Dear friends and family- it is rainy season now. That means that mostly it is cold - more so as we are in the mountains, 2000 m above sea level. It is often cloudy and we have heavy rain/ thunderstorms mostly every afternoon/ early evening; sometimes in the night.
Our house is leaking a lot when it rains, in 7 places; in 3 of them we have to put a bucket in order that the floor doesn't flood. Even so, our landlord told Robert on his return -June 1st -that he wanted to raise the rent from 1000 dollar a month to 2000 dollar. Ridiculous of course. Robert suggested we pay 1500, but only after he has repaired the leaking roof AND the hot water in the bathroom downstairs AND the leaking shower of the guest rooms. The landlord didn't reply.
On Saturday the 14th of June I returned form the Netherlands. And sarated my full time job on monday the 16th. It is great, really my type of work: Facilitator Linking & Learning for the Agri-Hub, a network of professionals, all working in development of agriculture and food and value chains, including gender issues, agricultural training & education etc. In different organisation, ranging form agribusiness to NGO's.
Check out: http://apf-ethiopia.ning.com/
This is the new coffee/lunch restaurant
After one week (June 21st) it became clear that going to my office in town on a daily base and spending at least one hour to et there and one hour or more to return home in heavy traffic, was quite demanding. So - also bevause of the present landlord-leaking house- rent raise sitiuation- Robert and I started looking around for another house, somewhere between Robert's office( MOA) and mine.
To our surpise we quite quickly (saturday June 28) found a very nice house in Kasanches, the old centre of town. And with a very nice guy as landlord. His father built the house in Haile Selassie time and that you can see- it is well built and refined. And affordable.
Meanwhile, our day-sebanja, the guy who watches the house and tends the garden - behaved even worse than before. He left as suited him and didn't turn up in time for his duties. When - on saturday July 5 (Robert had invited his Rotary club here) - it appeared that he had also taken away 2 taps from the servant's quarters, we felt that was enough. So we fired him on the spot. He was surprised even!
These paintings/ works of art are exhibited in the restaurant. they also sell leather bags.
Anyway, having done that, and knowing that he knows the house and that we are away most of the day, the chance of him with friends robbing the house was quite possible. So we asked the night sebanja, Habtamu, to stay on during the day, paid of course. That he did.
Robert went on field trip this monday july 7th ( to Nekempt and Nedjo, far west of Addis Abeba) and so on tuesday 8th I stayed home to work at home in order to give Habtamu a day off in which he could collect some clothes and tend to his daily business of selling coffee and eggs, killing and cleaning chicken etc.
Meanwhile we do enjoy ourselves. Every sunday morning we get our ayurvedic massage; one sunday we had lunch with Anne and Martin Stewart, who introduced us to a new coffee/lunch restaurant in a former factory building. And one evening we had a dinner party with my Agri-Hub team in a nice Indian restaurant, so that Robert got to know them as well.
This traditional 'storage' is made out of one piece of wood!
I also visited the Ethiopian Women's Business Association, which was facinating, about a hundred highly educated and rather well off Ethiopian women gathering to support each other.
The weekend of July 19th (and the week before) we will move to our new home. Next blog will show you pictures of that!
Our house is leaking a lot when it rains, in 7 places; in 3 of them we have to put a bucket in order that the floor doesn't flood. Even so, our landlord told Robert on his return -June 1st -that he wanted to raise the rent from 1000 dollar a month to 2000 dollar. Ridiculous of course. Robert suggested we pay 1500, but only after he has repaired the leaking roof AND the hot water in the bathroom downstairs AND the leaking shower of the guest rooms. The landlord didn't reply.
On Saturday the 14th of June I returned form the Netherlands. And sarated my full time job on monday the 16th. It is great, really my type of work: Facilitator Linking & Learning for the Agri-Hub, a network of professionals, all working in development of agriculture and food and value chains, including gender issues, agricultural training & education etc. In different organisation, ranging form agribusiness to NGO's.
Check out: http://apf-ethiopia.ning.com/
This is the new coffee/lunch restaurant After one week (June 21st) it became clear that going to my office in town on a daily base and spending at least one hour to et there and one hour or more to return home in heavy traffic, was quite demanding. So - also bevause of the present landlord-leaking house- rent raise sitiuation- Robert and I started looking around for another house, somewhere between Robert's office( MOA) and mine.
To our surpise we quite quickly (saturday June 28) found a very nice house in Kasanches, the old centre of town. And with a very nice guy as landlord. His father built the house in Haile Selassie time and that you can see- it is well built and refined. And affordable.
Meanwhile, our day-sebanja, the guy who watches the house and tends the garden - behaved even worse than before. He left as suited him and didn't turn up in time for his duties. When - on saturday July 5 (Robert had invited his Rotary club here) - it appeared that he had also taken away 2 taps from the servant's quarters, we felt that was enough. So we fired him on the spot. He was surprised even! Robert went on field trip this monday july 7th ( to Nekempt and Nedjo, far west of Addis Abeba) and so on tuesday 8th I stayed home to work at home in order to give Habtamu a day off in which he could collect some clothes and tend to his daily business of selling coffee and eggs, killing and cleaning chicken etc. Meanwhile we do enjoy ourselves. Every sunday morning we get our ayurvedic massage; one sunday we had lunch with Anne and Martin Stewart, who introduced us to a new coffee/lunch restaurant in a former factory building. And one evening we had a dinner party with my Agri-Hub team in a nice Indian restaurant, so that Robert got to know them as well.
This traditional 'storage' is made out of one piece of wood!
I also visited the Ethiopian Women's Business Association, which was facinating, about a hundred highly educated and rather well off Ethiopian women gathering to support each other.
The weekend of July 19th (and the week before) we will move to our new home. Next blog will show you pictures of that!
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