Ok, so I am finally sitting down to write out a TON of blogs! I know. I said I would do that like two weeks ago. I’m sorry, that’s all I can say. So I don’t want to forget about Ethiopia, but lots of things are going on now. I will work my way through Ethiopia and end with what is going on now, or I will throw in the current stuff while putting up posts on Ethiopia. Who knows how this blog dump will go.

We will start with where I lived in Ethiopia and what we did there. We lived in a small oasis of sorts in the midst of the big capital city, Addis Ababa. It really was like an oasis, we had big walls around our compound and there was a beautiful yard with a Hollywood swing, some other lawn chairs and umbrellas. We built a fire pit while we were there so that pretty much completed the oasis picture.

First breakfast outside

The swing with the smaller one bedroom building behind

The compound is made up of three buildings. There was the main house where the missionaries lived, and where we did a lot of our construction work, there was another building that had three bedrooms and one storage room. The third building simply had one bedroom with a bathroom as well staff showers and a space to dry laundry.

View of main house

Our quaint little kitchen

We did quite a bit of construction work while we lived in this quiet oasis, which certainly was not quiet while we worked! We did several projects. One was to take apart three rooms to replaster and repaint. Before we did any plastering, we had to pound four holes in the walls to make room for some plumbing. This sounds like a one day thing, which maybe it would be in North America, but we were in Ethiopia. The walls that we had to pound holes in were made of solid rock and cement. Again, walls in North America can be made with solid rock and cement, but in North America we have power tools, and again we were in Ethiopia where they do not have such power tools. The walls we pounded holes in were 50-60 cm thick and all we had was one chisel, hammer, and a giant crowbar.  Not any easy task!

Ruslan pounding away at the giant rock

Making a trench for the plumbing in a small dusty room

I will make a long story short and just say that after pounding and pounding, recalculating, pounding some more, recalculating again we discovered that one of the walls was 2 meters thick making the plumbing project impossible! This naturally was only discovered after 2 of the 4 holes had been made. Since the calculation was not our fault we were treated to a burger and pizza joint, making it all worth it.

Mmmm, my first burger in 3 months!

So now our projects turned into filling in the giant holes, before replastering. We replastered and painted three rooms before we left Ethiopia. We also built a nice fire pit, moved a rock pile, cleaned up some areas around the compound and created a wood pile. All of which we were able to enjoy.

One tough team, moving rocks and mountains!

My last posts were about getting our visas in Turkey and all the adventures we had there. Way too many adventures, so this post will mostly be made up of pictures! Hooray!

In front of the Hagia Sofia

Rise and shine in the Istanbul airport

In Ankara

Spending time with Riza's sister's family

Beautiful Ankara

Visas. It is almost like a bad word now, it’s hard to not say the v word without cringing. I am happy to say we have overcome our fears and received our visas for Ethiopia!… almost.

We went to the Ethiopian embassy here in Ankara on Monday which proved to be a much more difficult process than originally thought. We wandered around trying to tfind the building and when we did find it, it was empty. A neighbor said that they had moved. By chance, Yulia pushed the intercom/doorbell and someone answered! They informed us that yes, the embassy had moved locations and she was able to give us the new address!

So off we went, and since it was snowy and cold and we had already been wandering about in the snow for almost an hour, we took a taxi. Upon arrival, we were met with friendly staff who seemed eager to help us. After we explained our situation, I was asked to go back and answer a few questions. I got a little nervous remembering all the trouble the India team had the interrogations they ahd to go through. The man at the desk was quite friendlt though, we shook hands talked business and then he said ‘wait here.’

The words ‘wait here’ can be so scary. What does that really mean? Is he trying to help us, is he asking for advice from soneone else, is he going to get the visa forms for us? Who knows!!! So I waited. It really was not all that bad, it just was so uncertain.

He did come back though, and said with a smile, ‘ok we can help you out!’ Hooray, hooray!!! He told me that normally people from Ukraine and Moldova are under the jurisdiction of the Ethiopian embassy in Moscow and he only needed to check and see if you could actually give us visas. Everything was fine. We shook hands again and he told me to come back on Wednesday afternoon.

We filled out our forms, paid the money and away we went. Simple as that!

All is good, we came back Wednesday to pick up our passports and visas as planned. I was again, called back into the room. ‘Ah, man what could this mean? Did he discover that he could not give us our visas? Was there a problem with someone’s? What???’

This man was so friendly and nice, he greeted me with another smile and hand shake. It can’t be that bad if he is smilling. He said everyone was able to receive their visas except for me. Me? Didn’t see that one coming. He said that apparently America and Ethiopia have a special deal. Americans MUST apply for a 2 year visa, which he is not authorized to give. No problem though, I can still get mine in the airport in Ethiopia. I can handle that problem.

So we walked away with our visas and passports in hand! We are ready to go to Ethiopia on Tuesday the 21st. We have been going to the local universities here and talking with students as well as seeing some of the history and culture of Turkey. We are enjoying our last few days here with Riza’s sister and family.

Whew! What a whirlwind of a time we have had! We are not in Ethiopia like some of you might be expecting. We are currrently in Turkey, Ankara to be exact. Let me tell you how we came to be in Turkey.

Things started out a little crazy in Ukraine, they almost did not let me go on the flight since I had apparently overstayed *we are still not sure how this worked out.) Anyways, I had to pay a fine.

Our flight was delayed so we missed our connecting flight in Istanbul. We ran around with this man who was trying to help us find our plane, but it had already left. So, luckily the airlines put us up for the night in a nice hotel with yummy food!! We got to see some of the city, take some photos, and buy a few things. We changed our flight, went through security, were about to board and just as we were handing our tickets they told us Ukrainians could not go to Ethiopia. WHAT?!?! We were completely confused. The man we talked to did not speak perfect English nor was he very helpful. All we understood was that Ukrainians and Moldovans needed a visa before boarding a plane to Ethiopia.

So the man led us back through the passport checkpoint and told us we simply could not go. We stood there dumbfounded for awhile, not sure of what to do next. So we went to change our tickets again and explained to the man our situation. This man was a bit more helpful. He told us about some visa database that said Ukrainians could only go on business visas. He helped us change our tickets to Tuesday since we were hoping to go to the Ethiopian embassy on Monday.

After asking about hotels, we found that hotels in the big city of Istanbul are very very expensive. So after waiting for almost 2 hours for our bags, we sprawled out claiming a chunk of benches as our home for the night. We ate kielbasa, mandarin oranges, and chocolate for dinner. We slept alright except for the 3:30 cleaning crew and a few other loud stranded passengers looking for a place to sleep.

The next day we went in search of information. We borrowed a computer, and were able to skype with Riza, a fellow DTS student back in Ukraine who is conveniently from Turkey. He told us many great things. The Ethiopian emabssy in Istanbul does not give visas, but the one in Ankara does. It takes about 5 days to process a visa so that meant we needed to change our tickets again. Where should we stay in Ankara? With Riza’a family of course!!

Riza quickly explained how to get from the airport, to the metro, to the bus station, buy a ticket, and go to Ankara. It is still a miracle to me how a group that does not speak much English get from one city to another that is 7 hours away!! Oh the Lord is so faithful!!

So now we are staying with Riza’s sister and enjoying Turkish hospitality. His family is Muslim, but not devout Muslim. The do not speak English or Russian so our conversations have been very interesting to say the least! Hopefully I will be able to give you more details soon!

I leave in less than 12 hours for Ethiopia!!! AHHHHH!!!

I only have a few minutes before I go to bed so this will be incredibly brief. I just want to give you a quick glimpse into the country where I will be living for the next three months.

Ethiopia is in eastern Africa, near the Red Sea. It does not border the Red Sea, but it is very close. There are 88,013,491 people in Ethiopia, the average age in Ethiopia is 17. This is mostly due in part to AIDS and famine. There are many different tribes and ethnic groups with in the country.

The country is very fertile and rich, but is often plagued with drought. Famine is normal in Ethiopia and is one of the biggest killers there. 65% of the world’s hungry live in only 7 countries, or which Ethiopia is a part of. There is a huge need for aid, although some say that people are relying too much on aid and are no longer farming. Still, if people are dying, there is a need.

Ethiopia has deep ties to Christianity. Some of you may recall Paul talking to the Ethiopian eunuch. There are many other times in the Bible where Ethiopia is mentioned. The majority (though a slight majority) are Christian, the other half is Muslim with a small percentage of animism and tribal beliefs.

Time magazine did an article on Ethiopia not long ago. Here is a link to their photo essay, Harvest of Hunger.

Much of the communications are owned by the government and are therefore hard to come by. Internet, cable, phone, radio it is all very limited. Hence my blogging dump, I do not know for sure when I will be abel to update you again. You may not hear from me for three months or it could be next week. Nothing is certain. Please be praying for me and my team of 6 as we leave tomorrow morning for Istanbul and from there to Addis Ababa!