May 12

Yesterday I had a frightening experience. Kassa came to my house in the morning to pick me up, and being back only a short time, I forgot about the dogs in my compound. Usually, I am very careful when I open my door in the morning or when I arrive home because I have three wild dogs in the yard that I share with two other houses. These dogs are usually tied up (or hanged) as they call it here in the day and then let loose at night. As I walked out of my house to open the gate for Kassa’s car, the dogs attacked. I’m not sure they had ever heard an American woman scream before so it bought me some time for the guard to catch them. I don’t think I will forget again.

Today I am living without water in my house, very common here. Many people get water here only once a week but I am usually able to get water everyday. At the Trampled Rose we have had lots of problems with not having water but the Rotary Club of France, Italy, and Entoto have donated enough money for us to buy enough water storage tanks to last for a week of water.

Yesterday I spent the morning with Cristina Gomperts, from the French Embassy and then I enjoyed lunch with her husband and a visitor at the Embassy. I attended a concert at my church last night. I was amazed at all the talent gathered in Addis Ababa. I’m still struggling a bit with jet lag which means that I’m tired in the early morning and wide awake at night. So I moved all my furniture and cleaned every last corner of my little house. I turned the Dixie Chicks up loud and had my own little party with myself.

Now that things are smoothed out with the purchase of our car (it’s beautiful) I get to spend most of my days with the women at our Trampled Rose. Everything is clean and beautiful. How nice to come back to such a good situation. Don’t worry, I have plenty of struggles ahead in the days to come as we open new houses and fine tune our programs, but for now I can enjoy the peace.

We have some visitors coming from the USA to see what we are doing later this afternoon so the ladies are preparing a coffee ceremony while I get some office work done. Tonight I am going to dinner at a friends house for a BBQ. Yum!