Ethiopia, day 5: Tuesday, 10 December

-great morning coffee
-Just when I thought I had memorized the way to and from the guesthouse and office, the driver would take a new way.  This one was my favorite.

These ladies, always with the giant sombreros, do such difficult labor: breaking up the rocky earth, carrying said rocks to and fro.  Ugh.

-The ladies for my class arrived quite late, which turned out to be a blessing. 
-VERY welcome reception from my ladies (I knew that my 20 words of Amharic would be charming!)
-The ladies all kissed my kids... on the photo that I had brought to pass.
-We prayed together... "Amin!"  "Amin!"  "Amin!"
-VERY successful English Muffin lesson

initial explanations, with the fabulous interpreter, Helena

"It's working!"  I had some serious doubts as I had never made them on a mitad before.

The eager Meseret

-a snack of k'olo, which was SO much more delicious than mine
-pre-pasta-lesson explanation of all of the support given to these ladies from our friends and family at home, which elicited ululation from the dear Bayush!

-successful pasta making lesson:  So successful, in fact, that after our lunch break, the ladies eagerly re-started without me!

the initial lesson

Look!  They already don't need me... just as it should be.

"Thinner, thinner, it needs to be thinner."

The girl off to the left was a whiz at making pasta.  Hers was by far the thinnest and best formed.  -enter interpreter-  "Oh, she has made pasta professionally before!" 

These two ladies bored easily of making SO MANY tiny bowties.  So, I offered to help them... in part, for sure, because the lady in the middle reminded me so much of my friend Katherine.

SO MUCH pasta!  We let it dry and then I bagged it up for the ladies to take home the following day.

-funny shadow-of-a-LADA taxi ride home... Thank God for first gear!
-I got to hand-wash towels and hang them to dry in the Ethio-sun!  My dream come true!

-Kate and I took another nice neighborhood walk: horses, dog packs, shy school girls wanting so badly to greet us
-tasty dinner
-"Thank you, God, for Benadryl!"