Ethiopia by E-mail
Subject: HI everyone from Addis July 22
Date: Sun, 23 Jul 2006 01:28:47 -0400
From: Pat Rollin parollin9923@hotmail.com
We are in the process of getting ready to come home from Addis. Jim has a lot of work left to do but hopefully we will be at the airport and leave on time. He has one more Thesis that needs to be defended and then all the corrections must be turned in before he leaves. They are still going thru the applications for next year so the list for the new class will be posted in the middle of August. Nathan left on Thursday night and Mel will leave on Saturday night. The students have been taking all of us out for meals this last week so we have had a lot of outings. On Thursday night we had Mark, Rose, Alice, Melese and Yonas over for dinner to say have a good trip and we hope you get back to Addis soon. Rose will be going home on the 30th of July but will be back to teach another year. Mark is going to Tanzania for a month or so then back to Addis for another month before going to California. We met the Social Committee for Coffee on Friday afternoon everyone wants to say good bye. Mel and I helped with the Graduation Party and they want to say thank you one last time.
I have been busy getting the last minute presents bought and some crocheting done. I have been at Gemini and have a lot of mixed emotions about going to Michigan. I have a lot of friends here and will be happy to see friends and family in the USA but it is hard to think about leaving. We have a couple of baby parties as soon as we get back to meet the news members of our family. Sarah is having Kiersten baptized on Saturday August 6th and my cousin Ruth Ann became a grandmother for the first time so Aunt Ruth and Judi are having a meet Mia party on August 7th. So I have bought books about Ethiopia for both of their libraries. I am sure they will not have books like these from anyone else. I have a collection of Children's books with Amharic and English on the same pages which I think are very nice. Of course I can not read Amharic but it is nice to see a different language written. Then of course Jim has his family reunion the next week so we will have a lot of time with both our families. Shannon has been busy making doctor & dentist appointments and checking out about us getting a Cell Phone for Michigan but of course we have not decided what we want yet except we are thinking about a prepaid phone for right now. That is what we have in Addis and it is nice because you use the minutes up and then recharge and you know exactly how much you are using and no bill later. So we will go over the paperwork Shannon has gotten to decide on the two best choices she has found as soon as we get home.
We have started packing two bags packed and 2 to go with our carry ons. We have all the stuff except clothes we are wearing in the spare room waiting to be packed. I have given a lot of my American clothes away and will be bring to Michigan only my Ethiopian clothing. I have to go to the cleaners to get my gabi which I am having cleaned before I leave. I figure I cannot have it cleaned in the USA for what I am paying here. I talked to a lady who reminded me not to wash my Ethiopian clothes in hot or warm water and don't dry them in the dryer. They don't have these appliances in Ethiopia and clothes here are usually 100 percent cotton so if you use the dryer or warm or hot water they shrink.
We have the spear sent cargo to Detroit where we will have to go get it after we get home and it gets there. We bought a PVC pipe but they don't sell end caps like they do in the USA so we had to heat the end of the pipe with a flame which was a strip of cardboard and I turned the pipe while Jim heated the edge. Then we put the end cap in the pipe and after it cooled it was set and stayed in. It only took an hour to get the spear all checked into the cargo. It was interesting because it was long and an odd shape. We will have to go pick it up after we get home. We need a truck to go get it. I have written Shannon since they will be using her phone number to contact us. She will also find out where we have to go in Detroit to pick it up. Of course we know it is the Customs office at the airport.
The hinge on our computer has been broken since April so we have been being really careful with it and last night it finally made the screen look like it was cracked. So we have set up the projector on the coffee table with the computer attached and I am using the wall as a screen. We will have the computer fixed after we get home. As Jim said the only drawback is we can not call Dell and they will come and fix it in the next couple of days in Addis. But as soon as we get to Michigan we can call and they will come out and fix it.
This morning Mel and I went on a tour of Addis to take pictures. Mel wanted
to take pictures of the streets we had been down and of some of the lion
statues in town. We got to AAU to take pictures of the Social Work School
and they were having a graduation and we were walking around and some of the
students who were graduating asked to have us in their pictures. So we got to
see the fountain which is usually dry have water in it and spraying out of
the top. It was really nice. I told Mel we may not have seen our students
graduate but we got to see students from St. Mary's College come over after graduation
taking pictures on the AAU campus. I took Mel home and then went to Gemini to
meet Darmelsyh to go to see her son. I had a coffee ceremony and lunch at
her son's father's house. They dressed their son up in a suit for the
pictures. He was very shy and would not come near me until the very end.
It is the raining season in Addis so we have had rain and the power was out a couple of times today. But we have only a couple more weeks and the really bad rains are yet to come. I will write again before we leave for Michigan to let you all know how things are going. Bye for now.
Pat & Jim