water is life!

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bread and honey - and a popcorn hat!

water in schools.

In taking a tour of a school, Campbell was surprised to learn they both studied the same subjects.



Without water, girls often have to walk long distances carrying heavy water. It takes away from homework. Here I met a girl carrying a lot of water yesterday evening.


The number one reason that girls drop out of school is because they don't have clean water or bathrooms.

Camels and Convoys

Travel Day

We have to travel today and we are going back to Addis. We are all so tired and are just trying to stay awake this morning. Mr. Scott got sick last night and is still being CRAZY! Yesterday I made a friend in the first village and I gave out some crosses that we made out of grass. We had so much fun. I also gave out one of my bracelets but we had to walk really far to get to the well. We got to see a few villages yesterday and one of them had a lot of flies there. Kids had flies all over their faces, it was so disgusting it made my stomach turn because I felt so bad for them. I hate flies!

I did get to hold two roosters at one of the villages. I named them Brock and Crow. The villagers gave them to Scott but he didn’t take them with him. We stayed at the Castle Hotel the last 2 nights and the hot water tank was boiling HOT! I did get to talk to my Mom last night but we only got to talk for three minutes.
At the village with all the flies, they gave us the traditional clothes with a fighting stick and we are bringing them home with us.
We are delayed one hour for our flight.
Bye -

The Church

Today we took a plane to a different region of Ethiopia. We went on two boats across the lake that is the source of the Nile. My dad and Mr. Rick got soaked on the ride, so Mr.Rick stayed behind while we went to see the church. He stayed with Julia and Campbell so he could dry off and they could climb on the rocks. The rest of us headed off to the church and on the way saw a pack of monkeys, and some cool coffee beans. When we got to the church there were tons of people because it was epiphany. They had a very gross and bloody goat slaughtering place and you could see them roasting the meat and bones in the fire. We had to pay to go into the church so we paid and a guide showed us around. He told us stories about the paintings one of which was about a man who ate seventy eight people and then got to go to heaven because he gave a man a drop of water in Saint Mary’s name. Another was a set of pictures of a saint being killed in at least twenty different ways. The guide explained to us that to pray out of services people could go into the outer ring. While they were in service they could go into the second ring, but only monks and priests could go into the inner circle with big doors that is the Arch of the Covenant. It was a very pretty church and had very interesting paintings. I had never seen a circular church like that!

The car

Bump. Ouch. Bump. Ouch. Bump. Ouch. Bump. Ouch. That’s the rhythm of this car ride. OW! That was a huge bump. SORRY! I keep crashing into Campbell. These roads are terrible and I’m trying to stay still, but to no avail I must say. We are pretty much riding over rocks. Actually we are. This Mac keeps falling off my lap onto Campbell. I AM RIDING OVER A ROCK RIGHT NOW! Oh yah, and over in the mountains yesterday? We almost fell out the windows! We were riding in the back, I mean the back back. And, oops sorry! And, so its realllllly bbuumpy bbaack theerrrrre, andddd wweeee havvvveee tooo ttake motion sickness piiillllss. UH! My fingers aare literallllly bbounncing on the keys! OH! I feel like I’m about to fall of a cliff. We get so close to the edge when we are rounding the cliffs that CAREFUL! We almost run off them. Our driver is really good and makes the turns, and we have not run off a cliff. Yet. Also its amazing that our driver can see through the dust. I can barely see this computer screen sometimes. Okay….. sorry bout the extra letters here. Oh, I meant to type an (a) there. THAT IS A HUGE CACTUS. All my apologies for that one saw a cactus about as big as an apartment! And yes Campbell, I know I have only 22% percent battery on this, I thought you already typed something. And okay I’ll take a break. BUMP! OOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Byuey, I mean bye.

Yesterday

On our journey yesterday, I was amazed by all the houses. I was disappointed because we had to stay at the same stupid hotel two nights in a row. It was gross. We went to the well that was sponsored by the Budde Family which helped the villages and the school. They gave them these interesting gifts that they had made by hand. We got to take pictures of the children and with the children. They had very warm smiles and then it was cool to see the water shoot up from the ground.

The way we reached our sponsored well was in a pick-up truck because we couldn’t make it in the Land Rovers. It was too bumpy to get there in the Land Rovers. When we got to our sponsored well, we had no idea it was our family well. I was really happy and I wasn’t feeling very good but it made me feel better. When we left Mr. Scott told us that they had to make a road for us to get there and they called it Severance Way. We are not sure if he was kidding. The trip is a challenge as we have to go to the bathroom outside a lot and the food is disgusting.

I miss my family and I love you.

Mirror, mirror on the wall.

After a reasonably long drive we arrived at Berties Well – we were given a traditional welcome of music, dancing and popcorn! We moved onto the Well where along with the priest and other local important people we were asked to cut the ribbon and open the new well. From the new well we moved to the old water source which was filthy and we learned that it was a source of lots of health problems and that the clinic was over two hours walk away.

Later when I was taking pictures of the children at the well, Gebre was telling me that the people did not really understand what camera’s and photographs were. When I showed the children the photo I took of them on the camera display screen, they looked very confused. Gebre told me a story that he took a picture of 3 boys, and showed one of the boys and asked him who was in the picture. The boy said well they are my two friends, but I don’t know who he is (pointing at himself). Of course he would not know what he looks like, as they do not have mirrors, to me I could not understand this, because of course I look in the mirror before I leave the house, to check I do not have toothpaste or breakfast down me. But here that probably would not worry them, but not knowing how you look! Its just so different here its like a separate world.

The Budde Family Borehole

Today we got to visit the Borehole that we sponsored for a school. I was completely surprised because we walked out of the car and people were holding signs that said ‘we love Budde family’ and ‘Budde family is the way of development in Ethiopia’ along with the reoccurring ‘water is life’ sign. It was so nice to se all of the kids we would be helping. The village gave my family a basket and a wooden statue of a lady carrying a bucket of water. Then they gave us all limes which made our hands smell really good and were fun to try to eat. We got to see the rig digging which was really cool, and every three meters they pulled out a soil sample so we got to see how the soil got darker and moister as the drill went down up to sixty meters or one hundred and eighty feet. The people there were very kind and grateful to the charity and my family and it made me feel good to know that we were helping all those people.