The jet lag effect had me awake at 4:00 a.m. After tossing and turning, I decided to get up and write an e-mail home but couldn’t get the hotel wireless internet to work. The next best thing was to write the e-mail message in my MSWord program which would be sent later.
At approximately 5:30 a.m. there was a Muslim sounding singing chant that came over a loud speaker not far from the Hotel. It went on and on for over an hour. It sure made know that I was in a foreign country.
buffet had many different things that were foreign to me. I just had that that was familiar. I then finally met Lloyd who is the brother of Lonnie. He runs the LDS church farm ground in Pocatello and has agreed to help part time.
The day was not yet planned for sure due to other factors. There was to be a three day tour of ag related destinations in Ethiopia for Evan, Lloyd, and me. Our guide was to be a representative of Ethiopia Department of Ag. Before the tour, I decided to go with Wes, Joe Morrell, and Mark to check on cell phones and see the John Deere dealership. We got a taxi and had a wild ride through town. It was interesting to see Addis in the daylight. There was much building going on with scaffolding along side buildings made of wood branches. There were hundreds of little stores lining the streets. People were wandering all over. Every time we had to stop for traffic there was always a beggar who would come to the window. They would motion to their mouths and stomachs and hold out their hand. The driver would scoot along and it would happen again at the next stop light. It was very sad to see. We eventually made it to the JD dealership but could see that it had moved. It was so strange that a dealer ship would be down a narrow dirt road/street. It still had a partial sign up. I took pictures. We went to the Ethiopian home of Paul Morrell to get the cell phones. It was pretty nice place. I was told that it was rented for about $3,000/month. Much to my chagrin there was no cell phone waiting for me. I guess I’ll have to wait.
We then went back to the Hotel where Evan, Lloyd and Amsalu were ready to go on the trip. I checked out and we jumped into a rented Land Cruiser, chauffeured by a young man, Aldu, and off we went. Leaving the populated parts of the city we saw miles of rickety shacks containing merchants and a multitude of people walking the sides of the road. We headed east and it turned in to country side where we started to see fields of teff; the seed that they make engera out of. It looked like fine grass that had velvety looking heads.
We got to a higher altitude where it appeared rocky with lava rock. We happened to see a Gazelle not far from the road and later a hyena that had been hit by a car. I didn’t know they had hyenas here. Goats became common as well as herds of camels much to my surprise. There was even a recent accident of a large truck that had plowed into a herd with a few camels still lying under its wheels, quite a sight. Our driver motored through it so fast I did not get a picture. Camels are not wild here so any that are seen here are owned. I wished I could get video of the camels and finally saw a herd along the road. I rolled down the window and tried to take a video but it was getting too dark to see. Suddenly I heard a No! No! from a herdsman. He quickly came over and held out his hand and was chattering about something that I couldn’t understand. Our guide said he wants money from you for taking a picture of his camels. It was an awkward situation because I knew I didn’t get any video because it was too dark. But what persuaded us to pay was his AK47 hanging from his shoulder. Evan reached over and gave him 10 Birr (about a $1) then sped off. He yelled at us because he thought it wasn’t enough but we were out of there.
We arrived in a small town and got simple motel rooms and ate close by. I had my first experience of eating engera, bread made from teff then fermented for days. It definitely was sour. Also had spicy chicken soup and goat tibbs which are chunks of goat meat with mushrooms and onions. It was not bad. Everything has a lot of curry and other hot spices. I am going to have to get used to this food.
We were far from Cell phone service and internet and had yet to contact Shelley. The window of time to communicate is limited because we are 9 hours apart. I went to bed because I was too tired.
No comments:
Post a Comment