Dear Family and Friends,
It is hard to believe I have been here in Ethiopia for almost a week. I am staying very busy but having a great time. Josiah started school yesterday. He is in first grade at the mission school, Bingham Academy, here in Addis Ababa. Yesterday we went to the school so that Jeanette could get a picture of him with his teacher on the first day of school. It was very interesting to see Bingham. I have heard about it a lot, so it was nice to finally see what people are talking about. Peter teaches Math, Science, Computer, and Bible at Bingham.
On the drive home from Bingham I got to see lots of interesting things. I have started taking pictures from the car. There are so many cool things you see as you drive and it is less conspicuous to take pictures from inside the vehicle. It is hard to pick which picture to put in here, but I think I will do the one of the two little girls. I took this as we were driving by and when they saw the camera they smiled. They were delighted to have their picture taken. Jeanette thanked them for me. I still haven’t figured out how to say thank you in Amharic. It is a very long, difficult word that I can only repeat after someone very slowly syllable by syllable.
The birds here are beautiful. I have seen about 8 different kinds. I don’t know the names for any of them. It is difficult to get good pictures of the birds because everytime I turn on my camera they hear the zoom and they fly away. But, I have gotten a couple good shots. Here is a picture of a yellow and black bird that I saw in the Smith’s yard. She flew up to the very top of the tree before I got her picture, but my zoom let me get a pretty good picture anyway.
I have also been taking lots of pictures of flowers. There are so many different ones that I have never seen before. There are some that are the same as ones back home, like daisies, but so many are different. Here is a picture of a really cool flower with a beetle on it. I have never seen such a huge beetle. Infact, I would not have recognized this as a beetle. When I was taking the picture I was afraid of getting stung. :) I thought it was a huge bee. Someone watching me laughed and told me it was just a beetle. I get laughed at a lot over here because I don’t know very much.
Okay, so everyone has been asking me to send a picture of myself. So here it is… This is a picture of the guards Tikalo and Adunya with me. Adunya plays the karrar very well. He built this karrar himself and he told me that he gets the "strings" for it from the inside of tires. It took me forever to figure out what he was saying because he says "tire" a little bit funny and I would have never thought he would get his strings from a tire. I found it very interesting.
I think that is enough pictures for one email. I have taken over 300 pictures already, but don’t worry I won’t send them all by email. I must close now because it is time for dinner. The Smiths are from Australia and they call dinner, "tea". I miss you all. Email me when you can.
In Christ’s Love, Christina