And here it was, finally! After 2 months the day was finally here, we were going on a field trip!

Wednesday morning, the 20/6 07:00 we were at Sidist Kilo, ready to face the world. The bus was not there, as we had expected, and we decided to wait by the entrance. One of our class mates came, his name is Agena, and he is the president of the graduating committee. We joined him to the student cafeteria to have breakfast and then we went to the other students who were waiting for the bus with madrases and bags all over. After 3 hours the bus finally came – only 3 hours late.. Anyway, the bus was really one of a kind! Imagine the yellow, old school buses you only see in old American high school movies. It looked exactly like that, except that it was green. Cool girls as we are, we placed ourselves in the back of the bus and found out it was the right decision! As soon as we got out from campus the dogs got wild! Hehe.. The guys were singing all kind of funny songs and were dancing the traditional Ethiopian dance with their shoulders. Crazy!

After 8 hours in the bus we finally reached to Hawassa University and the 50 year old city, almost  300 km from Addis. The students were suppose to sleep in dorms, but me and Josie decided to sleep in a Pension instead. Good choice! The dorms had no beds, no shower and only a few toilets. Almost anything.. At least we had a bathroom, even if it only were cold water. But a cold shower is really refreshing in the morning and makes even the most tired person wake up, I promise!

The next day contained almost only going with the bus. We started early from Hawassa and kept going until 4 pm, when we finally reached Arba Minch and the 40 springs. On our way there we only stopped a few times to eat lunch and use the toilets. The guys just go out on the field and do their needs, but we girls cannot really use that method.. Instead we spent almost all our time out from the bus looking for a toilet (or hole). In Zodo, we stopped for lunch and there I experienced the worst toilet ever! We found a small toilet inside a cafe and it wasn’t like anything I’ve ever seen before! A small box of cement with a small door and inside a whole in the ground with all kind of bad things on the floor….. But its not over yet! Out from the whole it came big, white worms. Uhh! However, we didn’t have a choice, it was 3 hours left to Arba Minch and both of us really needed to use the toilet. No chickens are allowed in Ethiopia! Don’t fear ladies…

In Arba Minch the university was placed on the countryside and the dorms were even worse than Hawassa. They had no water at all and only one toilet on the entire campus! Me and Josie decided to join our friends Seid and Israel to their dorms, just to see how it looked like. What we didn’t know was the fact that girls are strictly forbidden at the boys dorms and when we entered the house, 100 guys were starring at us wondering what the @#$% we were doing there. Embarrassing moment!

Friday was a perfect day! We woke up early and left Arba Minch to go and see the national park, crocodile farm and the 40 springs! Our first destination was the crocodile farm and it was kind of hard to see. They raise crocodiles, just to use their skin, and after 4 years in small cement boxes they kill them. After a guided tour, on Amharic, we continued with mini buses down to the national park and the 40 springs. The road down was really uncomfortable but we had fun, singing songs about everything we came up with! The springs were really beautiful and we got another guided tour about the waters way from the springs and out to the city. Then suddenly, two of the guys jumped into the water with only underwear on. Playing as two 10 year old boys. We continued to one of the bigger springs to bath but when we came there we realized that it wasn’t a good idea to jump in there. It was five small boys playing naked in the spring and rather soon our guys had joined them, but at least with underwear. Anyway, we passed swimming! After that we continued our trip back to Hawassa and this time there wasn’t a stop on the craziness. Teddu took a water bottle and emptied under Josies dress – and she wasn’t late to respond. She jumped back on Teddu with the water in her hand and got revenge. The whole bus where laughing and screaming while they were fighting and pretty soon after that all the boys came back and began singing wedding songs. A towel was held over the wedding couple and the boys came with perfume to Josie. So fun! It took about 8 hours to come back to Hawassa and when the darkness came everyone fell asleep; me on Seids shoulder, Josie in my knee sleeping on Teddus arm. Cosie!

Saturday was a day of adventure for shore. It started with a trip to Wondogenet, the hot spring, and there we were swimming and playing for several hours. Most of the guys can’t swim so when they wanted to take photos with us they almost drowned me and Josie when they were hanging on us. The pictures are mostly when we are under the surface… We had a lovely time with swimming lessons, competitions and funny moments. After the wonderful hours in the pool it was time to continue our adventure! We had a great lunch in Hawassa City and then we went to Lake Hawassa. It was a beautiful nature with big, high trees and green grass all over. Monkeys and big birds, think it was storks, were everywhere and it was so fantastic! We placed ourselves under one of the trees and Kebreab wanted to discuss the field trip. It was a familiar environment and me and Josie thanked everyone for letting us join! We really love them all <3 After the discussion and some pictures of the class we decided to go out on the lake by one of the boats. An exciting boat trip with lots of pictures and happy guys! Back on land we took even more pics, everyone wanted pictures together with us and finally it got a bit boring.. Back i Hawassa it was time to get ready for the evening. Me and Josie had dinner together with some of our friends and then we continued to try out Hawassa’s night life. Good night out!

Woke up earlier than we should, considering yesterday’s night. Took a quick, cold shower and went by Budget-taxi to Lewi Restaurant outside main campus. Had a lovely breakfast including omelet, corn flakes, fruit salad, pineapple juice and macchiato, very nice! Later Kebreab and Fikre Maryam joined us and the bus picked us up outside the main gate at 9 am. Everyone was really tired and the way back was kind of calm, compared to rest of the trip. Home in Addis again it was time to say good bye to everyone and it was really sad! Miss all of our wonderful friends and hope to come back in September again! Ouyr lifes are here in Ethiopia!

Chaw!

Antonia & Josefine

Wopidopidooo! Final Exam is done and it went well, or amazing as our instructor would say. Now it’s time to get some new energy and study for the next one, in Environmental Engineering. Have had some chill-days without school and today we spent the day at Sheraton by the pool. Tomorrow is a new day with new energy! It’s time to get started the studying again, on Wednesday it’s time to show our skills again.

Beside school, life in Addis is fine. The weather is ok, sometimes a bit cloudy, but no rainy season so far. Hope to see the sun for at least one more week, maybe even until the end of June? “crossing my fingers”

In Wednesday we were in the Stadium, doing our first movie-shooting. It was so much fun and I really felt like 10 years old again, trying out costumes for homemade-theatres. The running-scene is not until Tuesday, so in now we just played extras in the crowd. Josie played the princess and had a lovely, red dress. I was a cowboy, with hat and everything. It was totally worth getting 500 birr for and it was really great!

We have also been celebrating the Swedish National Day. The Swedish Embassy in Addis had a celebration party and we were invited. Free Swedish food, Swedish music and lots of Swedish people made it complete and it almost felt as home! We just had some trouble with the dress code; didn’t know it was any and came in jeans and a sweater directly from final exam. Everyone else was dressed really nice in suits and dresses. Great! Well, you can’t succeed with everything ‘aight? And besides, we are students after all…

No I shall continue my dinner preparations and later it’s time for some movie.

Over and out.

Antonia & Josefine

Good morning! And congratulations to my sister, Viktoria, who graduates high school today!

Today is a beautiful day in Ambo! The sun is shining and the sky is bright blue, life is good. Whole morning has been spent sitting in the garden and try to learn everything about the history of Ethiopia and its economic growth. Interesting but hard!

Now it’s time for lunch and our beloved soup. Then our driver is picking us up at 1 PM and we’ll go back home to Addis. Tonight we are going to meet one of our supervisor’s colleagues, Åke. Are going to his hotel together with head department, Dr. Berhanu. Fun to meet some swedes and exchange our work so far!

Tomorrow is the Final Exam and then we’ll go to the Swedish Embassy to celebrate our national holiday, nice!

Love and peace

Antonia & Josefine

Here we are again, in our beloved freetown 100 km from Addis. The driver picked us up at home yesterday afternoon and after 2,5 hours we finally reached Ambo and our hotel. We spent the evening at the hotel, having dinner and then relaxed to get some new energy for today and an effective day of studying. And effective it was! We woke up early and took a table in the beautiful garden outside. Suddenly it came three rabbits on the ground and cute, little birds were singing in the trees. A totally okey environment to study in

And you know what?! Me and Josie are going to be ethiopian moviestars! An ethiopian director, Serawit Fikre, famous from the movie Hiroshima, is doing a new film about the olympic games. Our american friend, Collin, is a professor in sports and heard about the movie and that they needed extras for a scen in the big Stadium. So we called Lenny, a LA-guy who collects extras for the scen, and now Josie is going to be a runner and I’ll be in the crowd together with Collin and some of our other friends. Cool!

The only problem is the 5 kilos the camera put on and the fact that Josie hasn’t been running anything at all the last three months and now is playing an olympic athlet. Great! To solve this little detail we are now going on a strict diet: omelet, soup, coffee and water with lime. Today we also started running. In Ambo. Very special and not like anything I’ve ever experienced before. We put on some training clothes and walked outside the city. Then we found a smaller street and began our adventure. And an adventure it was! We ran out on the fields and through some groups of children and grazing cattle. I felt almost like we were running a marathon, besides the fact that we had been running for 15 minutes and were already exhausted… Anyway, we did it and tomorrow we’ll do it again, even better! 

And when we speak about movies, we went to cinema in Friday. We visited Edna Mall in Tele Bole. Its a big cinema, almost as good as the best ones in Sweden with about 100 seats and a big screen. The chairs were really nice and comfortable and the sound was so good! A fantastic experience of ethiopian cinema, something to do again! We watched the new movie Snow White and the Huntsman with Kristen Stewart and Chris Hemsworth. It was so good and I really liked it, and so did Josie…… The best part was that it only cost 45 birr = 18 SEK!

Yesterday morning, before we went to Ambo, we were in Merkatu, Africas biggest market. Sarina were with us to help us find material and make us some beautiful prom dresses and Josie also made a black suit. The material for a dress cost about 300 birr and to make the dress cost 500, so all together for a hand made prom dress: 800 birr = 320 SEK. Totally worth it!

Now we are sitting in the restaurant at our hotel and having tea. We’ve just had dinner – soup as usual, and now we’ll go up to watch a movie and get some break from all the studies. Tomorrow the car is picking us up at 8 am to go to Gudar and collect the last data. Then we are going back to the university to discuss our project with Chala and hopefully get some usefull feedback on our work.

“we are not like everyone else here”

See you soon darlings!

Antonia & Josefine 

After some few days of sickness, Josefine is finally getting better! It started in Tuesday when we were heading to school and she felt really tired. Then, when we had class she started swetting like a pig and almost fell asleep, even though that isn’t that hard actually.. Anyway we got home and almost immediately after we got in the frontdoor she droped down in the bed and thats were she have been placed the last couple of days, until today when she finally got up!

Me, myself and I have been having fun by my own in Addis; in Wednesday I had the quiz in Environmental Eng. and then I met up with some friends. A successful day with lot of fun! Yesterday I should have been going to Shola market with Tesfaye, but we had a smaller missunderstanding and it ended up with he going by himself..

Tomorrow we’re going to Lake Langano with HASH Spring Club together with 55 other “hashers”. Very nice! We are going by bus, already 7.30 am from Addis, and the plan is to chill in the sun the entire day and then enyoing the beach party at night! I’m really excited of seeing something else than Addis and Ambo. Even though it’s only 180 km from here, it’s still not Addis. To be continued…….

Hope all of you are fine!

See you soon ♥

Antonia & Josefine

Two days of reseaching at the animal markets made us exhaused and today we got a much needed day at Boston Day Spa. All three of us: me, Josefine and her boyfriend Joel, were enjoying pedicure, manicure and massage – very nice!

In Thursday we were in Shola market. Joel came with us and saw our work here in Ethiopia. We got to the market after lunchtime and the number of animals was therefore not that big. But we did our 10 surveys and Tesfaye made an excellent work with interviewing the stakeholders! We also experienced a firework when an electricity wire broke and got in contact with water. Caos erupted and the people were running everywhere. However, no one got hurt and we could continue our work.

Next day it was time to visit Kera market. We had to reschedule from morning to afternoon and the animals were then very tired and aggressive. It was a crowded caos of animals everywhwere. We tried to go down in the animal fence but changed our mined pretty fast when the bulls were heading right against us! Instead me and Josefine stayed upstairs, watching over the animals, when Tesfaye jinked the bulls trying to interview the mens down in the market area. The rain was coming back & forward and disturbed the work, but after 2 hours we finally had our 10 surveys for the day.

In Tuesday we will go to the slaughterhouse again. Can’t say I look forward to it!.. But hopefully we get what we need and doesn’t have to observe the slaughter process again after that. We will go there on Friday as well. but only to interview the stakeholders in the lairage and observe the living animals. We will also join the transport in the morning to collect the animals from different markets. Very good for our transport research!

In Tuesday we have a new Quizz in Envrionmental Engineering I so now it’s time to go back to the study’s. Don’t want to fail, especially when it’s only on one chapter!

Live every day as it was your last

Ciao.

Antonia & Josefine

Today is a lovely day! The weather is fantastic with sunshine and blue sky, no rain so far. We have already done a lot of things. This morning we picked up Josefine’s boyfriend Joel at the airport and then we’ve showed him our favourite breakfast-place with ethiopian Fetira with honey & mangojuice. We have also been studying some since we have an assignment until tomorrow in Air Pollution Control. We are writing about cement industry and what air pollutants that are released; very different from our usal studys but interesting!

Yesterday we had a whole day at the animal markets. We started the day at Kera Market and spend the next cupples of hours with studying the animals and interviewing the stakeholders. In the beginning it was easy with just a few, calm animals but when the hours went by the animals got more and more aggressive! When we had only 2 surveys left we were in the middle of all the animals that were fighting everywhere! It was really scary but no one else beside me and Josefine seemed to care. Everyone just laught meanwhile we jumped around trying to avoid the animals and getting hurt.

After lunch it was time for next market, in Karo-Alo. It’s a difficult market though it’s so far away and very hard to get there. The road is not comfortable and the minibuses are really crowded! When we finally got there it wasn’t even worth it. We found that all the stakeholders had gone home already and we couldn’t do any surveys. To bad! But nothing to do, just to go home again and try another day. We decided to let our assistant Tesfaye go by himself tomorrow when we are in school. Hopefully he can get some data from the stakeholders and then we can decide if we need to collect data from there or not. Due to the difficulties to get there and the limited time that the stakeholders are there we might discuss if it’s enough with only Kera and Shola market. Anyway we got home safe and were happy to have some data collected.

Now it’s time to get out of this house for some tour around Addis to show Joel our fantastic home. Tomorrow were having class in the morning, both in Envrionmental Eng. and in Economic Geography, nice! Then we’ll see what happens, maybe we spend the day in the pool at Sheraton.

See you!

Love from Antonia & Josefine

Salam!

Life in Addis is going well. The weather finally seems to turn and the last few days have been really nice with sun and no rain! The Amharic is also getting better and we can almost order our food without using English. Our Ethiopian friends are teaching us more and more every day and we practice as much as we possibly can! The goal is to learn at least the basic phrases, so that we can communicate with the local people.

In Friday we were at the animal market. The plan was to visit the slaughter house in Mexico Sq., but the head wasn’t there so we couldn’t enter. Instead we visited the animal market nearby. It’s the biggest one in Addis so it’s a good source for our data collection! The head was really helpful and he told us to call him whenever we wanted to go there, very nice! He actually has a background in animal science and hopefully he can give us some input in our study. The market itself was big with lots of animals, mostly cattle. We got lots of good data and movies, but it was a bit difficult. Even if we had permission to videotape, the handlers and traders didn’t know and were really upset. Anyway we got the data and got home safely, exhausted after 4 hours of animals and crazy men.

Today we have had class in Environmental Engineering and now we are in the IT-office to make some internet-stuff. Our e-video is really problematic and we need to upgrade it at tele-office. The problem is that we need to go with our ex-supervisor and he has no time for that at the moment. So now we use the internet in school and that’s why we don’t update the blog as often as we should. Sorry guys!

Now we need to continue studying, the final exams are in the end of May so we really need to study! Tomorrow we have class in the Economic Geography of Ethiopia, really looking forward to it The teacher is so good and the class is awesome!

Love from us.

Antonia & Josefine

Happy Ethiopian Easter everyone!

This weekend has been a real celebration! It started with me (Antonia) being sick again. After I had tried the Injara at Thursday night I got sick. I think I’m maybe allergic to the “Teff” in the Injara, or otherwise I’ve just had some really bad luck eating it. Anyway I won’t eat it again, ever! The worst thing with being sick or food poisoned is the day after, cause I always get really exhausted! On Friday I slept until lunch and then we got out for buying some food in Arat Kilo. On our way back home it started raining, a LOT!!!! The rain was pouring down and in a couple of minutes the road was full of water! On the way up to Shoromeda the bus stopped for leaving some passengers and then it didn’t start again because of all the water. Really scary, especially when the breaks didn’t work and the bus went backwards down and stopped diagonally over the road! Luckily it started again and we got home safe! It’s in these kinds of situations that we truly feel that we are in Ethiopia!

Because I wasn’t feeling 100 % fine in Saturday we stayed home and relaxed. We made a super cool photo collage on our wall in the house, it looks awesome! J On the afternoon we walked down to Arat Kilo for dinner and on our way down we turned on a sideway for some expedition of Addis… We found some really cool places and it ended up in a quit long walk… We almost got lost for some time but we found back and got down to Arat Kilo. It’s so cool to explore Addis on foot and we try to walk as much as we can. It’s hard with the high altidue – you get panted really easily, but it’s totally worth it!

Easter in Ethiopia also means end of fasting: everyone starts eating meat again and the slaughter of animals begins! They started to slaughter on Saturday afternoon and on night at 3 AM they started to eat meat again. The slaughter here is, as we already knew, very different from Sweden! They use everything, not only the meat; also the bones, the organs, the gut and the skin. Everywhere you go you can see skins lying in stacks on the street. Usually you buy a sheep yourself and slaughter it at your house for Easter. Then you save the skin to sell it for handlers who makes for example horse saddles or chairs. We have seen lots of this on the streets this weekend and it’s very interesting and different from Sweden, for sure!

Yesterday we were invited to Dr. Yilma, the head department of Civil Engineers and also our Ethiopian supervisor. He and his family invited us for lunch to celebrate Ethiopian Easter with them. The home was a big, lovely house with 3 floors in a nice, new area of Addis. They have 3 adorable children; two daughters and one son who were super excited about us visiting. After a short time of shyness they were happy and showed us the traditional dance. I really want to learn how to move the shoulders as they do, but it’s really hard! However, if the children can do it, we can do it!

Since we decided not to eat meat here in Ethiopia we had a vegetarian lunch with Injara, white bread and beans. Kind of weird for them since they are so happy to eat meat again after 2 months of fasting! After lunch we explored the traditional coffee ceremony; first the women roast the coffee beans in the room; then you smell the roast; then you drink it. The ceremony goes on for 3 series and you can stop whenever you feel to. With the coffee you usually eat some snacks; popcorn, roasted wheat seed or typical traditional bread.

After a wonderful lunch and coffee with Dr. Yilma and his family we went back to Shoromeda to get ready for the next family, with Naomi. She and her family had invited us for dinner at their home and it was totally amazing! Naomi knows that we don’t want to eat meat and also that I prefer not to eat Injara so her mum had made some superb vegetarian food with rice for me, so sweet! The food was delicious and I don’t think I’ve ever seen Josefine eat so much Injara! CRAZY GIRL J Naomis family was great and we had so much fun! After the dinner we drank some more coffee (they drink a lot of coffee when they celebrate) and then we went to a traditional bar together with Naomi and her brother.

Today we have a really busy day with many things to do! On Wednesday we plan to visit the animal markets with Beshada and therefore we need to finish the surveys so that we can print them tomorrow. We also need to study on the Environmental course, though we have the mid-exam next Tuesday. Oh no, panic! In between all this chaos of studying we had lunch at Sarinas home together with her family. It’s hard not to miss your family when all we have seen this weekend is our friends together with their families. But we had a lovely lunch with Sarina and her mum and brother.

Now I need to continue studying and hopefully get some dinner as well. The electricity is off, as it has been almost the entire weekend and I really hope that it will return soon so that we can make some food! Otherwise we need to go out, not cool when the rain will start falling down any minute now…

Peace out.

Josefine & Antonia

♥

Okay, so here in Ethiopia everything can happen! We’ve realized that now… Or? You know, yesterday in the afternoon we should have our quiz in environmental engineering. We thought. It turned out to be in the morning, after 1 h class. So while we sat there, wondering how the hell we should pass, the teacher started to prepare the quiz. It was one question, one simple question about the mechanism “rainout”. The only problem was that we had no idea what it was… And actually I don’t think we should have known even if we had been studying even more… But anyway, what is done is done and luckily for us the quiz is just a small part of the final exam! So know we have to study even harder until the mid-exam that will be in 2 weeks, starting from yesterday. We are really motivated to start study the chapters, it’s just so hard to know what to expect! Everything is very different from the Swedish school, and then I really mean EVERYTHING

It’s really crazy weather here in Addis now. Sometimes it’s sunny, sometimes it’s cloudy and sometimes it’s raining. All in the same day! In Tuesday it was so nice weather at daytime and then we had a real thunder storm in the afternoon. The electricity went off and didn’t come back until lunchtime yesterday. So our dinner never got finished at home, instead we decided to go to Arat Kilo and have some. It was nice but sad not to eat the one we’ve already started on! The electricity is usually getting off every day, but not that long! Generally it is gone for an hour at maximum and then it’s back, so it’s ok I guess.

Today it’s sunny and really nice; we’re going to Hilton and the pool. So nice to study in a sun chair and get tanned at the same time! We would have class now but it’s canceled. Actually we went to school at 8 AM, but when the teacher hadn’t come until 8.30 we were told that the class was canceled. Anyway we met some guys in our class and hopefully we can meet them later this afternoon to discuss the class. But now we’re going to the pool!

I hope you all are fine back home in Sweden!

Study hard and enjoy life. That’s what we’re doing anyways.

Love.

Antonia & Josefine