TOTN Correction

I need to make a correction. The event is actually at Solitude. I don't know what I was thinking!

Taste of The Nation - Salt Lake City

I have been posting this message on every other site that I am a member of and even though I am sure that all of my reader's have kicked me to the curb by now, I thought that I would put it up here too.

I don't now how many of you are familiar with Taste of The Nation but this is an event held every August (this is the tenth year anniversary) at Snowbird resort. The event benefits Share our Strength, an organization with sole purpose of ensuring that no child in America grows up hungry.

The event is held in cities all across the country and this year, Salt Lake's is August 2nd. This is a great day out of good food from chefs in the Salt Lake area, as well as great wines and beer. I am letting you all know for several reasons. First, tickets are on sale at www.taste.strength.org. All proceeds from the tickets go to the charity, so it is a write off - yay!- and one ticket is good for the whole day, meaning unlimited food and drink. So at a minimum I encourage everyone to go. Beautiful weather, great scenery, wonderful food, its a good time.

Secondly, I am looking for sponsors and donations for the silent auction. Unfortunately, as is so often the case with charities, we are cutting it close on both. All of these need to be in place by the 20th of this month, for the sake of printing. Sponsorships start as low as $250 and can be customized to fit your needs. Silent auction items can be goods or services, and are a great way to get a little advertisement for your business as well as help a good cause.

Please contact me if you are interested in participating as a sponsor or a donor. Also, please feel free to forward this on to anyone else who you think would be interested.

Cheers,

Stacy Deru
stacy.deru@gmail.com
801.558.4906

Failing Miserably

Yah, that whole last post about being a better blogger. I was just kidding! Obviously. Where in the hell does a month and a half go? Oh yah, I know, work, Boko, his birthday, crazy ass drama filled funeral, work, soccer, a few nights lost to vino and vodka, and that should just about cover it. Oh yah, let's not forget a couple of dog fights. What kind of market do you think there is for a canine version of Fight Club, with Shelby in Edward Norton's role and Sake in Brad Pitt's?

At this point in time it is kind of tough to even come up with what I want to blog about. I suppose top of mind for me lately is work, so I'll go ahead and make a completely self-serving and obvious pitch for myself. I can always use some more business, so if anyone out there has a company and would like to offer additional benefits for their employees, at no cost to the company, let me know. If anyone wants some additional, and very affordable coverage for themselves, maternity pre-planning anyone, please let me know. Remember, the whole point of Aflac is that it pays you cash.

Okay, that will be it for tonight. I don't want people to be completely annoyed with me for my blatant sales efforts. I'll do it in small doses from time to time!

How about some pictures, since its been so long?



I can't remember if I've posted this one before or not, but oh well. Boko STILL asks about Bonnie's baby.

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Why am I posting such an unflattering photo of myself? I guess I just feel like I should prove that I am not completely crazy for keeping these menaces.



Old photo, I know. Like March. His hair is sooo much longer now. I obviously need to download some photos from the camera!

Trying to be better....

In an effort to be a better blogger, I have added a new poll. Please take the time to answer if you stop in.... I have a purpose. ;)

Nothing Special

Well, I have been a very bad blogger. And since I can't really think of a great story at the moment, you're getting pictures. Actually, I probably could come up with some stories, in conjunction with the pictures, however, I need to actually get some work done. I know, lame.



What a big dog Boko!! On the Saturday before Easter we went to the Children's Museum in Denver and they had the great dane rescue outside. That one weighed as much as me and was still 30 lbs underweight!! If I didn't have the circus in my house I would have totally brought home Moose!!!



Boko LOVES Bonnie's baby. He talks about her at least every other day. Who knows? What do you think Bonnie? Mother in laws? We'd have a great time together! ;)




Cheese!!! Thanks Christie and Ryan for all my cool Easter gifts.



The Denver aquarium is awesome!! They have a ton of cool animals. Sharks and tigers.... Need I say more. But they also have a bar. With a big huge aquarium window. So once you go through the whole aquarium, mommy and daddy can sit down for happy hour and the little ones can glue their faces to the aquarium window. Then, they have this scuba diver swimming through the tank and he comes up and interacts with the kids.



Petting the baby sting rays and feeding them too. Watch out for the teeth though!! Yes, they do have them.

Oh and not that she is reading this, but Ashley is in Ethiopia picking up her little cutie and I hope that they are having a great time!!!

The Face of Hell

Now I may be the worst mother ever, on the sentimentality score card but I am NOT the worst parent. First, I am bad because today Boko went to his first birthday parties. And he had a lot of firsts. First on the big bouncy contraptions and slides. First time in a pool. First time on a climbing wall. First time seeing Spiderman, aka, creepy man with junk showing who one HAS to wonder- Why is this grown man traipsing around in this outfit only to be subjected to 4-10 year old bad behavior during his "act"? What exactly is his satisfaction?

To my defense, however, Boko DID drop my camera and put a big spider web crack on the preview screen. I'm telling you, Best Buy is totally losing on this warranty. Its like sending me to an all inclusive resort. Really, you WANT to give ME open bar. Good Luck!!!

Anyway, at the first party today a woman came to the party, late. Now I can't say , for sure that her name was Rosemary, but I have my suspicions. We were at Kangaroo Zoo, which is basically an indoor arena for big air inflated bouncy things..... Whatever. Anyway, you have to go in without shoes. I was back out to get something out of one of our bins and there she was, with her 2, 2.5 year old. So first of all I thought she can't be part of our group because this is a 5 year old birthday party. Then I see her talking to the mother and realize that she is a guest. This is when I really notice little Damian. That was not actually his name but we will use it to protect the innocent. And by innocent, I mean me. As we all know, demon spawn knows when you talk about them, especially negative, then the creepy music starts to play and you fall through the ice, or through the banister. So for my safety, let's keep this anonymous.

I see this child and he looks at me, and I swear to god, all of his teeth were pointed. They ALL came to a point. I'm really not kidding. And the light glinted off of them with the warning that if you came close enough he could bite off a limb like most kids would bite into a marshmallow bunny. We are talking horror movie, leprechaun, don't put your hand in there, oh my god how could a limb be severed like that - situation!! And his laugh! Oh his laugh. It was pure evil. Cliche I know but I was afraid. It was maniacal, like something you would expect in a Manson documentary. I mean really. This kid is a bad seed. It is obvious.

And the mother. She immediately checked out. Talking to other people. Socializing like everything is okay. Like her child isn't one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Keep telling yourself that sweetheart. And granted, she looked normal, but hey, doesn't the anti-christ usually choose someone who looks perfectly harmless?

I watched this kid interacting with the other kids. I had him down to 60 seconds flat to clean out a bouncy. He would go in swinging. Hitting every kid in site. And hard. One girl tried to tell on him and she paid.

In the party room, his mere presence sent other children into blood curdling screams. Parents would come running only to find out that Damien had inflicted his person into the personal space of their child.

Needless to say, I did not attempt to befriend this mother. Sorry, she is on her own and I expect to see the news of her untimely and curious death on the news any day now. I did see her correct him once.....

When Jack Russells Attack!

This happened shortly after Shelby and Sake started on their happy pills. Shelby had been accidentally locked in Boko's room and we heard her whining from downstairs. I was in the middle of a work phone call and Boko went running upstairs to let her out. I'm on the call trying to make an appointment with the company while trying to quietly stop Boko from opening the door - Why you might ask would I not want him to let her out.

Well, it is not letting her out that it is the problem, it is letting her out of the room with Sake standing right there. Because inevitably, Shelby will be pissed off that she was "locked up" while that bitch was left to roam with the rest of us???!!! I will kill you you interloper!!! Who do you think you are??? ATTACK!!!!

Which of course is exactly what happened. However, due to the effects of the drugs it was more of a slow motion attack. So, as I am still talking on the phone, I was able to grab Sake by the color and whip her up into my left arm. Right arm still holding phone. Then they go nuts screaming and yelling at each other. This is where I have to admit defeat on the phone front, explain that I am working at home today and someone is walking by the front window - lie lie - and can I call you back in five.

Sake by this time is in full let me at her I'll tear her apart, mode, and is pushing on my arm and scratching at me. I get her downstairs and to her kennel but have to wait until I can get Shelby far enough back with one foot to be able to get Sake into her kennel without Shelby latching on to her.

Crisis averted. Dogs don't have any marks on them, no blood letting. Woo hoo. But I can tell that I have a lot of scratches on my arm. Oh well. As the day goes by I start to notice that my arm is a bit sore. But I didn't really give it any thought. I had a long sleeved shirt on that didn't really pull up so I just let it go. When Cory got home that night, and I was changing for bed, that's when we saw it. Bruising that looked like I had gone through the window of a car, when you combined it with the scratches. And it looked nasty!!!! The pictures were taken a couple of days later and do NOT give it justice.

Nothing like going to the gym and having some one actually say that domestic abuse should be considered. Sure, go ahead, call the police on Sake. I would love to hear what they have to say. I mean I do consider her a child, so there may be some ground to stand on there!

Thanks for the Soccer Help!!

Thanks to replies, and specifically Jessica's, we are now registered for soccer. The thing is that it only lasts for one month though, the end of April to the end of May. That seemed kind of odd to me. But I can't really remember things perfectly from when I was that age.

Shan, thanks for the suggestion, but I think that is a bit too far for me!!! ;) The one I signed up for is somewhere over here on South Mountain. I will have to figure that out as I have never had a reason to go to any of these types of places before - little kid soccer fields, the public pool, etc......

And not at all on topic, some more pictures.



First day of school



Jenny and Boko hanging out.




Helping daddy shovel the driveway.




Happy Valentine's Day Boko!



Mom, look at the school clothes we bought today!

My Kingdom for a Soccer Team!!

Does anyone know of soccer teams in the south end of the valley here?? Seriously, how can it be this hard to find a soccer team for 4/5 year olds in breeding central? AHHH!!

And what everyone really wants, some pictures. As we all know I am a complete slacker when it comes to photos. And although we have been taking a lot since we've been home, none of the super recent ones are downloaded. So here are some others from earlier this year. And FYI, we have only been home for like two months, so its not like they're that old and technically they are new to all of you so =)~








These are all from the limited time that we had him at the hotel with us - remote controls and light switches - Like toddler crack with a side car of Patron!!! Boko's first glass of wine.... Come on, seriously? They poured the water in there. Come on people. Sleeping on the floor at the Minneapolis airport. Not an easy thing for mommy to allow to happen and finally, entertaining ourselves by doing laps around the luggage carousel while we waited for Cory to bring the car back. Oh yah honey, forgot that my phone died, so extra laps because he thought we would be watching for him in the dark, out there in that 3rd lane of pickup at the SL airport, or even more genius, waiting outside on the curb!! Yes Boko, welcome to the 8th level of hell (Isn't that the cold one or was it 9???)








Chillin' with the doggies followed by self portraits.

Immigration Appointment

So when you travel to pick up your child in Ethiopia, you will have an appointment where you go in and meet with immigration. You take your filled in I864 - which is basically for the purposes of proving that you can afford to bring an immigrant home with you and support them. You take copies of tax returns and W2's. They make this sound much more stressful than it actually is. They coach you leading up to it on what to say and what is expected. So you go in somewhat nervous, thinking that you could say the wrong thing and mess up the whole adoption.

After lunch time, they load the kids onto the bus, which they LOVE by the way, and drive from HH over to the guest house. Oh, WHFC has their appointments on Mondays. Always. They pick up all of the parents there and you ride to the embassy. The security isn't too bad, metal detectors, you can't take any electronic devices in with you. They will take them from you at the door and keep them up front, but we just left ours at the hotel. So limited pictures from that day.

Then you are led into a waiting room. We were immediately taken from this waiting room and led outside to another building where we sat in another waiting room. This one had a tv and play area for kids. We waited in here, with some American wrestling show on, WWF, or something. Great representation of the US! Woo hoo. While we waited, the other families who had been left waiting in the other room, came in. Eventually all of them were called upstairs. We were one of the last ones to be called up.

So, the whole time that we waited, Boko was great. Patient, quiet, really good. Then when it was time to walk upstairs he threw a fit. I had to pick him up and carry him up the stairs. At the top he kept trying to run back down. Eventually the guard did something that you get used to having happen in the US. He took him from us. Not in a mean way, but in a helpful way. It is perfectly okay for a stranger to take your child from you and comfort or play with them there. You just have to go with it or else its a big cultural faux pas and adds to some of the negative feedback that you hear about Ethiopians having toward American adoptive parents.

Anyway, we go up to the counter, the guys asks us the standard questions - is this the child you agreed to adopt, have you met the family, have you given them any money...? And that was about it. Really easy and kind of pointless in the overall scheme of things.

You go back downstairs, and wait for everyone else to be done, then you load back up on the bus, and go back to the guest house. We were able to spend most of the rest of the afternoon playing with Boko there, and the other parents actually took custody of their children that day, if they wanted to.

That night, the head of the orphanage over there takes you out to a local Ethiopian restaurant for a traditional meal and dinner show, of two men and two women performing dances. It was very interesting, even if one of our dinner partners totally ruined my meal by having no idea of how they eat in Ethiopia and giving the most disgusting display of dinner manners for any country that I have ever seen. I left hungry and totally pissed off. Someday I will have to go into more details if anyone is actually interested. The honey wine actually was not as sweet as I expected it to be and a few of those helped a lot. They serve it in these things that look like beakers from a lab and I thought that it was just a serving container, especially since they were fairly large, so me and the other person who had ordered it asked for glasses to pour it into. Oh well, we definitely were not the stupidest looking people at the table!!!!!!!

That's about it. Most of the rest of our trip consisted of going to museums, visiting the lions, and playing with Boko. I'll try to tell a bit more about all of it, but I am becoming the worst blogger and want to try and catch up on more recent events too.

Let me know if there is anything specific that you would like to know about. That is if anyone out there is still reading this.

Fuzzy

I'm trying to remember if we met Boko on Saturday or Sunday. And I am fairly sure that it was on Saturday afternoon. I'm sure now that I think about it.

So Sunday, we got up, had some breakfast and then went over to the kid's house as soon as we could. When you get there, the kids are all up, they've already had breakfast and they are figuring out what they will be doing for the day. Although we saw the nannies occasionally have a group get together and sing or something (usually with the younger kids) we never saw anything that resembled school in the time that we were there.

On this second day, we had more balloons, of course more candy (caramello but quiet on the r... Best way I can think to explain what it sounded like). We also brought beach balls with us. This is where Boko finally started playing with me and thinking that I might be okay. We would hit the balloon or the ball, whichever he had, back and forth, over and over and over again. He was amused though! Not that easily amused any more. He also started learning that he could knock things up onto the roof of their sleeping area. This was the best thing ever, especially since balloons and balls usually came back down. From the looks of that roof, they had gotten a kick out of throwing LOTS of things up there.

I hate to say it, but this is really as exciting as it gets. Playing with the kids, trying not to be completely covered in snot, or catch ringworm. There were a couple of adorable little boys who wanted to play and cuddle, but I noticed that their heads were covered in ringworm. I loved it when one of the parents said, Oh, don't worry about it, usually it only effects people who are susceptible. You'll be fine.
Well..... HAD it! BAD!! December through February of my freshman year in college. I had it in MY EYE!!! So as adorable as you little rugrats are, get the HELL off my lap. Where are the disinfecting wipes??? Which, by the way, I had on me at all times while we were there. I used packages of these things. Lots of them. Which leads me to another thought. Also glad that I had toilet paper here too, as the bathrooms in the second guest house never had any - could have just been the time that we were there.

For anyone who is interested, the Indian restaurant in the Sheraton is awesome. We really liked. This was the first day that we went in and had lunch there. Once again, did the nice relaxing bottle of wine and hung out for a while. Why not, we had HOURS while they were napping.









Yes, these are all from the same day. He likes his clothing changes!

Eating

For the record Jenny, there is more to the eating story to come..... don't get ready for you two bonding over food issues quite yet. He's taking after me!!!

4th Picture 4th Album

A few different blogs that I read had a general tag on for this one. Post the 4th picture from the 4th album on your computer.

So here you go...




Now, anyone else who hasn't done it is tagged!

Meeting Boko

Since we now knew that we could not meet Boko because it was nap time - kind of a trend when you are there, never really told in advance what the schedule/plan is. Just find out as you go, we went back to the hotel for a couple of hours to freshen up and grab some lunch.

Unfortunately, what I was afraid of happening has started to happen. I am losing some of the details from our days here. Nothing major, but maybe just can't remember exactly what we did each day. Where we had lunch, how long we waited to do certain things.... I'm going to have to start asking Cory, but I don't know if he'll remember any better than me.

Apparently he does, jogged my memory. We went back and ate out by the pool. We shared french fries, french onion soup, a pizza and a couple of St. George beers. We didn't have a lot of time so it wasn't a really long leisurely lunch. Plus we were maybe just a little bit antsy for it to be 4, so we could go back.

Our first time at Horizon House, we pulled up out front of two large metal garage doors at a building up the street from the guest house. It was very nondescript and the doors were the size and shape of a garage that you would see in New Orleans - where you pull into a court yard, and from the street, really have no idea what is back there. We pulled in and there is a teeny tiny grass area in front of a small house and enough parking space for a small bus and a couple of cars. You walk along side the house and the stone wall on the opposite side and in the back is another small building that looks kind of like mini barracks. The yard in front of them is all asphalt and concrete, and there are 3 or 4 doors facing the yard.

At one of the doors, was Boko. He was the first kid up from nap time - which would not be the case most of the days moving forward. The other parents who had now arrived were there as well. All but one set of parents who were part of our travel group, were there to pick up children in the 4-5 year range. Only one couple was there for an infant, so did not come over to the big kids house.

Honestly, he was smaller than I expected. We had measured things in his rooms, mirrors etc, to be around his height as we knew it. I'm sure that he was the size that they had told us, but for some reason, I just had bigger in my mind.

Let me tell you, it was immediately apparent that this kid is NOT a morning person. He looked annoyed for being up. Annoyed slightly that anyone wanted to talk to him. He was very tentative in coming near us. Especially me. It was also obvious pretty quickly that he was more attracted to Cory. I spoke with another mother who was there to pick up their 4 year old boy as well, later in the week, and she was having a similar experience. Their little boy wasn't too concerned with her, not compared to his dad. We figured that it must have had something to do with them being without a mother for so long. Boko at least had lost his a year and a half before. I can only imagine what he was thinking when Cory went up to him, and he had to get used to the idea of him being his dad, but who was this superfluous adult? A spare just in case?

Still though, it even took Cory a bit to get him to come to him. We of course came armed with mini candy canes and foo fuhs (sp???) aka balloons. We were quite the hit with all the kids. And for the most part, Boko was not too concerned if I just played with the other kids this first day.

We hung out and played with the kids, throwing around balls and handing out candy, until it was dinner time. The other parents were taken back to the guest house by a guard - I still don't understand this one - and we stayed while we waited for Mulat to come and take us back to the hotel (this would be one of the few days that Mulat drove for us, usually we were with Yonas). So we hung out with the kids.

There is a room, where they take the littler kids in during the day to play and sing songs and this is also their dining room. Snacks are had outside on a blanket, but dinner is in this room. There is one big round table where the older kids, at this time that was the 4-7 year olds. The smaller children sat on the floor and the nannies and the older girl who was there to help spent most of their time with these kids. Making sure that they ate.

A lot of the nights that we were there, the kids had injera with a bean wat. This was also the first time that Boko showed interest in me, when he tried to feed me his food. Okay, not exactly tried, since we were trying to bond, I of course took it when he handed it to me. As you may or may not know, they eat with their hands in Ethiopia too. I realize now though, that he did this more to get the food off of his plate than just to share. He was not a fan of this dish. At the time though, we were thinking that he was just a difficult eater, I mean come on. Injera? Its like the national food of Ethiopia. All the other kids down it, even the 2 year olds are just shoveling it in. Not our kid though.

This is one of the first times I was really happy about staying at the hotel. We realized that we could come and go as we pleased, while the other parents were on the schedule of the guest house. Where by the way, there was no wine, no cocktails, no mommy and daddy drink of any kind. ;)

When we left that night we went back to the room and were beat, so we ordered up some room service and this was the first time that we tried Ethiopian wine and found a lovely white wine, called Cristal (I think that was the spelling) and since it tasted good and was about $8 a bottle, of course we became fast friends.

And that is the end of another day. I will try and be a better blogger from now on and finish up with this.






I'm telling you, balloons will buy you love with these kids!!!!! Take LOTS of balloons with you. Beach balls are good too, but for a cheap way to bribe your child, you cannot beat the balloons!!!!

Back to Addis

Fitsum showed up shortly after we finished breakfast to haul us back to Addis. He had told us the day before that we could take our time on the way back and stop and see any sites that we wanted. It was more or less decided that we wanted to get back to Addis sooner rather than later. So we were not necessarily opposed to going a bit more slowly than we had on the way down, when we were on a tight schedule, but we did not necessarily want to take the day to tour one of the national parks and see the birds.

At dinner in Awassa, when we were talking to the adoptive father doing the film, Solomon, the driver with him from WHFC told us about a fish market, not far from the hotel, where there were monkeys. He said that we should definitely have Fitsum take us there the next day. When I mentioned it at breakfast, the other couple was fine with going.

Now, when he said fish market, I had men around counters, throwing fish to one another. Then I realized that I was not in Seattle, and my vision switched to something from Andrew Zimmern Bizarre Foods. Dirt floor, battered tarps, wooden stands, and people everywhere bartering and negotiating for fish.
Well, I was wrong on all points. We drove up to a set of gates with guard stands on either side, and into a national park. We drove over into a grove of trees and parked. On the way you could see small brown monkeys jumping out of the trees to get a closer look.

The grove was on the edge of a lake and the fisherman were all coming in with their small boats, and their small catches. Little kids were running all over the place, and when they saw that I was completely giddy over the blue balled monkeys they ran and go bread – kind of like English muffins or soda bread and sold Cory two pieces. This was so we could coax the monkeys over to us, and it certainly worked.
There was one monkey in particular that really liked me. I felt so bad for the little guy. I’m not sure if I have mentioned before that there are dogs wandering everywhere with no owner in particular. Well, as I was feeding this monkey I noticed that he had marks all over him, like big festering sores kind of marks…. I was a little concerned that I was going to get some sort of monkey leprosy. But he was smaller than some of the others and seemed Very hungry.

I asked Fitsum what was wrong with the monkey and he told me that it was the dogs – that they attacked the monkeys and the sores were actually the bit marks from the attack… Poor monkey!!!! So I kept feeding him, holding out the bread with him taking it out of my hand. The little ingrate tried to steal my ring. Yup, I had a cheeky, blue balled monkey try to steal my cheap ring from Mazatlan. So there I am yelling at a monkey at this “fish market” saying let go you bad monkey. Bad monkey. The monkey seriously put his head down and his hands between his legs, until I got over it and then he started taking the bread from me. He tried to steal one more time – the rest of the piece of bread, and he got yelled at again. “Endlessly, horribly bad monkey!! That is rude. Don’t do that”. Yes, I was serious. I forgot that there were other people around me. And no, it is not on video. Thank God Cory as sleeping on the job. This time the monkey kept his head and hands down for a really long time. Then when we walked away to explore more, he followed me. I think he liked the tough love.

There were also a lot of crazy looking pelican type birds here. The kids would go over to where the fishermen were cleaning the fish and take handfuls of the guts to throw at the birds so they would stand up and show their full bodies, so that us tourists could take photos. Then of course they expected payment.

The lake was gorgeous and the birds were interesting, but let’s face it, it was all about the monkeys for me. If I could have gotten a visa for one of those guys – well, let’s just say there’d be some poop flinging happening in this house right now.
So we left and headed back to Addis. On the way we took our time, stopping to take a photo here or there and having a cup of coffee at a little roadside hotel/café. Basically just relaxing and if I haven’t mentioned it before, let me now, or if I have, do it again. If you are in Ethiopia, bring your own toilet paper. I cannot tell you how invaluable those little rolls of travel Charmin are. And also, don’t forget hand sanitizing wipes of some sort too. Some of the toilets outside of Addis are holes in the ground with a place for your feet on either side. There is pee all over the floor, and I don’t want to know what kinds of spiders, and it smells like the outhouses at parks here in the US in the middle of the summer time. Although on the main road down, the hotels that you would stop at have normal toilets, rarely with TP. Or soap and water to wash with. Crazy for a country that eats with their hands and are so concerned with washing them before meals.

Of course on our way out of the park, we were required to pay for use of the park. I can't remember exactly what it was but when someone with a rifle tells you to pay, you just do it.

One last story about the way back to Addis – the Camels. As we were coming up the road, we saw a herd of camels coming down along the side. This was something new. So our driver stopped for us to take pictures. He told us that they were from the Oroma region and that they were leading their camels to water. That is one hell of a walk. We’re talking days. As were taking photos, it became painfully obvious that the kids herding them were not cool with that. One kid, and he was a kid, I would say 13 maybe, was coming toward us across the road, yelling and shaking a rock at us, ready to throw it at us. His cohort, a little older, maybe 16 or 17, stood in front of the car so we couldn’t leave. Everyone quit taking pictures, pusses, and waited to find out what was happening. (My camera was dead) Our driver had no idea what they were yelling at us. Apparently he did not speak that dialect and it had no similarity to anything that he did. A car going in the opposite direction stopped in the middle of the road and they spoke their language. They explained to our driver that the boys were upset because we were taking pictures without paying. Seriously!!!! I think that we ended up paying them 10 birr, a dollar, but it was still annoying. Violent little extortionist. After we left there was a second herd of camels, and this time we offered money up front – gave them 20 birr and they were nice enough to pose with the camels too.

Next stop Addis. I’ll talk about getting back and meeting B for the first time.













I think that the pics are fairly self explanatory and I'm too lazy to label each one. Let me know if you have any questions!!