Meetings and Plans

Written by Lonny (August 19, 2009)

I started the day with a long hot bath, something that I haven’t been able to do for almost a month. It felt so good just to soak in the water especially my sore shoulder. Bath tubs are an extreme luxury here in Ethiopia so you will only find them in the nicest hotels and homes.

We had a wonderful buffet breakfast here at the hotel before heading out today. It reminded me of the breakfast that I had in the hotels in Europe. There was a mix of traditional breakfast items from the U. S. and local breakfast choices also.

We had a meeting to review the project in Adami Tulu and to discuss future cooperation at that site. We are pleased with the cooperation that we have received as we worked with them and they are happy with the training that we gave them. They are anxious to have further training. We discussed steps that we can take to improve our results in the future. We also discussed our work at Kokosa and received some good insights and recommendations.

We also met in Debre Zeyit to review embryo transfer work that had been done previously at the research center. A Cuban professor had come and tried to help them get an embryo transfer program going, but it did not work out as expected. We discussed their procedures and results and identified the areas where we would do things differently. The staff at this site has the equipment and the theoretical knowledge to be successful, they just need some technical training and practice, practice, practice.

This evening we met with the Director of the Livestock Research. He is taking us to Holeta tomorrow to visit the Federal Research Center. We reviewed our project with him and discussed their plans for the new center. I am looking forward to this tour, as it should be very nice. The key will be to get the proper training to properly utilize the facilities that they have. We have been able to make some great contacts that will help us a lot as we go forward with our dairy project. I am impressed with the caliber of people here that are working at the research institutions. If they are given the encouragement and the support they will be able to carry Ethiopia forward in an amazing way.