Food for Thought

The photo is the historic Djibouti Ethiopia Train Station.
It is scheduled to be relocated to make way for a new road.






Addis Ababa, the capitol of Ethiopia:


Five million people, twenty thousand little blue and white taxis, only a dozen traffic lights. (or so it seems)
In little shops bananas hanging, chili peppers and lentil beans.

Open sewers, trash burning, sheep scurrying down the street.
Flowers in gardens, trim and neat, while beggars urinate in the street.

City police wearing khaki walking two by two, (only clubs they carry,) while Federal cops with rifles, wearing Camo look a little scary.

Urchins begging, (and selling their wares.)
Loudspeakers blaring call the Muslims to their prayers.

Swarms of people always walking,
At the street-side cafes businessmen talking

Ancient statues in the medians where ladies with scissors crawl and trim the grass.
Loafers sit on the sidewalks nothing else to do as time they pass.

Women carry little babies through the town
One offered to sell to me hers. Makes me frown.

There are many more things I could say
Leave that for another day except:

I LOVE that place and can't wait to return!

Labels: Impressions of Addis Ababa

Fetlework (deaf Ethiopian grandaughter) had a soccer game and a basketball tournament this weekend.
The team won the soccer game in the morning and Fetla and family traveled sixty miles to the tournament.
When she and the other team mates tried to greet and be friendly with an opposing team the coach was rude and ran them off.
Our little girls determined to have a little revenge for the treatment, got aggressive on the court and defeated them 51 to 0. It was a message to the coach, not the girls on the team.
The coach was later removed from the tournament.
How sad for the girls he coached!
These are fourth and fifth grade girls!

Shalom for now

She was foster mother to more than 400 orphaned children.
When there was no one else, Haregowin Teferra was there.

When I last visited in October 2008 Moses greeted me inside the compound gate.

He, like so many others, had been abandoned outside the gate! A gentle, sweet child.

During coffee ceremony he sat on my lap as if I were his long lost grandfather..
What will happen to this precious child now that she is gone?

Haregowin Teferra 1946 March 17, 2009

We miss you gentle lady

Labels: Little Moses