Saturday, February 11th

The Weaver Bird in it's Nest...

Our last morning here at Lake Awasa. We got up early and headed up to the balcony with breakfast expectations of buna and smoothies; papaya & pineapple this morning. Every morning here on the balcony we have watched the Weaver birds – about the size of a Robin - of this area (as we will find other sub-species in Kenya) build their unique hanging nests, stealing from each other and robbing uninhabited, older nests. There’s another bird that looks like a black hummingbird with a red breast; but I’m told there aren’t hummers here. I sure needed a bird identification book, didn’t I?

As we say out goodbyes to the hotel staff, our waiter of the past few days wanted his picture taken as so many here. Then it’s off to pack Sirak’s car. Since Hobtom’s accident, we only have one driver with seven of us to transport and Sirak takes Carol, Kyle and Steve to the Awasa Nursery first, in order to do some last planning and detail work for the pump/watering system/holding tanks. So, while we waited at the hotel, Sirak came back and said a rental car with one of the men from Addis was on it’s way (with a driver as apparently no vehicle gets rented in the area without it’s own driver – and with these road conditions, I am certainly not one to argue!) and that we’d wait for them. They arrive finally and we loaded our bags into this new vehicle as after this, we would be parting ways – Steve to head to Sudan and us back to Addis Ababa and onto the next leg; Kenya.

Then… remember… what can go wrong will in Africa? Well… the new vehicle won’t start. Thank God Sirak knows cars. He was prepared with a cable - and tools for most minor emergencies – and pulled the land cruiser backward so that we could push start it. Push start a diesel? I’d never heard of such a thing. But it worked and that’s all that mattered. Finally, we get on the road to the nursery to meet up with the others. We turn off the main road onto a narrow dirt road and encounter parents either picking up or dropping off their children at two schools on the opposite sides of the road (not sure as it was around 9:30am), parking cars on either side of the road leaving only one car-width between the parked cars. Sure enough, a heard of approximately 20 cattle were being driven up the road toward us and were the third car back trying to get through. Finally, the man driving the cattle herds them around the parked cars and threads the needle through all the rest of us and we head the short distance remaining to the nursery.

We all pile out of the car and we meet up to discuss the property, it’s slope, and the best placement for a holding tank, the grade up from the lake and where on the property to place the line running up to the holding tank. We spent a bit of time in prayer, “Lord, heal this lad and it’s people, keep the 1500 residents from being relocated to what would ultimately be slums.” What a serene view sitting there at the crest of the hill up from Lake Awasa in the shade of what I remember to be a Ficus tree (ample shade!).

It is ultimately time to head back. We backtrack through all the tiny, congested villages, stopping again at the Bekele Hotel for lunch of, you guessed it, spaghetti and minestrone soup and Ambo, of course! Continuing on, we encounter the barren but strangely beautiful land of huts, cattle, sheep (sheep here have tails!), goats, dogs and people on the road walking for water and fuel, or on donkey carts – loaded with fuel, fodder, water or transporting people taxi-like – or the rare horse-drawn cart. Every detail in life has a purpose. There are no “joy rides” here. These people eke out an existence daily, moment by moment. There is no vacation here; no overtime; no health insurance; no movie theater; and NO television. This is a 24/7 life of work.

As we pass each lake back, it becomes evident we are getting closer to Addis. We arrive in Awash and the sea of humanity begins to increase 10 fold. And since the vehicles here are predominantly diesel, the pollution smell from these unmanaged or mismanaged vehicles increases. With no air conditioning, we’re stuck with 95 degree temperatures and horrendous fumes. Between the diesel and the constant garbage burning smell, it’s a nauseating and uncomfortable ride back to Addis. What a nightmare ride. We can certainly call it “unforgettable.”

And it’s back to the Bole International Hotel. We arrive to a wedding and some unmentionable extracurricular activities within the hotel. It's going to be a long last night here.

So, it's arrived; Sunday. And with little sleep (the bed was AWFUL – can’t remember when I’ve tried to sleep on a bed that felt broken midway) and a wakeup call from the local mosque, it’s time to squeeze ourselves into a tiny taxi – it was laughable with the four of us and ALL our luggage, even some of it on our laps. We make the final round into the airport with a very nice taxi driver (he’d been recommended by Badeg and was truly worth hiring despite the vehicle). He spoke decent English and when he found we were headed to Kenya he look wide-eyed at us and said the Kenyans were mean people. But, we have encountered nearly no one in Ethiopia who traveled enough to have any opinion outside their cities and towns, let alone another country – even if it is next door! (We learn about this later in Kenya as to why Ethiopians may have this viewpoint.) We arrive at the airport and find a few shops on the entry side of the airport where we purchase some last minute souvenirs, hoping to find some coffee beans to pack back with us. No such luck. Nobody will believe our stories about the coffee!! But we do find a few more shops on the airplane terminal side where Carol finds a pair of silver earrings, nearly causing us (yep, I followed her into the silver shop) to miss the boarding of our plane.

Ethiopian Airlines. Now, that’s a new experience. It was actually a pleasant ride with decent meals in comparison to the stomach-filling peanuts and sodas of our American counterparts. Other than a few people who needed baths (and that happens quite often out here) the flight was uneventful. We bid our farewells to Ethiopia and fly out over a very dry landscape, dotted with plots of agriculture lands, just waiting for the long rains to come and quench thirst.