Traveling around Ethiopia with my Sister!

St. George’s Church in Lalibela

Sorry I havn’t posted in a while…. it’s been a whirlwind month or so!  As many of you guys know, my sister Lisa came to visit me in Ethiopia as a surprise!!!  For those of you who don’t know, here’s the short version of the story:  A month or so ago, she and instant messaged each other and she said she had good news, that our mutual friend who works for American Airlines, would be able to put a large piece of luggage in with the cargo on a flight to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.  If I was there on the exact day and time, in Addis Ababa at the airport to meet the oncoming flight, I’d be able to pickup this giant plastic tote container filled with gifts from some of our girlfriends.  She told me she planned a pizza and wine party and invited a bunch of our mutual girlfriends over to hang out, gossip and to each bring a few items they wanted me to have for the tote.

They put in books for my schools, makeup, sweet smelling body wash and scrub, stuffed animals for kids, dry erase boards for deaf/mute students, games, supplies for students for summer camp, and a lot of yummy junk food for me….anyhow, I was super excited and made sure to get to Addis the night before, and got to airport and waited and waited, and talked to airport staff, and still couldn’t find the giant tote with the baggage for the flight and I was starting to get worried….but then, an hour or so later, I grabbed the tote, and hailed a taxi and got back to my hotel excited that everything had gone so smoothly.  (Since I didn’t have a luggage ticket to match up my tote with my flight, I was worried I’d have problems taking the item out of the airport.) Once I got to my hotel, my phone wrang, it was Lisa telling me to come back to the airport, because she was there to surprise me with a visit!!! I was in shock, she had planned to surprise me in the baggage claim area, but I was too fast.   While she was a little disappointed she didn’t get the exact airport surprise she intended, I didn’t care because she’d made it to Ethiopia for a 3 week visit!!!   As it turns out, everyone was in on it, my good PC friend Katie, my PC site-mate in Bonga, Chuck, all our friends ,everyone! 

So, I had a small bag packed as I’d planned to spend a long weekend hanging with my PC friend Katie who was going to meet me in Addis for the 4^th of July weekend, and now I had 3 weeks of travel ahead of me.  Katie and Lisa and I spent a few days in Addis Ababa, the capital, and then went 4 hours by bus, (which turned in to 8 hours because of a bad car accident ahead of us) to the gorgeous resort town of Hawassa where we spent the 4^th of July and several nights.  Hawassa has a giant lake with boats and hippos, and giant stork birds, and amazing Italian food, and 2 stunning resorts with a pool and mini-golf.  Katie and I have a few local friends in Hawassa from our last 2 visits there for my birthday, a and so we got to show Lisa some Ethiopian culture and local food places with good tibs, (like beef fajita meat served in a clay pot with a tiny charcoal fire keeping the meat warm).  We also toured the fish market and were able to throw fish into the mouths of giant stork birds!  We also went to a beautiful, semi-private lake side park and fed giant black and white monkeys by hand!  Lisa also got to ride a gari with me and Katie, (like a cheap version of a horse carriage ride) and enjoyed our nice hotel which had a giant flat screen Lisa could hook up her ipad to, and we could watch giant movies….or the TV show Dallas she had downloaded!  It was fun to be living in Ethiopia and watching the TV show Dallas. 

After our Hawassa fun, we said bye to Katie and we then headed to Bonga, to show Lisa my town and help at the Bonga student summer camp for a few days.  We had fun delivering all the American goodies to the campers, like canvas tote bags for all 26 campers, glow stick bracelets, stickers,  marshmallows for the campfire night etc… I lead a camp presentation on the “Vision For Your Future” with students where the campers got into 4 groups and one group worked together to create a skit about their vision for their future, another group a poster, another group a poem and another group a song…..it was awesome, the kids did so well!

Lisa loved my house and compound family and friends, and survived my outdoor latrine and outdoor cold shower as well.  After a few days we left camp early and took a bus to Addis Ababa then flew to Gonder, an ancient town in Ethiopia that is home to 6 castles.  I have a PCV friend in Gondor so we met with him and got the scoop on the good spots in the town.  We went to an Asmari bet, which is a local, traditional singing and dancing place that has live traditional Ethiopian singing and dancing and a lot of atmosphere.  We toured castles and had a great time taking  tons of photos of each other all over the castles.  There is a really cute one of Lisa with her hair and scarf hanging out of the tower window like Rapunzel.  Our hotel in Gondor was next the most adorable breakfast café with really good food and macchiato.  We also toured a women’s handicraft training facility and bought countless amounts of goods from them!  Gondor was an easy town to navigate and walk, and there are small bajaj’s everywhere.  (A bajaj is like a mini version of a 3 wheeled smart car/go cart). 

After Gondor, we flew to Lalibela, a nearby town with 800 year old monolithic rock-hewn churches that are truly one of the wonders of the world.  The churches were magnificent, and our hotel was perfect with a beautiful garden and lots of birds and the most comfortable beds thus far on the trip.  Lisa and I enjoyed wandering around the churches unaided, but looking back, if I had to do it again, we might have hired a guide to keep the clusters of kiddos at bay who all wanted to talk to us, get money from us, show us their house, and generally annoy us.  As this is a touristy town, I hadn’t expected this level of constant harassment from kids, but I guess most people hire guides to show them the churches and drive around by car and so the kids don’t usually get 2 random American girls wandering around unaided looking as cute as we did!  Also, there are NO bajaj’s in Lalibela, which was a bit surprising, so we got our exercise in this hilly, majestic mountainous town.   So while I highly recommend Lalibela as a must see spot in Ethiopia, if you are not an Ethiopian person, I’d suggest hiring a guide for 2 days to show you around mostly to keep the kiddos at bay.  While we only ate there and soaked up some slow wifi, Mountain View hotel in Lalibela, is the most stunningly beautiful hotel I have ever been in, in the world.  Not in a Ritz kinda way, but in a Frank Lloyd Wright the architect meets the views from Switzerland and there is no distinction between the inside and outside seamlessly blending with warm wood tones and majestic views, it was truly breathtaking…kinda way. 

After Gondor we flew back to Addis Ababa for a day and a half of final bonding, snuggling and shopping before Lisa departed for the States.  But we did establish a few things on our trip. 1.) I HAVE to come home for a 2.5-3 week visit at Christmas, because both her and I can’t wait another year to see each other, and I really want to see the rest of my family and all my friends in Texas, so get prepped people, Lisa’s working on a schedule for seeing Laura over Christmas break, and is taking slots! J  2.) Post Peace Corps, I am moving to New Orleans, Louisiana.  I plan to get my teaching certificate and teach art and get some of my paintings in a few galleries and pursue art there in the summers.  I LOVE New Orleans, the people, the music, the art, the food, the beautiful and historical old homes, the trollies, the walkability of the town, Mardi Gras and they are doing an overhaul of their educational system and looking for more teachers.  3.) I’m going to try and bring Riley back with me to the states, (my neighbor’s puppy that I have taken a liking to).  4.) When I return for my Christmas visit, Lisa’s throwing a Laura’s visiting/Christmas/Neal’s birthday party, probably December 22^nd, so mark you calendars early!  5.)As soon as the TV show Dallas Season 1 is available on DVD, I am so buying it to watch!

So, after Lisa departed back to the states, and I back to Bonga, I’ve had almost a week to recover, get over my nasty cold I’d had most of our trip and get my house in order.  I finished 2 new paintings and a charcoal, and have 2 paintings and 4 charcoals in the works as we speak.  I’ve got loads of free time this summer, and so am drawing and painting to stay sane.   I can’t really complain about all this free time to my undoubtedly overworked American friends and family, but 2 months of free time can make you go a little stir crazy living in a tiny village/town with very, very few distractions and NO nightlife. 

In the space of this last week I’ve given myself a pedicure and facial, taught Riley how to sit on command, cleaned my house, reorganized my dresser, given out all my Lisa/Laura treats to my Ethiopian friends and family, written and mailed 20 notecards with photos, had coffee with friends in Bonga, watched some of the Olympics, baked chocolate chip cookies and given some of them to my compound family, baked walnut and dried cherry scones, taught myself to make “special fool” an Ethiopian breakfast dish, worked out from a fitness magazine, researched alternative teaching certificate options in New Orleans and made a spread sheet from my findings, set out elaborate rat poisonous spots in my house that dogs can’t reach, mailed a mini care package to my Habesha friend who moved to Mizan for a summer teaching program, read 2 magazines, checked up on my vegetable garden at my landlord’s workshop he created for me, re-watched Season 2 of How I met Your Mother TV show, seen 1 movie, finished 2 paintings and a charcoal, picked out my dream apartment in New Orleans online and am wondering how to spend the rest of my roughly 2 months off…as that was only 1 week and I got a lot done.  Also, I’m turning into more of a morning person, so I can’t sleep in, or nap, so I have a LOT of free time on my hands.  I have a plan to do a few paper mache projects, mostly to get rid of a pile of scrap paper.   But I do have a Biogas grant project to check up on for a US Grant Embassy contact of mine(someone else’s  project, not mine), and there is a summer school program I could touch base with and see if I could tutor a bit, so I’ve got some work options too!     Anyhow, I’ll post some pics later, I left my external CD, DVD drive at a friends, and so can’t upload any trip pics at the moment except maybe a few off my camera phone.  Oh, and before I forget, my house in Texas is almost sold, just a little more paperwork and the appraisal to finish so I hope all goes smoothly.

So, I’ll see many of ya’ll in about 5 months at Christmas!!! Then, about another 6-7 months left after that and my service will be complete, wow times flies.  I hope everyone had an amazing 4^th of July, and thanks again to all of you secret keepers out there who helped with Lisa’s surprise, my tote of goodies, and my TONS of birthday cards and treats, it really meant the world to me to feel so supported and loved!