Friday, April 05, 2013

This morning I woke up a full hour and a half before our scheduled departure for the day, which is the earliest I have gotten up all week. It was nice to relax and take in our last morning in Addis. I also took pictures of the house, because Mr. Turlington didn’t understand the necessity of said endeavor. After we were all assembled, we headed to Salem’s Designs.

An oasis with beautiful gardens within the crowded city, Salem’s was originally established to help mothers of twins earn a living through basket weaving. Today, it has expanded into a full compound and shop with the artists on site. In addition to basket weaving, Salem’s also has weaving, jewelry making, and other products through a co-op system. The founder, Salem, met us to give us a tour and more information about the establishment. We were able to meet some of the original women, (mothers of twins) as well as meet other men and women who have joined Salem’s. Actually-fun fact-an interesting tidbit we have learned during our time here is that men are traditionally the weavers in Ethiopian culture. The women would do the spinning and prepare the materials for the men to use. Salem’s is now experiencing great success. Through an organization based in Idaho that helps artisans in countries like Ethiopia to sell their products in the American market, Salem’s goods are available on Walmart.com and she hopes to be on Macys.com and in Anthropologie soon! They have also purchased the compound across the street and are poised for expansion. After we had learned about Salem’s, we all headed to the shop and were excited to buy the products we had seen being made. Everyone was very friendly, and it was great to be able to support their business.

 Following Salem’s, we went to lunch and met up with Biniam. We all enjoyed lunch, and ran into the director of Cherokee Gives Back here in Addis. The only confusion arose when Julia had ordered fried chicken, but was served stir fried chicken. The power was out when we first got to the restaurant, not an uncommon problem here, but came back on while we were eating and we found that this is the first restaurant we have gone too that has televisions, which is common place back home.

After lunch we went to Destiny Academy, a Kindergarten through eighth grade private school. The campus is divided into two campuses, one for the younger children and another across the street for fifth grade and up.  Hareg, the founder of Destiny, met us at the campus for younger children first. She remembered the group from two years ago very fondly and was really excited to see us! Our group split into two groups, and one group went to first grade, and my group went to third. The classes are taught in English and Amharic from a small age,(in government schools English doesn’t start until the students are older) so when we walked into the classrooms the students stood and greeted us in English. In the third grade, we sat in on a review lesson about “The Universe.” The students were extremely bright, and had taught me a few new things about the solar system, all in their second language. After some serious learning, we played with some balloons we had brought and fun was had by all.

Across the street at the second campus, we visited the classrooms of the oldest students before settling down to take part in a worksheet about life science with a fifth grade class. We all crowded into the classroom and learned about amphibians, locusts, and kidneys...to name a few of the topics. For the last question, the teacher asked the guests to answer… meaning us. So when he asked for a definition of contamination (talking about food) I raised my hand and answered that it was when “bad things get in the food and make it unsafe to eat.” Next, to my surprise, he asked me to come write it on the board! As I wrote the wordy definition on the board, there were giggles from the classroom, most likely due to my less than average handwriting. It was fun nonetheless and great to share this time with such gracious teachers and students.

After stopping by the grocery store to spend the last of our Birr, we returned to the house to shower, pack, and eat dinner. Now we are getting ready to leave for the airport (we go in five minutes) and it is definitely not an easy goodbye. Wish us luck on our flight, and we can’t wait to see you all back home!

-        Florrie McCard, ‘14