This is hard!

Blogs get to be hard to write! The first month was a breeze as every experience was new for me. This past month it has progressively gotten more difficult to share my experiences. Now, I have sat here and stared at this computer screen for way too long trying to figure out what to write before leaving for Gambella tomorrow. At some point the work you are doing, the relationships you have built, and the things you see just begin to mean something to you on a deeper level than can easily be expressed in a quick and simple blog.

It doesn’t interest many to hear about the creative ideas you and your colleagues put together to assist in women’s empowerment projects.

It doesn’t work to explain the utter heartbreak you feel when you see the suffering that some people are in. Until you look into the eyes of someone willing to sell themselves to you for $1, it won’t mean the same thing when you hear about it.

Not many people care about a relationship that you pour yourself into eventually developing to a level where you would do absolutely anything for that person.

So, while I work on figuring out a way to express the deeper stories for you, I will take advantage of my last day with unlimited broadband internet for a while, and just share some pictures….

Ethiopian National Theatre

Rakeb & a lion statue

The Derg Monument on Churchill Road. Pretty twisted if you Google it

A bunch of colorful traditional scarves

I just read a long and confusing online account of this. This is a model cannon placed in the middle of a busy roundabout on Churchill road to commemorate a Swiss guy who built a cannon upon request a long time ago despite Addis Ababa being the most impractical place for cannons to be built and shipped.

A photo being used to advertise medical services here in Addis

Rakeb and I after eating a "traditional" American meal of buffalo wings and chicken fingers