A Surprise List

It may be surprising to many that Ethiopia is the only African country that was never colonized.  Outside of a brief Italian occupation, Ethiopia escaped European colonization.

There are many other things we have found surprising here.  I’ve made a list.  It’s called the “I’m surprised that………” list.

1.     None of us have been run over by a bus.  Crossing the street continues to be a “take your life in your hands” type exercise.

2.     There appears to be no limit to the amount of coffee a person can consume; this applies in particular to Mike

3.     Injera is very tasty (we had been told otherwise).

4.     I get unreasonably frustrated with the fact that I have no control over the water temperature of our shower.

5.     The Merkato Market didn’t seem much like a market.

6.     The kids have adjusted so well to their new school. :)

7.     Beer costs about fifty cents. 4 bananas, 3 avocados and 4 guavas cost about $1.00

8.     I am considering taking up bird watching.  There is a plethora of lovely birds around here.

9.     I can still only say about five phrases in Amharic-- a poor language student at best.

10.  It seems to be true that you can make do with much less. We’ll see if we are still saying that in a year.