A trip to Town

Today school started in Addis for all the kids who will be "homeschooled" in our mission this year. But because we are in hawassa we won't have students till next week, so we've been getting the school room ready and started preparing lessons. Today for elsample I make a reading chart so we can track how many pages the kids read throughout the year. Reminded me a lot of my hopac days and the different reading contests we had there.

After lunch we decided to go into town to shop for groceries. We took a bajaj, those of who've been to Tanzania will know what they are. For the rest of you: a bajaj is a three wheeled vehicle where there's room for two (if you want to sit comfortably, otherwise lots more!) passengers and a driver. Anyway, we took the bajaj into town and went to the vegetable store which was empty except for some green tomatoes and cabbages. Apparently it's not vegetable season right now! We did get most of the other items on our list though at another small store. There are lots and lots of small shops here, many focus on one thing: vegetables, clothes, shoes, or kitchen equipment. Some simply sell soda and gum. I'm excited to spend more time looking at all these little shops. 

It's been really fun to see what you can and can't get in hawassa. Generally I've been very impressed and I can't wait to get my own kitchen set up and start baking cakes! I've already gotten a kickstart in Kari's kitchen though. Hopefully we'll be able to move into our house on Saturday, but we'll see, it's not at if things have completely according to plan up till now, so I wouldn't be surprised if things change. I think it's a really valuable lesson for me to learn to find my peace in God, and not in being able to plan ahead or even do the job I was meant to do! I really do feel like I've been carried through this whole thing though, it hasn't been easy to come to a new country knowing no-one, but God has I've been so blessed to have wonderful people around me and a God who bigger than of and my problems! 3

A couple more birthday pictures

Kari just sent me her pictures from yesterday, so here are a couple more :-)

An Ethiopian birthday!

I turned twenty years old yesterday, how crazy is that?! I still can't quite believe it!
Anyways, I was thoroughly celebrated with lots of good food, people and presents what more can a girl ask for?!

The day started with breakfast on the screened in porch and presents. My parents had sent a present with me that I had been staring at longingly for quite some time, so it was really fun to what was in it. A couple of friends we lived with in Tanzania had also send me package with me full of flags and candles to use. On top of that four of my girlfriends had managed to send a package with Malene without me finding out about it, so that was quite a surprise. You better believe I shed a tear or ten over being blessed with such wonderful friends!

                                                             Lots of wonderful presents

The view from where I live right now

The school house, it's only the right half that's the school, the other half is a guesthouse 

The view from the schoolhouse 

After breakfast Kari gave me a full tour of the compound , it's incredibly beautiful here, I feel so blessed. The workers on the compound decided that they wanted to celebrate Asle and Karis return to Hawassa, so they slaughtered a goat and made injera (a traditional Ethiopian pancake made with sourdough and a type of flour that is only found in Ethiopia) and bread. It was incredibly tasty, I've never tasted goat before so I was pleasently surprised! After the meal they hand roasted coffee the traditional Ethiopian way, I had mine with a whole lot of sugar!

This is where we had our lovely meal! 

My Ethiopian birthday meal, injera, goat meat, hard boiled egg, and homemade bread

Roasting the coffee 

Later in the day Kari baked a very delicious cake that we had with Italian icecream from the icecream shop that's only a ten minute walk from here (you better believe that I'm going to be eating lots of icecream this year!)

The power went out around seven and didn't come again until around ten this morning, so we spend the evening reading and playing board games. I even taught Kari SkiBo!

All in all it was a great day, and I kinda love that it was such a mix of Norwergian, Danish and Ethiopian traditions.

My first "home" in Ethiopia

As many of you know, I am now in Hawassa hoping the lower altitude will make me feel better. I did however promise to post some pictures of the guesthouse that we stayed at in Addis (and where Malene still is), so here they come!

My room 

The guesthouse livingroom 

The view from our bathroom

I lived on the first floor of this house to the left

Being in Hawassa is a completely different feeling than Addis. Right now I can hear frogs, birds, cows, grasshoppers, cicadas and I’m sure a whole of other animals that I can’t identify. Today there were monkeys playing outside in trees and I can see the lake from the screened in porch I’m sitting on. That being said, I really did enjoy Addis (except for the way it made my body act!) It was such an interesting mix of rich and poor and everything in between. You could see a palace on one corner and a little vegetable shop on the next. In many ways it reminded of me of Dar es Salaam, (I keep wanting to speak Swahili to people!) although people are better drivers in Addis than in Dar! Add a whole lot of wonderful to that and you’ve got yourself a good mix! 

From Addis to Hawassa in pictures

For those of you that don't know, I'm in Hawassa right now. We decided that since I kept feeling poorly in Addis, we would try to get some lower ground and see if that would help. As of right now, it hasn't, but we're still praying and hoping that it will. Ethiopia is such a diverse country so it was really fun to get to see different parts of it. Enojy the following photo dump!

They grow roses inside these greenhouses 

maybe this is where I should work instead of teaching missionary kids! 

This view you will be seeing a lot of in the comming year, because this is the view from the compound where the school is!

Weekend fun!

Hey guys! I hope you all have had a wonderful weekend! Here in Addis breathing has finally begun to come easier for me, and I hope to go to language school with Malene tomorrow. Thank you, all of you who's prayed about that. Right now Malene and Kari have gone for a walk around the neighborhood so I'm enjoying my alone time with "The Piano Guys" and catching up on emails, facebook and surprise, surprise: blogging!   Here comes a little recap of our weekend: 

It's been rainy a lot! Ironically we don't have water in the faucets right now! 

Saturday we enjoyed having a slow breakfast and then studied some Amharic. Malene brings home videos every day of the words and phrases she's learned. This has given me a great opportunity to try and learn some Amharic while I've been lying on the couch! Although I'm sure it's no surprise when I say that Malene is mastering it quite a bit better than me! Funny story: the first day of language school I managed to sit in class for about half an hour before I felt too sick and had to go home. At this point we were learning the names of the animals, our teacher would say an animal name and then we had to point to the correct animal. Well it just so happens that I was a tough time remembering, and he must have noticed and wanted to test me, because at one point he says his own name. I had no idea which animal it was and wondered if we'd even heard that word before, but figured it was probably just because of my lack of memory skills so I pointed at the dog and evoked quite a bit of laughter and despair from my poor teacher! 

Saturday afternoon one the missionaries had a birthday party, so we got to eat lots of yummy cake and chat with the other missionaries, so lovely! 

We've been watching a lot of Doktor Mike AKA Little Doktor on the Prarie while I've been sick 

Today we went to an Anglican church (they have several international churches here in Addis and we've been enjoying trying different ones out). Afterwards we went out to lunch at a Yemenese restaurant with the couple we went to church with. These missionaries will actually be living in Hawassa and Kari also teaches at the MK school so it was really fun to get to know them better. And who knew Yemenese food is that delicious?! 

  

Pretty flowers in the yard 

Always good with a little dinner! 

Anyways that was a little about our weekend, I promise I'll get around to posting pictures of the guesthouse we're living in as soon as I feel up to it. 

Pictures!

Hey guys! Here in Addis we're (sadly) still sick, so today you get to enjoy a whole bunch of bad quality camera photos!
I can't figure out how to add captions on my phone, so in the order from top to bottom it is:
- The view from our guest house livingroom
- lunch at a Mexican restaurant
- And the last plane window photo I'll post, I promise! :-)

Language school !

This post is supposed to be about our first day at language school. Sadly I only got through half an hour before I had to go home. I struggle quite a bit with altitude sickness, so I feel most myself when I'm laying down. Malene did go though, and learned a lot! The words are so differentfrom what I'm used to, so it'll definitely be challenge.

The language school uses a special method where they attempt to let you learn the language the way toddlers learn to speak their mother language. It involves lots of pictures, repetition and no talking or writing.

I hope that I'll feel better tomorrow or Wednesday so I'll be able to go to school with Malene, and post a longer post here. Until then I'll just have to trust God that this is in his plan for me, eventhough I'm not too excited about it!

I’m in Ethiopia! It is incredibly surreal to write that! Right now it’s seven a.m. and I’m sitting in bed with a whole lot of layers and blankets. The rain is drumming on the roof outside and dripping unto the ground. Everything feels so familiar, yet entirely foreign at the same time. In many ways I feel completely  at home. I’m sure if it’s because this is where I’m wanted at the moment, or if it’s because I have Africa in my blood, probably a lovely combination.

We arrived Friday evening after a very long flight, I know I have no right to complain compared to those of you who fly from Australia or California, but to us it was long! We left Billund around 6 a.m. and had to change planes in Frankfurt. Here we wandered around until we finally found the right way to our gate. We couldn’t understand why our flight wasn’t on the departure boards until we realized that Jeddah (where we had a refueling stop) is spelled completely different in German! 

The flight was beautiful, although there were lots of clouds once we got to the African continent we got to see lots of Europe and the Middle East. Flying over the  Red Sea and Saudi Arabia was especially fascinating! There was a whole lot of lighting as soon as we got pretty close to Addis it was gorgeous and terrifying at the same time.

Finally the plane arrived in Addis and we stepped unto Ethiopian ground for the first time. We looked at each other and grinned, neither of us were able to comprehend that we were finally there.

We waited and waited and waited for our baggage to come unto the baggage wheel. Lots of other people got their bags and we were pushed further and further away from the baggage wheel (like in Tanzania there’s no such thing as waiting in line, you simply shove until you’re where you want to be!). Eventually a lady asked us where we came from and when we answered Frankfurt she said that we were at the wrong wheel and pointed us to the same wheel, but further up. This prompted me to take a look around and suddenly I saw our lonely four bags on another wheel, being the only ones left! So far so good!

We got our bags scanned and heading into the arrivals area where there was no one waiting for us.I'm so glad Malene was with me, because it was vey hard for me not to panick! It took us three phone calls and a whole lot of walking until we finally found Daggrund who was there to pick us up. Turns out you have to buy a ticket in order to be allowed into the arrivals hall. Hwever there were no signs and it wasn’t until we’d wandered around for fifteen minutes that someone told us that. Add that to the fact that Daggrund is Norwegian and it was our first time to try to understand Norwegian on the phone, and you’ve got two very confused girls! Eventually we did find her though and drove to the Norwegian Lutheran Compound that will be our home the next three weeks. It is very pretty and clean here, I am so impressed and people have been extremely kind and welcoming!

Tomorrow I’ll post about our first couple of days here, and hopefully post some pictures of our temporary home.

*Side not: We finally have internet again, so here's the pictures: