Are you refreshed?

“Are you refreshed by your time here in Addis?” I was asked just yesterday as I came across a friend who had just come in from down country. I smiled at the thought of Addis Ababa being a place of refreshment for some. Sure, there are paved roads, nice restaurants, and generally access to more things, but refreshment is not found in a bottle of orange soda or strawberry wafers.

 

Unfortunately, this past trip into Addis was the epitome of non-refreshment. The smog of the city driving in was amusing until my already annoyed respiratory system caught a whiff of it and acted like a puffer fish in my sinuses. Then, after 12 hours on the road, I most looked forward to a long hot shower; dreams of which were quickly dashed when we arrived to find that the water to our whole neighborhood had been off for almost a week. Ok, so, no shower, but how about going to pick up a pizza for dinner? Well, that WAS the plan, until we saw that the electricity had been shut off in our neighborhood as well, meaning that the ovens at the little café near us were not functioning so as to cook our pizza. So, there we sat in our candlelit house munching on old stale cereal and thinking “how is this refreshing?”

 

Thankfully, the electricity came on a few hours later, but the water stayed away another three days until just after we had gone to the school gymnasium to take much needed showers. Our time in Addis was then busy as usual. We come with a long to-do list of where to go, who to meet with, what to look for, buy, send, fix, etc. This particular trip into Addis was especially difficult at the end because we were rushed into leaving one day earlier than the departure we had been pacing ourselves for. Mind you, we don’t mind getting back to our Gesses house a day earlier, it’s just that yesterday was crazy in getting two days worth of buying, cooking, cleaning and packing into one, only to rise before the sun and take off down that 12-hour road.

 

And so, all that to say, I’m writing this blog on the side of the road as Micah fills both his tummy and britches. With our Addis stay cut short by a day, none of the new blog entries that are swirling around in my head got written or posted so hopefully nothing exciting happens between now and the next time that we have internet access (possibly in two weeks). Hold tight until then and I’ll try to catch you up to date. Until then, we’re headed back to our Gmz work…where also we find the refreshment we all need.