2016 Recap

This is the the second of three recap posts I have decided to write - one for each year of my unintended hiatus to bring us to today. If you are looking for the other two recap posts, you can find them here: 2015 Recap and 2017 Recap. Then my plan is to fill in with more retroactive posts before I start moving forward.

January

Our vacation in the US and Bulgaria is lovely but fattening. I don’t like the fattening part, so I sign up for the embassy’s weight loss challenge (aka The Biggest Loser). I had tried to establish an exercise routine the prior year but couldn’t stick with anything. I am determined to try harder this time. I start walking at the embassy during my lunch break. Tara joins me and we keep each other motivated. We usually do about 2.5 miles on the path around the embassy compound. I Santa had gotten Paul a FitBit for Christmas and I am a little jealous. I like how it keeps track of his activity. As the days go by, I start thinking that maybe I need a bigger goal, something to help me stick to an exercise routine better. (And a FitBit to track my activity – I may have said it out loud once or twice.) I remember that way back when I first learned I was assigned to Addis, I thought climbing Kilimanjaro would be cool. Then life happened and and I forgot about it but now I wonder if a goal like that may not be what I need to keep going. Hmmm…

The Embassy organizes a day trip to Bishoftu on MLK day, which is a day off for me but not for the kids. Paul is out of town, so I decide to take the Embassy trip and go see Bishoftu, which is only about an hour away from Addis. There are several crater lakes in the area and it is quite beautiful. Tara and her mom (who is visiting at the time) are also on the trip. We do a little hiking in the area, have lunch and come back. Here’s a picture of me and Tara at one of the crater lakes. And yes, I am fat!!!

The year is young and I am feeling ambitious or something because I take out my sewing machine and sew for the first time in a very long time. I had seen this neat criss-cross back apron idea on Pinterest and I want to try making it. Creating the pattern takes some time but I figure it out and use some cheerful fabric to make one. It turns out pretty good, if I say so myself, so I make another one. Now all I want to do is hang out in my cute aprons and cook… or pretend I’m a domestic goddess, ha!

On January 19th Ethiopia celebrates Timket (Epiphany). We hadn’t seen the processions the prior year, so we decide to watch them this year. We go to a church not too far from our house and watch the elaborate procession there. It’s pretty impressive. Here are the priests with the Ark of the Covenant.

Paul is in Niger for work at the end of the month, when he gets an offer for a GSO job at the US Embassy in Sofia, Bulgaria starting in August 2016. It’s very exciting because I am originally from Bulgaria but it’s also complicated. It’s an out-of-cone (out of his specialty) job for him which is less than ideal but it also means he would have to curtail his position in Addis and we would have to separate for about a year because he has to go to training in the US in April. The kids would stay with me in Addis until the end of the school year in late June and then join him. I would visit them as often as I can in Bulgaria until I finish my assignment in Addis. I am not bidding for another nine months, so there is no telling if there would be any work for me in Sofia. It’s far from perfect but bidding as a tandem is never simple. We had tried several other options that didn’t work out. While not ideal, this is the least bad best option on the table, so we take it.

February 

Max turns five and we have a party for him – finally. He wants a pool party. We are actually in a position to do that in Addis because the weather is lovely and we can do it at the Embassy compound pool, so it works out great. Here he is making a wish before blowing out the candles on his special rainbow car cupcake and dancing in the Ethiopian outfit our nanny Sara gave him for his big day:

And making a splash with his friends:

At work I hold a Vendor Day event trying to drum up some business and explain to local companies how to bid on embassy contracts.

We celebrate our 19th wedding anniversary on Valentine’s Day and I get a FitBit! How did Paul know? But seriously, that little gadget helps motivate me to stay active. Tara has one too and so do several other friends, which is cool because we have FitBit competitions. I find trying to get 10,000 steps a day meaningful somehow. I have to make a concerted effort to hit it every day but I love getting the little thing to buzz and display fireworks when I do. Also, I start using the FitBit silent vibration alarm in the morning and I my sleep gradually improves. It’s the little things, people!

March

Pyramids, baby! We take a five-day trip to Egypt. One of the good things about living in Addis is that it’s an airline hub and there are direct flights to many great destinations including Cairo. We fly Egypt Air and the direct flight takes four hours. We stay at the Intercontinental Cairo Semiramis, which is right downtown on the Nile on one side and on Tahrir Square on the other. Our room is dated but the rest of the hotel seems nice and the breakfast buffet pretty extensive. We go to the Egyptian Museum, The Alabaster Mosque, The Citadel, Old Cairo and the Christian Churches, Khan El Khalili Bazaar, the Pyramids of Giza and Sakkara, the Sphynx, Memphis, and on a short Nile cruise. Cairo and the Pyramids had been on our bucket list forever and we are absolutely delighted to finally see them. We wish we had the time to explore more -  we would have loved to see Alexandria, Luxor/The Valley of the Kings and Sharm el Sheikh but it’s not meant to be on that trip. A few other observations: Cairo traffic is really bad, it gets chilly in Egypt in the winter months, especially at night. Also, Arab Spring and the multiple terrorist attacks have hurt tourism really bad – we see very few foreign tourists around. Every Egyptian we talk to is like: Tell your friends to come, tell them it’s safe! The people we talk to are generally nice, especially the women and girls – so many of them want to take pictures with us. Perhaps my expectations were unrealistic but I find Egypt generally less developed (people seem poorer), more polluted (a lot of trash around tourist sites) and more conservative than I thought it would be. Men stare at me intensely and make me feel uncomfortable even though I am with my husband and children and don’t wear anything offensive. One of our guides talks almost exclusively to my husband, ignoring me and my questions most of the time, which takes away from the otherwise amazing experience of visiting a special place like Egypt.

Later in March Paul is traveling for work again, so I take the kids to the Indian Embassy for Holi, a colorful Indian spring celebration. It is not quite like being in India but Holi never disappoints.

 

April

The Embassy weight-loss challenge ends. I am not the biggest loser but I manage to lose the 8 or so lbs I had gained during our vacation to the US and Bulgaria. I want to lose more. Tara and I continue walking daily even though I don’t seem to be losing weight any more.

Tara and I travel to the US for a work-related conference where we get a Safe Driving award for our embassy. We spend the weekend before the conference with Tara’s family and have a wonderful time. Tara and I go for a walk in her neighborhood one morning. I feel like skipping, so I go for it down the hill from Tara’s house and she joins me. Some of her neighbors see us skipping and it becomes the talk of the neighborhood, apparently. Ooopsies, I didn’t know skipping while adult was frowned upon. Oh well…

Back in Addis, our friends the Sarnos teach us how to make sushi:

I am a model at an Embassy charity fashion show and sale organized by the U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia Patricia Haslach, benefitting Ethiopian women’s NGOs. I donate clothes to the cause and buy the Ethiopian outfit I wear at the show (below).

I reupholster our embassy-provided dining room chairs. I never liked the original upholstery and had some nice blue and white fabrics I had bought while in the US. See before and after below – so much better, no? Living in a house you did not choose and can’t modify to your liking, full of furnishings you didn’t pick can be hard. This is my small way of personalizing “our” house and it makes me happy. Again, often it’s the little things that make a big difference in our day-to-day lives. The covers are removable and I take them off before I leave Addis.

Paul leaves Addis for good at the end of April. He has to take a couple months of training in Washington before he starts his next job in Sofia, Bulgaria. The kids and I see him off with heavy hearts – we know it would be months before we see him again.

May

I start thinking about things to do with the kids before they leave Ethiopia for good. I weigh our options, talk to people who travel around with their families and decide to go on a safari in Kenya. Paul has been on a safari in Tanzania years before but the kids and I have not. I hear a lot of good things about the Masai Mara park in Kenya, so I decide to go there. The company that helps me organize our trip is Phoenix Safaris (phoenix-safaris.de) and they are great. We stay in Nairobi one night on the way in and another night on the way out and spend four days at Masai Mara. In Nairobi, we stay at the La Maison Royale hotel, which I book through Expedia. The hotel is fine but there is no hot water the next morning, so I let the receptionist know. When we come back from Masai Mara for our last night in Kenya again at La Maison Royale, they make up for the no-hot-water SNAFU by upgrading us to the penthouse apartment, which is very nice. At Masai Mara, we stay at the Mara Serena hotel, where we have a lovely cabin overlooking the Mara river and the park – way cool. The food is pretty good too. The drive from Nairobi to Masai Mara is interesting because you drive through the Rift Valley and get to see the countryside but about halfway you get off the paved road and start down a dirt one which is some of the worst I have ever experienced (I actually do experience something comparable later in the lava fields of the Erta Ale volcano in Northern Ethiopia but that’s for a separate post). It’s just painful. We all have headaches by the time we get to the park. Oh, also because it’s the rainy season in Kenya when we are there, we get stuck in a huge puddle (more like a small lake) on the way back and have to be pulled out. Flying from Nairobi to Masai Mara is an option but I consciously decide not to take it because I think it would be cool to see more of Kenya. In hindsight, we should have flown but hindsight is always 20/20. We love the Masai Mara – the safari is incredible. The kids and I have a large vehicle all to ourselves. Our driver, Rafael, is awesome and shows us all the animals. The kids have a blast riding in the vehicle standing up and spotting the different animals in the grassland. I will do a separate post with lots of pictures of the animals but for now, let me just say, there’s so much beauty and wonder in Masai Mara that you can’t help but fall in love with the place. If you have a chance to go on a safari at the Masai Mara, do it. You won’t regret it. Here are a couple of pictures. The first is from our visit to a Masai village with the men performing their traditional jumping ritual. They believe that the one who jumps the highest will fetch the prettiest bride. The second is of the kids riding standing in the safari vehicle – So. Much. Fun!

June

June is hard. The rainy season starts. I understand the rains are vital in many ways but am not a fan of the rainy season. School is winding down but I have a lot to do to prepare for the kids’ departure from Ethiopia. I am doing a pack-out of Paul’s and the kids’ belongings to send to Bulgaria and have to go through everything and organize it all. Shipping some but not all your family ahead of schedule is not trivial, I learn. I reach out to Washington for guidance and they send me instructions. I follow them meticulously until the day before pack-out when a different person from Washington tells me the instructions I had been given earlier were all wrong and my orders are now all messed up and unusable and have to be redone. I can’t tell you how frustrating that is on the day before pack-out. I can’t pack out without orders and I can’t use the set I have. I am so stressed out I just about have a heart attack. I spend hours on the phone and emailing people to get it all straightened out in time, so the packers can do their job. I am already a mess because I have to spend months and months away from my family and feel terrible for not finding a way to keep the family together. I don’t need this, especially when it’s not my fault. I had done my best to follow instructions. But frustrating as it is, that too passes… and life goes on. Max loses his first baby tooth during that pack-out.

The kids enjoy ginormous “school’s-over” lollypops.

Also, Father’s Day is approaching and the kids are missing Daddy and Paul misses them. I decide to do something to celebrate despite the separation. We have some fun on the trampoline creating a Father’s Day greeting for Paul.

July

On July 1 Max and Nia leave Ethiopia. As in for realzzz and for good! I can’t travel with them because of work, so I they have to fly alone, for the first time. Fortunately, it is a direct flight to Washington and Paul is waiting for them on the other side. There are also several friends on the flight who keep an eye on the kids for us. They make it to the US without any issues. I am happy for them but also totally bummed out. They are going to spend a month in the US with Paul and then move to Bulgaria. My Bulgaria. And I won’t be the there to show it to them… Not only that but I would be away from them for 9 long months. That’s hard for a mom. With the kids gone, I don’t need a nanny, so I help Sara find a job with a new embassy family.

Of course, there’s work and plenty of it. We are in the throes of another busy summer, so I basically focus on working and working out during the week. I often work late. But no one is waiting for me at home, so I don’t have to worry about it. Now that I’m alone, I start thinking about climbing Kilimanjaro again. Tara wants to do it with me. We decide we’d do it the following April, at the end of my time in Addis because we work in the same section and can’t take time off at the same time. But in order to climb Kili, we have to prepare because it is not cheap and I am not going to spend the money and not summit. So we decide to up the ante on exercise. We start running, or should I say run-walking because that’s all we can do at first. That’s right folks, at 44, and at 8,000 above sea level, I start running, ever so slowly. Me, running – crazy, I know! I had never been a runner. I had done other things when I was younger but running was not one of them. It just seemed so boring. Well, not sure why or how but running makes sense now. It’s pretty simple, you don’t need anything special to do it, and you can start slow and work your way up. Tara and I also decide to start hiking in the hills above Addis and for the rest of our time in Ethiopia, we hike every weekend we are in town, which was great prep for Kili but also really good for our sanity.

Work is hectic. It’s transfer season again. For most of July, Tara and I are the only Americans in the GSO section and cover for other colleagues who have either left Addis for good or are on R&R. There is unrest in South Sudan and we are asked to provide logistical support. The Second Lady of the US, Dr. Jill Biden, visits Ethiopia and I am responsible for motor pool, airport and travel support. While this visit is smaller in scale than POTUS, I have more responsibilities and am on call 24/7. Working the visit is very interesting and I even get to see Lucy (the skeleton of one of the oldest humans on Earth) during the visit but it’s also exhausting and I am glad when it was over. Here’s my end-of-an-important-visit smile.

August

August starts with an emergency MedEvac for me. DentEvac, actually. I had this problem tooth and it had been acting up for a while. I try to ignore it because I have no time to deal with it. Then I try to address it with local dentists but it keeps coming back. Waking up with a swollen cheek and in a lot of pain gets old. After a few of those episodes, it’s time to take care of it. I need a root canal and a crown and when you live in Addis, you go to South Africa for those kinds of things. So off to Pretoria I fly. I am referred to an excellent dentist who takes care of my problem faster than I thought possible. It goes down like this: Day one - root canal. Day two - another inflamed chipmunk cheek episode but they pump me full of antibiotics and pain killers and I am on cloud nine for the rest of the day. Day three - the dentist “installs” the crown and I feel oh, so royal. Day four - I am cleared to go back to Addis and fly back on day five. Just like that.

Around that time, Tara and I decide to add yoga to our exercise routine. We still walk for about 40 minutes at lunch daily, run Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays after work and hike on weekends. Now we add 40 minutes to an hour of yoga on Tuesdays and Thursdays. After looking around for a good yoga program, I settle on the DownDog app, which offers a variety of routines and routine lengths and I like the way the instructor leads her classes. It works for me and Tara likes it too. We are starting to get stronger and build stamina. The weight is not coming off but I feel good.

Also, I get tenure. And last but not least, there is cholera in Addis.

September

It’s time to visit Paul and the kids in Bulgaria and to move the cats to our new home in Sofia, which sounds a lot easier than it was. Getting all the paperwork and shots, so I could take them out of Ethiopia is like pulling teeth. Seriously. But I get to fly first class on Turkish Air and use their ah-mazing lounge in Istanbul, so yeah! That’s oh, less than two months after the attempted coup in Turkey but I’m not going to let something like that get in the way of traveling in style. How did I get to fly first class? Well, Paul had a regional job while he was in Addis and traveled so much that he managed to rack up a bunch of miles on Ethiopian Airlines. He tried to use his miles to get upgraded when he flew to the US and then again for the kids’ flights to the US but neither worked. It works for me and the cats though and it’s soooo nice! Did I mention the Turkish Airlines lounge in Istanbul is awesome? I did? Well, it bears repeating. That’s how awesome it is. You should check it out.

Being in Bulgaria and hanging out with my family is just what the doctor ordered. I missed them so much. My mom moves in to help Paul with the kids and everyone seems to be adjusting well. The kids like their new school and are making friends. I go to the school and meet most of their teachers. I am mom again for about 10 days. Oh also, they had just gotten their shipments, so I get to unpack them – yey! Paul is getting used to his new job. I am bidding (looking for my next job) and I am trying to get a job in Sofia. There are only two jobs there I can bid on – both are out-of-cone for me and one is double-stretch, which means either of them would be very hard to get but I have to give them my all because my family is there.

Back in Ethiopia, with my family and the cats gone, I have time for myself. It’s been so long since I’ve lived alone, that I don’t remember how to be alone. Tara and I meet a couple of Ethiopian kids on our hikes to Entoto (a mountain above Addis) – two boys about ten years old, Cherunet and Bereket. They hike with us every time we go to Entoto after that. We knew they are very poor, so we start bringing them food, clothes, shoes, toys and other things. We tell some of our friends about Cherunet and Bereket and they give us more clothes. We bring the clothes up Entoto one day to give to the boys’ friends because there are a lot of other poor kids up on the mountain and we want to help. It seems like a good idea at the time but goes out of control. All of a sudden we are surrounded by kids and more kids are running from all directions. Everyone is pushing and pulling and wants something. We try to give each kid a little something but it’s a great big mess with tears. Some of the littlest kids are getting squished and crying. We give away what we brought but it’s overwhelming and a little scary, so we decide not to do that again. We continue to help the two boys with whatever we can until we leave Addis. Here is a picture from one of our hikes to Entoto, with the Meskel flowers in full bloom.

On the way back from one of our hikes, we get mugged and Tara’s phone is stolen. We are very close to the Embassy and get help from some of our security staff. We have to go to the police and testify but somehow eventually the phone is found and returned – unbelievable! That experience scares us a little, so we start hiking with friends who have dogs. Most Ethiopians are afraid of dogs, so they leave us alone. That’s one way to stay safe.

October

Things are not going well in Ethiopia politically. There has been intermittent unrest in the country for almost a year. Protests intensified during the summer. The government often shuts down communications in response, so we often have no internet, sometimes phones and text messages don’t work either. Even when the internet is on, the government is blocking social media sites. There are periods when I can’t get in touch with my family for days. Naturally, they are worried because very little official information comes out of Ethiopia. One time, when Paul can’t reach me for a few days at work and on social media, he calls the Ethiopia desk in Washington and asks them to check on me. They pass a message to me that my family is worried. When the internet is restored, I contact them and let them know I’m fine but communications are very unreliable. Of course, we don’t like it but it is much worse for a lot of locals – many people lose their jobs, others are arrested or disappear. Everything comes to a boil in early October, when there is another peaceful protest, which is violently put down. Things escalate resulting in more violence, businesses and farms are burned or looted. The government declares a State of Emergency and imposes a curfew and checkpoints. They also limit foreign diplomats’ movements to 25 km outside Addis. There are a lot of military and police all over town. Our work is also affected – there are huge delays in the processing of documents and shipments (including those for disaster relief) which is a serious problem for our new colleagues, who can’t get their belongings. Everyone is frustrated, which is affecting morale. Our embassy has a lot of State, USAID and CDC programs outside Addis which require constant travel but now that our movements are limited, travel is extremely difficult and those projects suffer.

With all the chaos going on in the background, I try to maintain as much control of my surroundings as I can. I decide that I am going to surround myself with positivity, which is easier said than done because there is a lot of negativity around. I work with a lot of people who are stressed out and unhappy. I am not going to say I don’t get upset, I do but I try real hard not to dwell on it. Tara and I vent to each other during our daily lunch walks. Walking (and venting) helps us “get the mean out” and go back to work feeling better. Exercise also helps us keep a positive outlook on life. I print affirmations and put them on my walls. I listen to uplifting music and watch movies that make me happy. Paul knows things are rough and the internet atrocious, so he sends me shows on DVDs. I get to watch grown up shows for the first time in forever. I watch all of Mad Men, Sex in the City, MASH and The Tudors, which Tara lets me borrow. I hang out with friends. We all need to process what’s happening around us and let steam out. We also need a distraction, so I decide to have friends over for Dushera (an Indian holiday). I cook Indian food, play Indian music and my favorite Indian movies. I  bring out my collection of sarees, show my friends how to put them on with Indian jewelry and make-up. It’s good for our sanity.

On our hikes Tara and I often see women carrying wood on their backs from the top of Entoto mountain (at around 10,000 ft) down to the bottom (around 8,500 ft) to sell for firewood. The road up/down the mountain is steep and their loads heavy. A load fetches them about $5 and they can each do just two loads a day because of the distance and the time it takes to cut/collect the wood. My heart breaks every time I see these women because I know a lot of them end up with serious back injuries. One day, we see a pregnant woman do it (pictured below). I have heard that it leads to miscarriages but somehow I never imagined a pregnant woman's family would allow her to do this. Unfortunately, I am wrong. We ask the woman how far along she was while she is taking a break. She indicates she is seven months pregnant. We give her some money but wish we had enough Amharic to tell her about this local NGO we know of, which trains women like her to weave scarves, so they don't have to carry wood on their backs. We often buy scarves from them because it’s a good cause and they make nice gifts.

I start going to happy hours at the Marine house and get to know the Marines and other colleagues I didn’t have a chance to meet when my family was still in Addis. The Marines had a “Work Out with The Marines” program. Tara tried it and liked it. I did not. I was too intimidated to work out with the Marines – they are like half my age, very strong and in excellent shape. But we keep talking about it and I decide to give it a try. It’s usually some type of high intensity workout and it kicks my butt. Every. Single. Time! But I know it’s good for me, so I decide it’s worth trading one of our two weekly yoga sessions for a work out with the Marines. I try to sneak another yoga workout at home on the weekends sometimes. I work out a lot by this point – six or seven days a week and while I am still not shedding weight, I start noticing that my clothes fit better. I am losing inches. OK, maybe not inches but centimeters or at least millimeters.

November

Donald Trump becomes the new President of the US! We hold an Election Day event in Addis and watch the election live. Democracy in action or the greatest manipulation in US history – you decide. I am supposed to be apolitical.

I decide to limit sugar and carbs from my diet. It is darn hard but I am generally good during the week. I also start experimenting with intermittent fasting – you know, intentionally skipping meals. I usually have one giant cup of very milky coffee with coconut oil for breakfast, normal lunch and skip dinner. I eat whatever I want on the weekends and while traveling. I finally start shedding some weight!

I want to be with my family for both Thanksgiving and Christmas but can’t be gone for both holidays, so I have to pick one. Thanksgiving makes more sense because it’s close to Nia’s birthday, so I can be there for both. Plus, I was off for Christmas the prior year. It’s only fair to let my colleagues take Christmas off this year. So I travel to Bulgaria again in late November. Our friends from Addis, the Sarnos, visit us in Bulgaria for Nia’s birthday, which we celebrate at an Indian tea house in Sofia.

Then we drive to Dobrich in Northeastern Bulgaria, where Paul and I met 21 years prior and celebrate Thanksgiving there. After that we drive down the Black Sea coast stopping to see sights along the way and also visit my college besties Nassia and Radostina in Varna for a couple of days, which is lovely.

When we return to Sofia, we get a nice heavy snow. This is the first time the kids have lived in a place with a real winter, so they are thrilled. They play in the snow and we decorate the Christmas tree, which is a lot of fun but before I know it, I have to go back to Addis.

Great news is waiting for me in Addis – after bidding my butt off, I get one of the two positions I bid on in Sofia. It’s a Political position starting in June 2018. We are majorly relieved and overjoyed – we are going to be together again but as most tandem bidding situations, it is not all perfect. It’s an out-of-cone position for me, so we will both be out of cone, which is not the end of the world but you work out of your specialty and it can be hard to learn a completely new one. It may also make it harder for us to go back to our specialties after that. I will have to be on leave without pay for a year, which under the circumstances sounds good – I have lost time to make up with my family and I can use the break, however, it will cut our income by about half, which is significant when you have two kids to put through college. Our tour dates will be two years off, so we’ll be together for about two years before Paul’s current tour in Sofia is up and then he has to go somewhere else - another separation. But the timing of my tour will allow Nia to finish high school in Sofia, which is good. It’s the best we can do, so we embrace it and try to focus on the positives. C’est la vie, right?

December

The weather in Addis is warm, sunny and beautiful but I have a hard time getting into the holiday spirit. This is the first time since getting married that I am going to spend Christmas and New Years away from my family and I’m not looking forward to it. Tara is having a Christmas party at her house and has invited a bunch of friends. I decide not to go because I’m bummed out about being away from my family and don’t want to spoil the holiday for my friends but she talks me into it. In hindsight I am glad I did because I end up having a nice Christmas despite being away from my family (certainly better than sitting home alone and feeling sorry for myself). It’s a potluck, so everyone brings good food they have been hoarding for months for the holiday. We have turkey and a bunch of other deliciousness. Then we play Cards against Humanity – the terrible game for terrible people like us but OMG does it feel good to relax and laugh again! For New Years, we do the same thing but at my house and it’s time to kiss 2016 goodbye. It has been a strange year and I am glad to put it behind me.

2015 Recap

This is the first of three recap posts I have decided to write - one for each year of my unintended hiatus to bring us to today. If you are looking for the other two recap posts, you can find them here: 2016 Recap and 2017 Recap. Then my plan is to fill in with more retroactive posts before I start moving forward.

January

Max and I arrive in Addis on New Year’s Day, after having “celebrated” New Year’s Eve 2015 on board of a Turkish Airlines flight to Ethiopia. I somehow imagined ringing in the new year in the air with Champagne, courtesy of the airline and perhaps festive food. Yeah, that only happens in my dreams. The flight is crowded and pretty dreadful and the mood is, well, the opposite of festive. Paul, my Mom, Nia and the cats arrived in Addis a couple of days before Max and I and have already taken care of some of the basics, which is nice. We spend the rest of the month getting settled at home, at school and at work, figuring out where to go for various things, meeting people, exploring Addis, learning about Ethiopia and Ethiopian culture, enjoying the nice weather and one of Ethiopia’s greatest delights, Ethiopian coffee. Speaking of coffee, we arrive in Ethiopia during coffee harvest season, so we get to harvest, dry, roast and experience our own home-grown coffee from the two coffee plants growing in our back yard, which is pretty darn fantastic.

Also, we like our new yard so much that we decide it’s only fair to share it with our cats. So we start the short-lived cats-on-leashes-in-the-yard experiment, with mixed results. Why on leashes, you may wonder? Well, because our cats are known escape artists. And why are the results mixed? Two of reasons: a) our cats have always been indoor cats and the surfaces they find acceptable are hard flooring, carpet (loved for the scratchability), furniture and litter. They aren’t quite sure what to do with the grass. It looks inviting but walking on it feels weird. Turns out the comfort of known surfaces can’t be beat. I guess the grass is not always greener…  and b) after a few outings, they end up with worms and deworming them is about as fun as it sounds, so that’s the end the cats-on-leashes experiment. But we tried it and here’s a picture to prove it.

February

Max turns four in February but because we are new at post and don’t know many people, we mark the occasion quietly at home. A few days later we celebrate our 18th wedding anniversary in true Foreign Service style, by romantically unpacking our belonging as we get a shipment every weekend in February – first our UAB, then our HHE (which has been in Belgium since we left Delhi, waiting for us to get to Addis), then our consumables and lastly, our car. Getting our car is a huge deal as it means we can now venture beyond the walking-distance area. Game changer! Also, we luck out with our stuff arriving during the dry season thereby avoiding water damage and mold.

Happy Anniversary Unpacking Day, Honey!

We  take two great embassy-organized trips outside Addis in February – one to Lalibela, a favorite pilgrimage site for Ethiopian Orthodox Christians,

and another to Wenchi Crater, which as the name implies is a lake in a crater.

March

We were so happy with the two embassy-organized trips we took in February that we take another one in March, this time to Debre Libanos, a beautiful church with colorful stained glass windows:

and Portuguese Bridge, located at the edge of the Blue Nile Gorge:

Between Debre Libanos and Portuguese Bridge we also run into some monkeys, much to the kids’ delight:

Last but not least, in March I visit Ya Bunna, a small specialty coffee company in Addis, where I learn a ton about coffee and fall in love with medium roast and Yirgacheffe coffee.

April

We celebrate Easter at the Embassy and at home with egg hunts

and egg fights.

Nia plays the trumpet in a concert

and performs in a Shakespeare play.

May

May is wonderful. Summertime is always busy for GSOs and I know I won’t be able to take time off but we also hear that POTUS (President of the US, at the time Obama) will visit Addis in July. My bosses encourage me to take time off in May before all hell breaks loose. Unfortunately, the kids are still in school in May, so we can’t take a proper vacation but there are holidays at the beginning and end of the month, so we take two awesome short trips – one to Istanbul, Turkey,

and the other to Cape Town, South Africa.

Both trips are fantastic but we have been to Istanbul before, so we know what it’s like. That doesn’t mean we don’t thoroughly enjoy the sights and the delicious food. Cape Town on the other hand, is new to us and we fall in love with it. We see ostriches, penguins, cheetahs, go up Table Mountain, and to the beach, have nice wine at a winery, and all kinds of delicious food. We would love, love, looooooove to be posted in either of those places some day.

June

School slowly winds down in June and the rainy season starts. The rains bring these critters:

That’s right – termites. They swarm like crazy and shed their wings all over our yard. Some get inside the house driving the cats absolutely bonkers. The first time we see them, we freak out because we used to live in Florida and there termites can destroy your house. We are told that their African cousins, do not cause damage like the ones in Florida. Whew!

This particular rainy season is very wet in Addis but there is a serious draught elsewhere in Ethiopia, leading to famine in several parts of the country. Very sad situation and my colleagues at the Embassy, from USAID, State and other agencies work very hard to bring aid and distribute it to those most affected.

But generally speaking, I am not a fan of the rainy seasons in Addis because it’s cold and there is very little for the kids to do. Most kids leave Addis for good or just for the summer, either way they aren’t there for play dates. There are summer camps but only for two weeks which is not enough for us because we are stuck in town all summer. The kids are bored. We try to come up with stuff to do with them. One day I take them to Sabahar, a really cool organization run by a Canadian woman who teaches homeless and destitute Ethiopians to spin silk and cotton thread and weave it into beautiful scarves, tablecloths, bed covers, bags etc. Their items are lovely but not cheap, however, the cause is good, so a lot of expats shop there. Sabahar is located not too far from where we live and they have silkworms! The kids love seeing the silk worms and the women spinning, especially Max, who decides he wants silkworms as pets.

Another day we go to see the giant tortoises that live in the yard of the kids’ school.

I am experiencing serious cheese issues. We bought some cheese in South Africa but it’s gone in no time. Addis is not the best place for cheese lovers. There are some local cheeses but they are more like cottage cheese and while they work for Ethiopian food, you can’t use them as a substitute for other cheeses we are used to. Imported cheeses are available but very expensive and almost always frozen and let me tell ya, defrosted cheese is just, ahem, suboptimal. I decide I have had enough defrosted cheese and take matters into my own hands making my own Mozzarella.  It’s both easier and better than expected. I use this recipe, in case you want to try it. You do need rennet (I used tablets) and powdered citric acid, both of which are available on Amazon but other than that, it’s no biggie.

I then use my home-made Mozzarella on home-made pizza. I make my own dough, using this recipe. Both the cheese and the dough are approved by my picky eaters. I teach our housekeeper how to make cheese and pizza dough, so for the rest of our time in Addis, we are pretty OK in the Mozzarella and pizza department.

July

July is a whirlwind. My colleague Tara arrives in Addis. She and I met a few months earlier in GSO training in Washington. We don’t know it at the time but we will become almost inseparable by the end of our time in Addis. I pick her up at the airport and on the way to her house tell her POTUS is coming to town in a few weeks. She freaks out a little because she knows it means a ton of work before she’d have a chance to get her bearings but we roll with it. Before that, however, I have a big party to plan. I’m in charge of the official 4th of July event at the Embassy. I have been working on it since I got to Addis in January and most of the work is already done. The beer and wine arrive just in the nick of time but the event is great and both Ambassadors (we have two in Addis – one to Ethiopia and the other to the African Union) like it. Tara helps me on game day. Here we are at the end of the event with James Dean and Frank Sinatra. Oh, I almost forgot – the theme of the event is Old Hollywood, hence the cutouts.

With POTUS coming soon, there is no time to rest. We have to immediately jump into preparations for the visit, which is a huge challenge. A visit of that magnitude is a challenge for any embassy but some embassies are in a better position to handle it than others. About a thousand people from various US agencies come to Addis for the visit. Just housing them in decent hotels, feeding them, getting them water, communications, vehicles, and tents to protect from the rain during outdoor events is a logistical nightmare. I’m in charge of procurement and property. I negotiate with hotels and car rental companies to make sure there are decent places for everyone to stay and cars to take them where they need to go. There are certain requirements hotel rooms must meet for a visit like that. And there just aren’t enough rooms in Addis that meet our requirement, so we have to get creative with some groups. Right before the POTUS visit there is a major international development conference in town. We have a contract with a car rental company to rent vehicles from them as the embassy vehicles are not enough. Except when we go to get the vehicles, they aren’t there. The people who had them for the conference, have not returned them as previously agreed. So we scramble to find a solution. Some of the drivers we hire from outside aren’t very professional - they don’t always show up when and where needed, or different drivers show up, all of which is unacceptable because the schedules, movements and security for a POTUS visit are extremely tight. Thankfully, the major kinks happen with the advance team (people who arrive to help a post with a visit a couple of weeks in advance, hence the name) and we iron them out by the time the President lands. My staff is constantly running around town looking for all kinds of items various teams need for the visit. We also have an issue with the flags. At one of the venues (the Presidential Palace) the required flags have different dimensions than what we already have, so we need to have some made. We find a company that says they can do it. I offer to leave them a flag sample to make sure they get the colors right. They say they know our flag. Except when I go to pick up the flags, both the colors and the dimensions are wrong and have to be redone. I am stressed out and frustrated and so is the vendor as we are running out of time but in the 11th hour as the President is touching down, they finish the flags and it all works out. I remember waiting at the vendor for the flags to be finished with both of my kids in tow because it’s the weekend and we don’t have a nanny on weekends and Paul is already at the airport supporting the arrival. The kids and I go to the meet and greet with the President at the Embassy. Max gets some nice shots with the President. Nia and I, being tall, have to be further back and only get pictures with half of our faces in them. But I am not complaining as I get to go to the President’s Speech at the African Union and that’s all kinds of awesome.

August

Most of my colleagues relax after the visit and take time off. Not me. We had to stop accepting new arrivals at post in July because of the visit and now have something like 30 new colleagues arriving in the first week of August because the school year at the International Community School starts in early August and colleagues with kids arrive in time for the kids to start school. That means the Property team I’m in charge of has to make sure the 30 houses for the new people are properly furnished, cleaned and prepared for occupancy. We had already been working long days and weekends for the POTUS visit but have to keep going to accommodate the new arrivals. Meanwhile, the other team I’m in charge of, the Procurement team, is working on End-of-Year procurement, which is hard to explain but let’s just say that due to how the State Department is funded, a large percentage of the purchasing for the year happens in August and September. So I was busy, busy, busy. And exhausted.

September

We have four holidays in September, one American (Labor Day) and three Ethiopian (a Muslim Eid, Meskel and Ethiopian New Year), which is great because I really can use some rest. Ethiopians have their own unique calendar and time and celebrate the New Year in September (their calendar is 8 years behind ours). The largest Ethiopian holiday, Meskel (celebrating the finding of the true cross) is also in September. We have an annual event for our vendors at the Embassy for Meskel. Here I am at the event with vendors. I made the tunic myself out of gold-thread Ethiopian fabric I found at Shiromeda, a large market for traditional Ethiopian fabrics and clothing near the Embassy. Tunics are not big in Ethiopia but I had fallen in love with them in India for the awesome coverage they provide, so the tunic is a marriage of Indian style and Ethiopian fabric. I get a lot of compliments on it.

I also try kitfo, an Ethiopian spiced raw beef dish, for the first and last time at this event. I am a little tentative (left picture below) at first but it tastes very good (right picture), though my tummy does not feel so good the next day, so I stick to cooked food after that.

October

Finally, I get a breather and we escape to lake Langano, where our Embassy (as well as others) has a campground, for a few days. We see millions of flamingos, camels, and ostriches.

November

The annual Marine Ball is in November. We both wear Indian clothes, because why not. I had made Paul a wonderful Indian suit and bought myself a saree (one of about 30) at the very end of our time in India and I hadn’t had a chance to wear it yet.

Nia turns 12, which we celebrate with a sleepover. We stay home for Thanksgiving and invite three Peace Corps volunteers and our nanny/housekeeper Sara, who make it special (sorry for the blurry picture).

We have turkey and pumpkin pie from scratch:

December

We travel to the US for Christmas and Paul’s Dad’s 90th birthday and celebrate both with Paul’s family. Here’s a picture of Grandpa’s birthday at a German restaurant in Washington.

Then we go to Bulgaria and celebrate New Year’s with my family.  Here are my parents and the kids at Rila Monastery:

Five Great and Five Not So Great Things about Serving in Addis

This post is long overdue and it is similar to the one I wrote about India five years ago. My family and I arrived in Addis in January, 2015. My family left in July, 2016, while I had to stay until April, 2017.

Before we moved to Addis, we did a lot of research and talked to a lot of people who had lived there. Many of them told us Addis was Africa light. We and the majority of our colleagues, who lived there around the same time as us, did not find that to be the case. That is not to say that there are no nice things about Addis or that we didn't have good experiences there. We just found it hard for our family. We also had friends who had lived there years before and came back when we were there. Those friends said it had changed a lot, and not necessarily for the better. There was so much rubble and new construction, that the place was almost unrecognizable. Perhaps it's these growing pains that made it a hard place for us but without further ado, here are my five faves and five not so faves about Addis.

On the plus side:

1. The coffee (and the sweets that often go with it) - Yes, it's true, Ethiopian coffee is amazing. You can find anything from Ethiopian style (sweet or salty) to fancy caramel macchiatos all over town for a fraction of what you would pay in the US. We actually lucked out and had two trees already growing in our yard, which was pretty fantastic. We got to harvest, roast and drink our own coffee. How cool is that?

2. The school - The International Community School in Addis is very good. Both Max and Nia liked it, as did the children of most of our colleagues. Because Addis is the seat of the African Union and the UN Economic Commission for Africa, there are a lot of expats in the city, so the school is truly international. It has nice grounds with a decent amount of green space. The teachers are generally attentive and caring and the community tight-knit. There are many activities associated with the school during the school year and that is one way to meet people. Because there are not a lot of other nice places for children to hang out in Addis, we often went to the school - it's clean and has nice playgrounds for the kids to run around, and reliable internet for the parents. The school was experiencing a lot of growth and there was an expansion/construction project going on around the time we left.

3. The weather - Addis weather is wonderful, for the most part. It never gets too hot or too cold (rarely more than 25 C or down to freezing). There are a couple of rainy seasons - little rains and big rains, they call them, but the little rains usually only last about two weeks or so. The big rains are usually between May and late October and can be gloomy and cold-ish but even then there are usually a few hours of sunshine during the day.

4. Culture and places to visit in Ethiopia and beyond - Ethiopia has a long and interesting history. It is predominantly Ethiopian Orthodox (though there are Muslims as well as a few other religions) and that permeates all aspects of life. The majority of Ethiopians fast (eat a vegan diet) more than 200 days a year. Ethiopians are very proud of the fact that Ethiopia was never colonized and that it is the only country in Africa with its own alphabet. There are many different ethnic groups in the country, each with it's own language and culture, so it is fascinating to travel and see them. The geography of the country is pretty diverse. It is land-locked but some of the lowest and hottest areas of the world are in Ethiopia as well as some scenic mountains. We got to visit Lalibela and the Lake Langano area as a family. Then I travelled through the Blue Nile Gorge to Bahadar and Gondar for work and had the rare chance to visit the Danakil depression and see the Erta Ale volcano and the Dallol salt flats too. Addis also happens to be an airline hub for Africa and beyond. Ethiopian Airlines is a government-owned airline but they are investing in it, so they have newer planes and are constantly developing new routes. This means you can fly direct to most places in Africa and Europe but also the Middle East, India, China, Japan, Thailand, etc. We took advantage of that as much as we could and went to Turkey, Egypt, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, and the Seychelles. I also climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest point of Africa and had an incredible experience. I have only blogged about our trip to Lalibela so far but am hoping to blog about the other trips in the near future.

5. No Malaria in Addis - Not having to worry about malaria is great but that's only in Addis, because it's high (8,500+ ft above sea level). Most other places in Ethiopia have malaria, so we had to take malaria medication when we travelled outside Addis.

On the minus side:

1. Political issues - I am not going to spend a lot of time on this but it does put a damper on life. While I was there, we experienced unrest, clashes between protesters and the government, which culminated in the government declaring a state of emergency, during which there was heightened military and police presence and for a couple of months we (diplomats) were not allowed to leave Addis.

2. Internet - If you live in Ethiopia, you get to experience some of the most expensive and unreliable internet services for in the world. This is not an exaggeration. The company that offers it, Ethiotelecom, is a government-owned monopoly. Assuming you will have enough connectivity to work from home is not realistic. Leading up to and during the state of emergency, there were periods when we had no phone or internet connections. We had internet outages that lasted weeks, some colleagues had to go without for months. And the Ethiotelecom kept billing us... You learn to deal with it but it is far from ideal.

3. Driving in Addis - Ethiopia has one of the highest rates of motor vehicle fatalities in the world. I drove to work every day during my last year at post and it was nerve wracking. Addis has the hardest driving conditions I have ever experienced. Admittedly, I did not drive in Delhi because we lived on a compound, which was across the street from the Embassy, but I found traffic in Addis to be worse. Sure, there were more vehicles, people and animals on the roads in Delhi but there seemed to be more of a method to their madness there. Addis traffic is a crazy free-for-all. There's just so much unpredictable behaviour on the part of both pedestrians and drivers, it's uncanny. Many of the drivers use a mild narcotic, called chat or khat, which is legal in Ethiopia, and their driving gets progressively worse throughout the day. Most Ethiopians do not consider beer or wine alcohol and that definitely contributes to the insanity. The pedestrians are unbelievable - they often run into traffic without looking and with their backs towards traffic. They often exercise, play, sleep, make out in the middle of the road. The streets are poorly lit at night and it is almost impossible to see what's going on. When we got to Addis, there were only a couple of traffic lights. They installed quite a few while we were there but they didn't work quite right. The timing was always off and they created more problems than they solved. Ethiopians treated traffic lights as optional, especially at night when I was usually the only one waiting for the light to change. Everyone else just kept going. I really tried to keep my cool while driving but have to admit that driving in Ethiopia made me a honker (and I hated honkers with a passion prior to that!) and a total potty mouth. I am still in disbelief that I left Addis without getting into a car accident - that is rare!

4. Health Issues - you have to get quite a few shots before you move to Addis but still, the first six months of living there can be rough. It took us a while to get used to the altitude - we had some breathlessness, sleeplessness, respiratory and other similar symptoms. Gastro-intestinal issues were common. You could get sick even at some of the best restaurants in town. Only one lake in the country (Langano) was safe-ish to swim in. The rest all had shisto and/or crocodiles and other interesting creatures living in them. There was intermittent cholera in Addis and around the country but even without cholera, the tap water was unsafe to drink or cook with, so we had to distil it for drinking and had to wash fruit and vegetables in bleach before consuming them. Pollution in Addis is not as terrible as it is in Delhi but then again Addis is about five times smaller than Delhi. Most of the vehicles on the road are old (including a huge number of 1980s Soviet Ladas, which was quite surreal!) and spew an inordinate amount of exhaust in the air. One of the projects I worked on while I was in Addis was procuring and installing air quality monitors for the embassy and the school to measure exactly how bad the air is and it is not good. If you are curious, you can check current air quality readings in Addis here. Sometimes, there are no readings because the internet is so unreliable. In addition to old polluting vehicles, there is a lot of dust in the air from all the demolition and construction projects all over town.

5. Safety - the housing in Addis was not great. Our house was not new and needed work, so we often had plumbing, electrical and other housing related issues. You may think, the government is providing her housing and maintaining it and she is complaining, while a lot of people in Ethiopia live in shantytowns. While that is indeed very true, our housing elsewhere is substantially better. But because the African Union and UN Commission on Africa are in Addis, there are a lot of expats competing for the same limited pool of adequate (and overpriced!) housing. Most of the roads are bad and deteriorate significantly during the rainy season. You just learn where the worst potholes are and try to avoid them as best as you can. We were not allowed to drive after dark outside Addis - it was just not safe. In Addis, you never went anywhere after dark where you hadn't been during daylight because you could destroy your car, that's how bad some of the potholes were. While the country was otherwise safe-ish, there are pick-pockets and scam artists who prey on foreigners. Several of my colleagues had their phones and purses stolen in broad daylight.

So there you have it - the five highlights and lowlights of living in Addis. Agree, disagree, have something to add? Let me know in the comments.

Happy Holidays from the Worst Blogger Ever!

I know, I know, I know - I haven't blogged in forever. It was a very long, unplanned, unannounced hiatus, I guess. If you were one of my few readers, I am sorry! Of course, I have excuses but who cares, right? The point is I missed blogging and have been thinking about going back to it. But the longer you go without blogging, the harder it is to go back. I have started many posts in my head that never saw the light of day for one reason or another. It has been so long now that I am not sure where to begin. Perhaps one way would be to write a catch up post (or two) and then maybe a few retroactive ones to bring us to today somehow and then move forward from there. 

Sounds like a halfway decent plan, no? I have nothing better, so we'll have to go with that for now.

But today, I just wanted to say Happy Holidays! Here's hoping you and yours are well and that your 2018 is so awesome that it blows you away!

Love and Marriage

So we are watching Wall.E, the movie tonight. Max and I are snuggled on the couch and Nia and Paul are sitting in the armchairs nearby. Max is starting to understand that Wall.E is falling for EVA. All of a sudden he says to me:

I love you, Mommy!

Me: I love you too, Sweetheart!

Max: Mommy, will you marry me?

Me: But Max, I’m already taken.

Max: OK, maybe tomorrow…