| I'm even a day late in wishing you that, but we can let that one slide, right? Yes, only one day late. Ethiopia follows a slightly different calendar than the rest of the world. It's related to the Coptic and Julian calendars, but I don't know much more than that. In any case, it's only the year 2001 here, and Christmas in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church falls on January 7th. So merry Christmas again!
For my own Christmas celebrations I was with my family back in Denver, which was a lot of fun. I got to celebrate New Years in London, then go visit friends in Bristol before returning to Africa, so all-in-all it was a great vacation (see below for a quick recap and pictures).
Now that I'm back in Addis, I'm really happy to be here. I've connected to other new cities better than I have to Addis, and I'm still working on developing a network of good friends, but this time around it's work that has me so excited to be back from a Christmas holiday. We're hosting an annual technical meeting at the end of this month, so I'll be crazy busy for the next few weeks. It will be a lot of work, but I'm looking forward to both the everyday and the larger mission that we have here. I'm more motivated about the work that I'm doing than I have been in a long time (probably since Olin). It's a good feeling. =)
So what did I notice first when I got back to Denver after 3.5 months in Ethiopia? To be honest, they were all relatively small: drinking water straight from the tap, soft toilet paper, and the feeling that simply having a car was not a status symbol. Cars are certainly still status symbols in the U.S., but there's the feeling that everyone who wants one can afford one, so simply having a car doesn't mean much. In Addis though, car ownership is a pretty big deal.
Now that I'm back, there isn't much (besides family and friends) that I miss from the other side of the world. The air quality isn't that great, but the weather is beautiful. I can't have Chicago-style pizza, but I'm actually looking forward to going back to our usual lunch spot for traditional Ethiopian food (they've been closed the last two days for the Christmas holiday). And the internet is actually faster than it was before! Not blazing, but faster. So I'm pretty positive about being back in Africa.
Enough babbling... on to the photos.
Denver...
I discovered a pay-to-use workshop in Denver a little while ago. They were running a toy-making project for local kids, so we went over and volunteered for an afternoon.
Jason and I were "volunteered" to help change out all of the lights in the sanctuary at my mom's church. Getting to drive the fancy lift was totally worth it. ;-)
Denver is a busy town, especially for my family. To get some more time together, we took off to go skiing/snowboarding at Keystone for a few days after Christmas.
Just before leaving for London... well, just before packing to leave for London... I joined some friends for cake-making and -eating.
After at least three New Years Eves in Boston, I changed it up a bit this year: London for New Years with Francesca, and then a trip out to Bristol to visit Drew and Mithi. Good times all around.
One more thing... I wanted to point out a BBC news article about Ethiopia. The new legislation doesn't directly affect the work that IDE does here, but it's not a very comforting signal in general for the aid community in Ethiopia.
Parting shot...
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