabus. Meaning sometimes the minibus comes in a slightly larger size. Hence, "mega", according to Kendra and I. You ride these the same way, but they hold a few more people. So, Kendra and I were leaving the hotel we've been frequenting to steal wifi from (by "frequenting" I mean often enough that all the employees know, love, and get excited to see us) a couple nights ago and we walked across the street to find a minibus. At night, when it's getting later, it's sometimes harder to catch one and it's times like these that we've come across the megabuses. We cross the street and there's a megabus with about five or six guys getting on. They ask us where we're going, and we say Mekanisa. They tell us to come on. We listen. This is how the minibus works - you wait, a guy either shouts the destination or asks you where you're going and then when you answer he tells you if his bus is the right one. Okay, so we hop on the megabus and commence talking about many really important girly things in English like two American girls would. The Ethiopian guys kept speaking in Amharic, turning around, looking at us and laughing. We noticed, but weren't surprised because this happens a lot. We also noticed the bus wasn't stopping anywhere to let people on and off. But, no worries, we knew we were going the right way. And we have a cell phone, and Pat taught me how to punch. So, If something happened, Kendra could call 911 and I could beat people up. Just kidding, just kidding. When the bus arrived in Mekanisa, Kendra and I said "Wadach!" because that's what you say to stop a bus when you want to get off. All the guys turned around at once, looking shocked. One said, "You speak Amharic?!" and they all started laughing. They pulled over and we asked how much we needed to pay. They laughed some more and said, "This isn't a minibus, you don't have to pay us." Whoops! Not a minibus. Or a real megabus. It turns out it was not a running megabus, and those guys were all friends. They decided to give us a ride, which is very common around here. Hitchhiking happens all the time, and it's like, legit. People just do it to be nice. Kendra and I never do it...except this one time on accident. We figure the guys pulled away, cracking up about the stupid American girls who thought they were a minibus. I really hope this isn't one of those "had-to-be-there" stories...
There are some epic stories on Deanna's blog, and since she is a great writer, and I am more into posting pics of Facebook, please enjoy this copy and paste from her blog (I don't think this will become a normal thing. I just need to stop being distracted by other things...)
Yesterday Kendra and I made a fantastic investment. While looking around in the "children's toys" section of a supermarket for some entertainment (for ourselves, yes) we came across a couple things that could provide hours of joy at our house. We purchased two badminton rackets and a birdie, and a frisbee. Super exciting. Obviously when we got home, we had to play right away. We went out front and whipped out our brand new frisbee, only to discover that this was no ordinary frisbee. It was, in fact, a flying dick. Right there on the front in nice big letters is "FLYING DICK". What a fabulous English mistake. I mean that's just kind of epic. Soon, I'll have a picture up on Facebook for you.
Anyways, we had a wonderful time with our flying dick. Amare and Desta joined right in, though they weren't so good at it. Desta may have never thrown a frisbee in his life, I'm not sure. But he's getting better. What he is really good at it getting the frisbee when we accidentally throw it over a giant concrete wall or on top of his "house" (see the sheep blog post for a description of where Desta lives - we're big fans of his place). After some frisbee, we busted out the badminton rackets and started playing. We only have two rackets, but Desta decided to use the frisbee as a third. This is why we are fans of Desta - he just jumps in at random times and when we're doing stupid stuff (i.e. sheep stealing?), no questions asked. Not that he could ask questions if he wanted to, because he doesn't really speak English. Like at all. We use a lot of sign language, broken English, and the few Amharic phrases that we know to try to explain things (okay, but really Kendra and I know a lot of Amharic. Soon we'll be fluent, thanks to Amare and Ready!). So, long story short, we're very happy with out badminton and flying dick. In fact, tonight we played a mean game of Monkey in the Middle with Ready and Amare and our flying dick. It got intense. I may have some injuries.
And now for the megabus story. Mom and Dad, I know hitchhiking is bad. And please remember that I'm a smart girl, and I don't do stupid things (not dangerous-stupid, at least). Remember the minibuses that Kendra and I take everywhere? Well, sometimes, just on the rare occasion, a minibus is actually a megabus. Meaning sometimes the minibus comes in a slightly larger size. Hence, "mega", according to Kendra and I. You ride these the same way, but they hold a few more people. So, Kendra and I were leaving the hotel we've been frequenting to steal wifi from (by "frequenting" I mean often enough that all the employees know, love, and get excited to see us) a couple nights ago and we walked across the street to find a minibus. At night, when it's getting later, it's sometimes harder to catch one and it's times like these that we've come across the megabuses. We cross the street and there's a megabus with about five or six guys getting on. They ask us where we're going, and we say Mekanisa. They tell us to come on. We listen. This is how the minibus works - you wait, a guy either shouts the destination or asks you where you're going and then when you answer he tells you if his bus is the right one. Okay, so we hop on the megabus and commence talking about many really important girly things in English like two American girls would. The Ethiopian guys kept speaking in Amharic, turning around, looking at us and laughing. We noticed, but weren't surprised because this happens a lot. We also noticed the bus wasn't stopping anywhere to let people on and off. But, no worries, we knew we were going the right way. And we have a cell phone, and Pat taught me how to punch. So, If something happened, Kendra could call 911 and I could beat people up. Just kidding, just kidding. When the bus arrived in Mekanisa, Kendra and I said "Wadach!" because that's what you say to stop a bus when you want to get off. All the guys turned around at once, looking shocked. One said, "You speak Amharic?!" and they all started laughing. They pulled over and we asked how much we needed to pay. They laughed some more and said, "This isn't a minibus, you don't have to pay us." Whoops! Not a minibus. Or a real megabus. It turns out it was not a running megabus, and those guys were all friends. They decided to give us a ride, which is very common around here. Hitchhiking happens all the time, and it's like, legit. People just do it to be nice. Kendra and I never do it...except this one time on accident. We figure the guys pulled away, cracking up about the stupid American girls who thought they were a minibus. I really hope this isn't one of those "had-to-be-there" stories...
I was laughing so hard tears ran down my leg!
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