Our First Guest House

While E was visiting her family in Addis before the team arrived, she did a fair amount of searching for a comfortable guest house for the team's first couple nights in the city. The cozy place she chose was run by Figray, a young Christian gentleman and his new bride. He gave us lots of good information about his country. Because of it's proximity to the Canadian Embassy residence, they cater to many North Americans, hence our breakfast table was laden with familiar foods like scrambled eggs, oatmeal, toast, jam and peanut butter. Our first taste of Ethiopian coffee was a pleasant introduction to the delicious brew we were going to enjoy for the next couple weeks.

The guest house had a very comfortable living room which became our gathering spot to chat and enjoy our coffee, or enjoy a few quiet moments writing in our journals.

We were offered the use of his computer and the internet. At first we were very excited at the prospect of sending some messages home reporting our safe arrival, but we soon experienced the frustrations of using the basic dial-up service available in most of Ethiopia. It took many attempts to sign on to our e-mail programs and then sometimes the program would freeze after spending a good amount of time typing out our message. With perseverance, I think everyone who wanted to, managed to send a brief message to their loved ones.

The light of day revealed the beauty of the guest house grounds. Lush vegetation surrounded the house including many familiar flowers that we plant in our summer gardens, except these ones were much bigger and taller. The yard was gated, and night and day there was a hired watchman to keep us safe on the premises. The front wall was covered in shrubbery, even up and over the front gate. The side and back walls had broken pop bottle glass embedded all along the top. Security was taken seriously, although I can't say we ever felt threatened or unsafe during our stay in the country.