February 13, 2010
It is now approximately 2am and we have just landed in Rome, Italy. At home, it is only about 8pm! We don’t get off the plane here even though I really, really wish that we could. I would love to see what Italy looks like. Anyway, words cannot express how tired I am. I can barely keep my eyes open to write this. I have been sleeping alright on the plane though, just can’t find a position comfy enough to sleep through the night. We have 45 minutes here before we take off again and from there, it is only five more hours until landing in Adis Ababa, Africa! I can’t believe this is really happening and in the amount of time it takes me to get from home to New York City, I will officially be on another continent. Back to sleep for now- talk to you when I am all checked in to the hotel.
So we’re all checked in. We had a few minutes to get ourselves cleaned up before we head back out the door. The hotel is nice. I am in room 102 and there’s even a mosquito net above my bed. The bathroom is much different from the bathrooms at home. Before showering, you have to turn on the hot water tank every time. It is also an open shower that just has a drain built into the floor, so needless to say I flooded the entire bathroom during my first shower. You also can’t use the tap water to brush your teeth here either; so bottled water is used for everything!
The group gathered back on the bus and we headed off to a home for widows and orphans. Pastor Welling and his wife, Peggy, had gotten the widows Christmas gifts so we went there to deliver the gifts and celebrate a late Christmas. This was very touching and the women were really excited. They were each gifted a brand new traditional African dress. Some of the women informed us that they had never, ever received a gift in their lives. Some even shed some tears. Since they didn’t speak English, they could only thank us through handshakes, hugs, and kisses. Which I think was even more gracious than anything else. The home also served us an Ethiopian dinner consisting of beef, rice, potatoes, carrots, corn, some spicy sauce made of peppers and pimento, and injaro. Injaro is the Ethiopian form of bread. It is gray in color and spongy in texture. They use this instead of silverware to pick up their other food. After dinner, we just got to know the women and children of this home. In addition to the widows, a sibling set of 3 orphans and a darling 2 year old orphan also live here. We discovered that the children were OBSESSED with digital cameras. They kept asking to take pictures with us, then they even took our cameras to take pictures for themselves. I have some interesting new pictures on my camera. The children here speak broken English but were very eager to learn and asked a lot of questions about our language and about America. I taught them the word “freckles” because they were completely mesmerized by all of mine. They seemed to really like them.
However, although all of this was a really amazing first day of my trip, I do have to say that the most memorable thing I saw all day was some of the older boys slaughtering a goat right at the house. As they tied up the legs, I didn’t think I was prepared to watch. But from this point on, I couldn’t peal my eyes away. Even though this was definitely sad to see, an animal dying a slow death, I am glad I got the chance to experience this since it is something I definitely do not see at home. It was proof in front of my eyes that the life I live is a much easier one than the children of Nazret, Ethiopia. I will be putting pictures up of this event, just in case anyone wants to see the process!
Also, thanks to Ruth Ann for letting me use her phone today to call home!
Off to bed. Goodnight all.
No comments:
Post a Comment