What I've Been Doing in Addis Ababa

I just wanted to post a little about my time up in Addis.  I have been to church here twice, and it has been a spiritual boost.  The last two weeks on the farm we didn't have any church meetings, so it was definitely a good thing to get up here, where the church functions well, with sacrament meeting, sunday school and RS and piresthood meetings.  There are two couple missionaries here, the O'Crowleys who are humanitarian missionares, and another couple I can't remember their last name.  That's so typical for me.  Brother O'Crowley teaches the sunday school gospel doctrine class and it has been wonderful to sit in his class and listen and participate in the old testament discussions.  It has been a blessing to be there, and we will be there again on Nov. 7, the day that Morgan and Andrew fly in to Addis.  the church grounds are beautiful and peaceful - I can't say that about any other place here in Addis.  You can tell you are somewhere special when you are there. 
Most my days here have been spent with Kate Hill, Alyssa's 18 year old sister.  She is full of spirit and fun and welcomes adventure.  She has done a lot while she has been here in the country.  We have been out taking in the city of Addis.  We went to the mercado on Saturday and we were immediately approached by a man who told us he would show us around.  He obviously thought we were going to be easy prey.  However, unbeknownst to him, we weren't really all that interested in buying anything, just looking.  After about an hour we tried to lose him, and we did for about 5 minutes.  When he found us again he was angry and said we made him tired.  I told him that he didn't need to stay with us and he could leave us.  He started swearing at me and angrily took off.  Oh well, he just wanted a commission anyway.  I did buy some necklaces after that and Kate got some beads for her hair.  Oh yeah, Kate got her hair put in dread locks last week.  I like them and think she looks very cool.  The ladies at the hair salon didn't think she should do it, but they did it for her anyway.  Then she bought a very Bob Marley type hat and she has some real cool Ethiopian color sandals, and I'm beginning to think she fits right in here.  Much more than I do.  It seems that when we go anywhere together she gets all these guys who want to get her phone number and talk to her, and I get young boys who want to sell me "How to Speak Amharic" books.  Funny.  We have also been to Piazza (an area well known for jewelry sales), the Shola market (traditional clothing and textiles mostly), and lots of souvenir type shops.  We have been to some very good restaurants - Camionetta, The Beer Garden, The Olympia, Deuce, Effoi Pizza, and a lot of hamburger and pizza places. 
I have to tell you about Deuce.  Kate said that you could get really good American hamburgers there, but she had never been there.  Marty, a guy who works here told us it was a dive, and we might not want to eat there and he told us how to get there - kind of.  There are no addresses here that people use, you just have to know where to go and how to get there.  So when we got our taxi driver, we called Marty and he talked to our taxi driver and explained how to get to Deuce. Well we missed it the first time around because it is in a very strange place.  Then when we finally found it we walked into this place that looked like a dive, and there were a lot of people sitting around eating in a very small room.  They all were startled when Kate and I walked in and I smiled at a guy and said' "We're here for hamburgers!"  They just stared and after a second or two they laughed and said there were no hamburgers.  They told us nextdoor there were hamburgers.  It was so dark and that was the only place that had lights on, so I was feeling a little worried.  We went into a really dark place that had a fire in a little front area place and then when our eyes adjusted we could see that there was a room in back.  So we headed for it and ended up in a very small bar, even smaller than where we had just come from.  We saw a guy who looked like the bar tender and Kate started talking in her Ethiopian accented English and said "Weee want hamburgers, TWO!  He looked really bored and said, "I speak English," in a pretty good American accent.  We were so relieved.  We hopped up on some high stools at a very wobbly table and awaited out hamburgers,  all the time laughing at what dorks we were.  Also I think some of it was nerves because we were in such a scarey place, but the owner (bartender) turned out to be very nice and we even had a conversation about how he was going to add french fries to his menu, but for now it was too expensive.  He had lived in Philadelphia and learned to speak better English while he was there.  When the hamburgers came he apologized again that he couldn't give us french fries.  The hamburgers were really good, and the best thing about them was that they didn't have that chopped salad type stuff loaded on them like most Ethiopian burgers.  Also the buns were really good.  Too bad about the fries and the black walls and two little Christmas lights he used for lighting.  Kate said it was as good as McDonalds and he just laughed.  We were really fortunate that the electricity didn't go out.  It goes off on average about every other day for a few hours, if not all day.  That's the hard part about Addis, not realiable public services.  Same with the water - sometimes it's on and sometimes it isn't. 
One day we walked into the church grounds across the street.  They said we could come in but not go in the church.  I think it was because we weren't wearing skirts and scarves.  We did peer in the church and it had a good sized crowd and there was a lot of incense being burned inside.  The chapel part was full of incense smoke.  I wasn't allowed to take any pictures, in fact we were followed around by a little guard who made sure I wouldn't take any.  The church name translates to John the Baptist. It is an Ethiopian Orthodox church, and it has chantings and prayers and songs going at all hours of the day and night over the loud speaker.  Sometimes at night and in the early morning it drives me nuts, and I wish I had access to a gun and was a sharpshooter and I'd blast that loud speaker to kingdom come.  The other night it started at 2:00 am and didn't stop all day.  It must have been a holdiday.  Like in Costa Rica, this country has holidays all the time and 90 percent of them are Christian religion holidays. 
There are beggars on all the streets, mothers, children as young as Leah, young boys and girls, old men and women.  They are so in need.  Some of them have terrible physical ailments and some are just homeless children alone without parents.  They may have been aboandoned or they may have lost their parents to HIV/AIDS or tuberculosis or some other disease.  It is a terrible situation and the country can't even cope with it except to make ridiculous laws against begging and fine the beggars for begging.  I keep wondering why there are such differences in this world.  Why is everything so good in the US and everything so poor in Africa.  For I know it is not just Ethiopia, but most African countries that have such economic problems.  It is hard to walk by and not be compelled to do something, even if it is giving 1 birr ET. 
I'm flying to the farm tomorrow.  I was supposed to go on Tuesday, but the plane that was scheduled to take us was in Nairobi Kenya the night before and for some reason couldn't get clearance to get out of Kenya to fly home to Addis.  So our flight has been delayed two days, and I will see Alan tomorrow after 16 days of being in Addis.  The weather here is mostly perfect.  The plants that grow here are amazing. It doesn't get too hot or too cold, just very rainy in July - September.  Alan is worried about the no-rain situation on the farm.  He was advised against planting so much grain early by Haile, but had to plant it anyway, because that's what he was told to do by others in the company.  Now some of it is just sitting in dry dirt and will either not germinate or will die because it can't get enough moisture.  Some of the Ethiopians are wondering why the grain doesn't grow.  They were told that this Jefferson wheat would grow without any moisture.  Hmmmm, how did that little idea get put in their heads?  Alan has to explain that it is a drought tolerant variety not drought proof.  What a disappointment this rainy season has been.  No rain to speak of, I wonder if any of my flowers are going to be alive when I get back to the farm.  I hope so - hope springs eternal. 

Just a week and a half and then we will see faces from home.  Everyone here and down at the farm are amazed, happy and excited that Morgan and her family are coming.  The two little blondies are going to be loved and petted and spoiled when we get to the farm.  Everyone is eagerly awaiting their arrival.  My next post just might have pictures of all of that.  Until next time.

Rome in July!

Alan and arrived in Rome on the morning of July 8, 2010.  We took our time at the airport because we didn't want to make any mistakes that we would regret later.  We decided that since the Leonardo Da Vinci airport is around 17 miles outside of Rome, that we would leave almost half our luggage in storage at the airport (6 Euros per day for 4 days per bag), that way we wouoldn't be dragging all our luggage with us to the hotel on the shuttle.  We were going to take a train, which goes from the airport to the termini right in the middle of Rome which was about 14 euros each, but then a shuttle (van) driver came up to us and told us he would take us dirrectly to our hotel for 15 euros each.  If we had gone on the train, we would have had to drag our luggage for something like 8 blocks over cobblestone.  Not fun, so we went into Rome with the shuttle driver.  By the way, a euro was about $1.26.  We saw the colesseum as we drove through Rome and we started to get very excited about our days in Rome.  After we got to our hotel (Art Deco Best Western), we walked around our neighborhood for a few hours, then went back to the hotel.  Then we walked out for dinner and found a little sidewalk cafe called Florian's where we had some good food.  We saw that someone behind us ordered a Hawaiian pizza and yes, Noah, it was on the menu.  Then we walked to the piaaza Republican and took some pictures. 

The next morning, we took off to the termini, excited to try out the metro and the public buses and found out that we couldn't use either because of a scheduled strike.  So we found a tourist bus and got on it about 15 Euros each.  We went all around Rome seeing all the big buildings but not stopping.

 It was a hop on/hop off deal and so you could get off wherever you wanted and then catch the next bus coming your way.  We stopped off at the Vatican and had lunch there and then went in to the St. Peters Basillaca. 

This is the Piazza San Pietro and was laid out by Bernini between 1656 and 1667

Of course I recognized the famous Swiss guards who guard the Vatican City.  I want to be a guard and wear that cool clown costume.

Then we into St Peter's and then went over to the Vatican museums and the Sistine chapel.  All fabulous and free.

This is in St Peter's Basillica.  Most of the great architects of the Renaissance and Baroque had a hand in the design of the basillica which is one of the most famous churches in Christendom.

This is the famous Dome of St Peters. It is 136.5 meters high and was designed by Michelangelo and not completed in his life time.

This is the extravagant baroquecanopy that stands above St. Peter's tomb.  It was comissioned by Pope Urban VIII in 1624 made by Bernini.  Below is Michelangelo's Pieta which is protected by glass since an attack in 1972.  The Pieta was created in 1499 when Michelangelo was only 25. 

The vatican museums are home to the Sistine Chapel and Raphael Rooms and houses one of the world's most important art collections.  They are housed in palaces originally built for Renaissance popes.  I didn't know much of what I was looking at, but I was very impressed by the ceilings.  These guys were great at ceilings.

No pictures allowed of the Sistine chapel.  Sorry folks.

I loved this little outside place with a pina cone statue.  It is actually named that.

This staircase up and down to the museums was designed in 1932 by Guiseppe Momo and is in the form of a double helix consisting of two spirals - one for up and one for down.

Then we hopped on the bus again and went to the the Trevi Fountain.  That was crazy, the crowd was huge.  I think that took all of our day. 

We ate at Florians again that night, I guess we felt comfortable there.  Really good food in Rome - very Italian, imagine that.  That was Friday.  Saturday we went to the termini and bought a Roma pass (25 Euros each).  That gives you access to public busses and the metro and your first two paying sights are free when you use the Roma Pass, so we chose to go to the colesseum.  We got on the metro and had a good time figuring out which side of the tracks we were supposed to be on.  When we got to the colesseum we didn't have to wait in line because we had a Roma Pass.  The colesseum was gigantic and we took a lot of pics.

Then we decided to get on a bus and find the Pantheon.  We got on the bus going the wrong way, of course, and then had to come back the way we had come.  We finally found the Parthenon down some very narrow windy streets, which were very charming.  The Pantheon is gorgeous, supposedly the most pleasing architecure and best proportions of any building in the world at that time.  I was impressed and so was Alan (his favorite thing in Rome).

 We again visited the Trevi Fountain and then up one metro stop to the Spanish Steps piazza. 
On Sunday we checked out of our hotel, and the hotel let us leave our luggage there for when we left in the evening for the airport.  We decided to go to the Roman Forum which now is my favorite thing to see in Rome.  I loved seeing all the ruins. 

Then we walked up to the Capitoline Hill.  By the way, after you walk around Rome, you do realize that it is very hilly.  Seven Hills of Rome, if I remember correctly. 
We were supposed to catch our plane to Addis at 12:55 in the morning, so we went to te hotel to pick up our luggage, and Alan called our shuttle man, who woldn't come and get us.  There just happened to be another shuttle at the hotel picking up someone else, so we asked if there were enough room for us.  He said yes, and we again paid about 14 - 15 euros to get back to the airport.  We got our other luggage out of storage and then went to check in forour flight.  There was no one at the counter so we left and had a bite to eat.  Wen we came back, there was a long line.  We waited and when it was our turn we were asked if we would be willing to stay another night in Rome and fly down the next night.  Ethiopian Airlines had sent too small of a plane and this plane was coming from Brussels, to Rome, to Addis, to Johannesburg.  They said they would put us up in a 4 star hotel, give us tree meals, and give us 1200  Euros if we would stay.  We said yes, but we had to wait for about three hours before they sent us to the hotel. 
The next day (Monday) we rode the train into Rome, for we were in a hotel out by the airport.  We decided to spend the day at the Vill dell Borghese walking the grounds.  Very extensive, some museums, and Beautiful.  We ate gelatos everyday.  I never realized that gelato was the word for ice cream in Italian until I was in Rome.  I thought a gelato was something different than ice cream.  It suddenly made sense in my head how close the word "gelato" is to the spanish word "helado."  Then it all kind of got put together.  Very good ice cream, and very refreshing on those hot Roman days and Roman nights.  We had a great time and I loved every hot, sweaty, crowded, noisy, Italian minute of it.

Oh My Goodness, Time is Flying and so is Lily!

May and June have come and gone too fast!  How does this happen every year?  I wait and wait for my favorite season and then it seems like it's over and done in a week.  I'm really not happy about this time- flying stuff.  Here are a few pictures of everyday June kind-of things here on the farm. 

Leah and Lily come to visit almost everyday (if I'm home). We ate rhubarb stalks when it was ready and even made some rhubarb muffins, rhubarb crisp, and I meant to make Alan a pie, but I didn't.  Hopefully I can get that in still before we're long gone.

For some of us, rhubarb is too sour!

Alan shipped three pickups and two trucks and gooseneck trailers to Ethiopia with the help of Bracken and Dexter Clark. They drove all the way to Houston while I visited in Castle Dale and Orangeville. Yeah, that was fun and relaxing for me, while he was suffereing with 100 degree weather and, he says, 120% humidity.

Lily learned how to fly this month!  She is so advanced for her age.

The cherry tree blossomed beautifully, and  the sun set grandly shining on the Tetons and there really is such a thing as a silver lining here in Idaho.

We had Linda and Val Hill and their daughter Karen from Texas, for dinner one night.  We became very good friends with the Hills over in Ethiopia.  And Andrew's sis, Julie was also with Morgan and Andrew for about two weeks.  What a delicious meal and great company. 

While I was in Castle Dale, I quilted with Jenny's machine and got this sweet quilt finished.  It is a pattern called Pink Lemonade from a book "Quilting Through the Seasons," by Eleanor Burns.  Here you see front and back.  It wasn't my best effort, but it sure was fun and exciting to be running the big long arm.

Here are some pics of others quilts and wall hangings I have made. 

The top one I made for mom, but didn't get it quilted before her death, so I've kept it.  I hand appliqued it and then quilted it by hand and on my machine.  The second one is called Sawtooth Flower from a kit and I quilted it on my machine.

this one was a joint effort by Sara and me.  Pieced by me and tied and bound by Sara.  I have made several of these for baby gifts here in our ward for new moms.  It's all flannel and I turned the blue squares perpendicular to each other and finished itwith the cutest little triangle edges,  What did you call them Jenny?  All the sudden I can't remember.  I guess my age is showing.

Love this quilt called "Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice."   It was a kit by Cotton Way.

Such a great boy's quilt.  this is "Apple Cores" and made with all plaid fabrics in browns, greens and reds.  I love it.

I made this quilt a couple of years ago from a kit.  It is called Country Village by Colorado Quilt Designs.  Below are some close ups of the rows. 

Now after all those quilts don't you wish you had some of these? 

These are bisquet aux pepites chocolat,  a la Maureeee!  The best chocolate chip cookie recipe ever.  And I saved some of the dough for tomorrow.  What a smart cookie am I!!!!