This is our bus situation from site into Robe. Sorry the picture is blurry but the road doesn’t cooperate well with pictures. What you can’t see is that we are crammed into the back of the bus with six people on the bench instead of the logical number of five. But hey, why pass up a chance to make people uncomfortable and making thirty extra birr.

I was asked to take a picture of my town. This is one of the main roads with buildings holding shops, and a donkey cart on the left side.  On the right there are foosball table for the kids to play on, and sugar cane for a sweet treat. Straight ahead the bamboo baskets hold bananas and other fruit brought up from the gorge to be sold at the intersection of the two main roads.

This is the reverse view from the door of my house. The middle building is the shint bet(bathroom).

This is my compound. My house is in the back of the picture mostly blocked. The house directly in front is a food prep/storage room. The one on the left is my land ladiy’s kotched. The water tank on the right is part of my land lady’s brother’s construction projects as are the piles of rocks and sand. On the near left is my chicken coup.

This is one of the T’ej houses I like to frequent. Tej is the local wine brewed from honey, water, and a fermenting agent called gesho. It is sweet and will get you drunk in a hurry if you aren’t worried. They also sell the local moonshine called arake here, but after a few bad experiences,

I can’t drink that anymore. It is almost impossible to come to one of these places without finding a few of the local shmuglies (old/wise guys) sipping on some arake.

Endala shows off his suk (shop). He sells electronics and building supplies along with renting out rooms at his house and owning buses for public transportation.  This is a pretty typical example of how people make money here.

Early in the morning – part of my town covered in fog. It almost looks like the top of a mountain.

Donkey wearing a tie.  Need I say more?

So I finally managed to make it to Dure Sheik Hussein (the fields of Sheik Hussein).  Twice a year there is a Muslim pilgrimage to this small mosque and historical home of the Sheik. According to the story he came and built this site nine hundred or so years ago in order to spread the Muslim religion. Now it is used as a site to come and listen to Imam preach, and to drink the lake water which is supposed to be blessed. I arrived on the big celebration day and was able to watch the stadium of worshipers, the dancers, and those who even to the late hours of the night sit outside the walls of the mosque and pray. The sun accommodated me in taking a couple good pictures so I’m hoping I can get a couple of them to send instead of just the one for today. Now I’m just waiting for the bus to leave and hoping the man going around asking for money and “blessing” people by spitting in their faces, (that’s not a typo), doesn’t see me.

Washing laundry was always a hated task for me back in America. I know I will never look at it the same way after living here, and I don’t even do it right here. I hung up some clothes today after “rinsing” …and they

were still sudsy.