Our Chapel

Meganonia Branch we had 6 baptisms last  weekend!!

The church lot is really beautiful! There are three Americans in our branch
(other than us Embassy employees) - two adopting
and one volunteering as a nurse here in a local hospital.

Life in Addis

A Dress Shop

Lots of Billboards

This is a ceramics shop 

This is the Friendship City Center - closest thing to a strip mall. Very close to our house.

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The Blue Donkey Bus Station

Familiar site - you have to be very careful with animals in the streets - if you hit one they sue.

This store is just around the corner from our home.

Furniture and Tire Store

Local FEDEX shop

This is the German Bakery that is soooo Delicious!!
This is where we get our bread and other sweet things!

This is the Freeway in Addis called the "Ring Road"
Notice the people walking - they actually have the right of way no matter what. If you hit a pedestrian you go to jail - you are in the wrong.

Our local Pepsi distribution building

These are goats - goats have their tail up, Sheep tails down

Local butchering place - fresh meat all the time!

These are sheep - their tails are down
(they do not raise them for their wool)

They do recycle here!

Going to the butcher!

Adams Square - a round-a-bout

The Diplomat Furnished Apartments 

The icecream shop next to the Diplomat Hotel 

Traffic in Addis

Pick a lane any lane!

I'm really not excited to drive... 

Our Home

Our two story home

The yard goes the full length of the home. Nice!

Car port/4 bedrooms for storage & Laundry/They call servants quarters

Our street

Other side of home - we live on a corner.

Panorama View of Addis Ababa

FAM Trip today!

We went on a FAM trip to familiarize ourselves with Ethiopia! It was very interesting! Our driver, Melaku, took us up the mountain, which was about a thousand feet higher than the Embassy. I am attaching the pictures of our tour: 

Going up the mountain in Addis Ababa

Tribal Women walk 3 to 4 trips a day down the mountain carrying  eucalyptus for firewood

Eucalyptus trees

This is a smoke house

 This is an Orthodox priest

The van that Jeff's work shares

Our little Seth

Front Melaku, Mark, and George  in back (Jeff's comrades) 

 Going back down the mountain

 Taking a rest from carrying firewood

 Most Students wear uniforms to school

A secondary school

 Selling Sandals

 Ethiopian Shops

 Blue Donkey - Ethiopian taxi. We are banned from riding because of the crime.

 There are many Roundabouts in Addis.

 This is a church - there was a minister preaching with everyone gathered. Most Ethiopians are Orthodox Christian.

 Addis has sidewalks but rarely used - they walk in the streets. That is why it is so dangerous to drive!

 A building under construction

 This rock pile is an Elderly Ethiopian woman's house. There are also a lot of lean to's that people build

Interesting Tidbit: The name Ethiopia derived, from the Greek form, aithiopia, from the two words aitho, “I burn”, and ops, “face”. It would hence mean the colored man’s land — the land of the scorched faces.