May 9, 2009

9 May 2009
This morning we took a walk with a few others to the Debre Zeit market, which is held Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday every week. It is the best place to go for fresh fruit and vegetables. You can also purchase blankets and other woven items, spices, household item, and even a donkey or goat! I took a number of pictures, most in secret. Typically, adult men expect money if you take their picture, so I take most of mine secretly. That’s one of the nice things about a digital camera. The walk each way was around 45 minutes. We were pretty tired by the time we got back. The highlight was spotting a few exotic looking birds, both a bright green in colour. One was a bee-eater and the other a parrot.

The temperature here is actually quite nice – usually a little over 80 F, with a breeze. The air is not humid at all – in fact it is quite dry. For me it is perfect. The sun, though, is quite intense, being as close to the equator as we are. It cools down a bit at night, but not much. We often leave the windows open during the day if we are around to allow the breeze to flow through the apartment. We need to keep the windows closed in the evening due to the mosquitoes. We are at the elevation where we do not have to worry about malaria, and we are not taking any preventative medication for it, but we still don’t want them in the bedrooms at night. We use mosquito netting just to play it safe, but mosquitoes have not been an issue for us.

Last night one of the ESL instructors showed “Winged Migration” in the chapel. It is a documentary type of film with great cinematography. We will probably watch the special feature tonight. That’s it for entertainment around here, except for the satellite television. We get around a dozen English language channels, with the rest coming from the Middle East or Africa. We get BBC and they show hockey highlights in the sports segment around noon, so we are getting our Stanley Cup playoff fix.