Our second trip before leaving Thailand for points west, was to Ethiopia for Christmas. Our daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter live in Addis Ababa where Joe works for an international development group. Neil had not yet met our year-old granddaughter and it had been nearly a year since Nancy had seen her.
We checked in for our flight in Bangkok at just after midnight on December 12^th. The check in line was very entertaining. Ahead of us in line were several groups of Africans with enormous duffle bags far in excess of their baggage allowance. The bags were stuffed with high quality clothing made in Thailand and being taken back to Africa for sale.  One burly fellow had eight bags which  were packed to hold exactly the 32 kilos weight limit and were checked through without comment. He casually paid out over US$2,000 in excess baggage allowance fees. The check in  manager told us later that this man goes through Bangkok every week with this amount of goods for resale. Two large ladies, dressed in the tightest pink and yellow pants you have ever seen, had not packed so carefully. Some of their bags were underweight and some far over weight. They began pulling clothing out and repacking their bags in the check in line. Passengers waiting were getting grumpy. They were unconcerned. 
 The Ethiopia Air flight was better than expected as we were bumped up to first class when there was a problem with our assigned seats in coach. The seats were huge with all the leg room anyone could want. We enjoyed complimentary drinks and a nice dinner served on real china with cloth napkins and hot rolls. Dessert of mango soufflé ended the meal. Back in coach, where we had expected to be, passengers were eating a boxed lunch. Sleeping on a flight is always difficult, but we must have slept longer than we think as we weren't completely wiped out the next day.
At dawn, we were flying over desert landscape with a large body of water between two land masses. Several enormous vessels moved south. If our flight information was correct, we were looking down on the Gulf of Aden, a place we have studied about, but will not sail through. Over Ethiopian land, we saw dry, mountainous landscape with no sign of habitation. As we neared Addis, this gave way to small villages and beautiful fields of green and gold. Large haystacks cast long shadows in the rising sun. We landed at Addis Ababa Airport at 7:00 am, deplaned and began looking for the visa counter.  As we were going through the visa process, we looked up to see daughter Shawna and beautiful little Anna waving at us from the other side of the glass divide. We would see Joe in a week after his return from a business trip to the States. 
Luggage retrieved, we piled in their car and were off through crowded and uneven streets to their home across the city. The streets and traffic in the city are an amazement to people used to orderly lanes and stoplights, everyone taking their turn. Here, there are few stoplights and large intersections of three or more roads are a mass of cars, busses, vans and bikes jostling their way across. Shawna worked her way in and through. In the city street, flocks of  long-tailed sheep wandered in search of a bit of fodder. Donkeys trotted along with heavy loads of wood, straw or filled gunny sacks piled on their backs, the owner with a big stick in hand following on behind. This is another amazing place!

Shawna and Joe live in a lovely old house in a walled compound with a large metal gate. We were met by Askala, who helps in the house and Awoke, who is in charge of the garden and two lively pups, Carlos and Effie. Our granddaughter, Anna, is walking all over and has become a toddler since Nancy last saw her. She is beautiful and Neil was so glad to finally meet her. We are both looking forward to spending a lot of time with Anna and her parents catching up on all that has happened to both families since we were last together.

Our main reason for coming to Ethiopia was to spend time with Joe and Shawna and to get to know Anna. Because we are on the move and they work outside the US, we don't have the same contact we might have otherwise. Our plans included a few day trips by car to places of interest nearby, but a good part of our day revolved around naps and meals for an active toddler.
Religion is a very important part of the lives of most Ethiopians. About forty percent belong to the Ethiopian Orthodox Union Church closely related to the Egyptian Coptic Church. Forty-five percent are Muslim. The north is mainly Christian with Muslim populations concentrated in the south. Much of daily life in Addis Ababa revolves around the Christian church. Our first trip outside the city was to visit St. Raguel's Church on the mountain at Entoto. The trip up the mountain was scenic with views of the city and looks at small towns and people doing their daily work. Donkeys were used extensively to haul loads into Addis for sale. Some of the loads were taller than the little beasts who carried them. They trotted downhill on their own followed by their owners. The mountain is covered by eucalyptus forests picked clean of any fallen or low growing branches by women searching for firewood.  These women carried huge heavy loads of branches down the hills on their backs. Some of the ladies were quite elderly looking and we felt uncomfortable with how hard the work must be for them.

St. Raguel's Church is an  unusual eight-sided structure with the main worship area on the second floor. The guide took us up the steps and into the sanctuary. There are no pews as we might have. Everyone stands for the services. Only the priests are allowed in the eight-sided center section where the holy things are kept. The outside of the center section is covered with paintings at least 100 years old depicting scenes from the Bible and stories of the saints. Curtains divide the space for worship into two sides, one for women and one for the men. Our guide played a giant drum for us that is used in some way in the service.

This spot  has been a place of worship for hundreds of years. The original churches here were in caves dug into the cliff side. The oldest one is more than 600 years old and is a very small depression in the cliff. The one pictured above was used until the building of the present wood structure. The grounds also hold living quarters for deacons studying to become priests. After completion of their studies, the new priests can move outside the walls and are permitted to marry. The church grounds also hold tombs of priests and rich residents. One such tomb was in the process of being cut out of the stone walls. 

Our first taste of Ethiopian food was at a small cafe near the National Museum where we had gone to view the famous Lucy fossil found near here. We ordered a plate with a mix of different foods. Injera is the national bread, a platter-sized round resembling a crepe. It has a slightly acid taste and a spongy texture. It arrived on a huge platter with a bubbling pot of shiro, chick pea flour spiced with a chili spice mixture called berbere. Berbere is used in many Ethiopian dishes and is what gives the food the characteristic "kick". It can be quite hot. A good sized chunk of fried fish, a root vegetable mix and rice came with the meal. We tore off pieces of injera and wrapped it around the food with our right hand only as proper Ethiopians would do. There were several new tastes to enjoy. Anna had her lunch right along with us avoiding the berbere spiced dishes. 
Pulses of all kinds are an important part of the diet in Ethiopia. As we are always looking for new ways to cook them, we asked Askala and her sister, Kinnenie, to give us a few lessons. They cooked up two lentil recipes and a shiro dish for us. We ate these for several days along with the injera which one of Askala's family members makes for her.  Askala was happy to find that we liked the local food and made many dishes for us during our stay. There are several markets in town that cater to European tastes so we were able to buy some familiar things. Both Shawna and Joe are good cooks and have a well stocked kitchen. We enjoyed preparing meals together.  

Shawna drove an exhausted  Joe to work the next morning while we fed Anna her breakfast. When she returned, we loaded lunch in the car and started for Menagesha Suba State Park. Finding the correct road out of the city was an adventure. What we think of as rules of the road don't apply here. Once out of the city, the road led gradually upward through hills covered with grain fields. Along the road and dotted across the landscape were groups of thatched sarbot, the traditional homes, surrounded by fences of woven branches. There were many herds of donkeys carrying loads as tall as they were. Some of the little beasts were loaded with gunny sacks or wooden racks full of plastic water jugs. Small horses pulling home made two wheeled carts made their way toward town. Many of the horses were thin and looked to be in poor condition with untrimmed hooves shod with what looked like pieces of old rubber tires.  Small boys herded cattle to pasture and women in brightly colored dresses and headscarves were bent nearly double by the heavy loads on their backs. The boys chased our car asking for money. Neil handed out all the one birr bills we had. 

The quick view of the daily life of the people here was wonderful. We saw women cooking in the open over dung fires. Each home had a sunny spot near a wall where dung was drying. Wood is difficult to find for fuel here. Men and boys were harvesting grain in the fields using hand sickles. They bound the stalks into bundles and stacked them in large rectangular piles. We had seen these from the air as we flew into Addis. The people here are most attractive with Arab features and straight or wavy hair and flashing smiles.  The women dress in bright colors and patterns, their heads covered with a scarf to keep off the morning chill or the hot sun depending upon the time of day. Many of the men on their way to market wore trousers and suit jackets and carried a long slim staff to keep their donkeys moving in the right direction. 

The forest is mainly juniper. We identified Abyssinian wild rose and large heathers as well. The giant lobelia fills the gullies and is quite spectacular. At one place, a small deer-like animal leaped up and bounded through the foliage. Menilek's bushbuck, gray duiker and Grimm's duiker are found in this area. We are not sure which we saw. Higher up, we got a better look at two more of the animals. We hoped to see some of the several species of cat which inhabit the forest, but were happy with animals we did see. The forest was cool and pleasant. We stopped at one of the designated camp sites on the way down to eat our lunch. Anna napped in her car seat all the way back to Addis Ababa. We had enjoyed the wonderful day outing.

We opened a few gifts on Christmas Eve  before Anna's bedtime and saved the rest for the next morning.  We spent the next day in a flurry of cooking our Hanukah/Christmas dinner.  No turkey could be found, so we had bought two fat roasting chickens. Joe made a wonderful carrot stuffing for one bird and Shawna stuffed the other with a sage mixture. Joe made a special Hanukah bread and Shawna put together an apple pie for dessert. Green beans, gravy and cranberry sauce finished out the dinner.  It was a was lovely candlelit affair. Joe lit the first candle on the menorah at sundown. It was so nice to be together for the holidays.

Neil needs to keep busy with a project. Shawna and Joe had started a vegetable garden plot, but had not had time to get it ready for planting.  Some good dirt and manure was in place, but the space needed a good fence to keep Carlos and Effie, the two puppies, from digging up growing plants. We found a good hardware store and bought chicken wire and long poles to cut into posts and pieces for construction of a gate. Awoke worked with Neil to get the garden plot enclosed. It took several days to cut and sharpen one end of the posts, drive them into the ground and fix the wire in place. Building a gate took two more days. Neil was proud of making fairly good lap joints on the gate frame with just a  hand saw, an ax for a chisel, and a hand drill. At last, the garden was safe from marauding mutts! 

Our next day trip was to Debre Libanos and the Jemma River Gorge. The church at Debre Libanos is one of the most important ones for Ethiopian Christians. It is a pilgrimage site and many ill and disabled come hoping to be cured. Our lunch in the car, we started off on the drive of several hours. The countryside was beautiful and all the land we could see was being used for cultivation and pasture. The land on the high plateau is fertile and has enough rainfall for successful farming. The population here has nearly reached the limit of what the land can support. Families divide their holdings and give part to their children, making the farms ever smaller and feeding more and more people. The growing population is being forced onto ever more marginal land. During times of drought,  many people are in danger of starvation. This problem exists over much of Africa, but is not apparent to the casual observer. These farms look prosperous, but people are working very hard and still having little left over to cushion a bad year.

The drive to the Debre Libanos turn off was a long one and we had begun to wonder if we had gone past it when we reached the viewpoint that looks down into the Jemma River Canyon. It is an immense one, the river so far below that it is hard to see it from above. There are several levels in the long drop to the bottom. Near the turn off to the village is a spot the guide book calls the Portuguese Bridge. It was not built by the Portuguese and no one was clear on where it got its name. It crosses a deep gully with a small stream flowing through. Just past the bridge, the stream plunges over the gorge to the valley below. The bridge is used by local people and their herds as a shorter, safer route across country avoiding the highway. A guard let us through a barbed wire gate the Shawna said had not been there when she was last here a month ago. We jounced down a short rocky road and parked the car. As we walked on down toward the bridge we found another barbed wire fence. Through the gate and on downhill we got our first look at the bridge. It is a lovely setting. There were green things growing and flowers here near the water. We spread our lunch out under a tree and enjoyed the view of the canyon and the people and herds crossing the bridge and moving up the hill. On the hill above the bridge, we were lucky to see two gelada baboons. They were too far away to see detail, but fun nevertheless. Later, a local woman crossed the bridge and went up the hill. As she neared the baboons, she yelled at them and threw rocks. This triggered a stampede of around thirty baboons of all sizes out of the brush at trailside. We had no idea that many were there before this.  As we left, we asked the guard why the new fences. He said that a new luxury hotel was being built at this site. This will certainly negatively affect the residents of the area. We wonder how much business a hotel and restaurant will get two hours away from a city of any size. 

Packing up the car we started down the canyon rim road to the village of Debre Libanos. The church and monastery here are a center of pilgrimage for the sick and the lame. As we neared the village, the roadsides were lined with beggars and people with all manner of illnesses. They had come to this most sacred of the churches in the hope that God would  cure them of their infirmities and poverty and make life good. While they await the miracle, they must live by asking alms of passers by and the charity of the village and the monastery. Some of these people had built low walls of stones around themselves to define their space at the side of the road. They literally had only the clothes on their backs and a stout staff for protection. We have never seen such misery. Arriving at the church, we found the gates locked as a special service for St. Gabriele's Day was being conducted inside. The poor and sick were so numerous, that it didn't encourage walking around the grounds to look at the large and richly decorated tombs.  We made our way back up the canyon road and started the long drive back. As we passed through one small town, the service for St. Gabriele ended and a sea of finely dressed people flooded down the hill from the church toward us. Many were singing and they parted around us as we crept up the road. At the top, the church parking lot held a few cars and many ponies with colorful traditional saddles and bright tassels decorating their bridles and reins. We had a very fine day with a mixture of beautiful and troubling sights. 

We are having a good time playing with Anna and enjoying watching her explore her world. She loves music and dances side to side when she hears a tune. She delights in crawling under her Grandpa Neil while he is doing his daily push up exercises. He gets to laughing and can hardly continue.
Our time here is growing short. We decided to make one more day trip to the Awash River where we heard  there are crocodiles and maybe hippos. There was some difficulty finding the trail along the river, but directions from one young man got us there. The parking area is the place where everyone brings their herds to drink from the river. We were amused to see a shepherd boy riding one of the goats. Why walk when you can ride?  When we got out of the car, we were met by the young man who gave us the directions. He had run across country and gotten there ahead of us. He was determined to guide us.  Even paying him a fee to leave us alone did not get rid of him. He and several others followed us wherever we went. One of the fellows walked behind us carrying a large machete, somewhat unsettling. We wondered why they had so much free time to harass us. All of the other people at the river were working in the fields and tending cattle. These folks were pleasant and interested in us, but went back to what they were doing after offering greetings. It was lovely there. Water for the fields was pumped out of the river by small gas powered pumps attached to plastic hoses. We did see two crocodiles, but no hippos. Soon, we were uncomfortable enough that we gave up the walk and headed back to the car. There another young fellow insisted on money for guarding our car. We had made it clear when we came that we did not want a guard. The lovely river and setting had been spoiled by the stalking of these young men. We must say that this treatment was the exception. Most local people were very helpful and courteous to us and forgave us our mistakes.