Our first holidays

Sorry for the writing delay, but while all of you 'Down Under' are beginning to gear up for Christmas and count down til the end of the year, here in Addis we have just finished our first term of teaching and had a weeks holiday.
We have just begun term 2 and should be getting into the swing of things for the school year. Its just a pity my body clock and mental capacities are feeling very much in Aussie mode at the moment......the motivation to be at the front end of a school year feels all wrong!
Anyway, we headed to a place called Awassa for break...about 4.5 hours south of Addis.We were with 4 other families on staff at school, and travelled as a group.  We stayed on a mission compound belonging to Norwegens. It was very basic, but adequate (and in our price range!!!) We were on the edge of a lake.....with hippos and algae so alas no swimming. Here are some highlights for us.

The trip down afforded some great 'Ethiopian' scenes

We got up close and personal with the locals!

We took a trip to see the hippos -now we know we're in Africa!!

We took malaria tablets and slept in nets!

We saw our first mole ever - he was flushed out his hole!

On our hippo trip we visited a fishing village -  look for the disciples mending their nets!

We swam in the compound pool - green algae, bird poo and all! Desperate times!

Being with 5 other school families meant fun times together on the volleyball court

Shane and I went walking, and discovered planking is still done in Africa!

We met the ugliest birds ever - Maruba storks, native to Ethiopia

Out walking we made friends with the locals, who as always were super cute and friendly

And enjoyed God's super creation every evening around 5.30pm.

It was a lovely break, and if this was anything to go by, we look forward to all our school holidays from here on after!!

Until next time
N xxx
PS. The other 'true to form, yes we're in Africa'  thing to happen was Oli caught the gastro on our last day, then shared it with the remainder of our kids for the next week to come!

A surreal day!

Well we've had our first visitor to Addis and it was great. Shane's brother-in-law Rob (married to his sister Renae) came to see us, while on route to Frankfurt for a conference. It was lovely to share our life here with somebody from home, and to see things through his eyes......afterall we've been here for 10 weeks and are old hands!!!! (Its amazing how quickly you get used to things, and don't think of them as strange anymore).

Early Christmas presents from home were great fun to open!

So we planned a big day out Saturday, and drove 2 hrs north to see a huge Orthodox church, cave, museum, and mostly AMAZING scenery of the rift valley. The church was made out of lots of local marble, and was huge. How such a place could be built here I have no idea. They hold services that are famous for healing, that begin at 9pm Sat night and finish at 9am Sunday morning. They run everyweek! Makes you thankful for the 3 hymn 1hr service hey!!!! The stained glass windows depicted old testament people on one side and the other side of the church was the 12 apostles. Very cool!

 Adam and eve up the top, and Noah down the bottom.

The musuem we could have skipped......all their old books, crosses and utensils looked the same pretty quickly, and if we could have understood the thick accent of the guide it may have also helped!!
Next we climbed for 20 mins staight up a mountain to a holy cave that a monk made famous by standing inside it for 22 years until one of his legs withered away. Not to de deterred by this he continued to stand on just one leg for another 7 years until he died. I truly hope it was worth it and we'll see him in heaven........otherwise you'd be hopping mad you wasted your time!! (sorry about the pun)

The cave with healing water is behind the grey door!!

Along the track up to the cave were a steady stream of dirty, haggard beggars. Rob was quite affected and gave money to some women, one of whom began to kiss his feet. What hit me most was that I was feeling immune to them after only a few months. We see them everywhere, and they become a pest, and you forget they are real people suffering. Shame on me.






We then had lunch at a lookout over the rift valley and that was the surreal moment. The valley was so big, impressive, awesome, that I felt well and truly humbled by God's creation. I kept thinking "I'm in Ethiopia, and this is something you would see in National Geographic. Very very surreal" We went walking to a bridge the Portuguese made from limstone and ostrich eggs, and played in a waterfall. We saw baboons climb down a huge cliff backwards (this was Maxies favourite part of the day) then at last headed home.

The Rift Valley in all its beauty!!

Heading down to play in the waterfall

Who's that tripping over my bridge???

Oli makes a shepherd boy extremely happy

On the drive back Rob bought some soccer balls from a small shop and the kids gave them out to small shepherd boys looking after cows/ sheep etc in the countryside. The excitement of both them and the givers, made it a wonderful trip back! We arrived home 10hrs after we left, quite exhausted but unbelievably thankful to God for bringing us here to this country.