Egypt Part III (Alexandria)

Alexandria is amazing! Theo and I had the best day of our trip together here and I’d recommend it to anyone. We took an early morning train from Cairo and after being lost for an hour trying to find Pompey’s Pillar, we “settled” for hiring a driver to take us all around the city. We initially hopped a tram (think F-line in San Francisco) and ended up really lost. No one had heard of “Pompey’s Pillar” or “Catacombs” even. They didn’t understand us if we had the site names in Arabic either! Street signs were in Arabic and the Lonely Planet map we had was dinky, so the private taxi turned out to be a fantastic option. He drove us everywhere we wanted to go (including a palace 15kms outside of town) for about 7 hours. It was $25 only!

Another reason to love Alexandria:


So random!!

First official stop: Pompey’s Pillar. Nearby are the Catacombs (Kom Al-Shaqaffa) which were really cool. They go three levels underground though we could only visit the first two because the third is under the water table. It’s a bit weird knowing you’re so far underground and surrounded by all these tombs, but definitely a really cool place to see. No photos allowed….


Just before lunch, we stopped in at the Biblioteca Alexandria which is pretty stunning. I still have a soft spot for Doe Library, but this one is in roughly the same location as the ancient library and is really beautifully constructed. They also have a lot of free permanent exhibits like book-art that I found surprisingly awesome.


Best Meal in Africa: Hood Gondol Seafood. Maybe this is why I like Alexandria so much – the food was amazing! We read about this local seafood place in the Lonely Planet and decided to give it a try. Our driver was highly entertained that we wanted to go there for lunch. He told his taxi-driver friend who gave us a thumbs up :). We arrived at this unmarked alleyway and saw big pans of shrimp and fish. We asked how much it was for a plate and the guy said 35 LE (~$6). Sounds good. We ordered two and got ushered upstairs. (Unrelated, there were a couple of giggly Muslim girls who were super uninhibited…. laughing and joking with each other [and us] – they were quite charming.) So we were served a seafood soup and some pita, hummus, and salad to start. Unexpected, but good – the seafood soup especially. Then we each get a heaping plate of spicy rice and then a plate full of shrimp, grilled fish, fried fish, calamari, and clams. Wow. We ate all we could and still ended up with leftovers. When we went to pay downstairs, we were expecting to pay 70 LE plus tip. The guy said something about 35 LE and an extra 5 LE for something or other. I would have happily given him 80, no problem. But, he only wanted 40 LE!! So basically, we had this amazing seafood feast for two for less than $7 including tip!


Post lunch, we drove by Fort Qaitbay,


the Abu Abbas Al Mursi Mosque (though only Theo was allowed in),


stopped in at the 4 Seasons,


saw the Montazah Palace (formerly the Presidents summer palace),


and then had one of the best mango juices ever at Il Kobesi.
Such a good day! We saw and did everything we wanted to see and do, and ended the night with a Syrian Schwarma.

Egypt Part IV (Cairo)

Cairo is huge! I think it’s the biggest city in Africa with approximately 20 million people. It’s also a city I am so grateful to not have had to drive around in. When we arrived in the city, we met a local to direct us to the truck’s workshop because apparently, not only is the city enormous, but continuous construction creates all kinds of road closures such that our driver has never been able to take the same route twice to the workshop.

On the way, we encountered a burning vehicle in the middle of the highway; it was on its side with no other “injured” vehicles around it – perhaps the fuel tank exploded? So in the US, people would (presumably) wait for authorities to clear the carnage... But in Cairo, several cars started reversing, and driving against traffic. Crazy! As we passed, we saw some locals throwing buckets of water(?) on the well-charred car and out of nowhere, this burst of fire shot out. The locals ran away and we all felt lucky because had it happened a good 10 seconds earlier, we would have all been singed. Welcome to Cairo!

I honestly didn’t see much of the city outside of Giza (Pyramids & Sphinx) and the National Antiquities Museum. I was busy getting Chinese takeout and KFC delivered to my hotel room :)

As for the Pyramids, they weren’t as sandy as I stupidly thought they’d be – more like hard, extremely heavy stone piled high.



You used to be able to climb to the top, but I think too many people got injured. I liked the sphinx (protector of the pyramids) a lot, but as some have said, it does kind of look like a big mushroom from the back. (Good thing I like mushrooms...) :)


In terms of the museum, I'm not biggest fan of, well, old stuff, but it was awesome to finally see Tut’s mask and some of the treasures from his tomb. I thought the exhibit was way too expensive when it traveled to San Francisco and I’m glad my fears that the exhibit would be traveling when I was actually in Cairo were for naught. No pictures allowed inside unfortunately, but apart from the Pyramids/Sphinx, it’s probably close to the quintessential picture from Egypt that you have probably all seen.

Goodbyes: Cairo marks the end of my 120 days traveling on a big, yellow overland truck. We dropped the truck off at the workshop and now it’s probably heading through Syria en route back to London. I didn’t get to say all my goodbyes because people left on different days and at odd hours, but I’m excited to visit truck mates as I continue my journey around the world! (I should be able to visit just about everyone I want to see after I travel to Australia, New Zealand, and England.) :) Of course tears were shed, but really only when Theo left and again during the goodbyes that happened immediately after I put him in a taxi to the airport. Though I’m basically alone again, I actually feel really good about it. I've got Dahab and the Middle East ahead of me and am feeling super excited to get to see and do what I want, when I want. Yay for independent travel :)

Up Next: Adventures in Dahab

Egypt Part II (Luxor)

If you want to see cool things, I think Luxor is the place to go. Just outside of Luxor, we visited the Kom Ombo and Edfu Temples. Edfu houses a crocodile museum but it was unfortunately closed when we were there and every question asked of the guy on duty was answered with “CLOSED.” “Will you be open later today?” “CLOSED.” “What time do you normally open?” “CLOSED.” “How much is admission to the museum?” “CLOSED.” …


Kom Ombo and Edfu were just okay, but the Valley of the Kings was awesome! We started the day with a sunrise hot air balloon ride over the valley.


I’d never been in a hot air balloon before! Having completed my first ride, I think it’s something to definitely do at least once, but the sights would have to be pretty amazing for me to do it again – Kapadokia (Turkey) perhaps. After a 4am wakeup call, we arrived at the launch site and watched them use fans and gas/fire to inflate the balloons. Then, they loaded us into the basket. I thought there would be just one big basket – well, I guess there was, but it was divided into sections and I think about 25 or so people were able to get on. When they blast the “hot air,” you can hear and feel the heat – it’s a little intimidating actually. Our pilot, however, was wearing an official pilot’s shirt instilling much confidence in us; he guided us around the valley without issue. We landed in a field (?) and a dozen guys started running around and yelling as they worked to deflate the balloon. Hilarious.

When we finished with the temple, we were finally able to go into the Valley of the Kings. Your entry ticket allows you access to three tombs – Tut’s is extra. We elected not to pay the 100 LE (~$17) because our guide said Tut wasn’t all that great, it’s just that his was the only tomb discovered with the treasures still inside. We would be viewing said treasures in Cairo anyway. Instead, we saw the tombs of Ramses IV, Ramses III, and Ramses IX. I liked Ramses IV the best because it was the only completed tomb that we saw that day. Workers only construct the tombs during the pharoah’s reign – work stops when the pharaoh dies so several of the tombs are incomplete. It’s amazing that the colors used to paint the walls are still so vivid and the designs are really quite beautiful. We weren’t allowed to take pictures in the Valley of the Kings, but if you care to Google it, this was my favorite tourist site in Egypt.

After the Valley of the Kings, we stopped by the Valley of the Workers which houses the tombs of those who worked on the pharoahs’ tombs. What’s interesting is that the detailing and artistry is much more elaborate in the workers’ tombs. One worker boasts paying more gold for the coloring than the pharaoh (whose tomb he was working on) did.

This is Hatshepsut’s Temple:


Although a woman, she insisted on her tomb being built in the Valley of the Kings. She was apparently very tough and quite possibly a lesbian.

Last stop on our Valley of the Kings trip was the Colossus of Memnon: These are huge.


In town, Karnak Temple was pretty amazing to see with its enormous pillars:



Having done a hot air balloon ride, Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Workers, Hatshepsut, Colossus of Memnon, and Karnak Temple in one day, we were exhausted and ended up skipping the Luxor Temple. I don’t feel like I missed out at all since we’d driven by it once or twice. I’m at the point where I’ve seen enough temples for a long time.

Generally, I liked Luxor though I had heard that it was the hassle capital of Egypt (and there for potentially of the world). All the sightseeing left us with no energy for the souq so I guess we were spared a lot of the hassle.

On Food: Right around Luxor, I was pretty fed up with Egyptian food. We had had pretty good food in Aswan and really enjoyed one of our meals at a local restaurant. It was like a never ending serving of courses: bread with tahini, soup, foul (bean stew pronounced fool), salad, rice, and whole grilled pigeon. But by the time we got to Luxor, I felt like I was constantly eating appetizers and forever waiting for the main course! On the felucca, we’d have pita-like bread for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with a 2-3 hummus/tahini-like dips. That’s it! For 6 meals in a row!!! It wasn’t bad food or anything, but I just felt super unsatisfied, unfulfilled, and angry after every meal. Luxor was more of the same with a bit more variety on the “appetizer” offerings. Things definitely improved in Cairo, with access to a pretty decent Chinese restaurant and Syrian schwarma!


(dinner at a local Nubian village)

Up Next: Cairo

Egypt Part I (Aswan)

(This is the MegaMac which is basically a Double Big Mac. Four meat patties! So awesome!! We arrived at the hotel around 12:30pm and within 20 minutes, I had a MegaMac meal in front of me :P)

Egypt so far has been a whirlwind of things to see and do. No other country has made me feel like such a tourist, and it’s exhausting! For starters, sleeping hasn’t been too easy to come by, starting with the ferry over from Sudan. I slept on the deck head-to-foot with some of my truckmates, and if I stretched my legs out at all, I’d kick my friend Jon in the head. It happened a good half dozen times and each time, I lie awake wondering if he’d finally get mad and yell at me. (He never did.) This wasn’t so bad, since at least I wasn’t the one being kicked in the head. What Was bad was the 5am abhorrently loud prayer call via bullhorn located approximately three feet away. So, so terrible! It felt like someone was screaming “Allah” along with some other Arabic words at me for several uninterrupted minutes. It can’t be healthy to have, what could be something along the lines of “WAKE UP!!! TIME TO PRAY NOW!!!! NOW!!!! NOW!!!!”, being yelled at you every morning! Goodness! Prayer calls were pretty bad in Aswan too: There was one prayer call at 3:30am that lasted for at least seven minutes. In Luxor, we heard that the prayer calls last for an hour?! Thankfully, the rooms in Luxor and Cairo were sufficiently soundproof.

Getting off the ferry in Aswan was a good introduction to, frankly speaking, how irritating (some) Egyptians can be. They pushed and shoved their way off the ferry, into the customs lines, and when exiting the “arrival hole.” Anything you read about Egypt warns you about the touts and being taken advantage of. Actually, being/feeling taken advantage of happened more often than I would have liked. When Theo first arrived in Cairo, he got suckered into going into a shop and buying perfume oil he didn’t want. At one of the temples, these guys wanted to be in our picture, and after taking our picture, demanded money.


Still mad about this...

People stand outside of the bathroom demanding money and you are never quite sure if you actually have to pay or not. It gets to a point where you just don’t want to talk to anyone or even stop to ask someone for directions for fear that they will either try to sell you something or demand money. The markets during the day were especially annoying because every vendor had nothing better to do but question you about where you’re from and whatnot in order to sucker you into going into their shop. You don’t want to be rude, but you don’t want to engage into some stupid conversation neither you nor the shop owner care about. Bah! (After sundown, the markets were swarming with people and the vendors basically left you alone…)

But not all Egyptians are annoying, and our interactions with some of them were quite heartwarming. One little boy tried to sell us bookmarks and after about ten seconds, he gave up and just walked with us through the market. He told me I had beautiful eyes. When Theo asked him how to say “beautiful eyes” in Arabic, the little boy said, “thank you.” :) Mohammed (the little boy) asked if Theo was my husband, Theo said yes. Mohammed then put his arm out for me and offered, “second husband?” Also, finding out that Theo had no camels, nine-year-old Mohammed said he had 50 million, and that that would get him 100 wives. Super cute!

Apart from getting suckered into buying things at the souq (scarves, papyrus, etc…), Aswan was really nice actually. I didn’t expect it to be so developed and beautiful along the Nile. The Aswan High Dam wasn’t that impressive to see, but it was pretty much included in a trip to the Philae Temple:


I had a hard time paying attention to our guide, but I found out that the temple was moved from its original location after partial flooding from the construction of the Aswan Low Dam. The temple sits on its own island and you access it by boat (after pushing past some of the more aggressive touts). Philae Temple is said to be one of Osiris’ places of burial.


One of the highlights during our stay in Aswan was a visit to Abu Simbel:


We had to be up and ready to go by 3:30am for the three hour, police convoy escorted drive to the city. Apparently, the police convoy was for safety, but we didn’t get it on our drive back from Abu Simbel to Aswan?? Abu Simbel was pretty amazing, not just for how cool Ramses II’s Great Temple and his (first) wife Nefertiri’s Temple were, but the fact that this temple, like Philae, was moved from its original location.


The scale and utter success of the endeavor make it much more impressive than Philae, however. There was an exhibit demonstrating how they cut the temple into pieces and reassembled it into a dam/mountain. The temple is HUGE and you pretty much can’t tell that workers sawed the entire temple apart! Really, really cool!


We left Aswan via felucca and spent two days sailing up the Nile towards Luxor. The feluccas traveled at a snail’s pace, but it was pretty relaxing not to have to do anything but relax :)

Up Next: Luxor Recap

Sudan!

Quite unexpectedly, Sudan has turned out to be one of my favorite countries in Africa! I’ve really liked it here. The desert is beautiful, the food is great, and the people are friendly, respectful, and warm. They don’t impose and they don’t hassle you to buy their goods either! A story: A lot of us bought SIM cards and found that we couldn’t send or receive international texts. When I spoke to an MTN representative in Jedaref, he promised that the problem would be taken care of in 24 hours - he genuinely seemed to care. He even called a few days later to see that the problem was resolved. (It never did get fixed, but it was nice that he tried.)

It’s a bit of a shame that we are here during Ramadan because the food I have been able to try has been great! We crossed the border from Ethiopia into Sudan at Gallabat and there’s not much to report about the town except that the best falafels I’ve ever had in my life were purchased here. They sold seven amazing squished-ping-pong-ball-size falafels for 1 Sudanese Pound (~$0.33). I don’t eat falafels in the US but it’s because you can’t ever find them this good! Best chicken I’ve had in Africa has also been in Sudan. Admittedly, chicken in most of Africa so far has been suspect, but it was absolutely wonderful from this hole-in-the-wall eatery in Khartoum. I also happened upon the fancy schmancy Burj Al-Fateh hotel and enjoyed a milkshake – pretty much the best thing ever after having walked three hours in 110 degree heat!

Other than a lot of businesses being closed, Ramadan did not affect us too much. We were able to have lunch on the truck since a lot of eateries were closed during the day and we’d duck behind cars or into alleys to take a drink of water. Keeping our slutty knees and shoulders covered wasn’t ideal in the heat, but I’ve stopped caring that I’ve worn the exact same thing for ten days in a row. (I only brought one t-shirt with me.) You’d see a lot of people resting during the day, but things definitely livened up at night. We stumbled upon group after group of Sudanese people picnicking one night and one guy who seemed drunk (dry country??!) told us it was safe. I really liked that he said, “No one will attack you.”

Note: It is apparently a punishment of 40 lashes if you are caught drinking alcohol. I had approximately 8 bottles of wine, a fifth of vodka, and two six-packs with me on the truck upon entry - good thing they didn't check at customs :)


Khartoum: I like this city! It’s not African at all! You can tell Khartoum has (oil) money with its nice buildings and hotels. I loved walking around the market and along the Nile and I’m looking forward to seeing more Arab cities. I didn’t realize how much I like cities and how much I’m looking forward to seeing more high rises and modern architecture in Amman and Dubai :) I had a chance to see the biggest souk (market) in Sudan, the confluence of the Blue and White Niles, Mahdi’s tomb, and the president-kind of. At one point, a vehicle zoomed past us, another, and then this tight convoy of BMWs, followed by two SUVs. We were close to the presidential palace so it could have been him!


These are the Meroe Pyramids:


They are very cool 8th Century royal tombs or something. (Sorry, I don’t really know anything else about them).

The heat has been surprisingly manageable and not really a cause for complaint except in Khartoum. I probably have 6-7 liters of water a day though. Some people have been afflicted by grumpy bowels but I think I left mine behind in Ethiopia. I was a bit miserable when camping at night because it was hot, humid, and sticky, and then our tents were pitched close to people loudly talking with their children running around our tents until late into the night. The last few days though, we’ve been in the desert where it’s very dry but very beautiful.

We pulled off the tar-sealed road and have been driving through the dry desert. It’s still and quiet with no people around, only vast sandy landscape to gaze at. Sunsets and sunrises have been spectacular and I’ve loved watching an orangey moon rise up from the desert. We passed some abandoned railway stations as we followed the railroad up to Wadi Halfa and a (gold) mining “town.” All of a sudden we came across a camp of sorts with an unending array of blue tarps set up. No women whatsoever, just a lot of men who took a break from the mining to wave enthusiastically at us. I couldn’t imagine living in the heat the way they do…

Because we pulled off the tar-sealed roads, it’s also been incredibly dusty and dirty. I’ve reached a whole new level of dirty where no less than three people said to me the other day, “Have you seen what you look like?!” If there had been an award for dirtiest on the truck, I’d have won that day.


Tonight, I will have a water bottle shower in preparation for our ferry ride across Lake Nasser. We leave Sudan on the 17th and arrive in Egypt the next day! I can’t believe it’s finally here! Egypt in two days!!!! More important, in two days, I will finally get to see Theo when we meet in Aswan!!! Of (potentially) equal importance, I will stumble upon the first Mcdonald’s I’ll have seen since April!! Egypt here I come! Meanwhile, I shall try to keep the count limited to days instead of hours :)Hope everyone is doing well at home!

Churches and Castles

Apologies for all the negativity in the last post, but truck-wide, I think we’ve all had enough of Ethiopia. Accentuating the positives however, I will focus on cool stuff to see here: Churches and castles.

Lalibela: Six hours from Bahir Dar is Lalibela, home of a UNESCO World Heritage Site and these awesome 12th century rock-hewn churches. They are enormous up close and the guide I think told us that they were built from the top down. The structure you see above the church was put in place to protect the church roofs from further decay.


These monolithic structures are pretty spectacular, especially when you feel how incredibly hard the rock is and the rather primitive tools they used to carve with back then–hammers and chisels. We started with Bet Medhane Alem, supposedly the biggest monolithic church in the world:


St. George is perhaps the most famous of the churches and is the one you’d see in Ethiopian postcards:



Girls were not allowed to visit the room that is said to house the tomb of King Lalibela (in Bete Golgotha) but this time, I don’t think it’s because we were devils. (Because of our devilishness, girls were not allowed to set foot on one of the monastery-containing islands of Lake Tana.)


Gondor/Gondar/Gonder: (Same thing as Bahir Dar and the funky spellings…) Gondor hosts the Royal Enclosure from where Emperors like Fasilides and Yohannes I reigned. I haven’t seen castles in quite a long time and these were refreshing to see. This is Fasilides’ Bath that, once a year, is filled to host a celebration for the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Pretty much any other time (like now), the bath is drained.


Ethiopia really is a beautiful country – probably one of the most beautiful I’ve seen in Africa. If it weren’t for rain and illness, I think I would have enjoyed it much more. It’s definitely worth a visit for its wonderful scenery and a myriad of interesting interactions you would undoubtedly have with the locals =)

We leave Gondor on August 8th and then bush camp until we cross into Sudan; we only have about six days there transiting through to Egypt. I’ll report from Khartoum if there are Internet facilities, and if not, from Aswan! Hope that wherever you are, you are enjoying the sun! :)

What Drought?

All of the Ethiopia I’ve seen has been green, lush, and fertile. In fact, it has rained every day I’ve been here! I’m actually quite sick of the rain though I know it’s supposed to be better than the sweltering Sudan heat that awaits us… But as far as I’m concerned, the drought doesn’t exist. Or, it is a superior opponent in this game of hide-and-seek of which I’m an unwitting player! I don’t think there’s a shortage of food anywhere either, at least not in the market, shops, or restaurants. When trying to do a cook group shop, I wasn’t able to buy meat, but fair enough, it was a fasting Friday.

On Food: Food in Ethiopia has been, well, interesting. They have a lot of familiar foods – pizzas, pastas, burgers, sandwiches – but they can be funky. In one restaurant, a pizza with pepperoni for some reason got you a vegetarian pizza with cabbage on it. “Spaghetti with meat” is served as a plate of cooked spaghetti noodles with a serving of Kai-Wat (Ethiopian Red Spicy Stew)-spiced meat on the side. Burgers are hit or miss, as are sandwiches. My club sandwich, although pretty good, consisted of minced meat with egg, bell pepper, and onion in a mayo-y sauce:


I’m very glad I don’t have dietary restrictions and am not too picky with the type of meat I eat because it’s not listed on the menu and the servers often can’t tell you! Usually it’s goat I think. As for local cuisine, Ethiopian food is actually the one African cuisine I had tried in the US before coming to Africa. It’s pretty much the same in quality and consistency as the stuff you can get in the Ethiopia Restaurant in Berkeley. A lot of people on the truck don’t like injera, a sour, dense, flat, sponge-like bread made out of teff, which is served pretty much everything; I don’t mind it. Generally, Ethiopian food is just not something I’d ever really crave, a lesser cuisine than Indian food in my opinion. Most people would say the best part of Ethiopia has been the coffee, but for me, it’s the juice. You can get a glass of banana, papaya, mango, pineapple, guava, avocado, or orange juice for around $0.50. They also do a sprees juice that is a mix of them all. So good!


Addis Ababa: We spent three nights in Addis Ababa at the Taitu Hotel, a hotel that’s been there since 1906 I think. Most of their facilities haven’t been updated since then, but they Did have free wifi :) Although I walked around Addis a lot, I don’t really have an opinion on the city. Not a bad city, but not a great one either. I went to the Ethiopia National Museum that houses Lucy – wasn’t impressed. It’s supposed to be the most complete fossil of that time, but there’s still a whole lot of it missing. The Red Terror museum though was really interesting to visit – I just had no idea the scale of the Derg killings in Ethiopia, or that they even had a relatively recent bloody history there. In other news, Andi was able to secure our Sudanese transit visas ($200 for Americans, $100 for everyone else) but I was not able to obtain a local SIM because they were too demanding in wanting a passport copy, two passport photos, and $3.50!


Bahar Dir/Bahir Dar: I can’t get a straight answer on how you spell the name of this city, and I think it’s because there isn’t one. The Ethiopian alphabet has something like 200 characters that are difficult to translate into roman letters. As a result, cities are spelled at least three different ways. Bahir Dar was another “whatever” city. We camped at the Ghion Hotel that is nice because you are pretty much on the shore of Lake Tana, but not nice because camping space was limited and a lot of tents got soaked in the pretty much nonstop pouring rain. Lake Tana contains the source of the (Blue) Nile but we didn’t go to it. Several of us went on a Lake Tana boat trip to visit monasteries and the source. We were supposed to visit 4-5 monasteries, but the boat was 10 horsepower or something and just took forever to get even to the main island. The monasteries themselves were okay – the paintings struck me as cartoon versions of icon paintings you see in Russian Orthodox churches… There was one painting of Mary punishing Jesus. According to our guide, this didn’t actually happen, but it is a lesson to young children :)


Blue Nile Falls: From Bahir Dar, it is approximately one hour to the Blue Nile Falls. I’m actually really glad I went on this trip, though the water was all brown from the underlying mud/silt. I liked seeing the falls, but the scenery we passed to get there was even better! What I didn’t like was the swarm of children desperate to sell you their crap. They surround you making it hard to navigate the already muddy and slippery landscape. At one point, they swarmed me to where I lost sight of the rest of the group and I had this moment of sheer panic. I would Not be purchasing from those children! Hmpfh!


Ethiopians: Crossing into Ethiopia from Kenya, you can immediately see a difference in features and skin tone from the rest of Africa. A lot of Ethiopian men and women have handsome features and are probably the most attractive Africans I’ve seen so far. I seem to be popular in this country as well, and one guy asked me how long my boyfriend had to pray to get me. He said he thought at least ten years of praying :) Ethiopians also seem to think it is 2003 - they operate on a thirteen month calendar that I don't fully understand. I was, at first, charmed by Ethiopians… always smiling and waving at us… seeming genuinely happy to see us.


(Kids love it when you take their picture and after, they all crowd around you to see it. I thought it was cute until the man with the striped orange hood unzipped my pocket and tried to steal from me.)

Now, I get pretty annoyed by a lot of them: I just don’t want to be followed for half an hour and made to have a conversation with someone who doesn’t get the hint! We drive or walk by and they yell “You-You-You” in an almost accusing tone. It means foreigner/white person or something similar. Sometimes they look at you and stick out their hand and say “money, money.” I always wonder if that ever works, certainly not with anyone on our truck. I think I just got so sick of it all when we stopped for a pee stop on the road and, to get away from the kids running towards the truck, I followed some of the others up a muddy hill. Coming back down, I slipped and fell in the mud and just felt so stupid for having to run up a slippery hill to avoid annoying children. At this point, they can see my white bottom, I don’t care! Really though, with any vehicle that stops, they just come running. What can possibly be so fascinating?! I am also so unbelievably sick of being asked if I am from Japan. What the hell difference does it make if I’m from Japan or not?! Ugh!

(Sorry.)

I was trying to be upbeat, but I’m feeling kind of fed up with Africa at the moment. I’m sitting in an Internet café where the Internet’s not working (surprise, surprise), feeling sick and hoping (and pretty sure) it’s not malaria, and weary of needing to maintain close contact with a toilet because something has upset my stomach. I’m sick of things just not working and never being able to stay clean after a shower!!! So many day-to-day things in Ethiopia are just demoralizing and I know a lot of us are ready to leave, 130 degree whether come what may.

I think I just find myself missing the clean, orderly life I had where I didn’t get asked five times a day if I’m from Japan. *Sigh. I will be more positive in the next post, promise!