A Day That I will NEVER forget

So the day started out in my last blog, or in the airport waiting at 2:00 in the morning. We landed at Mekelle around 7:00 and after passing through a TINY airport, we got to the Castle. The castle is not a castle, it looks like a castle. We are staying there for the last night but we wanted to have breakfast there.

After breakfast we got into our cool vans with our own drivers, the cars are really good on just the plain terrain and bad roads. The cars drove us to a place called REST, which helps with developing cities and towns, gives clean water and food, and does a million things ( Charity: Water is a part of REST). We had a big presentation from the people who were helping and then we talked about it for a while, so it was kinda like a conference, in fact it was. At the meeting I had my first “makiato”. A makiato is a mix of expresso, milk and sugar. YUMMY!!!

After the meeting we got in the cars again. Then we traveled a couple hours across the country to get to a village that Charity: Water had built a well in. On the way there we had to stop many times, here are the reasons: 1- Animals 2- getting stuck 3- People!!!

I’ll explain the people. So, a space alien walks into the room, or rather drives down your street. You’re gonna stare. Well, we are like the space aliens to the people. They have never really seen Caucasian people before. Even weirder the space aliens starts waving and asking you questions. Don’t get me wrong the people are friendly. They wave and yell hello and chase our car.

Once we were around the village I COULD TELL!!!! People were screaming hello, beating drums and rushing towards our cars. I thought we were going to run over them. The children danced in circles until the chief said to please sit down. Around 1,000 people crowded around us. The chief and the people talked and made speeches about how the well was helping, meanwhile I was turning into mosquito injera. Injera is the bread that they eat in Ethiopia. Then they gave us gifts and Scott cut the ribbon to the well and the people filled their cans with water. Scott is the founder of charity: water.

Then they fed us lunch. They pretty much forced us to eat more. When we got back cking out. Even then a couple kids chased us down the road, calling us to come back. After that we went to a school. It was sad. They have about 5 classrooms. The classroom floors are stones piled up onto one another, or just scattered around the floor. That’s where they sit. I’m not going to type anymore because its dinner and I’ve been typing with one arm the whole time and I think its going to fall off. There are photos and videos below…