Sunday morning in Ethiopia-- or were we in America???

Well after a fun night of fellowship with the other two families here-- the other 9 are arriving throughout today-- Tony and I had an interesting night of jet-lag sleep. We were exhausted when it was time for bed, but at about 2am, we were up and ready to go. The only problem with this was the fact that no one else was ready with us-- except, of course for the patrons of the nearby nightclub. We should have joined them. After popping some Ambian and keeping time to the music in my head, I finally dozed off around 3am and woke from my coma to my cell phone's alarm-- which was an hour off (behind)-- and I didn't know it. So, when I thought it was 9:30 and proud of myself for being ready an hour early for meeting our driver and another family for church... it was really 10:30 and time to go. Tony was not ready and not so thrilled to have me burst into the room yelling, "Hurry up! My phone was wrong, it's time for church!!" He took it well enough.
We made it fine and now I know my phone is an hour slow, for whatever reason.

Here was the other funny thing-- we went to church in Ethiopia, and other than the African yodeling from one of the band's singers, I would have sworn I was back home at church in the US. It was strikingly similar to our church in Maryland-- which was very sweet and reminiscent... but not very Ethiopian :) That's okay. It was great to be in an International Worship Center and it is the church that several of the in-country AWAA staff attend-- including our driver "T", who is amazing and kind and very fun to be with. Everyone is wonderful and accommodating. Even when we throw out our American ignorance for full display, the Ethiopian people are so gracious and forgiving and make us feel like we didn't make a huge social blunder at all.

Our only glitch so far has been getting our mac to recognize it is in ET. Which the strangest thing is that yesterday I couldn't get it to work at all, and just before Tony and I left to go try the Hilton (which is where we are now), we made one last ditch effort to see if the mac would recognize the Yebsabi Guest House-- and it did. But Skype still wasn't working, so we decided to go ahead and come to the Hilton and try our luck here. It works here, but my parents aren't on line-- soooo... Nana and Papa,,,, if you are reading this, please put the computer on line so we can Skype you!!!!

I am posting some pics of our adventure so far. I don't know how to label them from email, so you figure them out. I'm still trying to get a good cow crossing the road picture. We have been especially intrigued by the method of construction, the goat herds and just all the sights and sounds which make me smile and make my eyes go wide, too!!

My love to you all,
Grace and Peace,
Shari