Ethiopia's Revenge

Written by Lonny (April 5, 2010)

I woke up at 5:00 am  with a case of Ethiopia’s revenge.  I downed some Pepto Bismol and made several trips back and forth to the toilet for the next hour.  At 6:00 am Kebeda called me and informed me that my vehicle would arrive in 15 minutes which was wonderful news because the last I had heard was that he couldn’t get it until 8:00 am.  I dressed quickly grateful that I had packed everything the night before.  Now that I am more comfortable in Ethiopia I find it much easier to drive myself and not have to wonder when the driver is going to arrive.

When the car arrived I was surprised that it was not the four wheel drive that I had asked for fortunately I had set up with Mekonen to swap vehicles if we needed to do that.  Due to the early start I avoided a lot of traffic and made it to Debre Zeit in about 45 minutes.  I dropped off ET supplies with Dr. Tamrat then headed on to Mojo where I grabbed a quick breakfast.

I was surprised and pleased to get a call from Erika on my Ethiopian phone.  (Marty taught us how to use Skype to call the Ethiopian phones for very cheap.)  I had missed them for scripture study so she just called to say hello.

I arrived at ATARC at 9:45 and we went right to work.  Dr. Hailu and his staff have done a good job feeding the animals lately and they are in very good shape compared to where they were a year ago.  We went through the 46 head in about two hours. Most of them are now cycling so we should get much better results this time around.  The five pregnant ones are looking pretty good.

Abera and I spent the afternoon updating each other and planning our work. We toured the research farm and evaluated the alfalfa. It is dry now but should grow really well in the coming months when the rains come. There is a lot of work that needs to be done in a lot of different areas.  I am glad that we have the Lord to do some mighty miracles because we are going to need them.

We also stopped by Abera's home so that I could say hello to his wife and daughter.