Hi its Abi today...
Today I was up early to make pancakes with Dodi, it was nicer being woken up with an actual alarm rather than the man singing on the hill (everyday since we arrived the Ethiopian Orthodox church have called the faithful to prayer at 4.30am, by chanting over a loud speaker!!). I had to be up early as we were leaving at 9:30am to catch the taxi to AHOPE.
We arrived at 10am to play with the younger kids at AHOPE and we arrived in the middle of a football match; we couldn’t work out who was on each team, it was played with two balls and everyone celebrated if a goal was scored. As I do not play football I played basketball with a few girls in the corner of the pitch before a boy came in and stole the ball. The game was abruptly ended with a massive chant as the kids rushed in side, we later found out that it was snack time and food is much more important than football. While the kids were eating we went to sit in the infant’s room, they ran to us and only wanted to sit on us and have a cuddle. I tried to learn names but I matched names to colours of t-shirt, so when we go back and they have changed clothes I will be lost again.
As the other children were still eating we took the little ones outside so they could play, they had chalk and loved us drawing round them. As the older children came out they decided to draw round us. One child drew round Andy and just drew a yellow blob; it was a true picture of what he looks like and was hilarious to watch. As the afternoon went on the ground was covered in chalk as the children played ‘noughts and crosses’ on any available clean peace of tarmac, most of the children had been drawn around with some bodies overlapping as the pictures fought for space. It was soon time for the kids to have lunch so we said our goodbyes and departed for lunch.
After lunch we went to Big AHOPE with the older children and took a group over to the guesthouse for a sewing activity. This activity was meant to last 3 sets of two hours but all the kids were done within an hour and a half. They made a sewing kit out of felt hearts to contain scissors needles and thread; David and I had a go and mine came out beautiful (as always), David’s however was more speed than skill so the finished product was rather messy and looked rushed. The Girls and boys we had for the sewing were lovely and I now have a head full of names that I will have forgotten by tomorrow when I see them all again.
The walk back from the guesthouse led us up the hill the taxis struggle up when Andy is sat at the back. Then along a path past tin shacks slightly like those we saw on the first day when we got lost, thankfully we had a group of children who knew their way leading us so we never put a foot wrong. We walked the children back to Big AHOPE before realising that usually they walk themselves back and we had to walk right the way down the hill again before catching a taxi back to the house.
Serawit cooked a BBQ this evening of Veal from his farm. The ribs were amazing with Dodi’s homemade BBQ sauce. We are now full and are watching David lose horrifically on Fifa 10. The whole day has been fun but has left us shattered, let’s see what tomorrow brings.
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