1. I got my hair cut! I officially made it 5 and 1/2 months but decided enough was enough. I also received the prestigious honor of being the first white person the barber has ever done. I’ll be honest, at first when he did it it looked terrible. Thankfully I was able to communicate with him that he should just buzz it all nice and short. In then end I think it turned out well.
2. Donkeys, horses and sheep, oh my! Ethiopia is a country with over 80 languages and even more tribes. It was also never colonized so many peoples way of life has literally been the same for THOUSANDS of years. Horse was the main form of transportation in the village we were in. I think we maybe saw 2 cars the entire time. Donkeys are used to fetch water every day at the town well and sheep and goats are plentiful. All the farming is done by hand, even the tilling of the land (which we did plenty of). We even saw bulls threshing at the threshing floor. In essence, it brought a lot of biblical scenes to life in a new way.
3. Acts chapter 8 describes the conversion of the first gentile christian, who happened to be an Ethiopian. Ethiopia has had a continuous christian presence since that time. In present day, it is primarily an orthodox country, but it also has many protestants.
4. Manual labor – we did plenty of it this month and it was a nice change of pace for us. We painted, planted, tilled, chopped, fenced, carried, and cooked. I enjoyed having a month where my mind could relax even if my body was hard at work.
5. The Donkey Dodge! This was the name of the race that the majority of our squad trained for and ran. We had a 10k and a 5k option and I completed the 10k in 53 minutes which isn’t terrible considering we were at over 8000 feet elevation (and dodging donkeys of course). It was a fun way to get some workouts in as a squad and it was great to see people push themselves to new fitness limits.
