Well this will be a little out of order since I haven't told you much about the last week and a half yet, but allow me to tell you about my day today.

At 0600 I got up and packed my stuff in preparation to catch a 0900 flight. One is always advised to be at the airport two hours ahead of time here. My camera battery was dead this morning, I ( Read more... )

4/30, Monday- Monday morning Teferi, Beide & I drove about two hours to the town of Finot Selam. The road slowly wound through the undulating countryside. Much of the land we passed was being tilled by pairs of oxen pulling wooden plows. There were also large patches of eucalyptus forest ( Read more... )

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   4/28, Saturday - Had the last day of the training session in Bahir Dar. Usually I try to do some hands-on candle or lotion making, but Teferi (the local ACDI (host NGO) representative) had told me uses of wax wasn't in the scope of work so we shouldn't do that. However due to interest among the class members and with the help of the ( Read more... )

Wednesday - So Wednesday afternoon Belde and I drove to the Blue Nile Falls. It was about a 30km round trip out of Bahir Dar. When we got there a local (and licensed) guide convinced us to hire him, and I'm glad we did because he was very friendly and full of information. We took a little boat across the Nile and then hiked a few hundred yards ( Read more... )

   So one morning I was sitting in a little cafe in central Nigeria and they put nescafe IN THE ESPRESSO MACHINE. That was it. It was just too much. The next morning I was on a plane to Ethiopia, the origin of coffee.

The origin, of course, of not just coffee, but life as we know it. I was returning to my homeland, to everyone's homeland. (It's ( Read more... )