Q & A

Q: Where are you right now?
A :I am in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Q: Why are you there?
A: I am visiting my good college friend Jessica, her husband, and their darling baby.

Q: How long are you staying?
A: Indefinitely. My van is broke.

Now that we got the current news update about my life, here are a few real questions and answers about my trip.

Q: What was the weather like?
A: The weather overall is very temperate. In a year, it will probably only range from 45-85 in the city. While we were there, the highs were between 75 and 80. We were very comfortable wearing jeans and t-shirts. Our Compassion guide from Colorado thought it was humid. No one in our group noticed. : ) The official start of the rainy season was Wednesday while we were there. It rained Thursday, Friday, and Saturday afternoons but never for very long or very hard. They told us that as they get into July it might rain all day. We were glad to have missed that.

Q: Did you get sunburned?
A: No. The elevation of Addis is somewhere near 7,000 feet and we did notice the elevation when we were running around outside but I never wore sunblock and don't think my tan got much darker. It was probably because the smog created a "natural" filter of the sun's rays. Eek

Q: What is the population of the city?
A: The population is listed at 3 million but the guides told us it was much closer to 5 million.

Q: What would you do differently?
A: I would have liked to see outside the city. The only real disappointment of the entire trip was that we didn't make it out to see the countryside and rural population. I didn't even think about it much while we were there because I was so caught up in the experience but since I've been back I've thought about it a lot more.

Q: What were the accommodations like?
A: It was the American equivalent of a bread and breakfast. It is owned by a Texan who adopted from there. He owns five guests houses that cater to Americans staying in the country for adoptions and missions. I shared a room with one other team member and we had a bathroom for our floor. There was a front desk, computer, hot water, dining room table, and gathering/living room area. Overall, it was much better than I expected.

Q: What was the food like?
A: Traditional Ethiopian food is very spicy. You use their bread called injara to pick up and eat the meats that are prepared in spicy sauces. It wasn't my favorite but wasn't bad either. However, we actually ate more traditional food in the States before we left (once in a restaurant and once for our sendoff dinner) than we did in country. The guest house made us very good pizza, rice and veggies, a spaghetti casserole, eggs, and other similar Americanized entrees. We ate lunch at very nice (for Ethiopian standards) restaurants that make menus with westerners in mind. We could have gotten traditional food but I usually didn't. We didn't eat the vegetables and bread is served with EVERY meal. It's good bread but you are never in danger of going hungry with all the bread that they serve.

Q: What is the primary religion of Ethiopians?
A: 50% of the people are Orthodox. About 25% are muslim and 20% are evangelical christians. We saw a lot of Orthodox churches and visited an especially large one. We paid to go inside and sneak a peak. I don't know much of anything about the Orthodox faith but the people are very devout.

Q: What language do they speak?
A: They speak Amaharic. However, all children learn English in school and by high school most of the core subjects are taught soley in English. Therefore, the educated speak useable English. They use characters in their writing of which there are 216. Our translators spoke excellent English and even translated much of the church service we went to on pieces of paper they passed around. They also said learning our alphabet was a piece of cake because we only had 26 letters.

Q: What was the best part of the trip?
A: Playing with the kids and doing the VBS. They really paid attention and answered my questions really well. Thankfully, our translator often teaches Sunday School and I think he got the point across much better than how I tried to say it. He was great with the kids and often expanded a lot on what I said to help them get the point.

Q: What was your least favorite part?
A: Traveling home. First the goodbyes, then the lines, then the 15 hour plane fight, then more lines, then more security, then another plane ride, and then a car ride. Total it was 25 hours from when we were dropped off at the airport in Addis to when we arrived back at church. Ugh.

Q: Would you go back?
A: Absolutely. In fact, it's already being discussed. Want to come with me?????