Well, here I am, deciding what to put on here...my life is full of so many good things, I don't know what to post! Mostly it's going to be about things that I do, and the people involved, because....what else do people put on blogs. So I will show you about when I went to Africa with Amsterdam. Not the country, Amsterdam,

the person Amsterdam ------->
She is my wonderful friend, a marvelous person whom I have known for a very long time and have had lots of adventures with. She is as funny as the polar bears on the melting ice cap, standing up and yelling, “nuts and bolts, nuts and bolts, we got screwed!” Personally, I’m not really concerned about the bears. But she is.

Anyway, we helped at an orphanage in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. Twas fun and full of joy. The people there are so amazing. It’s hard to describe how warm and friendly they are. Even though the city has four million people, it is more like one big community.

The children at the orphanage were just awesome. There were infants there, and all ages up to about 14 years. They were really cheerful and loving and they always made you feel special with their hugs and smiles. They really filled up my heart every time I saw them, and I will add that if anybody is ever interested in adopting, it's a perfect opportunity, and will add joy never imagined to your lives.

We substituted for the teachers when they were gone. They had all the regular classes that students have here, but we also taught America class, helped in the library, and even taught Amharic sometimes (their language). When we taught that class, it was more like an English class, but sometimes the kids would teach me Amharic. Everything was so laid back there, the teachers sometimes didn’t come back after lunch. Also, everybody was on Ethiopian time, which meant that if you were meeting somebody they might be 2 hours late. Almost everybody had cell phones there, though, which kind of surprised me.

Twice a week, we took the kids on field trips. Sometimes they'd go swimming, ride horses, eat at restaurants....sometimes the girls would get their hair done at a salon. We did things that most of them rarely, if ever, experienced.


The driving down there was pretty hectic....They had lots of round abouts, which I definitely think should be more common in the U.S. But there weren't really any rules or anything. People just kind of butted their way in. You couldn't be too considerate, or else you would never get anywhere. They had blue minibuses for taxis, so you were on there with maybe 8 other people. It cost about 20 cents (American) to get anywhere in the city. They also had contractor taxis, which were almost like regular taxis, and it would usually cost about 4 or 5 dollars at the most to get anywhere you wanted to go directly.

We stayed at the volunteer house. When we got there, there were four of us, and by the end of my stay, there were 10 all together. There were two girls from Belgium, two from Finland, one girl from Canada, and a guy from Japan. Then there were us Americans. One girl knew somebody I knew from Oregon, and there were two people that went to the same University I did. I even lived in the same building as one of the girls one year, and we recognized each other. Crazy. I never expected to meet people from all over the world in Ethiopia of all places. I got to learn about lots of different cultures.

Almost everybody who had a house, had a guard. It was almost like an obligation, because there were so many people who needed jobs. This was our guard, and another person who worked with us at the orphanage. We had a lot of fun.