Wheats Up!

Since I went over to Ethiopia, it seems like I have hijacked this blog; first, because Alan is so busy that if it were up to him to keep the posts up, they would be two to three months behind reality; and second, because I love to write the posts and tell everything from my point of view.  I know, I'm completely selfish.  But, because I have done this, I realized that I'm not getting much of the farming/men stuff onto the posts, so this little one is more about the farm and the men on the farm.  You will ENJOY! 

This is a picture of the wheat just south of the airstrip.  It was the first field that was planted and was seeded using a broadcast spreader.  In the next picture you can see the height of the wheat in comparison to Alan's pliers.  In some places the grain is not up as high, because it got covered with more soil and will take longer to sprout.  But you can see that it is up and growing.  These pictures were taken about two to three weeks ago.

Alan finds many uses for pliers, he is usually never without them.  He is lost if he can't find his pliers.  Kind of reminds me of a song my sister Elizabeth made up about a farmer and his pliers, wires, and pigs.  Don't ask.

  

These are some of the tractors on the farm.  We have John Deeres, Case, and Belarus tractors.  If you remember, back in mid March, another restaurant went up on the farm because our tractor drivers would not eat at the other restaurant.  After thinking about it, for awhile, I have realized that this may be because our tractor drivers are mostly Christian and they refuse to eat at a restaurant run by Muslims.  They can get along with each other, usually, but they have different requirements in their  religious dietary laws. 

The muslims won't eat anything killed by a Christian and vice a versa. It has something to do with how the animal was killed.  If you offer any of them a piece of meat, they will ask before they eat it, who killed it. Our maids would not eat any of the Walmart jerky we offered them, until I assured them the cow was killed by a Muslim. Yeah, I know, I lied; but there could have been a Muslim working at a jerky factory.  Anyway, I digress.

This is the size of the disk harrows that were used to disk before and after the wheat was spread in the fields.  Alan found a larger blue disk at Nazaret Equipment, and had to have it. It came about a week before we left for the US and it was an amazing peice of equipment compared to what we had been using. Clair and the mechanics worked and got this one ready to go. Can you imagine using something like this in Idaho? We're happy for what we can get on the farm.

 

 

 I wanted to show some pictures of a manly Ethiopian custom that is very prevalent here on the farm.  As I have said before, the Ethiopians are very friendly and don't seem to put up barriers like we Americans do.  The men and boys here hold hands as they walk together.  At first I found it hilarious, but then as I got used to it, I found it to be good.  They have no fear at all, of showing friendliness toward each other by reaching out and holding hands.  The first one is of two workers just walking together, the second one is of Nahom, our interpreter, and Fiza, who taught me my numbers in Oromifa, and the third one is of Nahom and Mark.  Nahom will hold

anyone's hand, except mine. Men do not hold the hands of their wives or any woman. 

At first, the American men were startled and mostly creeped out by this PDA, but then they just got used to one of the guys grabbing their hand as they walked along.  The Americans still find it disconcerting, but they are learning to not be disgusted by it, and will tolerate it for a minute or so.  Alan says they don't try to hold hands as much with him as they do with Bracken.  Something about that guy.  I did try to get pictures of Bracken holding hands with Haile or Nahom, but he was quick to disengage before I could snap the picture.  I am determined to get one, so that I can blackmail him into giving me all his per diem. 

This is as good a shot as I could get so far of Bracken getting getting chummy with the locals. 

The next ones are of Alan and his two sidekicks Amin and Baruk.  Amin got in big trouble a couple of weeks ago because he deleted (accidentally) three days of GPS mapped fields from the GPS system.  Oooops!  Alan just about had a freakin' meltdown right there in front of everybody.  I think if he had been able to yell in Oromifa he would have.  Amin was supposed to do some GPS work on a field and then return it to Alan so that they could put it on the computer, but when Alan got the GPS, all the previous unrecorded information had been deleted.  He made Amin and Baruk go out and redo it all.  I said to Alan, they'll never make that mistake again.  Three Days of work down the drain!  You know, you have to feel bad for these guys who aren't familiar with all the electronic equipment that we expect them to use.  They hope they're doing it right and then they push one little button and it's "Gone with the Wind," never to be retrieved again.  So, here they are after a few days of remapping with the GPS, anxiously getting the info. onto the computer before Alan left for the US. 

This last little picture is of the shoeshine boys who have shown some real entrepreneurial spirit by starting their own little business.  They will clean and shine your shoes for 2 birr, which is approximatly 25 cents.  They came and Alan asked how much to sew up the splitting seams in his boots, and they said, " 2 birr".  Alan asked if they would do it for 4 birr.  They gave him a real puzzled look and then did it.  I went in the house and got them each a sucker for a treat.  Then Alan paid them a little more than the 4 birr.  More like $5. They really did a good job and mended his boots very well.  When he gave them the money they took off laughing and yelling with the suckers in their mouths. I'm sure they thought we were the suckers. 

Till next time.