Thanks and goodbye

We flew back to Addis. Our vacation was coming to an end. On our last day in Ethiopia we took it pretty easy. We visited the family of Seble, sister of Louise's friend and colleague Tigist. Among other things we got to enjoy a wonderful coffee ceremony, complete with grass on the floor and bowl of popcorn. (For some reason coffee ceremonies in Ethiopia are not complete without popcorn.) Turns out Tigist's brother, Biruk, only a few days later was going to move to the U.S. to study at college in Iowa. He told me there's apparently a fairly large Ethiopian community in Iowa. Who knew? Any case, he seemed excited about the opportunity and I'm sure he'll do great.
Check out the photo of this very welcoming family. Why is the picture hazy? Because of the smoke from the roasting of the coffee beans, of course!


We want to thank a lot of people that helped make our vacation so great. We can't name them all because they were too numerous, but of course there's Jordan. Not only did he open his home to us, giving us shelter and food, he introduced us in a very natural way to the local scene. That was invaluable. Our thanks and hearts also go out to his helpers Weynshet and Wubit (pictured here) as well as Aboy. All extremely warm and welcoming. We also appreciate the efforts by Bekele at the Ghion Travel agency in Washington, who worked with us to arrange the flight in and out of Ethiopia. (No, they have not sponsored us to say so.) Also Mrs. Etenesh at Hess Travel in Addis, who arranged our trip to Gonder and Lalibela, did a great job and made everything easy for us. We will fondly remember our young guide in Gonder, Fekadu Abera, for his enthusiasm and impressive knowledge, and our driver Yonase Stifanos for his wonderful sense of humor and amazing ability to slalom past a long stream of people and animals on the road without any accidents.
Those were just some of many people for which we feel great appreciation.
Oh, we don't want to forget my mom, Kerstin, and Göran, her live-in boyfriend ("sambo" we say in Swedish; why isn't there a good word for it in English? "Domestic partner" just doesn't cut it.) Without them flying to Washington from Stockholm to look after our girls Isabel and Sofia while we were away our trip simply would not have been possible. Thanks!!
The day after we returned home, Louise and our girls all put on brand-new dresses from Ethiopia. I can't say that it made the 3 girls look Ethiopian exactly... but it was a great way to combine the feeling of being home again with some memories from this stellar vacation.