Last Coffee Ceremony

Our Last Coffee Ceremony

Coffee is an important part of Ethiopian culture. Twice a day we stopped work for coffee, and each time one of the girls got to be part of coffee ceremony – including wearing traditional dress, roasting and pounding the beans and serving the coffee. Traditionally there is incense, eucalyptus and popcorn. I got this picture one of the women just before our last coffee ceremony and after a lunch everyone had made for us.

It was a really fun time to celebrate, but bittersweet because we knew it was almost time to say goodbye, and none of us wanted to leave.

Chika!

Chika

Once the frame is built and the bottom of the poles are painted with insecticide, you can start throwing chika – the combination of mud and straw that will make up the walls. First you throw from the inside and then it has to cure, then you do it again from the outside. Throwing chika is actually a lot of fun – though the wet mud is heavy and it takes a while to get how much to throw at a time and how to get it to go where you want. As you can imagine, it’s also quite messy so I don’t have to many pictures of the actual process.

Once the chika is cured, the outside of the house is wrapped in chicken wire for stability and then can be painted.

 

Framing the house

Framing the house

In Ethiopia, Habitat for Humanity builds modified Chika houses – a sturdier version of traditional houses – using local (and more affordable) materials. Here Tracy and Jeff are adding the long poles to the frame of the house that go down into a trench. The bottom of the poles are painted with insecticide and then the trench is filled in with (very heavy) rocks. The wooden frame is covered with chika (a combination of mud and straw).

 

Extra Hands

Extra hands

Every day we knew the second school was out as we heard the kids coming running back down to road, eager to help or coax us into a game. During coffee breaks they would read to us from their lessons to show us what they’d learned that day. We would get them to help us count or teach us colors. They would get bored with teaching us words that seemed so familiar to them – learning English was much more fun. “What’s that? and that?”

Hyena Game

Play time in Komblocha

Alkida was my girl in Kombolcha. Here the kids are playing and teaching us a singing game about a hyena in the brush. It’s a lot like Duck Duck Goose. One person walks around the circle while everyone sings and then they drop the scarf behind someone. They have to pick it up and run to try and touch the person with the scarf before they can return to the empty spot. Here Alkida is on the chase.

Sifting sand – again

Sifting sand

Every Global Village trip is different – the only constant is sifting sand. I’ve sifted sand in 5 countries on 3 continents, and I fully expect to be doing it again in Mozambique. Here Kyle and Tracy show off their shoveling technique after getting the screen adjusted to their preferred angle.

 

Digging the foundation

Digging the foundation

In the trenches on our first day of work. We were digging the trenches for the foundation of the house then carting out the dirt to be sifted. As you can see, this is definitely starting from scratch. Because there were so many houses being built and the Habitat Ethiopia team is so well organized, they were able to have us work on houses in various stages of construction so we went from digging trenches to framing, to painting the insecticide and putting the rocks in the foundation, throwing chika for the walls, putting on the chickenwire and painting.

 

High Sierra

Alpine Meadow at Yosemite

I went on a 5 day ranger-guided hike in the High Sierra at Yosemite National Park. The awesome thing is that you only have to carry your clothes – you’re hiking between the established High Sierra Camps where they provide food and beds. The challenge is that you’re going between 8,000 – 10,000 feet – which is a real challenge for flat-landers like us from the East Coast. I can train for distance but not altitude. The reward is scenery like this – seemingly out of a picture book.

The kids

The kids

It took a while to coax a smile from the older sister but the younger one just loved having her picture taken.

 

On the worksite

On the worksite

This was our mason and our worksite – we were pans of mortar (on our heads) to the mason. It was pretty slow going – it was sunny without a lot of shade and as the day went on it got up to 130 degrees. Even they were complaining about the heat! At least the donkeys helped bring in the bricks and we didn’t have to carry those.