Monday, April 01, 2013

Some of us struggled to get up this morning after a rough night’s sleep, but today’s fulfilling schedule cheered everyone up eventually. At 8 am in the morning, we are on our way to mountain Entoto to enjoy the beautiful view there. It was a lovely mountain from which we could see the entire view of Addis Ababa. We couldn’t believe how many skyscrapers are out there until we were on the top of the mountain. The group did some walking on the mountain and because of the high attitude, almost everyone felt a little bit out of breath.

We walked down the mountain to visit Connected in Hope, an association that has a scarf business for former fuel wood carriers. Fuel wood carriers are mostly women. Before this association was founded, they would spend the entire day to carry wood from the top of the mountain to the foot of mountain to sell them in the market. One trip is roughly 7 miles and the woods weigh 100 pounds. They would make a profit of 3 birrs per day, which roughly equals to 16 cents. Connected in Hope is aimed at helping wood carriers to improve their lives. Former wood carriers now are able to make scarves for a living. They can make 30 birrs out of each scarf and it only takes two to three hours to make one. Each one of us tried to weave and it was a lot of fun! The compound we visited also has a day care center for the kids of the former wood carriers (now scarf makers). The group swept the scarf store as well. Each of us bought a lot of scarfs for our friends and families. We also visited the new compound they are building which is going to be put in use this summer.

We started our afternoon with a visit to the lion zoo. It was interesting to see how they charged foreigners for a higher price. Each of us paid ten times more than our Ethiopian tour guide! In the zoo, Julia got so excited about the lions that she jumped over the fence and pet one of them. ;) As exciting as it was to visit the lions, we were sad to see their poor living conditions. There was trash in the cages and it was hard for the lions to enjoy the sunlight in cages like those.  We went to the National Museum after the zoo. It was eye-opening to learn about Ethiopian traditions, living facilities, and religions. The museum is famous for “Lucy”, the first complete fossil found that is the bridge between apes and humans. (However, Lucy is actually on display in New York right now so we only saw a replica.) The archeologist who found her named her after a Beatles’ song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” because he was listening to it when he found her. It was a great visit.

We went to buy the famous Ethiopia coffee before we ended our day. Everyone bought a little bag of coffee to bring home. We have been drinking coffees since we got here and they taste very authentic. It’s been a fun but exhausting day and everyone can’t wait to go back to the house and take a power nap.

We spent our night in the house.  It is a restful evening full of food and laughter. Our housemate Mungsun put on a magic show for us after dinner. It was magical. Julia described it as “life-changing.” Now everyone is chatting away in the living room. It’s been a great day and every one of us is looking forward to our adventure tomorrow!

-        Erin Xu, ‘13