Food for the Hungry

My seat mate on the way back was Leena, who works for the organization, "Food for the Hungry," as Rehabilitation Program Officer for the Relief Unit. The main office is in Phoenix, but she works in the Washington, D.C. office. Their program is mainly in Africa although they also work in places such as Bolivia and Peru. A group has been working in Sudan. Leena had spent time there, and will now be making a report. "Food for the Hungry" provides emergency response as well as long-term development. You can get information at www.fh.org. Sometimes all our efforts seem very small compared to the needs, but the work is important, and I am glad there are people like Leena helping to carry the work forward. I very much enjoyed talking with her and learning of the work.

Time to say goodbye....

Yohannes is waving as we arrived, but we so soon had to leave, so it is goodbye. He is being held by Adane, our driver.




Assefa led our trip to the east, to Lake Langano, and on to Awash and back, and they dearly love the boys, and Yohannes thinks that is fine.

Washing hands

Since the food is eaten with the hands, it is traditional to pour water over the hands of the guests as they use soap to wash them. After finishing the meal, water is again poured over the hads to clean them.

Coffee Ceremony

The Coffee Ceremony is an important tradition.

Here are the things needed for the ceremony. She is roasting the coffee beans over the charcoal fire. She heated the water in the teakettle, and then it gets put into the dark jug, and to the right are cups for the coffee. Just below that is the moya, used to grind the coffee.




And here, she is grinding the coffee.







And here, it is being poured into the jug. I wish I had gotten a picture of someone drinking a cup of it.

Fikre's family

Just before we went to the airport, we stopped by Fikre's house, which was not far from the airport. Fikre was still at the conference, but the rest of the family was there, and had prepared a wonderful Ethiopian meal with shiro wat and tibs wat. The older boy, Samuel, is 6 and the younger boy, Yohannes, is 2, and there is a new baby boy.

Fikre's wife, Kidist






Samuel and Yohannes









Isn't he darling!

A few last photos

At one of the shops....
She is ready to sell something...




So many things one could buy

Conference

We're back in Addis Ababa. There is a conference here in the Ghion Hotel today, and there are lots of people around. It is the International Formum on Water and Food (IFWF). It Seems to me an especially important conference. People will head out to do a little shopping and sight seeing.

Caldera

We stopped at Debra Zeit for lunch at Dreamland, a nice restaurant overlooking a lake in the caldera of an ancient volcano.



Ready to eat!

Honey

We stopped beside the road where a number of people were selling honey. They wanted to sell the whole plate of it, but we just wanted to try a little of it. We convinced them, and bought enough for everyone to have some. It was delicious!

Harvesting

Some men cutting tef, an important grain.







After cutting and drying the grain, it is thrown out on the ground, where cows walk over it to separate the grain from the chaff. It is then thrown with a pitch fork, further separating the grain. Tef is quite a small grain and I wonder how effective it is to harvest it this way.

Rest stop

On the way back to Addis Ababa, we stopped in Adama to stretch our legs and have a drink. We drove into the Safari Lodge, quite a beautiful place. Here is our waitress.

The face of Ethiopia today

A girl is sitting beside a building, talking on a cell phone. In all the towns, cell phones are quite common

Driving down the street

The streets are often full of people, trucks, cars, taxis, sheep, goats, horse and donkey carts... To drive, one has to be quite alert.

Transportation

Horse carts and donkey carts were ubiquitous.


In all the towns except Addis Ababa, little 3-wheeled taxis were everywhere. These were made in India and imported.

On the road from Addis Ababa to Awash (and on to Dire Dawa and Djibouti, I am sure) there were big trucks, many of them the really heavy duty 22-wheelers like these. I suspect these trucks are useful for transporting freight and material that might otherwise be carried by train. I wonder when the train will begin running again.

Toyota

Everywhere we went there were Toyotas... big 4-wheel drive Toyotas, Toyota vans and buses, Toyota cars... but here is the best Toyota we saw on our trip.

Ready for another day

The guide book says that the restaurant's specialty is roast chicken. I took this picture the next morning as they were getting ready for the day. Someone had just been down to the market and had bought the day's chickens. They sell them in the market with their legs tied together. They are brought back to the restaurant, killed, plucked and roasted. Good food, I would say!

What do we want to eat?

Here is the menu. What would you like to eat? There were two main things to eat: Roast chicken and pasta with tomato sauce. I had the chicken, and it was delicious!




We are waiting for our food. That is Assefa on the back of the table.

In the restaurant

The restaurant has cloths hanging on the sides, and on these they have several pictures.

Awash Falls

There is a lot of water going over the falls! Down below, two rivers come together, coming from different mountain ranges. All this water goes on down the gorge, but it never reaches the sea.

Awash National Park

We drove back to the main entrance to the park , drove down to the Awash gorge, and then back to the Awash Falls.





There were so many beautiful birds, but one has to work at it to get pictures of most of them. However, the Abyssinian roller was quite cooperative and let me get a good picture. He is a beautiful bird.



The oryx let us get some pictures as well.

There were a number of little dik diks as well but the little rascals ran away and I never did get a picture.

Beautiful!

The Genet Hotel

We stopped at the Genet Hotel for the night. Notice that signs over in this area are often written in 3 languages, Oromo,Amharic and English.



Here is the inside of our room for the night. Yes, mosquito netting again...

Who are they?

I think this fellow and the others behind him are almost as interested in us as we are in them.



And sometimes the trees are full of them!

Fantelle

The picture at left looks across part of Lake Beseke to the old volcano of Fantelle, which has a good sized crater on top. The presence of the volcano gives the character of the surrounding area, most of it volcanic in nature. The road bed and railroad bed are formed from volcanic rocks.

The picture here shows the black volcanic rocks, and also some yellow material. The yellow material is also volcanic rock with so much air in it that it floats.

The railroad

The railroad from Addis Ababa to Djibouti was built by the French back in the time of Menelik II. It has been quite important carrying freight to the port at Djibouti, and has taken on increased importance since Eritrea has become a separate country, and the port at Massawa is no longer available. But, it has been closed for some time for repairs. I asked about the expected time the repairs will be finished and nobody seems to know. We were traveling from Nazareth to Awash, and stopped as we neared Awash. These two pictures show that they are doing a very good job of repairing the rails.

Sodere

We drove down to Sodere where there are some great hot springs. In the picture, it appears that the monkeys, which were all around the place, are watching the people have fun.

The sights of Nazareth

We spent the night in Nazareth (now called Adama) at the Rift Valley Hotel. It was a very nice hotel, but we were on the 4th floor, with the main floor as zero, and there was no elevator. Here are a few images from the street out front. And there was a wedding at the big hotel next door.