The Ethiopia Chronicles

Well, it’s time to close this blog. Its goal was to keep you informed about this one trip, which was over this past September 10, so it will be until next time…
Thanks for visiting and reading it. It was certainly an incredible experience for me, way beyond what I could write in these short notes…

Here is a video of the trip also:

I’m back home in California.

I arrived today Wednesday at 4:30 PM, via Denver.

The long way home started with a flight departing Axum on Tuesday 11 AM Ethiopia time ( Tuesday 1 AM California time. The flight, on a propeller plane stopped in a few cities, including Bahir Dar, where Megha, Jain and Pranav boarded the same flight. 

While in Addis we went directly from the airport to meet Admas college staff for a review session and interview/round table about the program, and a person from the Lion’s club to brainstorm some educational support ideas. At the end of the day we went back to the Airport, for our flights home.

I realize that in the last 36 hours I went through 9 airports!!:

Axum, Lalibela, Gonder, Bahir Dar, Addis Ababa, Rome, Washington, Denver and San Jose.

I have to post some details about Lalibela and Axum later, including a visit to one of the 2 orphanages in Lalibela on Monday.

We’ll be leaving tomorrow Saturday very early for Lalibela. I’ll be back to Addis on Tuesday, the same day of the return flight to the US.

I won’t take the laptop to the Lalibela and Axum trip, so there will be no postings here..

Today Friday we had the opportunity to visit one orphanage supported by the college we’ve been teaching at this week. Very, very emotional. We had taken a few gifts for them, including a soccer ball, with which we had the change to play with the children later. Some or the children were HIV positive, like the parents who they had lost.

I”m not going to detail the orphans situation here, but it is something very sad that touches you deeply. The level of poverty is staggering. 

We visited also another college campus we haven’t been in, and during the afternoon we were in meetings with the school staff.

Wednesday and Thursday were busy days teaching in Admas.

I’ve been really impressed and very moved by the college and high school students we’ve been working with. Specially today was very emotional as it was the last full day we shared with them. We met many bright, respectful and very eager to learn kids. 

I think I’ll never forget each and every one of them we had the honor to work and share our knowledge with.

On Thursday we visited the college main offices guided by the dean, Asseghedech. She also invited us for dinner as it was our last full day with them. We went to a nice typical Ethiopian food restaurant, Habesha, on Bole in Addis. Great atmosphere and food. The restaurant had live music starting at 9:30 PM, but we were so tired that didn’t stay and went back to the hotel.

By the way, we completed also today the arrangements to visit this weekend Lalibela and Axum..

Tuesday was a busy day, but mostly another day of unique experiences and culture immersion. 

I slept 5 hours on Tuesday, which was great. I just woke up at 3:30 AM and couldn’t go back to bed, but before that I had a good 5 hours of sleep. I used the early hours as the previous days to go online, check news and emails and download to the laptop the pictures and videos of the previous day. At 5 I went to the pool to swim for a while, then back online and getting ready for the day.

During the morning we went to the graduation ceremony of the Admas University College where we are teaching. It was a very large ceremony and I think they were almost 2000 the students the received their diplomas. Like all graduations it had very emotional and touching moments. The streets around the campus were full of flowers vendors, as it is customary to give flowers to the new graduates.  The traffic was also very heavy and a large number of people crowded the campus main entrance.

After lunch we went to Debre Zeit, a town about one and a half hour south of Addis Ababa. This is already in the Rift Valley, and you are surrounded by beautiful green hills that seem to extend as far as you can see. The traffic was pretty heavy, and the sides of the road is full of activity. Lots of people is walking along the highway, in many places like what you see along a busy city street, many with sheep, others with donkeys. Many people carrying packages on their heads. Lots of small restaurants and shacks along the road. In summary, a very busy highway, full of people, colors, bursting with activity.

The school campus was beautiful, surrounded like everything else in that area with lots of green vegetation and green hills. Here is a video of Debre Zeit.

It is hard to explain how well we were received in the school. The overall respect, sincerity, humility, dignity that you sense would be for me very hard to explain, but it is something that gets very deeply into you. The students have such a hunger for learning, pay you so much attention, with so much respect, that you are just so deeply moved that you feel also frustrated of not being able to stay with them longer or not having available all the tools and infrastructure to teach them of they want and are so receptive for (like a decent internet connection, proper classroom lightning, etc., etc.).

After the classes it was already dark, and we went with some of the school staff for a coffee to a beautiful place by a lake, one the many lakes of the Rift valley. It was night so we couldn’t see much beyond the large water surface surrounded by mountains/hills and the moon reflecting over the waters. But it looked very peaceful and majestic. 

We went back to the school campus and the town center to drop some of the school staff that again was so kind, and then headed back to Addis. The night scenery along the road changed of course, but still very large number of people along it, traffic and still very active. We had also to stop for a military checkpoint, where all vehicles were searched. 

We got back to the hotel like at 9:15 PM and definitely we were all very tired after a very long day..

One word: slow.

I was expecting also to use Skype here for calls but iSkype is blocked as well as all other voice over IP tricks. I have to VPN to work in the US and then use an IP phone, which works, though the audio is very poor so both sides need to use their imagination a little bit to make sense of what is being said.

Oh, and the above at night, thanks to my very early wake up times lately.., when the hotel bandwidth is not being used. During more normal hours when lots of people I just couldn’t get voice over IP and the internet access slows down significantly.

This is from my room, at 6AM, when I get decent speed, from Addis to San Jose, CA:

By the way, from the college was painfully slow, and I mean really slow..

It’s Tuesday 6 AM now in Addis Ababa. I’m awake since 3:30 AM today, not so bad I guess, as I slept like 5 hours. At 5:00 I was swimming like the last 2 days… 

We had a great and rewarding day yesterday with the team in Admas College working with the students on technology classes. We met incredible motivated and bright kids and the classes and hands on projects went on above our expectations. We are coming back there the full Wednesday and Thursday, and we expect even more participation. 

We are going to a rural high school today. We are a little tired but I think all of us very excited at the same and assimilating the daily experiences.

We are expecting Beth to join our team today also, which will be great.

My first night in Addis after the 24 hour trip and on a 10 hour difference from home.. I woke up at 3:30 in the morning and couldn’t go back to sleep. Went online, read a little and at 5:30 went to the hotel swimming pool (it opens at 5). Did laps for 30 min. Beautiful swimming in the dark, At about 6 you could here in the distance the orthodox christian churches calls for services. 

At 6:15 after taking a shower and changing I was walking along Menelik Avenue, to the south. SO early on a Sunday there was almost not traffic at all. Lots or runners along the avenue. People walking in droves to attend church services, almost all wearing a beautiful white out-vestment of some kind and piously walking in the direction of the melodic prayers and chant coming out of the church speakers.

Before Meskel Square on Menelik Ave I stopped in a church, called Kidus Istifanus. The church looked full with lots of people praying around the church building and its gardens, mostly wearing white garments. A priest was outside the church blessing the faithful also.

After it I went back along Menelik Av. Passing the Hilton I followed more people going to another church, which speakers could be heard from afar. This led me to another church atop a hill (later identified as Kidus Gabriel). As with the previous one lots of faithful very devoutly praying on the church grounds. Many beggars were in this one, as well as lots of small stores and vendors along the street downhill.

We confirmed that one of the team members could not travel at the last minute so we’ll need to make some rearrangements to the planned classes. We are still waiting for Beth to arrive.

After breakfast at the hotel we went to the National Museum. We had a very knowledgeable guide. The Museum is great, with an unique exhibit opened last month on the fossil records of hominids, starting from the Chororaphitecus pre-hominids to the homo sapiens (those weird beings we use to live with).

Here is one picture of us with Lucy:

After it we went to the Museum of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies, in Addis Ababa  University, which has great ethnographic exhibits plus a beautiful art gallery on the second floor, with mostly religious iconography and paintings, plus a musical instruments section really well presented.

Already 4 of the team are in Addis: Megha, Neil, Pranav and me. Waiting for Beth and Harsh. 

I think we are all pretty tired and sleepy of the trip but in the afternoon we went to the Mercato. This is said to be the largest market in Africa and it is certainly unique. Blocks and blocks of small shops, outdoors and indoors, with any product you can imagine. Full of people shopping and walking around, some carrying huge boxes on their backs or heads, people walking with a leashed sheep/lamb that they just bought for the coming new year festivities (the new year is in Ethiopia on September 11th, as it is based on the Coptic calendar instead of our Gregorian one). We are here in the year 2000, and on this Sep 11th it’ll be 2001 here.

After we left the mercato we stopped in the Piazza area of the city where we walked around a little bit and had a refueling stop at a coffee shop, where we had a delicious coffee and pastries (I had a croissant..). The pastries look great in this city!. Here we are in the coffee shop, with our city expert and guide, Brook: 

One interesting note: shared tables. When we got into the coffee shop there where not open tables. But the waiter just pulled some chairs around a table where a lone young guy was sitting having a drink and reading a book and we all then just sit down with him. He took it very naturally and was very friendly and we chatted a little bit. He was reading a book on quantum mechanics. It was kind of surprising for me, as I imagined myself sitting in a Starbucks reading at a small table when suddenly 5 guys just sit around the same small table..