8.12.2005

Let the interesting posts begin

It's my last morning here in the States. It dawned hot & sunny, and I looked up the weather in Addis to discover it's cold & rainy. July-September is the rainy season, and the temperature fluctuates between 50F and 70F. Then it gets nice just in time for me to remember how crappy the New England winter is and how glad I am to not be scraping ice off my car every morning.

Last night, I went to Starbuck's to get coffee in preparation for the long night of packing and the baristas made the mistake of asking me how my night was going and I blurted out, "I'm going to Ethiopia tomorrow!" because there was really nothing else I could think to say, and they kindly gave me a free pound of coffee, from Ethiopia of course. I decided to leave that here instead of bringing it with and trying to give it to an Ethiopian colleague, who would undoubtedly be annoyed that I'd wasted precious baggage space bringing back products that had already left Ethiopia once instead of bringing, say, chocolate.

Thanks to Kat, my organizational goddess who took the mess of items I had haphazardly displayed on a bed and put them into bags in a rational order, I am actually fairly prepared. There is even extra room in my luggage! Perhaps I shall fill it with peanut butter.

Thank you, family & friends, for your amazing support and encouragement thus far. I wouldn't have pulled this off without it. I'll be in touch as soon as I can.

posted by Margot @ 10:20 AM