Tuesday, April 02, 2013

Aubrey and I woke up this morning to Mrs. Turlington politely knocking on the door saying, “we’re leaving in five minutes. I forgot to wake you guys up,” so as usual, we looked great. We took a short drive to The University of Addis Ababa where the Center for Creative Leadership, an organization originally based out of Greensboro, has an office. We split up into groups to help give feedback on their Tool Kit for girls, which helps teach girls a variety of lessons, like leadership and healthy relationships. The tool kits are used in afterschool programs called Girls Clubs, which are designed to empower young girls outside the classroom.

Florrie and Erin’s group talked about leadership, while our group talked about relationships. We did activities involving sets of words and determining their importance in healthy relationships. A student from the university helped our group understand the concepts from the viewpoint of an Ethiopian girl. It was clear that relationships are very different culturally, specifically regarding male and female interactions.

After we left the university, we made our way to Island Breeze for lunch. We had to drive through a special gate to get to the parking lot, walk down a pathway, and enter the restaurant through a dark hallway. The restaurant was virtually silent because there was only one person in there, and apparently the power was out. Everything on the menu looked great, and we all had a little trouble deciding what we wanted. We were all also disappointed when the waitress told us we couldn’t have fries because the power was out. Luckily, after we had ordered, she came and said the power was back on and we could have fries. Hooray! Everyone enjoyed their food when it came, especially Florrie. Amy left before the food came to go pick up a cash register for the Cherokee office and didn’t come back in time for her food. We all finished our food and she still wasn’t back yet, but her full plate of nachos was still sitting on the table. Finally, she came back and ate a little, then took the rest to go.

From the restaurant, we drove to pick up Biniam on the way to Kingdom Vision International Orphanage. After getting Biniam, we also stopped to pick up another Ethiopian woman who works with Biniam at the church and visits orphanages regularly. When we got to the orphanage, the woman in charge said the older kids were still at school but would be home soon, so in the meantime, we got a tour of the orphanage and saw the babies and toddlers. Soon after, the kids arrived and immediately grabbed our hands and pulled us around. We gave them all bubbles to play with and made some new friends. The older kids started making necklaces outside, so we went inside to see the toddlers and babies. We sat in the playroom with about 13 toddlers and played with all their toys. Some were very friendly, while others cried every time you looked at them. Some of us left the toddler room to play with the infants because they like to be held. We all gathered back together outside one last time to see the kids, played a little bit longer, and then we left.

On our very long drive back to the house, we got stuck in a lot of traffic. Amy got a call telling us once again, our dance instructor had to cancel, so our evening plans are iffy. Hopefully, we can reschedule for Thursday night because Yeon Mi was sooooo excited about learning how to dance. Now we’re sitting in our room writing this blog post, waiting for dinner. It’s taco night! Maybe tonight we’ll play some board games, watch a movie, and work on our journals. Overall, it was a great day and we’re looking forward to our trip to the countryside tomorrow!

                                                                                           -    Julia Weaver and Aubrey Finley ‘13

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

Sunday, March 31, 2013

This morning, all of us didn’t seem to struggle with jet lag. Because of the 2-4 hours power nap we took yesterday, we were able to overcome 7 hours difference. After eating the breakfast which was prepared, the Easter bunny came. Wishing the Easter bunny to come, Florrie was super excited. After that, we went to the International Evangelical Church. It was nice to celebrate Easter, even though it is not Easter in Ethiopia. The “international” church was full of people from other countries. The service we attended was in English. However there were French, Korean, and Chinese worship service also!! After the service, we came back to Cherokee house and took a moment to change to comfortable clothes.

We left the Cherokee house, and went out to eat lunch. We ate lunch at “Top View” and the view from there was literally amazing. We were able to see the whole Addis Ababa and enjoy the lunch simultaneously. The restaurant we went to had some Ethiopian traditional meals, and the Western meals which include several types of burgers, pasta, and sandwiches. Because we were planning to eat dinner in an Ethiopian traditional restaurant, we all chose the Western meal, burger. Even though, the burgers we got were quite different from the one we can get in States, they were enjoyable. After the lunch, except Mr. Turlington, we ate ice cream. After the delightful lunch and dessert, Mr. Turlington took some group pictures of us. Erin, sitting next to me, is trying to upload one of the pictures on Facebook, but the slow internet doesn’t let her do it!

Next, we went to the Joy House which is a house for orphaned girls. We introduced ourselves, and the girls in the Joy House introduced themselves. The girls’ ages ranged from 16-25. After the brief introduction, we started some icebreaking games to get close to each other, and found out we have lots of things in common. After the fun games, we had traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony. It was supposed to be three rounds, which means 3 cups of coffee, but we only had two rounds. During the coffee ceremony, we talked to each other a lot, and got to know each other more. Some of the girls like Justin Bieber, and they all like High School Musical! During the ceremony, the neighbor kids of the Joy House joined us. One of the kids really liked Mr. Turlington’s camera, and started to take pictures of us. Not able to hold the camera properly, he took pictures of our legs and the floor.

After the Joy House, we picked up Binium and headed to Ethiopian traditional restaurant called Yod Abyssinia. Because lots of tourists visit the restaurant, the restaurant had more intense system to check our belongings. They even had metal detector! We had injera, and different types of sauce and toppings(?) from yesterday’s lunch. It was super good! Especially Ms. Turlington, Florrie, I, Erin, and Mr. Turlington enjoyed it a lot. After the dinner, traditional dances and songs were performed. Some of the dances were quite intense! There was a dance which two women performed, and this was more intense than any other performances. They swung their heads a lot. Aubrey even danced on stage with the dancers!

We have done lots of things, and are absolutely enjoying the time here!

-        Yeon Mi Hwang, ‘14

Saturday, March 30, 2013

After what seems like several long days of traveling, it is now 8:30 PM on Saturday and we are settling down to relax and watch an Ethiopian movie at the house. What a perfect time to update the blog! Our adventure began at 4:00 AM Friday morning. I am not a morning person, but with the help of some bagels and Sprite we were able to conquer early morning at RDU. Our flight to DC was on a smaller connecting plane. We arrived in DC at 7:30 AM and had a layover until our flight to Addis Ababa began boarding at 10:00 AM. Once on the plane, we found our seats. Yeon-Mi, Julia, and Aubrey were seated in the front row of Economy, and while Yeon-Mi slept with no problem, Julia and Aubrey had some trouble resting, but passed the time by eating candy. The rest of us were seated closer towards the back. Since the flight wasn’t completely full it turned out that Erin, the Turlingtons and myself each had two seats to use which made the flight more comfortable.

We anxiously awaited our arrival during the 13 hour flight, and when we arrived it was 7:00 AM on Saturday in Addis Ababa. We stood in line for our visas, and then went through immigration before getting to baggage claim. All seemed well until we were down to Aubrey’s bag. As we started to see the same bags go around but not Aubrey’s, we found that there was a list of all the bags that didn’t make it posted already. Sure enough, hers was on it! We are bummed for her, but the airport says we should get it on the next flight from DC tomorrow. Fingers crossed! The whole process took a lot of waiting, and after putting our luggage through one final screening, we were out in the lobby of the airport by around 9:00 AM. Once in the lobby, we met our host Amy who took us out into the parking lot. The weather is in the 70s here, so we were all happy to walk outside and it not be unseasonably cold as it was when we left Raleigh. We met our driver, Abbi and loaded into a van to make our way to the house. The airport is on the opposite side of town from the house, so we jumped right in as we rode through town. Now, since I tend to be carsick, I was in the very front seat of the car, between Abbi and Amy. As far as traffic in Addis goes; traffic lights are practically nonexistent, (there are two intersections that have them in the city), the road is not divided into lanes, and jaywalking is not illegal. This means that when you have an opening, you drive. If someone is crossing the street, you honk. If three cars are trying to squeeze through the same place, you pray it works! Our driver is a pro, and it was incredible to watch as he navigated the streets. As we drove through the city, Amy pointed out some preliminary things in the city. Public transportation in the city also happens in what we would call a “fifteen passenger van.” There are two men that run it-the driver and the man who collects the money. As the driver drives, the money guy yells out the window where they are headed and then passengers hop on.

The culture of Ethiopia is largely dominated by the Orthodox Church and their calendar. We have been told that almost every day is a holiday in the Orthodox Church, and today was no different. Today was the day of Saint Mary! We were so excited when we heard this; it was if we were meant to be here today. This meant that there were throngs of people surrounding each Orthodox Church we passed. Another fun fact: apparently Ethiopia has more donkeys per capita than any other nation, so there were lots of Donkeys to be seen. When we got to the house after a 30 minute drive, we put down our things, showered, and settle into our rooms. The house is lovely, with a cool kind of mid-century modern vibe which is great for storage because there are tons of cabinets! We were all (especially Mrs. Turlington) excited to see they have a dog named Rosie who lives here as well. After our showers, we gathered in the living room for a brief house/culture orientation with Amy. Some of the things we learned were that the time and date are different here! It is currently the 21^st day of the seventh month in the year 2005. They are also on a 12 hour clock, which I still don’t completely understand.

After this brief meeting, we headed out to pick up Binium, a local Ethiopian friend of Cherokee, who walked us through a traditional Ethiopian meal. After picking him up, we headed to the restaurant. Mr. Turlington was the only one in the group who had eaten Ethiopian food before, and we all agreed it was tasty! At this point, many people were starting to nod off, but that didn’t stop Yeon-Mi, Mrs. Turlington, and I from easily taking out everything on our plate. Everything is eaten with the right hand, using spongy bread called injera as a vehicle for the various dishes. Our group’s favorite dish was called chechebsa. The best way I can think to describe it is that it’s akin to a soft chip like food made of wheat that you top with honey and yogurt. It provides a nice contrast from the spicier chick pea dishes. As Binium taught us, Ethiopia is also the birthplace of coffee. It is custom to have coffee following all three meals of the day. We will take part in a traditional coffee ceremony later in the week, but this afternoon Binium took us to Kaldi’s coffee for a macchiato. The macchiato is present in Ethiopia from when they were occupied by Italy, and remains popular (apparently this also means the pizza here is pretty good!)

After our macchiatos, the group was still really struggling to stay awake, so we came back to the house around 3:00 PM for a nap. I was awakened by what I thought was the setting sun and a call to prayer so when I woke up at 6:00 PM, I was actually convinced it was the next day. When Mrs. Turlington told us dinner was in 20 minutes I insisted we had actually slept through it. Julia and Aubrey felt the same way. As soon as we were on board with the fact that it indeed was still Saturday, we gathered for dinner. The house has a cook, who makes dinner every night and various baked goods that are available for snacking throughout the day. We had a delicious vegetable soup for dinner, and most of us also had grilled cheese. One of the housemates, Will, is doing his Gap year here and went to Sanderson in Raleigh, so it was fun to talk about different people and places we both knew even though we are in the middle of a new country. Every once in a while they watch movies here at the house, putting up a sheet to use as the screen in the living room and then connecting a laptop to a projector. Tonight is one such night! Since everyone is pretty tired, we are having a low key evening watching an Ethiopian romantic comedy. The movie is in Amharic, but has English subtitles. Although I haven’t really followed the plot because I have been writing this blog, it has been funny because both Norah Jones and Michael Buble have been featured in the soundtrack of the film!

It has been a long two days, and we are all ready for bed. As you all know, tomorrow is Easter in Western cultures, and we will actually be attending an International Church that will celebrate Easter tomorrow. Hopefully the Easter Bunny will find his way to Addis! We have had a wonderful first few hours in Ethiopia, and are so excited for what is to come.

-        Florrie McCard, ‘14