Easter in Addis Abeba

Easter here in  Ethiopia is more important than Christmas. So everyone is getting ready for this special event. On Good Friday most roads were jammed with traffic due to all the people - but Mussulmen - going to church. A beautiful sight, all dressed in white cotton robes.

Since Easter is also the end of 2 months fasting (people eat only vegetarian and no butter or eggs) there are bulls and sheep for sale everywhere along the main roads.  The pictures here were taken on Sunday morning: lots of sheepskin heaped up and a few sheep still for sale, cheaper now than yesterday.

We had a quiet Friday and Saturday as I had a severe backache and could not sit properly. Walking was OK, standing only for half an hour. So I read a lot in the book ‘Tower in the sky’ by and Ethiopian author. she writes about the time she was a student while the revolution here took place (1969- 1974) and the Dergue (military regime) came into power. It is extra interesting as I was a student in that time as well and the only thing I knew than was that there was severe hunger in Ethiopia and Eritrea. Looking back,  the famine was  the main reason for the upheaval, as the then Haile Selassi regime looked the other way while investing huge amounts of money in the celebrations of  the Emperor’s 50st year of reign.

Our little dog is better again, stitches and the splint  were removed this week. Now she needs training!

On Easter Sunday we went to Beletech’s house. It couldn’t be otherwise, since we are family and family comes together on Easter Sunday.  Doro Wot for lunch of course and it tasted great! 

The big surprise was that the day before, Shingo had received a present for Easter, 2 litres of Tedj (Honey wine) and a whole life sheep. The interesting thing beingt hat it came from a good friend in the U.S. by internet order, delivered at her doorstep. I didn’t know this possible here! Since Beletech’ knife was not sharp enough, the neighbour couldn’t kill the sheep, so she     had to hire a butcher. They come along with a good knife, do the killing and filling for 80 birr (4 US dollar) and continue their way. Here’s a picture of Shingo (right) with her long time Ethiopian friend.

At home there was - exceptionally - a European bee-eater sitting on our electricity line. 

Earlier I 'caught' a beautiful blue-eared starling, sitting just out of my window.

April 14th - another interesting week passed

This is the view from my office, 6th floor in the middle of town, Meskel Flower road. 

 And these two cheerful young guys wanted to clean my shoes. As I was wearing sandals I thought it not such a good idea. But, they are trying to work for their money, instead of begging, like so many do, and I appreciate that! You can see that they hope to once become a millionaire. Now I said I would give them money if the posed for a picture. Each 5 birr (20 eurocent) is a lot and now they are my good friends. 

Beautiful teeth they got too! 

Sunday April 6th, conclusion of a specialweek

Dear all, what a special week this was! 

It started with Robert going on a long wanted week long fieldtrip, to Axum, that is high up in the North, in the Simien mountains, a beautiful range between 3000 and 4000 meter high. 

 He came back today, impressed with the community work that had been done by villagers in the last 3 years: kilometers of mountain hillsides have been transformed into terraces, with regular catchment holes to catch the water of the heavy rains before it makes erosion gullies.  

Of course he also managed to see some 6 'new' bird species ( meaning we saw them for the first time) , amongst which the Malachite kingfisher (Beak where do you go with that bird?) , the Varaible sunbird and Blanfords' lark. 

Meanwhile, the littlle dog that we  only just adopted (see earlier entry) got hit by a car on tuesday evening. She was in shock, so I wrapped her in my only blanket. Next day to the Vet. Luckily a Dutch friend of mine knew of a very good one, an Ethiopian, my age, worked and studied in Germany, very nice guy and he had time. Her ankle was damaged. So she got a nice blue bandage, after which we call her Taxi (same colour as the multitude of old Lada taxi's around here). However, I had to come back for a strange bulge in her underbelly, which appeared to be a hernia and had to be operated upon yesterday. She is a bit handicapped now, poor thing. 

Very exiting is that I got a job here! for 2 days a week i am the coordinator of a network of frontrunner farmers and entrepreneurs in rural areas here. I am asked by Agri- pro Focus Learning Alliance ( see http://apf-ethiopia.ning.com/ and http://www.fs-ethiopia.com/index.php/projects/agri-profocus) to coordinate the working Groups, about 10, each on a different theme, like gender, businessplans, cooperatives, acces to finance.