betsyisbest

some things never change, eh, girls?

diana, you're it: that is my pw till you do something else. i'd feel more judicial about, say, heatheranddianardear. but judicial was never the name of that game.

i'm dressed and ready for ZUMBA in forty five minutes.

africa. well. i really wish i could have posted while we were there. it's overwhelming to consider how to concentrate one measly post to represent those two weeks. so it won't happen. gotta start somewhere though.

for now, let me make this clear: just as important as experiencing a new continent, if not MOST important, and time will tell, was spending so much time with daniel and his wife. i just took my first sip of ethiopian coffee for this morning, and was transported to the coffee shop that we went to before we left to buy 2 kilos. daniel had had his eye on the bookstore a couple of doors down and darted into that shop while elizabeth, david and i went to the shop hailie had suggested we visit to take back the national product. product isn't the word, though: it's much too casual a word for a substance that encompasses what coffee does for ethiopia.

doesn't it practically define ethiopia? i foolishly thought that americans were "dependent" on the substance. myself included, though not in a harmful way. i'll need to research it, but coffee exports comprise a majority of the gross domestic product. oh oh oh: instead of the economic choice of guns or butter, there's a relationship between guns and coffee in absynnia. most of the annual budget of ethiopia funds wars. so wouldn't that mean that coffee is doing most of the trick? dark as a coffee bean, that relationship. hmmm.

when we arrived in addis ababa, it was late at night. two coworkers of elizabeth's, derek and jim, came with her to the airport: daniel was on a field trip with eighth graders in the northern cities of ethiopia such as lallibella (i have to fix that spelling likely) and axum. as we assumed and was later confirmed by daniel's subsequent mugging at six pm, after dark is not to be experienced alone here. we were thankful to meet the two. tears welled in my eyes as we waited in the throng at customs and final security to get out of the airport. in the crowd waiting for passengers, i saw a hand go up in the middle. i could see no face, and certainly couldn't identify the hand, but i knew it was heather. i bit my lip and wiped my eyes, foolish emotron, goober: get a hold of yourself. here's what happened to ioster the emotion: somehow, the stage had instantly changed from the addis airport to the first dance recital she was in at the age of four, twenty one years before. and she was on stage, looking for me, Inspector Gadget style. i cried then; why wouldn't i cry now? (i'll admit it: i'm crying now, remembering)

soon we were united with them, and clambering aboard a Bingham vehicle that Heather confidently commandeered.

at that hour, our first impressions of ethipia, the city, were muted. which is a good way to start with such a new place: tiptoeing in.

the airport was certainly different, and there were surprising numbers of strollers at near-midnight as we traversed the city from southwest to northeast, but the sense that i hold dear was not cranked up yet: smell. that came later the next day, and then, BAM, assaulted.

but now, dear reader (dear ones), i must to zumba.

ta ta!