Nicky on February 14th, 2010

We are so very lucky - at the girls’ pre-school there are five families from Africa, including one Ethiopian family.
We got invited to their son’s birthday party today, and it was so great. There were 5 or 6 Ethiopian/Eritrean families there, as well as a Kenyan family (the only one we had met before.  The girls were a little overwhelmed [...]

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Nicky on February 14th, 2010

If you recognize the lady’s name, Hanna Pool wrote “My Father’s Daughter” - a great true read about an Eritrean woman, adopted to a UK couple, who went back to examine her roots. (In my bookstore.)

Continue reading about Ahh, to have a proper injera pan

Nicky on February 8th, 2010

I was at my grandpa’s funeral and a nice lady came up to me and said how much she enjoyed my blog.  We’re used to this happening in adoption circles, but not in that circle! Anyway, she said she especially liked all the posts on Ethiopia and how much she had learned.  So since I [...]

Continue reading about Adama - 2 hours south of Addis

Nicky on February 4th, 2010

Feel free to borrow from my letter if you like.
February-4-10
RE: Alarming Processing Time at HC Nairobi
Dear Minister Kenney;
This is the third letter we have written to your office in two years about the processing times for visas and citizenship paperwork from the Canadian High Commission in Nairobi. The first letter to your predecessor actually produced [...]

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If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you’ve probably heard, at least one two major occasions, that action is needed to speed up the immigration process at the Canadian High Commission in Nairobi, Kenya. 17 African countries’ visa and citizenship documents are processed through the HC, and the timelines are notoriously long.  What [...]

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Nicky on December 9th, 2009

Today the girls told us that Santa is called “Da-MEE-na” in Ethiopia. 
Can anyone with older Ethiopian kids confirm this?  Their language sound ability is a lot different from this time last year and I’m wondering if they got it right; plus I’m pretty surprised they had word of Santa at all in ET-
Thanks for your [...]

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Nicky on December 6th, 2009

If you are like me, you love giving books.  I wanted to draw your attention to a few books that have gone over really well with my kids (you can see a small selection scrolling on top but there are tons of multicultural / adoption / nature kids books in my store) as well as [...]

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Nicky on November 22nd, 2009

Back to Ethiopia:

The Merkado is the shopping place that all the guide books tell you about and tell you to be wary in.  Personally, I don’t like pickpockets, and I had my arms and hands full with two little girls.  So in Ethiopia we steered pretty clear of the huge Addis market.
That said, there are dozens [...]

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Nicky on November 7th, 2009

The girls running full out for the first time in their lives. Something to see.

It’s true that most of Addis Ababa is a metropolis, full of highrises, malls, slums, gravel streets, red dust and goats.  But there is another side - and if you travel to Ethiopia in the off season, you can see the [...]

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Nicky on October 27th, 2009

 
We thoroughly enjoyed going into the bush in Ethiopia, but even in the heart of the city you can see an amazing amount of birds.  It truly is an amazing place - From fatbirder.com: “In addition to 840 species of birds, of which a staggering 30 are endemic (Africa`s second highest country tally); Ethiopia has [...]

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Nicky on October 16th, 2009

I went searching the web and found a great page with several great amharic fonts… all for free!  So I thought I would pass it on.  If you are unsure of what you do with these, usually you simply just save the ttf file, then put in in your c://windows/fonts file - and voila! you [...]

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Nicky on October 6th, 2009

We spend a little time in rural Ethiopia - outside of Addis, around Adama and around Lake Langano.  I think future trips will probably include more venturing outside of the cities… now that we are more comfortable with the country and how it works.
To give you a sense of the places we went, in the rainy [...]

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Nicky on October 1st, 2009

We’ve been looking forward to doing this post, as I think it was both Jrock and I’s favorite part of our trip to Ethiopia.
For five days, we stayed at Bishangari Lodge, on the shores of Lake Langano.  The lodge is  a 5+ hour drive from Addis, south of Adama, but well worth the travel distance. [...]

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Nicky on September 24th, 2009

At first when we arrived, I was determined to cook at our hotel.  After all, there was a hotplate, and I love to cook.  Things I didn’t take into account: electricity (therefore cooking power) only once every two days; eating out being so darned cheap; and a complete inability to leave kids while taking off [...]

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Nicky on September 4th, 2009

For those of you who have never been to Ethiopia, here are some pictures that will give you a taste of the captial, Addis Ababa.  For those that have been, you will also remember the sounds
horns honking, donkeys braying, children laughing, machiato cups clinking, blind ladies begging, diesel trucks roaring, friends greeting
and the smells
coffee roasting, [...]

Continue reading about Around Addis Ababa