Ethiopia (Post 1)

I am FINALLY posting on our trip to Ethiopia. It was quite the adventure, and just an incredible experience. After being gone for the past two weeks, though, I have had a lot to catch up on so I haven't gotten to our blog yet. It's going to take me a few days to post all of the pictures and things that we saw, but I'll get to it all . . . eventually.

This is a picture of a wonderful fruit stand. The people were so nice! They gave us some of their homemade bread, too. It had the slightest hint of a spice in it. I could never quite figure out what spice it was, but it was really good.


Another picture of the fruit stand. Most of the fruits and vegetables we saw there were mangos, avocados (twice the size of the ones we see in America), tomatoes, oranges (most of the oranges were green, and they would eat them like that), bananas (a VERY yummy kind we'd never tasted before), papyas, and a green fruit that was kind of spiky on the outside. It was fun to shop at those little fruit stands.


There were a lot of homeless everywhere. This man was begging on the street where we were walking. The interesting thing to us was that he smiled and waved at us and wanted to hold our hands. But, when we pulled out the camera he wouldn't smile. He was very sweet, though.


It's kind of hard to see in this picture, but this is a picture of some men doing construction work. All of the supplies for cement (like the rocks and sand) were just dumped on the sidewalk. Then, they would use handmade stretcher-looking wooden box with handles to move the materials into a little cement maker. All of the buildings are made out of cement. There are buildings being built all over the city. They make them out of cement and then chisel (by hand) holes in the walls for the electrical and plumbing.


These next pictures show the scaffolding they use. Instead of steel supports they use eucalyptus branches. Apparently the eucalyptus wood is very strong, but it's still strange to see the wood holding up the cement or holding men as they work.






This is a picture on the streets of the capital of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa. The brown and cream building in the middle of the picture is a typical house. Many other houses are crudely made out of only metal siding. We weren't sure what the wood structure on the left is, but my guess is that it is a nice house. The gray gate you see on the right is very typical. There are many large gates like this, even around poorer houses. Most gates have a guard. Everything you see here is right next to a large three-story beautiful government building. It was very strange walking the streets and seeing such variety of buildings.


So, there is just a taste of our trip to Ethiopia. I will post more as soon as I get a chance.