Tuesday 27th September 2011
Up at 6 and ready to roll. I had a big spider in my room last night so I buried myself in my sewn up sheet and didn’t get to sleep until 1am. Relieved to wake up in on piece!
Before I came I watched a video on youTube of the journey to Hosanna from Addis. It looked rather dull and wasn’t something I’d been that excited about. Having done the journey, I was really looking forward to the return one. The scenery is amazing, the villages and mountains you pass on the way are mind blowing. If you ever see the video I saw, don’t be fooled. This is an amazing place.
We were only held up once and that was by a troupe of baboons crossing the road, in their own time of course. There are no police or speed cameras but there are plenty of donkeys that slow you down. There are sixty million donkeys in Ethiopia and they own the road. Cows have second look followed a distant third by cars.
We stopped of at the guest house in Addis and Paul went through some reports with Kifle. Global Care are committed to working with Kifle providing that he maintains and runs five schools. With that funding Kifle has done that and more. He’s also used it helped to set up self-help, microfinance and community health projects. He is a humble and committed man, focused on the job in hand and passionate about what he believes.
With a few hours left we headed into Addis and back to the market so I could have another go at haggling. Felt very please with myself when I knocked twenty bur off the price of a t-shirt until Paul told me that was about 40 pence.
Driving back to the airport Kifle pointed out a large crowd of people and asked if we wanted to go and see the Musqel ceremony. All along the road today we’d seen mainly children selling yellow flowers. In eth towns people were building pyers with crosses made of the flowers on the top. Tonight they would be set alight, a bit like the Ethiopian version of Bonfire night. We drove to where the crowds were, a big amphitheatre-like area crammed with people and with more arriving. By the evening, Kifle said, there would be around a million people there.
In the central area there were groups of priests and dancers waving flags and generally enjoying themselves. It looked like it was going to be some part, but we couldn’t stay. We headed off to the airport and said our goodbyes to Kifle.
If this trip has taught me anything it that so easily put a label on things we know nothing about. Ethiopia isn’t a county that’s helplessly affected by famine. It’s people are not helpless, they don’t need, or want carrying and with our support they can stand on there own two feet. When we started this appeal a couple of years ago we called it the Two Feet Project and I can see now why that was so applicable.
I do hope this diary and the stories that come out of the trip inspire you to help Kifle in his work, establishing pre-schools, growing faith and teaching people how to better their lives.
