Jill Will Go...

Last night was my particular brand of nightmare. I had killed those mosquitos and hoped that that would be the end of it. No such luck. There was more buzzing outside the mosquito net, which was very annoying and distracting, because all I could hear was malaria buzzing around the room. I kept waking up to check that the bugs were really on the outside of the net, but at about 2 am, I turned on the light to find a little lizard in the net with me. It was right above my head. I couldn't sleep with it there, I'd be worried about it falling on me or crawling in the bad all night. So I got up and got the toothbrush cup out of the bathroom and my notepad. I put the cup u dee the lizard, then tapped the netting, and he feel into the cup. I then slammed the notepad over the netting and the cup, then worked the netting free until it was just a lizard in a jar with a notepad over it. The poor thing was running in circles in the cup. Then I sneaked a peek outside to make sure nobody sa...

We stopped for lunch and to pick up water. The little strip of shops next to the restaurant were covered by about six little pickpockets - children who obviously live on the street. They run up and try to grab your hands under the guise of taking you to a shop, meanwhile they are patting down the front of your pockets to look for bulk. Money. One person in our group was very active in trying to get rid of them, while others just went along, or even tried to engage the kids in games of "high five." One particular little girl was very aggressive and would not go away, when she was told "no!" Or "Ai!" (The equivalent of an Ethiopian 'scram!') she would mime slitting the throat of the person who was telling her to get lost. I told one little boy, "No!" as he reached into the tummy pack of one of the group, and she said, "it's all right, he was only touching it after the zipper was shut." Since both the kid and I could see ...

I'm paranoid about getting malaria or bug bites. So I draped myself in the mosquito net last night and sweated out the bug repellent I'd applied before dinner. There was a mosquito trying to get me, I could hear it buzzing around my head all night, and twice I turned on the light to make sure it was outside the net, not inside. I think it lives in the bathroom. It was silent during much of the night, after the celebrations about Ethiopia's performance in the Africa Cup were over. They tied against the favored team, so there was a lot of excitement about that. At about 6 a.m. the park work up. The birds starting singing, and it was as if every creature in the near vicinity was celebrating the morning. It was nice to just be still and listen for a little while. After I got up,I covered myself in sunscreen, waited 30 minutes, then covered myself in insect repellent. I smelled so awful. Luckily, everyone else stinks as well. We headed out, and I angled to get into Car One. ...

I had read that this was true in the Middle East, but I didn't know that Ethiopian men would also be so casually affectionate with one another. Holding hands, arms thrown over shoulders, kissing of cheeks, all the norm here. In America, I believe that a lot of men have such a fear of appearing gay that they don't dare do much more than shake hands. Maybe a back slap if you are really buds. Or that weird hugging with arms, but not touching thing. Men and boys walk down the street, hand in hand, sometimes three or four to a crowd. Here, the standard greeting for friends or even new acquaintances seems to be a clasping of the right hand with thumbs up, then a pull in for a right shoulder to right shoulder bump, which can have varying lengths of duration...from a slight tap, to a near embrace. It is nice to see. It seems so much warmer than the generic handshake, which can often become a contest as who squeezes harder and longer. Our drivers are very affectionate with each ...

Our last long drive of this trip. We headed south and I watched the landscape morph from mountainous rock to near tropical green to flat grasslands. On the way, we stopped at Tiya. This is a collection of more than forty stelae, dated between the 12th and 14th centuries. These mark the graves of males and females who died when they were between 18-30 years old. They were buried in a fetal position, not laid out, so they were pre-Christian burials. The symbols on the stalae were simplistic, but quite beautiful. They think that the swords indicate how many enemies the person buried there killed. The round circles indicate a male (the guide said that represented the male chest - they think the little symbol between them indicates ribs), but it could represent something a little lower down the anatomy, in my opinion.The female graves have long pointy breasts on them. Our guide was so enthusiastic. His t-shirt had "2012 Graduate" on the back, and he was just so damn eager....

Another night full of chanting. I was so exhausted, I barely noticed. Work up bright an early at 5:30 am and tried to get a jump on my journaling and check emails, etc. Sadly, as I've mentioned before, you have to submit to Ethiopia's ways. The hotel had wireless yesterday for some of the day, but then it went down in the afternoon. It still wasn't working this morning, so I just sat and type up notes...until the power went out completely. I was glad that I'd already packed and showered. So I sat in the semidarkness, watching another group leave the hotel. After they departed, one woman came up to the desk and said, "Where's my group? Did that group leave?" The man at reception said that a group had left. She freaked out. Took the very North American approach and began getting louder, "How could they leave without me? She said 6:15 and it's only 6:18! Didn't they count?! How could this happen? Call her! Call her right now! She's the ...

After lunch, we continued our church marathon with the southeast cluster. Bet Gabriel -Raphael is surrounded by a deep tench, with a little bridge that you need to cross to enter the church. One part of the church is dedicated to Gabriel, the other to Raphael. It had the most beautifully decorated door, where I could just make out the remains of painted faces. It was faded, but wonderfully evocative, and I could imagine it, freshly painted, standing out against the red rock. Bet Abba Libanos has a wonderful legend attached to its origins. It is said to have built overnight by King Lalibela's wife, Meskel Kebre. She had some help though - a group of angels. It is a semi- monolith, attached at the roof. Bet Emmanuel is a monolith church. The only one in this particular cluster. It is considered to be unique due to the fine and precise rock work. The rock here is also slightly more pink than elsewhere. It has an unusual horizontal groove style that continues inside as well. Be...