Hi All! 

Here are some pictures of what it's like here in Soddo:

Our "Castle" (as the brothers call it)

 

The view from standing on the porch of our castle.  The buildings in the foreground are the school buildings and just below that is the youth center (you can only see part of the white roof), just beyond which are volleyball and basketball courts.  All of this is within the walls of the compound.  You can see part of the wall on the right side of this picture.

Another picture of the view from standing on the porch of our castle.



The mosquito net over my bed that I rigged up

My room

My desk in my room



My closet

The view out my door when I'm sitting at my desk.  Good thing Paula and I get along well.  This is how many of our conversations take place.

In our dinning room: Paula, Brother Mattewos (was here temporarily for two weeks), and Brother Desta at lunch, from my view at the table where I sit.  Deacon and Abba usually sit in the two other chairs.

 

Our chapel.  Paula and I sit in the two chairs in the middle in the back row, so we can set our prayer books on the outside chairs.  Abba (except for when he is saying Mass), Deacon, and the brothers sit in the front four chairs.  The three roses represent our "small family"...last year there were three; now we have five so Abba asked Deacon to get two more.

 

 

The view when we sit out on our porch to admire the sunset (mentioned in a previous post).

Typical

=Avoiding malaria while observing the sunset

 

Celebration for Ethiopia New Year with the kids from Oratory.  (Oratory is when we have play time with the kids from town)

Celebration for Ethiopia New Year with the kids from Oratory.

The kids singing to Abba and following him around the fire.

We went for a hike with some of the kids up the small mountain that is across the street from the compound.

On the hike

On our hike...eating sugarcane

View from the hike

Cutting the bread (the biggest bread I think I've ever seen) at the coffee ceremony after the first day of school.

The coffee ceremony welcoming the new teachers at school.

Paula sang "Happy Birthday" to me...Thanks for making my birthday special while being 8,000 miles away from home. It really meant a lot to me :)

My birthday dinner at the restaurant.

My birthday dinner at the restaurant.

Coca-Cola at my birthday dinner

The other side of the bottle is in Amharic

Birthday dinner: "Normal burger" with "chips" (I had already eatten half of it at this point)...It was good, as is all of the food here :)

In our dinning room :)

 

Kids leaving Oratory (on a weekday, which this is, there are always less kids than there are on Sundays).  After we play, we pray.  After we pray, Abba always says, "A big big..." and everyone responds, "CIAO!" before leaving.  So that is Paula's hand waving "ciao!"

They began to realize I had a camera...things always get crazy once that happens!