Yes we are alive and well!

We are sorry that we have been poor at posting events.  I will attempt to go back and fill you all in of what we did.  While the crop was maturing  we were busy putting some new equipment together that had arrived at the farm.

It was Clair and Bracken's time to go back to the USA so I had the pleasure of working with the mechanics to put this "bad boy" together. It was a good opportunity to test our skills  and bond with each other.  They did a great job. Now we had to wait for a "bad boy" tractor to come pull the thing as the ones here are still too small. 

Shelley and I had the pleasure of visiting our maid Ashreka's family who lives about 3 hours away near Ginir.  We had a hired driver and took Ashreka, Nahom, and Zakir and away we went. 

Ashreka'a family lives on a farm that raises such things as avacados, mangos, sugar cane, papayas and fruit that I was unfamiliar with.  There was no road to their home so we had to walk about 20 minutes to get there.

The trail turned to an interesting rain forest like surrounding.  They obviously get more rain here than at the farm.

Here is Ashreka's family along with her little girl Karina that the family takes care of while she works.  It was a good visit and they treated us to some of the fruit from their farm.

While we were at the town of Ginir we stopped at a restaurant and had some "charcoal beef tibs" which were actually pretty good.  (cut up beef cooked with onions, garlic and peppers)

Nahom had to show off by ordering his in the traditional way in its "raw" form.  Good for you Nahom, you are the man!

We went to the Ginir market to take a look.  

They see more forenjis (white people) here in Ginir so the crowd was a little less overwhelming.

 In the USA when many farmers get together the parking lot is full of pickup trucks, but here .......

  

Poor donkeys

We took the opportunity while we were at Ashreka's to tour a well known tourist attraction in Ethiopia called the Sof Omar Cave that was just about an hour or so away.

At the edge of the cave

Down inside the opening.  It is a long cave of a few kilometers but we were not able to see all of it due to bridges being out.  I'm sorry I don't have good pictures to show a river that runs through it but very interesting for what we saw.  

When we returned home to the farm we introduced a little of our culture to Ethiopia to end out the month of October