A long annual leave in May& June 2014

Robert and I went on home leave on May 30st. 
So we were in time for Meike's birthday on May 2d. 

We celebrated that in Hodeige, Belgium, where she lives with her boyfriend/partner Michael. Hanna en Jaco  and Joost and his 'woman' Emmy were there too.  We had a lovely time together! 

It was so green when we came back to the Netherlands! 


We also celebrated my mum's 92d birthday. My dad (95) invited us (me and my siblings with partners) for lunch. Even though my mum has a very advanced degree of Alzheimer, it was good to be together. After her birthday suddenly things got worse. Somehow right in time there was a vacancy in the alzheimer home near to their appartment, about half a mile. Things went fast and now she lives there since June 11th. 

Both my dad and mum are adjusting to this new course in their life now and it is not easy. I am grateful I could be there to support them during the change. My flight back to Ethiopia was on the 13th 

During the month of May we saw a lot of friends and family, which was great. Lindsay came from England for my birthday and met with Anna - we actually went belly dancing together. And they decided to come visit me in Ethiopia, together.


Also we got the chance to meet with Michael's mum, Lutgarde, and that was a feast. As if we know each other a long time already. She will also come to see us in Ethiopia, so it is going to be a wise women's journey. 




  

 Lindsay, Robert and I went to Rotterdam for my birthday. We did a tour on the river Maas into the harbours. We didn't now there were so many containers! And what did we see?  A ship from Liberia with the name of Bella Schulte - as if Rob's mum was there just to say hello

Then back to Ethiopia, where a full time job awaited me - more in next blog.

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.

Enlightening last week of March 2014

Lots of things happen here... just a few here, to give you an impression

1. A nice dog was having puppies, just outside our compund wall. So we started to give her food in the evenings. Now that all but one of the puppies have been taken away, we would like to keep the mother dog. But she's not used to living in an enclosed compound, starts whining and escapes, so we  took up the last pup. 

This little one stays with us and mum comes to visit her morning and evenings, they play together and after that, mum goes out again.  

2. One day, driving through a particulartly crowded street in the centre of Addis, I saw an old man with a bulging bag of fire lilies, obviously intent on selling them. But I couldn't stop there. Amazingly, he had noticed me looking at them, so after I had parked a little further up the road, he walked up to me through the heavy traffic.  When I saw that they really did have bulbs on them I bought the whole lot 

Now you must know that fire lilies have a special place in our hearts as they were the first flowers to bloom at the very start of the rainy season in Northern Nigeria. After having had a dry spell of at least six months, those flowers literally were a treat for sore eyes.
Meanwhile, we've put them in the garden, and a few in pots to give away as a present. And what happened? The beautiful (female) Tekezze sunbird came to eat from them.



3. On sunday Robert and I visited the annual Rotary event, where all Addis Abeba Rotaries (at least 12) came together. To my surprise there weren't any old grey guys but there were many many young professionals running the show, at least 300, all speaking English fluently, interested, and intent on imprving the world. The T-short speaking for itself: Join rotary for a better world. Wow, what an atmosphere! I met a very nice guy - teacher social studies at the Greek school- who will introduce me to someone of the board of the Addis Abeba University Printing Press. They may want to print my book in Eglish/ Amharic.

4. After that, I went to the launching afternoon of AraKele, the vocational training for women, set up by a friend of mine, Arabella Stewart. She transformed her hobby/ volunteer work 'project pencilcase' - to provide poor schoolchildren with a pencilcase - into a training in sewing for women school drop-outs, in order that they can start their own business after 9 months. Beautiful Chinese sewing machines. No electrical ones in case there are electricity cuts. You can sponsor one woman's training course with 230 euro. Or give your left over materials to the school. Look at .. http://projectpencilcase.org/arakele-vocational-training/
 

What is so amazing here is that there is an 'after the war' kind of energy here, it is buzzing! There are so many initiatives, set up by young professionals, by women's cooperatives, or by foundations set up by interested foreigners (often dependants).

They make leather bags, shoes, pottery, gowns, handwoven scarfs; I know of 3 Dutch women that have organised a home for women with babies that live on the street. I myself am involved in BSBL , Better Sight Better Learning, which provides glasses and frames for poor schoolchildren with bad eyesight. And so on and so forth.

5. Last week we had invited Arjan van Dijk and his wife Geertje to our house. Arjan - based in the Netherlands - has made the most beautiful books about the people of Ethiopia. I have offered to be the contact person for his selling the books here. I am actually captured by the smaller book he made, about women. He choose to make this book to stress the fact that women all over the world provide for our daily food. On each page there is a picture of a woman, or woman with child. On the opposite page is a wise African saying.

I suggest to whoever this reads, to order it as a Christmas gift. http://www.arjanvandijk.nu/ and 

http://www.arjanvandijk.nu/en/publications-news-links/

I will quote a few:
"Eat when the time is ready; speak when the time is RIGHT" - Ethiopian proverb.
"Every head must do its own thinking" - African proverb
"Every human being chooses his goal in life even before he is born"  - Sabonfe Somee
"When one is in love, a cliff becomes a meadow"  - Ethiopian proverb

Saturday March 22, 2014

Last Sunday March 16th it was Roberts' birthday. Because of that we had decided to throw a party and for the first time invite all the people that we have become friends with in say the last half year. So it was also a house/ garden warming party.  And it was super! the photo gives an impression an that is in our front yard. People were enjoying their lunch under two freshly bought parasols. Very ingenious ones, as they are square and stand aside of the table so together they cover the table quite well. 

I did realise how special this is. That at our age we have encountered so many nice, internationally oriented people, Swiss, English, German, Ethiopian and Dutch, who are now our friends. Some of them knew each other, some not and that made the party extra interesting. I also realised that we live parallel lives now, a life here in Ethiopia and a life in The Netherlands and they exist at the same time. It is like what they say about space and time, that you are the same person that lived 300 years ago and that you are still connected to that time/space. This is similar. and it feels gooed. it doen not feel as being away from home, because home is here. And home is also in Renkum.  It is what Robert and I always have tried to live up to:  home is where you are. 

Treat of the week:  we found a white Pelargonium (usually called Geranium) in a streetside nursery, and bought it.  Exactly the flower  Robert wanted as a birthday present. 

March 7, 2014

It's been a long time that I have been writing. It means that I am quite busy.

And I am, since life has become 'organised' here. That is, we got our car, finally AND we got all the insurance papers, so we have numberplates now and we can drive! Hurrah! And yes, I am driving in this ridiculous traffic. 
And yes, that is right: there is no spare wheel! It was stolen while the car was waiting in Djibouti (harbour) for transport to Addis Abeba. Luckily there is a big Nissan garage in Addis, we thought. But at first they didn't want to help us, since 'they were only dealing with big customers', like businesses and governments and embassies. But since Roberts colleagues have some friends working with Nissan, they changed their minds. 

Furthermore, we have quite a full week-programme. When Robert goes to work, usually around 8:00 or 8:30, I go upstairs to my office room, where I work on the English translation of my book. It must be finished  by April 30st, because then we will go on our annual leave, a month, to the Netherlands. I have promised my friend Lindsay to send her one chapter each week, so that she can edit it and turn it into good English. I am only halfway now, so I really need to pay attention. I work on my book on mondays, tuesdays, wednesdays, and somewhere two half days during the weekend. From 12-14:00 I go to the gym around the corner, for fitness training. On thursdays I visit Belatech, Hanna's mum, for coffee or lunch,or she teaches me a particular Ethiopian recipy,  or  we go to the market together. 
On Fridays is my yoga day, being at 08:00 a.m. at Anne's house to pick her up; then together yoga in the Italian Club; coffee afterwards and usually something to do or dicover- an interesting supermarket, a hairdresser who can actually cut fine European  hair into  a reasonable model. And twice a week I have Amharic classes in town, from 17- 18:30. I am learning slowly slowly, but it is coming! 

Every morning we inspect all the plants we put in pots around the house. Yesterday we had this bizarre flower coming out of a cactus. Isn't she wonderful? 
We looked her up on internet and she is a Obea Stapelia variegata



On Saturdays it is weekend. It depends what we do. Today we went to Piazza, to buy a parasol for Robert's birthday party -lunch, next week Sunday, to have some shade in the garden (It is hot here around 13:00). But there were so many traffic jams in town, that it took us 3 hours to go and come back and a lot of irritation. But we realised why it was: there was a state funeral going on of the president of the state of Oromia, about the largest state in Ethiopia. That was also why so many shops had closed today.  

On Sundays we go to the Tulsi wellness centre, to each get an ayurvedic massage, which is really good: relaxing and healthy. Coffee afterwards on the terrace of the German Bakery, where we then also buy nice (European type of) bread for the rest of the week. Then we have a 'free' afternoon, in which I usually call my dad and am allowed to do one of my hobbies, like working on my blog :), keeping up my photobook, or do some sewing- I got this very nice material, waiting for a pair of wide trousers. 

This morning, when drinking our regular morning coffee in bed at 07:00, there was a sunbird sitting in the sun, beautiful. He has a reddish/ golden ring around his breast. I could only just capture it with my camera.  

To be continued next week,
Enjoy your weekend,
Jelleke