Sorry for the delay. The internet has been having trouble connecting.
First of all, lets talk about the all-nighter a few if us pulled Thursday night in order to try and sleep on the plane. The idea was that if we stayed up then we could treat the 13 hour plane ride as our nighttime and feel rested when we landed in Addis Ababa at 7 am. It's safe to say it was executed flawlessly. Way past the point of exhaustion, we loaded the bus to head to RDU. A big shoutout to Ms. McGlohon for waking up at 3:30 to drive us to the airport in the freezing cold; not to mention our first bus wouldn't start which meant unloading and reloading all of the luggage. The time at RDU is a blur of checking what seemed like hundreds of bags and dosing off while waiting to board our flight.
After our quick flight to Dulles and a sit down breakfast, we were ready to board our 13 hour flight to Addis. We boarded the plane and were awestruck by how big the plane was. Each seat had a pillow and a blanket, and flight attendants handed out packages with socks (to keep your toesies cozy), eye masks, toothbrush, toothpaste, and ear plugs. Our flight took off on time and everyone was enthralled with the fabulous movie choices (including Frozen!!!) and most of us passed out immediately. There were some prime pictures of people sleeping with their mouths wide open... Anyways, the flight was quite comfortable, especially for such a long international flight. The time difference through us all for a loop since we were in a completely different day than people in America for a few hours. Finally, we landed at around 6:45 am, Ethiopian time so about 11 pm New York time.
We all headed off the plane in a groggy state, despite the all-nighter experiment, and went to get our visas and go through customs. We stood in the line for a short time, telling stories, until we all got our hand written visas and passports stamped. We grabbed our bags from baggage claim (all 10 billion of them) and put them through the x-ray. Amy and Bini (our local Ethiopian guide) met us outside of the customs/baggage claim area and we were all interested to see all of the local Ethiopians staring at us, especially since a few of us had blonde hair. We loaded the bus and headed for the Cherokee House, which is amazing by the way. It was so cool to see animals wondering around the grass lots and near the streets as we drove by. The pigs, goats, and cows made all of us smile despite our exhaustion.
After learning the lay out of the house, we all took a short rest where people showered, rested, rehydrated, checked in with family, and told some hilarious jokes (just ask Carson about it). Before we left for lunch, we had a little pow wow about the Ethiopian culture as well as some dos and don'ts of the house. We all packed our shoulder bags and loaded in the van to go eat some traditional Ethiopian cuisine at Yeshi Buna. I'm not gonna lie, I was a little scared at first but we all tried it and it was actually quite good. When eating there were some traditional rules like only eating with your right hand, feeding each other as a sign of endearment, and not licking your fingers. After our meal, we ran a quick errand about our itinerary and then went to the bank to exchange our money. In case you didn't know, the currency comparison is about 19.6 burr for every 1 dollar. After the bank we all went to get a little caffeine in our systems with Ethiopian macchiatos, which were delicious.
After our energy pick-me-up, we split into small groups to ride the public transportation and then walk back to the house. I was with Carson, Kayla, Mrs. Turlington, and Bini on the bus and we actually met another America woman from New York! She has been here for 8 months and is working at refugee camps around Ethiopia. We said goodbye to our new friend and walked back to the house just in time before the rain started. Tishu, another one of our guides, then taught us a short Ethiopian song which we could sing to the children we will be visiting. The real challenge though was writing our names in amharic since the characters are a little difficult and there are SOO many different letters, much more complicated than our regular 26 alphabet standard.
Overall, the city is amazing to be in, although sometimes sad to see because of the poverty. I noticed how there were tiny shops lined up together in what looked like tiny tin shacks. The culture shock was strange since we are so used to the American way of life, but its so cool to be able to see a completely different culture from our own. There are many beggars in the city who will come up to the van or while we are walking. It was an awesome first day, despite the tiredness caused by jet lag. We're all about to crash even though its only 8:30 (around 1:30pm in America!). We're all looking forward to visiting the orphanage and going to church tomorrow, but thats all for now. Ciao!
Fun Fact for the Day: Ethiopia was never colonized so they have a very unique culture.
- Relia Monk, '15
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