The Ups and Downs of our first week in Addis

So, here’s our first crack at writing a blog.   First a disclaimer, the views expressed in this blog are ours (Anj, Mike, Aysha and Sunil’s), they do not necessarily reflect the views of CUSO international.

We've been in Addis for one week now--a large sprawling city that we think is going to take some time to get to know.   

 

It’s the last month of the rainy season. It seems to rain periodically during the day, causing very muddy streets and making laundry very difficult to dry.  We were expecting much worse, so this is good.

Kids' room

After a few days in a hotel we moved into our house.  Two bedroom place (the kids are currently sharing a room and a single bed---you can imagine how that’s going J).   One really appreciates the wealth disparity around here.  We have a cement house with some green space.  Across the path from us are families living in mud walled houses.  Close to the kids' school are insanely big mansions.    Around us there are strings of vendors selling everything from shoes, batteries, vegies and then a random upscale Starbucks like coffee shop.  I guess it’s the same everywhere, though it seems even more apparent here.

Our house

Over the last few days we have been trying to organize phones, internet, banking; all these things are an interesting merry-go-round of forms, photos and forms.

We were almost pick pocketed the other day; it all went down like a page from the Lonely Planet.  All of us walking on a fairly deserted street, a bunch of teenage boys approach us, one guy shoves some stuff at us that he wants to sell, in the meantime the others unzip my purse and dive into Mike’s pocket.  Luckily Sunil fought them off with his umbrella (true story) and we are none the poorer.

Our kitchen

Now a few words from Sunil “I know everyone loves me here, all the kids around here are always hanging onto me and calling after me.  Our school is really big compared to Wawa”

First day of school

Words from Aysha “There are lots of cute kids everywhere, especially across the path from us.  Also, there are lots of animals in the street.  At school, there are people from all over the world.  Most kids have lived in tons of different countries”

Mike and I are meeting with Dr. Dawit and the CUSO gang to sort out the details of our work.  Will be good for us to get to work.  We still have some sorting to do with getting the kids to and from school, but all in all things are good.