Day 29: Friends

Hi everyone!

Today was such a nice day! The weather was perfect, around 72-75 degrees all day. This morning, Hannah and I went to church with Tigist and her daughter who's 16. It was a different pastor this morning because the last one had already made his trip back to Texas, where he was originally from. The sermon was about fully admitting your sins and coming to christ. It was a very nice service, like always.

Afterwards, Tigist took us all out to coffee and some breakfast. I had a cappuccino and cinnamon roll. It was really good. Tigist also insisted on getting us some bananas (about 13) and apple juice to help keep us healthy. She's such a great person and really is like a mother.

We returned just in time to change clothes and head over to the Zebu to meet Dr. Jean's husband. He's a retired tennis player and a just recently retired coach from the Zebu club. He met us, the South African student working on her masters, and a colleague of Dr. Jeans' that works at CIMMYT in Mexico but he has worked all over the world (including ILRI). He travelled over to their home about 15 minutes from ILRI. It was a big and beautiful home, gated of course. It was similar to a modern American home in my opinion. We sat out on the terrace, chatting and waiting for their Ethiopian-American friends to arrive. When they did arrive, we eventually went up to the second floor where the living room, kitchen, and dining area was. Dr. Jean had made lasagna, salad, and coleslaw. It was really good (I was happy that it wasn't injera)! We chatted some more over lunch and Samson, the Ethiopian that lives in LA, began to tell us how awesome he thought it was that Hannah and I were there on internship. He said he was proud of us and wanted his daughters to be like us when they got older. It made me feel really good that someone, especially coming from Ethiopia himself, saw the importance of this internship. Samson and his wife had another engagement so they took off but, Ky (CIMMYT), Kealeboga (Master Student), Hannah and I stayed for about another hour or two and continued talking. The conversation ranged from tennis, college, travels they have taken, jobs, and other colleagues. I enjoy just listening to them talk though I may not know what they are talking about. I am very glad the Dr. Jean invited us all to have lunch with them at their home. 

Her husband, Birhanu, dropped us off at the Zebu and we all headed back to our hostels. Birhanu went to the Zebu to watch the Wimbledon Tennis Championships. The rest of the day, Hannah and I will probably take a nap and get some dinner later. Tomorrow, we are going back to Debre Zeit to get chicken data and visit more farmers. 

Until next time!