New adventures!

This weekend was exciting for me, but might be a tad boring to read, so I'll keep it nice and short!

Yesterday morning went as usual... Get ready in the morning, head to the Zebu so I'm not in the way of the women cleaning my room, leave after a few hours hoping they're done, they're usually not, so Millie and I sit in the grass area in front of all the hostels and read and whatnot until we think they're done. Today we were in a hurry though! We didn't stay in the Zebu quite as long today because we had plans! I know right? Pshhhh my? Having plans? Who would have thought?! But yes I did! Paula and her family were picking up Ricardo (from Mexico), Edwin (from Peru), Lei (from China), Millie, and me and take us to the International Evangelical Church at 10 in the morning for a handy crafts market! The church (which is the one Tigist takes us to for church on Sundays) has this little market on the last weekend of every month, and everyone thought it would be a great thing for us to go to! It was very neat! Everything there was handmade and was all so beautiful! I wanted to buy everything there! They had fresh fruits and baked goods, scarves, all kinds of ceramics, puzzles, jewelry, you name it! They had it! Everyone was so friendly too! Oh, it was so great!

A nice action shot of me looking at
some ceramics

After we left the church market, Lei said she knew of this really good Chinese restaurant in Addis that she would love to take us to! It isn't an "Ethiopian Chinese" restaurant, which is why she likes it so much. She said that most Chinese restaurants in Ethiopia are only about 50% in tasting like how Chinese food actually in China tastes. The restaurant she took us to for lunch is about 80% tasting like real Chinese food in her opinion. I was amazed by that! But very fascinating! Since none of us really know thaaaaat much about Chinese food, she decided she would order for us. Oh. My. Goodness. The food she ordered tasted AMAZING!!!! A lot of them I have never had before, and some of their tastes were very peculiar, but I loved all of them! The fried dumplings, kung pou chicken (or however it's spelled), and tofu were probably my favorite dishes out of the almost 10 we probably ended up getting served! The fried dumplings were filled with pork I think and tasted very delicious. They were just plain with no sauce on them which is why I probably liked them. They were plain whereas everything else has interesting sauces on them! The kung pou chicken was completely different than I have ever had it! There were a lot of different nuts in it, the sauce was a little spicier than I'm used to having it, but I liked it as well. Lastly, the tofu was so delicious! This sauce was a little spicier than the kung pou chicken, but something about the flavor of it was so good! It was so rich and the tofu just melted right into your mouth! Also, to drink with all of this, we had a glass of hot tea! How great!

When I got home, I was so exhausted for some reason! Millie and I decided to just relax for the rest of the day since it was already after 4 in the afternoon! I even went to bed pretty early as well!

This morning was slow and easygoing as well because Millie and I didn't have anything to do until a barbecue at Andreas' house at 1. I tidied up my room a little bit after I got ready and them did some reading for a while. Late morning Millie came out and wanted to see if I wanted to try our recipe for our no-bake peanut butter thumbprint cookies with strawberry jelly! Of course I did! We needed some ingredients for them so we headed out to the supermarkets in Addis to go get them! Plus, we needed more mangoes and a few other fruits to eat... I can't get over how cheap the mangoes are here! We bought 5 kilos worth of them, which added up to be about 6 mangoes for each of us, and it only costed about 75 birr! This is a little less than 4 dollars FOR ALL OF THEM!!!! It just blows my mind... I love it! After we got our groceries, we set right to work on the cookies!

This was a fun endeavor because the recipe called for some coconuts, ground cinnamon, dates, and a few other things that we didn't have... We improvised! Also, we don't have any measuring utensils. Guesstimation at its finest! We had no idea how much of anything we were putting in, so we just poured until we thought the amount of each ingredient seemed like a good amount! The only ingredients we used to make our cookies were honey, peanut butter, oatmeal, corn flakes, and jelly! Talk about simple! Our ingredients available at the grocery stores are extremely limited! Plus I only have 2 burners and no oven, so baking cookies, bars, or anything would be totally out of the question! Our cookies ended up tasting extremely good though! We were so proud of ourselves! They reminded us of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches without the bread though, so we thought that was pretty funny!

Yumm!!!!

A nice close up view!
*Not enlarged to show texture* :)

Right as soon as we were finished making them, the women came into my room to clean! Millie and I hurried out of my room and into hers so we wouldn't be in their way! They got done so quickly, it was only 15 minutes or so! Then we got kicked out of Millie's room, so we went back to my clean room! While in my room again, we added the jelly to the cookies and put them on the plate that we were going to take them on for Andreas' barbecue. We had some extras, so I thought we should offer some to the women! I mean, they clean my room every single day. It was the least I could do... They looked so happy when I offered the cookies to them! I felt so good after that! :)

By that time, it wasn't long until Andreas' family was going to pick us up, so I changed my clothes, got what I would need, and we headed to the gates to meet them! 

Their house is amazing! It was so neat and beautiful! They had paintings on every wall, their furniture was very nice, they had a living room that let a lot of natural light in, and just everything about it was so neat! It was a pretty good size as well! It even had an upstairs! As soon as we got there, Andreas' parents offered us something to drink and put out some snacks for us. Then, Andreas gave us a tour of the house. After that it was time to eat! We had grilled burgers and hot dogs, pasta salad with dried tomatoes, lettuce salad, and a few other things to eat. Everything tasted amazing! They are such great cooks and grillers! Everything was perfect! I didn't realize how much I missed American food until today while eating all of it. It kind of surprised me really... It was perfect. The American meal didn't last long though! As soon as we were all finished stuffing our bellies full of all the delicious dinner, Andreas' mom brought our dessert! Holy moly was that good! It was a type of cake that's served here in a lot of places. It's kind of like a crumbly crust with many layers, but the layers of crust are extremely thin. In between the layers on this one was a chocolate filling. On top was more chocolate glaze or something. I'm not sure but it tasted like heaven!!!! I'm so happy! One of the main places to get these cakes is called Kaldi's Coffee and there's one located right outside of the ILRI campus! Millie and I haven't gone there yet, but I definitely put it on my list of things to still do! Eat that and wash it down with a nice macchiato! Yumm! Sounds like a good plan to me! :) When we got done eating, we played some fooseball for a while, then Andreas took us for a walk around his campus/neighborhood just to show us around and see what it was like. It's really friendly and pretty. It kind of reminded me of the ILRI campus, but with more tall buildings for homes and less grass, but more cement for parking and driving to each house. I loved it!

The cake

A nice macchiato at a cafe in Andreas'
campus/neighborhood!

When we got back from the cafe, it was time to go. It was already late in the afternoon, and I had to get home so I could Skype with my family! It's been 2 weeks since I've last talked to them! It was definitely been a great weekend! Now to start my week off this week at a 5:30 take off to Zwai again!

Story I forgot to tell last week! So while we were planting in the first field in Addis, the woman who recognized me from Debre Zeit the day before said something to Andreas in Amharic, so of course I didn't understand. I knew she was talking about me though because as she was talking, she glanced over at me and nodded in my direction. Andreas smiled, and then told me what she said. She had told Andreas that she really likes me! :) That kind of shocked me, so my face had a puzzled look on it, but she just smiled at me and laughed. For the rest of the planting that day, we would communicate a little bit through smiles, gestures, and some good laughs. That comment also made my day, and probably my life as well. :)