1. Kids herding animals with whips
2. A lamb tied up on top of a tiny car
3. Donkeys with 5-10 feet high of hay on their backs
4. Kids carrying babies on their backs with cloth wraps
5. Mud huts for houses
6. No real traffic rules
7. Horses and carriages
8. Men holding hands
9. People always feeding you something
10. Flat top trees
11. The smell of burning trash and animal poop
12. Donkeys screaming at the market
13. Random goats and lambs roaming the streets
14. Men asking you to marry them
15. Getting in sketch vans with men who know no English
16. Trash everywhere
17. Lots of mountains
18. Awkward handshakes while trying to figure out how many times they’ll bump your shoulder
19. Young kids standing on the edge of a busy street
20. Dead dogs and cats as roadkill
21. People always wobbling carrying big heavy water jugs
22. Random palm trees
23. Men with guns
24. Ethiopians stopping traffic to hang banners
25. Thumbs up – LOTS OF THUMBS UP
26. Funky looking trees
27. Lots of potholes in the roads (makes bus rides interesting)
28. Men riding in the back of dump trucks
29. Horses and carriages
30. Little kids riding donkeys like they’re horses
31. Narrow roads with tons of people on them and a big bus trying to honk its way through
32. Unique road construction
33. It’s 2011, not 2019 (calendar is way different)
34. Lots of dust (you really know after you blow your nose)
35. Walking through the streets and hearing either “CHINA” or “Farange” (They think we’re from China simply because most of them have not left Ethiopia in their life. And “Farange” because it means “white person”)
36. Coffee shops called “plastic houses” by Menge
37. Going to the local market and creating a crowd of bystanders while we get bananas and eggs
38. Ethiopians being brutally honest at times
39. Chanting from the mosque in Harbu Chulule
40. People doing laundry at the river (sometimes naked)
41. Older women greeting you with kisses on the cheek (the more you get, the better)
42. Long lines of people with donkeys waiting to get water from the well
43. Kids chasing you from their house just to hold your hand and walk with you for a little bit
44. Getting really big bites of food shoved in your mouth
45. Buildings where men go play pool together
- Kids trying to take things off of your wrist
- Sitting with the house moms and just chilling
- Star-gazing
- Riding random animals in town (finding a donkey or horse and asking to ride it)
- Weird smells of incense
