October 27, 2009

In the morning we arose and had breakfast at the café next to the motel;  the same place as we ate last night. They knew we were coming so they put a lot into our breakfast. They served us omelets, cheese melted on ham (I think it was cheese & ham), bread with an assortment of marmalade, natural honey, and even a chocolate butter spread. They served us orange juice that was some of the best I have ever tasted, very sweet. The meal was really quite good. We loaded up into the land cruiser and left.
The scenery changed to beautiful green hillsides which were farmed as best they could.

Sorghum fields were most prevalent which were very tall. They prefer tall varieties because they put the stalks to use for feed, building huts and burning for fuel. Other crops included coffee, teff, maize, some papaya and even banana trees. Another plant grown in this region is a plant called “chat”. It has green leaves that are chewed on and it is a hallucinogen that is valuable to sell to some Arab countries which they use in lieu of alcohol. We are on our second day from Addis and still no sign of any mechanized equipment used in fields. Huts with pointed thatched roofs became common.

Other family structures included homes with the dimensions of a common rectangular home but the walls were made of branches plastered with animal dung and straw. People with goats, oxen drawn carts, women carrying things on their head lined the road. We were in and out of small villages.

Our driver was honking and weaving through them in an un-courteous way. I tried to see of we could go a quarter mile without passing a pedestrian and could not. The terraced hillsides started to remind of what it might look like in Vietnam or those type areas with lush green valleys and low clouds making their way across. It was a pleasant surprise to see such vegetation in what most people think of as an arid drought ridden country. The view went on for miles and miles. We did not have a map to tell where we were and tried to get Amsalu to explain on paper but they really could not. With no road signs etc., I wondered how they knew where to go and the driver said all he had to do was ask someone which way to turn when the road divided. They must have a lot of faith in their countrymen.

We finally arrived at the first government run test plot area. It was somewhat primitive but looked similar to those in the state. There were workers there and many children there who new we were coming. The children wanted to see the Foreinges, (not sure of spelling but sounds like “for-en’-jays”), which means foreigners. I’m sure we were the first Caucasians that many of them have seen. They came close but as soon as I would speak they would scatter as if afraid. They may not have ever heard a different language from a man. As we took pictures they were very much entertained to see themselves in the viewer of the camera.

The plots looked interesting. The soil looked rich and red similar to some I have seen in Hawaii. There were barley, wheat, and other type plots. Most grain varieties grown here were brought over by Evan Maxfield from Utah State University and other common varieties grown in the Idaho-Utah area. They were replicated and we got a pretty good idea of which varieties faired best. It looked obvious that our varieties outperformed the local varieties. Some of the varieties I can remember include, Jefferson, Alturas, Winchester, Baroness. We saw our first tractor there which was a near new Claas, a German made row crop type tractor of about 100 horse power with a cab and four wheel drive. Other crops tested there were various forage types, Coffee, teff, and even banana trees which were bearing after only three years.

We then left for a long ride to Harar, ET. The scenery suddenly changed soon before Harar to a much more arid and rocky terrain. We got into cell phone coverage that Evan could call out on. It would be almost 8:00 am at home so I finally got that call home through Evan’s phone. All Shelley and I had time to talk about was that her computer crashed and can’t get email etc. We then lost contact and then Evans phone went dead needing a recharge.

We got to the best hotel in town (which is not saying much) to spend the night. Relatively clean but... .
We do have electricity and our own bathroom. Water runs at a trickle. We had a nice meal at a relatively nice restaurant with a fancy waiter, clothnapkins, etc. It was Lloyds 40th birthday and thought we’d go all out. The menu was impressive. It had a large variety good looking food. I ordered lamb chops, they later came and said “sorry no lamb”, how about the sirloin steak, the waiter later came back “sorry no sirloin” , filet mignon? “yes I think we have that”, then again came back “sorry no filet mignon”. How about chicken? “Sorry”, so what do you have? “Peppered steak”, ok peppered steak it will be. We had a good laugh. It was actually really good and only cost the equivalent of $2.80/meal.


There was in Internet café just outside the restaurant so I dropped an e-mail home. Internet is painfully slow here in Ethiopia. Blogging is not only impossible but not permitted due to clogging bandwidth.