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August 21, 2008
(home at last) 3a.m Dayton, OH
My
internal clock says I overslept, so I might as well make use of the
quiet time to try to catch up on this writing. Tuesday evening I flew
out of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia at 10:00PM about 3:00PM Ohio time and flew
home via Rome (1 hour on the ground for a change of crew) and
Washington, D.C. (four hours in the airport) Thats a total of 24 hours
in the air or in airports. I looked through my itinerary and in the
last six weeks I've been in transit by air about 50 hours and in
African buses about 45 hours. The air covered about 16,000 miles and
the buses about 600 miles. Three days in Addis was quite a change to my
travel and work.
I stayed there with Alistair Smith, an old acquaintance from the early
80's in Zimbabwe. He was very active in the Mountain Club of Zimbabwe
at that time and our friendship developed. We spent many weekends
climbing and on camping trips with Marie, Dominique, and Jacques
teaching the kids a bit about the outdoors. Alistair is quite the cook,
and he brought me back into the Western food chain while I was in
Addis. Priscilla, Ali's wife is staying in Zimbabwe at this time,
looking after their home in Harare during the political and economic
crisis in that country. They have two children in university in South
Africa. Alistair is with a start up organization getting into the
airline catering business.
#I'll be off to work here in in a few hours, but the early wake
up permits me some time to catch up on this blog. Addis is like no
other city in Africa. I guess that's true of all of them. It's
uniqueness is many fold. The nation is the oldest continuously
Christian nation in the world. The Coptic church came down from Egypt
in the early days. There are churches hewn from rock which attract many
tourists. It is a nation frequently at war with breakaway provinces,
Eritrea, and its neighbors, Somalia. It has long been a member of the
diplomatic community. It defeated a Western power in the nineteenth
century, Italy. It's long revered Emperor Haille Sellasie was
overthrown by a Marxist regime in the 80's. He ended up stuffed in a
latrine. Mengistu Marim is leader of the marxists is nowin political
exile in Zimbabwe, and I really don't know much about the current
regime. There are expressways in the city, children sleeping on the
streets, there is a history of Judaism, Falasha's, Islam, the largest
open air market in Africa.
You wake to the sounds of mullahs at 4AM and go to German restaurants
with micro breweries, and can drink cafe macchiado's in most coffee
shops or chew qat, a mild stimulant that is shipped in from Yemen. The
United Nations has many offices here and a huge conference center. Two
days was only enough to scratch the surface, and a good taxi driver ,
Solomon helped me do that. It was the end of a three day fast in the
Coptic church, feast of the Assomption of Mary. There cathedrals were
filled and surrounded by thousands of women in white robes praying.
I cannot say much other than that. I sort of recovered from the
previous six weeks of teaching and travel and had access to a marvelous
TV and satellite network out of South Africa that costs less than half
what we would pay in the US. So don't feel that your current provider
is doing you any favors.
I received an email confirming that David Burcura, who I worked with in
the past six weeks, will be coming to the States at the end of March
and early April to do some fundraising and speaking, so I will get busy
trying to organize some presentations in this area.
all the best and home at last,George
I will continue to send some dispatches out to back fill some of the dates where I had no access to internet.
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August
21, 2008
August 19, 2008
August 15, 2008
August 14, 2008
August 13, 2008
August 10, 2008
August 9, 2008
August 8, 2008
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August 2, 2008
July 30, 2008
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July
27, 2008
July
26, 2008
July
23, 2008
July
22, 2008
July
21, 2008
July
18, 2008
July
16, 2008
July
14, 2008
July
11, 2008
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June 19, 2008
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