Cereal for breakfast. Cloudy and gloomy for most of the day except for the first part of the day in Korah. Today was a good day. We started out the day dividing the children up into classrooms by grades. I went into each room teaching two different groups english with Carrie. We each took a group and then switched at the halfway mark. I taught colors making them tell me what color I was holding up (using markers) and then eventually making them speak in sentences using their color they received saying “This color is....” and then teaching them the difference between “This and That.” I got a little discouraged thinking that I don’t know if they were getting anything out of it. Sometimes (most of the time) they didn’t seem to understand what they were learning. After the last class I taught, I asked them (using Selam as my translator) “So, was this easy for you or hard for you?” They all chimed in “easy.” Well, they sure fooled me! It was encouraging to see more enthusiasm out of these kids than from Little/Big AHOPE, yet it was because of the fact that this was a rare thing and a privilege that most in the community don’t have. They understand more the value of what they are learning and I think they actually enjoyed it.
During the school year they are taught english, but from Ethiopian staff. So they were excited to try their english in conversation while we played with them. Having us here to talk to also improves their pronunciation. A LOT of the kids had a really hard time with the word purple and brown and graduate. There were times it was hard for me not to laugh. All these kids live in the slums of Korah and all these kids are so happy. They all wanted to play, joke around, hang on all our arms and legs, be picked up and hugged and kissed. Precious babies. Precious stinky happy babies. Ridiculous.
We fed them for lunch again and while they had their lunch Surafel needed some of us to feed some of the old men who had leprosy. Some of them were unable to feed themselves so we had to hand feed them. Today they had yellow rice and bread for lunch. They don’t have utensils so I used the bread as much as it would go, and then straight up used my hands putting them in his mouth to feed him the rest of his rice. I was a little grossed out, but that just didn’t matter to me. He was so grateful for me to feed him. The whole experience blessed my soul to be able to do that for him.
When he was finished, he took my hands and kissed them, saying something... I got Sammy to translate for me. He said that he was blessing me and blessing me for a long life of years and prosperous life. Oh my gosh! Seriously?!... What a blessing to have been able to do that for him. I hope I get to do that for him tomorrow as well.
When we were done there (about 2-2:30) we headed back to the house. Everyone ate lunch on the bus while I was still playing with the children outside. I apparently didn’t get the memo about lunch on the bus, so when we got back I fixed a PB&J sandwich. Not too long afterwards Surafel, Danielle and I went to the new Women At Risk factory in Addis with Barrett while everyone else stayed at the guest house chilling. Barrett had asked for me to come and look around at the factory building (where some of the women weave scarves for the Fashionable line Mocha Club has) and outside area to see how and what we needed to do to make the place beautiful. He knew I was an artist and wanted to get an artists input on the situation. This is a new building they built for the women in Addis that are Women At Risk who make the scarves for “FashionABLE.” Inside the building, it was pretty cramped with looms everywhere! I don’t think I’m going to be able to fix the cramped-ness of the place, but making it Beautiful won’t be a problem. I’ve got some exciting plans for that place. Our team is going to be working on it sometime while we are here. I’m pretty stoked about it.
When Barrett dropped Danielle, Surafel, and I at the house, everyone looked bored out of their minds. We were gone for a good bit because Barrett had a buisness meeting while we were there as well. So, when I was done looking around and making plans for the factory, we just sat in listening to their conversation. Barrett was using Surafel to translate for the meeting. It was super interesting to just sit in on the meeting and listen. Usually that would sound super boring to me, but it totally wasn’t. I think it was interesting because it was a meeting on how to make this business grow and profit in a way to make things better not only for their business but for the workers as well..... among other things.
We went to dinner shortly after we got back, and went to this place in the city that seemed really nice. Ridiculously nice for what we are here in Ethiopia for. Again. Body odor. Even in nice restaurants the waiters reek of pit stank. You can’t get away from it. That is one thing I appreciate about America... clean air and nice smells. When I first arrived in Addis and got off the plane the smell was overwhelming of curry, spices, exhaust fumes, and body odor. I ordered beef burgundy and was a bit disappointed in my decision after I got it. Something I seem to be doing rather frequently. It had marinara sauce that was no good, but the meat was good! I was totally coveting the fish Heather got. She let me taste it. Off the chain good!
When dinner was over we headed to Kaldi’s coffee shop for after dinner coffee and ice cream. I would describe Kaldi’s as the Starbucks of Ethiopia. Except their coffee isn’t disgusting. It’s actually quite the opposite. Coffee here in Ethiopia does not keep me awake, so I was able to go straight to bed when we got home. Before bed Steve shared his testimony and we talked a bit about our plans for tomorrow at Korah.
Every night someone shares their testimony and then we always go around saying our highs and lows of the day before we all go to bed.
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