And it’s not because of excitement. My body is still coping with the altitude in Addis Ababa, my heart is beating so fast. I thought at first it was because of the coffee I had at the coffee ceremony, but my Sister informed me that it was due the altitude and my body should get used to it in about a week. I am still getting used to the time difference too. I fell asleep at 2:00 pm yesterday and woke up at 7:00 pm then fell asleep around 4:00 this morning.

For breakfast I had a fresh baked bread called Dabo (scrumptious) and injerra furr furr. It’s mashed up injerra with some spices (disclaimer: all this spelling is going to be jacked up y’all, I’ma let you know now). I also had fresh blended papaya juice (puree?). I will do an apprenticeship in the kitchen with the lady who cooks so I can learn. Yesterday I went to the market to learn some amharic. I just walked around and asked the folks I was with Wen this, Wen that? I learned the words for eggs, tomato, avocado, sweet potato, onion, sugar, flour, rice, guava and butter, only half of which I remember. As I learn though I will put the greetings, like the one g_love put in her response. This morning I also learnt to count to 5. I told them I’d learn 5 more tomorrow, they found that rather amusing.

This morning they slaughtered a lamb to commemorate the end of the 15 day fast. The day I got here I believe was the end of it. I missed it, but there was a large procession at the Orthodox church. The fast consists of ppl not eating or drinking until 3:00 and then eating no animal products. So actually ppl did their feasting that day, my Sister says they “gorge themselves” on a variety of meat dishes, including one called kitifurr that’s raw hamburger meat (yikes!). IMHO that’s one of the traditions that can be phased out. But anyway there was no feasting on the day that I came because We had some visitors from New York who are moving to Tanzania who are vegetarian. So out of respect for them they refrained from killing the lamb. The visitors were trying their darnedest to give the lamb a name and make it a family pet. No luck. A neighbor came and said the prayer over the lamb before it was killed. Also every Wednesday and Friday the Orthodox Christians fast. I hope to participate in a church service, I hear a lot of what is done in orthodox Christianity is similar to what was in KMT, in particular the Temkat (sp?) procession. This is analogous to the Opet procession that can be found on the walls of some of the pyramids in KMT. I also would like to visit other historic sites as may can be found in Ethiopia. I hear the mosques are quite beautiful too. Lucky for me I will be here for the Ethiopian New Year, so that should be fun.



thanks for all the warm wishes!