Our Trip to Ethiopia--Part 3, Our Ethiopia Experience...cont.

Second day in Ethiopia....We got up early again.....actually, I got up early again and Todd implemented "His System."  I get up, he stays in bed and sleeps until he hears the hair dryer running, he then gets up and takes his shower.  Most of the time he still ends up waiting for me though  =)

Day #2 breakfast at the hotel.  Hmmm.  Found that there was less food than the day before that I was actually interested in eating due to... 1) the type of food they were offering today and.... 2) the fact that some things that I tried the day before like the rubbery sausage bites were definitely added to my "do not eat" list.   Thank goodness I ate a protein bar in our room!  I had a smaller plate of food this morning but thoroughly enjoyed my macchiato!  =)

As we were walking to Layla we were getting closer and closer to a young woman with a little boy who was probably 1-2 years old.  She was trying to get our attention by holding her hand out to us and saying "Baby cry, baby cry."

"Ethiopia lesson" time.  When you are walking down the street, you will want to maintain a delicate balance of eye contact, greetings and nods..... with...... looking like you have business to take care of and are "on a mission."  Something that was very hard for me to remember was to not stop or even pause very long when a beggar was trying to get your attention.  If you even look at them, they go full steam ahead and pull out all the tricks.  THEN as soon as other beggars see you stop and talk or give money to one beggar they ALL pounce!  This is a very dangerous thing to let happen!

Back to the young woman with the little boy....  She was trying to get us to stop but we were in the "pretending to be on a mission" mode.  Just as we were going to get too far from her she grabbed my arm and motioned for me to look.  She reached around and pulled out her little boys leg and showed it to us.  He had a very thin little leg and about half way between his ankle and his knee he had a sore about the size of a silver dollar.  I'm not sure what it was from but it looked like it could have been a burn.  It was oozing and open and the little guy started to cry from the pain he was in from it.  There was really nothing that we could do so we slipped her a small amount of money and a protein bar and went on our way.  We were in semi-shock.  It was so sad to see this horrible open wound on such a little boy....and you know he just had to be wrenching in pain.

We made it to Layla and spent the morning there with Tihun.  When it was lunch time for the toddlers we knew it was time for us to go, but Tihun didn't want to go in with the other kids.  She stayed outside with us and then finally she tried to get us to go in with her and have lunch.  "Nay, Mommie Daddie, nay nay" she said to us.  Nay means come.  But we told her "ciao" --goodbye-- and had the nanny tell her that we would be back after lunch.  So all the way out of the compound we got "ciaos" and kisses blown to us from the whole toddler crew!  That was sweet!  =)

We had a driver booked for the next 3 hours so we could go get something to eat and do a little shopping.  Our driver on this day was Jamal.  Here is a picture of him and I standing in the lobby of the Kings Hotel:

Jamal is a really great guy and we had a wonderful time with him the two times we hired him to drive us around town.  We told him that we were hungry so he took us to a traditional Ethiopian type restaurant.  I had the Doro Wat and Todd got a hamburger, which he thought tasted not so much like a hamburger.  We found out later while talking with another American family that the hamburger could have possibly been mixed with goat.  Oh yeah....THAT's why it tasted so....goat like??

 We also ordered coffee from the traditional coffee ceremony that was going on. 

I'm just going to say, I LOVE the coffee in Ethiopia.  They serve it to you in a very small cup....smaller than a tea cup.... along with a side of popcorn.  At first this tiny cup was hard to take since about 20 of those could fit into the coffee mug I use at home...but I soon realized that their coffee is a bit stronger than ours so it helped to ward off my coffee DT's.  I kept telling Ethiopians how big my mug was at home and they couldn't believe that I drank THAT much coffee!  So funny!  Anyway, Ethiopian coffee is served in those tiny cups.  They put two spoonfuls of sugar in the cup, pour the coffee in, and then ask you if you would like sugar in your coffee.  The two scoops is standard, the extra is your choice.  

Love it.

The Doro Wat I had was pretty good but not as good as the Sega Wat that I had the night before.  This was a slightly scary experience that I didn't share in yesterday's post.  We were invited out to eat with Susan PD's group.  It was a restaurant that was a few blocks over but we decided to walk and take in some of the city sights.  We got to where the restaurant was supposed to be just to find out that it had closed and relocated to another part of the city.  Susan used a cell phone and called the restaurant but it was too hard to hear and understand the person on the other end of the line so we decided it was time for plan B.  In Ethiopia you must always be prepared for having to go to plan B.....or  C, or D, or E......well, you get the picture.  So we headed over across the street to another restaurant.  It was pretty crowded inside so we opted to eat out on the terrace.  That sounded great because it was such a nice night.  Once we sat down though, we realized that we could hardly read our menus it was so dark.  There were lights mounted on the building that was near our table but they must have had 2 watt bulbs in them!  I did manage to see Sega Wat and knew that was a beef stew-ish and injera dish so I went with that.  The scary thing was that by the time I actually got my dinner, it was really dark outside...and at one point we lost power all together!  Eating an ethnic dish, in a foreign country, in the dark....is SCARY!!  But you will be glad to know that I was very brave....and thankfully very hungry.....so I ate the whole thing...WITHOUT EVEN SEEING IT! Crazy...I know.  But I will say that it was extremely delicious!  

Sorry...I got sidetracked.....back to the actual day I am writing about....

We ate lunch, which took a good hour and a half.  There is no such thing as fast food in Ethiopia.  There are no McDonalds, Burger Kings, Taco Bells etc. and when you sit down at a restaurant, be prepared to wait for quite a while.  Eating and coffee drinking are to be done in a very slow, relaxed pace.  Kind of hard to do when all you can think about is getting out there and shopping!!

We got on the road and first went to the leprosy colony.  They supposedly have a very nice gift shop with many products that the residents of the colony make but unfortunately it was closed when we got there and we were told that "the lady just didn't show up today."  So we decided to go in to the room where the weavers were working.  We watched a couple men weaving on the big looms.

Then we went into the back room where about 5 ladies were spinning.  They seemed cautious at first but quickly warmed up to us after Jamal explained who we were and what we were doing there.  The ladies encouraged me to try my hand at the different stages of spinning.  I pretty much failed at them all and I know that those ladies had a really good time watching me try and fail....they just kept laughing and laughing and then they would tell me to try again!  It was fantastic to see how their process worked and to see how fast they could spin!  Todd was video taping them working and also of me making a mess of their work, until one little lady in the corner told Jamal that she didn't want her picture taken.  Jamal asked  her why and she told him it was because she was so ugly that no one would want to look at a picture of her.  She said "I am unlovable."  When Jamal told us what she said, it I just about lost it.  I was squatting near the other women talking with them and I could barely stand back up.  I just wanted to cry.  You see, the older lady sitting in the corner that didn't want her picture taken was a victim of leprosy.  Most of her body showed signs of where the leprosy had taken over.  Her face was slightly deformed and pushed over to one side and her hands and feet had no visible fingers or toes, just a slit where her thumb met her hand. But she was very skilled at what she was doing.  She could thread a bobbin of wool 10 times faster than I could WITH fingers!!  

This is a picture of a woman that looks pretty similar to what this dear sweet woman at the leprosy colony looked like.

The women invited us to stay for tea but unfortunately Jamal had to be somewhere by a certain time so we had to keep going.  I would have loved to sit and have tea with those sweet ladies!  On our way out the door I knelt down and put my hand on the lady in the corner's ankle.  She slowly looked up at me and I gave her a nod and she gave me one back.  I really just wanted to wrap my arms around her to show her that she is not unlovable but she had so many spools and supplies sitting around her that I couldn't get to her......but she knew by my touch and my nod what I was saying to her.  I will never forget her.

We then got back in the car and headed to Sabahar, the silk factory.  This was like an oasis in the desert. The grounds were beautiful!  I had a great time choosing a stack of scarves and I also got a tablecloth for our Ethiopian Christmas celebrations.  You could buy pure silk scarves or a silk/cotton blend.

  

Here is their process:

These are the silkworms.  They are pretty tired of eating and are getting ready to cocoon.

Here are the empty cocoons. They are waiting to be cleaned.

Here is the washed silk from the cocoons.

These are the bundles of dyed silk drying on the ledge.

Here are some of their finished products clean and drying.

The last place we went with Jamal was a basket shop which was recommended to us by Susan PD and Chris Little, two AAI veterans.  As we were pulling up to it Jamal yelled something out the window to the men that were sitting around at the side of the building.  We walked into the shop and saw that it was jam packed with stuff.

Soon after we got in the shop Jamal started trying to get me to reconsider shopping there.  I don't know what was said between him and the other men but Jamal decided that we should probably shop somewhere else.  The only thing he told us was that these shop owners don't like it when he brings Americans there because he will tell them if the shop keeper is charging too much!  So essentially they want to be able to freely rip us off without Jamal stepping in and ruining all their fun!  =(  

So we bought only a couple of wooden crosses and left, deciding to shop another day.  

We went back to the hotel and unloaded our booty, freshened up and then walked back to Layla to spend some time with our little T and the other kids.  When we got there we didn't see Tihun anywhere but we soon found out that she had been taken, along with some other kiddos, to go and get her visa picture taken!  That was so exciting to hear!  Just another step in making everything seem so real.  She wasn't doing so well when they got back and I'm pretty sure that she got car sick.  She was burning up because it was a hot day and the windows were probably up in the van.  She was pretty wiped out but recovered quickly after eating a banana.  

We brought her some paint markers and an artist pad and she loved it!  Of course all of the kids wanted to get their hands on it too so I tried to distract them by offering to draw a heart or star on their hand instead.  As soon as I did the first child's hand I had almost every toddler pushing and shoving to get one on their hand!  Then it was "the other hand" and then "on my cheek" and "on my forehead."  This went on for about 5-10 minutes and they all had writing on their faces and hands.  The nanny came out of the building and took one look at the kids and then at me and she gave me the dirtiest look ever!  I explained to her as best as I could that they were washable makers and it would come right off.....she didn't seem impressed.  So I asked her for a rag so I could clean them up.  She went in and got a rag and then she wouldn't let me have it.  SHE washed every single one of my pieces of art work off!  

I'm thinking... "chillax"  Let em be kids for pete's sake!  I'm looking around and they are using leggos to dip into the mudpuddles and drinking it.  They all have runny noses and are wiping it on each other and they are getting into just about anything they can get into.  Why are we so concerned about something that is making them so happy??  ugh.  Whatever.  If she only saw my kids sometimes.....she'd probably have a cow!  =(

As we left for the day we got our usual "Ciaos" and "Kisses" but I was starting to feel my heartstrings being pulled by the love I felt for my little girl.....oh how I didn't want to leave her anymore!  Walking out was probably the hardest thing I had to do everyday.

More to come.....