The team arrives in Addis Ababa...

Day 1: Instead of feeling tired once we arrive we are ecstatic and full of energy! After seeing our new beautiful home, with a gorgeous garden complete with a "pet" turtle we head out to explore Bole. We walk through the winding street of our neighborhood, and continue on trying to memorize landmarks. The traffic whizzes by and nervously we cross streets, but the city feels alive with all the sounds of hawkers, and people living their lives. Sure enough we find all the necessary places, the ATM, a couple of different grocery stores, and an internet cafe but everything is fascinating. There is so much to see and take in, and I'm filled with the overwhelming desire to blend into the landscape and experience everything, but our presence as outsiders is pretty obvious. Must continue to learn more amharic words. While at a local Expat hangout that I want to call Lime something (but have obviously botched the name) we see our friend JT! A familiar face from RTP and it's as though it's perfectly normal to see one another here.     The project team catches up on what we've missed, and start to discuss ideas and partnerships that look very promising. Tomorrow we have a full day of visits with beneficiaries and meetings about a new initiative, and are enthusiastically ready to start working.   Braced for the rain we head out to have dinner with two wonderful women Martha and Marion and enjoy a Korean meal as our first night out. They share wonderful insight about Addis, how they have come to love this place and make it their home. They talk about the difficulties of transitioning back to the US and what brought them back to Ethiopia. It's a great perspective to have, and their love for this culture, the people here, and their lives here is obvious. We wrap up dinner laughing, promising to see eachother again and John continues to outshine us with his strides towards learning Amharic. He has set the bar high.   Tomorrow is a new day...can't wait.