Cush

...the land of whirring wings along the rivers of Cush, which sends envoys by sea in papyrus boats over the water. Go, swift messengers, to a people tall and smooth-skinned, to a people feared far and wide, an aggressive nation of strange speech, whose land is divided by rivers -
Isaiah 18

Present day northern Ethiopia is the Cush of the Old Testament. I have seen it with my own eyes and what a sight indeed! This was my first trip overseas and I was overwhelmed. Sure I knew beforehand what a fortunate nation America is and that we have so much abundance, but I was shocked at the real way of living for most of the 80 million people in Ethiopia. It is one thing to see something on TV when you are watching it from your air conditioned house in a comfy recliner. It is totally different when you are experiening it standing in the middle of Ethiopia looking into the eyes of one of its daughters.

I flew into Addis Ababa on a Thursday night and was one of the ONLY white (Farinjii) in a huge crowd of the Bole Internationa Airport. After passing through customs and picking up my bag I headed for the reception area straining to find the other farinjii (my Timmy) in a crowd of hundreds. What a welcome sight he was!

From there we went to his apartment that he called home for the past four weeks. The next morning I woke at 4:30am to the encantations from an Ethiopian Orthodox Christian priest. There must have been a church nearby and this church had a loud speaker with which the priest was able to broadcast the daily prayers. "Strange speech" indeed. The national language is Amharic and second to that is English.

That day I spent with Tim at Zewditu hospital where he worked for some of the month. Black Lion, the other hospital was the larger of the two and I did not get to go there. That night we went to a traditional Ethiopian restaurant with dancing, food and the whole bit. It was really awesome and eyeopening.

The next morning we began our journey through Abyssinia. Bahir Dar to Gondor to Lalibela to Axum and finally back to Addis Ababa.

I have so much more to share, but I will wait for another post. I hope to get pictures put up too. In the meantime, if you EVER get the opportunity to go to Africa - TAKE IT!!! Until next time...