kittycatblog: 2012

November 2011 - Arrival in Ethiopia

Before the trip to Ethiopia I thought I would update my blog right away, keep writing while I was on the road, add updates along the way and then wrap it all up when I got back to Minnesota.

Well this is not how it went, but that is okay.
Inspired by the bold actions of two women I greatly admire, I thought I'd update this work in progress, just a little bit, just for now.

Sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly - this is how life goes for me.

The photo above was taken as Maddy and I arrived at the airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
It was quite a long process getting there - we missed a flight in Frankfurt, ended up flying to Cairo on Egypt Air, and then to Addis.

Let's back up a little bit...here are a few more pictures.

Here we are in front of my apartment the morning of the first day. Packed and ready to go on the adventure! Yes, we traveled with carry on luggage only, and we were very grateful for that! A couple of our traveling companions lost their luggage - just clothes, but that meant 5 days in the same clothes.

This was taken at the Minneapolis Farmer's market. We had a photo shoot with videographers. We've never seen any of the footage. Sometimes you take the action and let go of the outcome. I'm grateful for the photos we have, the notes I took, the experience, and the friends I made in Ethiopia. Through Facebook, Skype and LinkedIn I've been able to stay in contact with a few people.

Maddy on the plane, her travel pillow/frog is wrapped around her.

This photo below is my favorite from the trip. This was on our last day in Addis. We had come from Mekele and rural Tigray, we visited 3 villages where they were getting wells and clean drinking water for the first time, we had hiked and walked and explored and met people and we were happy to be rested and cleaned up and enjoying a beautiful day back in Addis.