Andrea's POV: Sunday

Oh, yeah, it's Sunday. And I only remember that because we went to
the International Evangelical Church this morning, as they were doing
a Christmas service, prior to the Big Day itself. There were
Christmas carols (mostly sing along, which I generally enjoy), some
sort of King-type story acted out, which was pretty difficult to hear,
and the standard evangelical exhortations to take Jesus into one's
heart. The 2 guys (pastors??) leading the service were frighteningly
smily.

I've had the question if we were able to find all the foods we could
get back here, and the answe is NO. It seems standard to go to
several places just trying to get a single specific item - all shops,
pharmacies, etc, are VERY SMALL, and tho they are stocked from the
floor to ceiling, and out the front of the shop, if you are looking
for something specific (like, say, size 3 diapers, plastic bowls, or
half decent bananas), you may need a car to take you several places
before you locate your item(s) (we never did find the bowls). It took
one of the other Canadians here 2 days and visits to several
pharmacies in order to find metoclopramide, an antinauseant his wife
desperately needed (she's feeling much better now).

Breakfast is provided with the room, and we've stuck to scrambled eggs
(with bits of onion, tomato and "green pepper" - it's green, alright,
and a pepper, but it's small and thin-skinned and not rounded but
pointy, and HOT) with "toast" (must be toasted slowly, as it's more
like dried bread than toasted bread) and butter with "jam" (seems to
be a runny peel-less version of orange marmalade) - it's good. I have
"coffee with milk" - the wicked strong coffee cut half with hot milk -
and Allison has some hybrid juice (we can't identify the flavour).
Ebba has what we THOUGHT was formula, but upon reading the tin, turns
out to be full cream powdered milk, and some very milky oatmeal.

Somehow, we keep missing LUNCH. We usually bundle into the van, and
get driven all over Addis, and don't get back til early afternoon, at
which point I am hungry and trembly and feeling slightly sick (am
hoping this is an altitude thing, and maybe the result of inhaled
petrol fumes - Pia, care to weigh in?). We usually then order from
Ice Blue, which HAS to be within spitting distance, as they deliver so
quickly. From the Ice Blue menu we have tried Basmati rice with sauce
(way too much rice), various pizzas (a nice, very flat crust pizza
seems ubiquitous here in Addis), the cheese sandwich, and I tried the
buger, and fries. The fries are excellent, the pizzas are good, but
are we sensing a theme here? Yes, CARBOHYDRATE central here in Addis.
I'm going to have to go on a juice fast when I get home - ugh, I feel
HUGE, and the heartburn is killing me. Thank god for Pepcid.

For dinner, I have tried 2 different kinds of beef - these, and the
hamburger, were all sort of weird - and the dishes only ONCE came with
a vegetable, and they were token veggies at that. I switched last
nite to chicken, and had chicken in beer sauce and a caprese salad
(tomato and mozzarella) - and THIS came with slightly MORE than token
veg, with about half a carrot and a handful of string beans! And they
were good, too.

I have introduced Allison to papaya (she seems less than impressed,
how is that POSSIBLE?), and we still have a couple of oranges left.
Allison is on a hunt for bananas today, along with....damn, can't
remember...and more bottled water. Ah, she's just returned with Ebba
- I should go see how things went.

Tomorrow is more shopping (we missed the scarves and fabrics of the
Former Fuelcarriers something or other, long story), back to the BMI
office to make sure we do, in fact, have seats, and a visit to the
orphanage that Ebba came from in the morning, another trip up the
mountain (I probably didn't tell you about that, and I'm planning on
skipping this second trip - I can tell you tomorrow), and then an
Ethiopian cultural supper. No idea what's happening Tuesday, apart
from getting ready to travel (flight leaves Wed at 06:30, and we need
to be at the airport by 04:00!), and trying to tire Ebba out so she'll
not run everyone ragged on the varied flights home.

Hope all is well back home, and do keep me posted on the weather in
Montreal for Christmas Day - internet is WAY too slow here to get the
Environment Canada weather site to load...

A