We arrived at Arlanda airport Tuesday the 10th of July at 00.00 with a big sorrow in our hearts. It was definitely the worst day in my life leaving Ethiopia. I was crushed! And so was Antonia.

We left Addis Ababa at Monday the 10th of July at 02.00 in the middle of the night and arrived in Istanbul at 06.40 in the morning. Then we had a whole day to spend, so we took a cab to nearest beach where we layed like wales for 10 hours. Then we went back to the airport to catch the flight that took off at 21.15. When we finally arrived to Arlanda were we tired after only sleeping about 6 hours totally during 2 nights and sad and felt like the world were going under. But somehow it was nice meeting our beloved family that waited us! They had a “welcome home” placard and it was many tears when we reunited after 4 months.

Now Im home in Katrineholm and my soulmate Antonia is in Lilla Edet. Hopefully we meet soon to finish our analyze of the data from markets and abattoir. But right now we need to readapt to Sweden and get used not being together 24-7. Hard time for us!

Stay blessed

Josefine & Antonia

               ♥

Were finally back in Addis again after a 5 days field trip with our class on Sidist Kilo. We have been visiting Hawassa, Arba Minch, Wondo Genet etc. Every day we were on the bus for at least 8 hours and it was totally great! Our class is the best in the world! We were 40 guys and 4 girls, very equal. Antonia and I decided not to sleep in the dorms with the other girls so instead we slept on a pension. It was a good choice since there were no beds, no toilet, and no shower in the dorms. As soon as our internet works a little bit better you will have the full story!

We got the grade in Economic Geography last week and I must say that we are the best! I had 92/100 and Antonia 90/100 so both of us got an A! The other course is not submitted yet so were still waiting for the grade.

Now its only 2 weeks until we reach Sweden, and were not happy about it. Right now were planning to go back in September and are looking for different options. Only God knows!

Seleme seleme

Josefine & Antonia

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The Final Exam last week was really good and I hope that we both get an A. But we’ll see what Ato Kebreab says about it. In the weekend we didn’t do so much fun since we had to study for the Final Exam in Environmental Engineering that is on Wednesday. It’s a big course with a lot to learn, especially equations, and unfortunately we didn’t pay so much attention during class so we are struggling a lot to remember everything. But yesterday we took a break to have some fun and went to Bole and a big shopping mall where we eat pizza (not good for the diet…) and bowled with our friends. We both suck pretty hard in bowling but after a while Antonia really got it and she was actually good. It was worse for me, I really sucked! But I ended the game with a strike and improved a lot; from 22 points in the first round to 73 in the second! Getting better, right? I guess you wonder how I can get 22 but I told you, I do suck. We also found out that the Euro cup has begun and that Sweden will play tonight. So were going to the German bar to watch the game. Football lovers!

Our friends in Hash told us about the Coca Cola Road Race on Sunday so we registered for it. 7 k is maybe a bit optimistic, especially when were at an altitude of 2400 meters, but you should always be positive. And you get this nice t-shirt and we really don’t want to miss that… After the run we will have our Amharic name in a baptizing of bear and water. They are sooo good, but we won’t announce them before that. I can reveal that they match our personalities very well… It will be about 5000 people running but I hope that they’re gone before the baptizing – or else I will be so embarrassed.

Yesterday it was exactly one month before we leave our lovely Ethiopia. We both have kind of panic since we don’t want to go home. I don’t know how I am going to make it without this life… I have never felt so good in my entire life; it feels like I’m home. We’re planning to have a huge party for all our friends to say goodbye and give them all of our clothes and other stuff that we don’t need any more. It will be so fun!

Antonia is at the barber doing shorobas in black right now. I hope it will be good, or else I will have a busy night taking them out…

Chaw!

Josefine & Antonia

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Today we finished our research on the markets, ending with Gudar. Totally we have 140 interviews and 80 behavior studies from four different markets and another 50 behavior studies from the lairage. We have one interview from the abattoir with the boss (!) and two interviews with two different slaughtermen but we have also observed the slaughterprocess. Admit that we are good?!

We spent the morning on Gudar market and after that we went with Chala to his office and discussed the courses that they give on the Animal Science programme here in Ambo. There is a huge similarity to those courses in Sweden, we didn’t expect that, except from the one about camel farming. Maybe we take the MSc in Ambo after all?

The rest of the day we have been studying a lot for the final exam. The economic history is very interesting and its so fun to read about. Its a bit hard to remember everything in the different regimes but hopefully we do it on the big day. A very long and effective day! Now we will get out for a run before the rain comes, our strict training programme and diet you know!

But before I go I will tell you something cool that we have been doing. It is very common that you play pool here so we wanted to try it. Our friend Nibret took us to a place last week in Bole to play. There were only guys and us two girls, big surprise. Why don’t the girls play? Weird, but we took a table and started. Antonia has never played so it was me against Nibret. I was really good when I was younger and we played every day in school but it was a lot of years ago. OOOH, it was so fun to do it again, the obsession came back at once! Nibret won, but not that big, and we will absolutely do it again. Then Antonia will try as well, because now she know all the rules. We will kick the guys ass! Go girls!

We never hecitates!

Josefine & Antonia

                ♥

In the weekend we were in Lake Langano and we had such a good time! It was our best trip here so far I can garantee you! It is about 300 km south from Addis Ababa so it’s quiet far. We started 7 am in Saturday morning and arrived in Langano 6 pm in the evening. But we did one stop for coffee in Debra Zeit, one stop for lunch in Zeway and also one stop in a hot spring where we were swimming in the wonderful water. It was so clean and hot, we needed it after a whole day in the bus. The landscape is very different when you go south. First it’s very dry, with Acacia threes everywhere and some areas are ploughed, then it becomes so green with forest and different kinds of animals, for example dromedaries. We were starring out through the window like two birds in a cage and just enjoyed what we were seeing.

Lake Langano was so beautiful! A big lake surrounded with high mountains. The water was more brown then blue and they said it was due to the minerals because it had been a volcano there once. Really cool! We met a guy that is in the travel agency, he actually owns the company and is of the same age that me (22 years old!), and he told us about the history in the country and promised us to take us to some important places that we must see before we go home. Sweet! Saturday evening we had a big party on the beach and in one of the bungalows and it went really crazy! The hashers are the craziest people I’ve ever met! I leave that without further details… On Sunday we were playing in the water the entire morning and I got such a tan. I will soon look like an Ethiopian – a big advantage! One of the guys got his finger dislocated and it looked awful, but one of the other guys just pulled it to its right place again. I don’t know which of us that screamed highest, him or me. It looked so bad! If that had happened in Sweden we would have gone straight to the hospital but here you just deal with it. I remember when one of my little sisters got her finger dislocated once and we needed to go to hospital and fix it. Then she had bandage for several days.

Well, as I said – the best trip ever!

Now to the hard stuff, last week I was really sick and had these weird symptoms. I was lying in bed for 4 days and felt so bad. But then I got better so that’s why we joined the hashers for the weekend. But this week I felt bad again so we went to the Swedish Clinic just to check it (all my money are gone now…) and of course it was bad news. I have amoeba, the parasite that is in the water and that infects your stomach. IT SUCKS! But now I’ve got some medication so I hope it will pass in the next few days, or else I will go back for further advising. One of the Swedish doctors there was going to prison to do a health check on the Swedish prisoners. He had a lot of medication so I guess they are having a bad time there…

We are almost finished with all our research on the markets and we can finally see the end of it. In Wednesday we were on the abattoir and went with one of the big trucks that collect animals from the markets. We saw the transport system for real and it was a big experience which helped us a lot with our project. One of the guys threw a rock in my head – ouch! Today we are going to the abattoir to do behavior studies and after that we are going to Kera market to do our last 10 interviews with the traders. Nice!

Tomorrow we will go to Ambo for finishing the last research on Gudar market and also to get help from Chala, from head department of Animal Science, to compile all of our data.

I can tell you a really good thing! In the course Environmental Engineering we have been a bit worried because our performances haven’t been the best. But yesterday the instructor said different. Both of us are in the top 5 of the class with 45 students! We were so happy after that!!!

Love / your Ethiopian girls!

Josefine & Antonia

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Yesterday we finally got the call from the boss on Kera Abattoir Enterprises and he told us that we could come in the afternoon to visit the slaughter.  He had arranged with a man that was supposed to guide us, Tekola, and he was so nice to us. He took us everywhere and told us a lot of the history. The abattoir was built in 1950 so you can imagine how the standard is. Right now they are planning to build a new one and the process will start in the spring 2013. They have around 1200 employees and 700 of them are participating in the slaughter process. There is no women employed, only men. It was a big hall with space for 48 animals to be slaughtered at the same time and they have different halls for Christians and Muslims slaughter, although when we asked the difference he told us there were none. In total there are two big halls to slaughter cattle in and two smaller rooms to slaughter sheep in. The slaughter was so different from Sweden; unfortunately we can’t show you any pictures since we have made a promise to the head manager not to show anyone, except from our papers. But I can describe how it is done.

First they take a knife and stab in the neck of the steer or ox, which is to cut of the nerves so they will fall down on the floor. Usually they don’t stab on the right place at once so it will take like 3-5 stabs before the animals fall down. It is important to tell you that the animals are not unconscious or anything, it is just to make them fall down. In the moment they are falling on the floor, the slaughter man stab them 2-4 times again, actually we don’t know why they did this. When they are lying on the floor, they push their head back and stand on their cheek. After that they cut of their head with approximately 10-15 cuts. Sometimes, the animal is lying on the floor for several minutes before they cut their head off. Then the animals are lying on the floor and the blood flows out before they begin to undress them and hang them on hooks. They take off the hooves and head and throw them in a whole, actually we never went down to look what they did with it but next time we might do. The carcass is then transferred to a room for inspection before they are loaded on the trucks. There is no cooling room for the meat, it is as hot inside that it is outside (yesterday around 25^oC). The trucks then deliver the meat to the butcheries around Addis Ababa.

We got a lot of pictures and movies, and also the information from Tekola was really good. We will come back next Tuesday to visit once more and then on Friday we will go with the butcher and collect 20 animals on one of the markets here in Addis. After that we will visit the abattoir approximately 5 more times to do the behavior study in the lairages, where they are collected before slaughter.

Our best friend Israel came back to school yesterday after three weeks in sickness. He had spent two weeks in hospital and one weak at home after a kidney infection and some spinal cord problem. We have been so worried for him because the hospitals here don’t exactly have the standard that we are used to.  But now he’s finally healthy and we are so happy to see him! We bought a bracelet for him and also printed one of his pictures, yeah we spoil him but I think you are free to do it when someone is sick.

Now we are going to school to leave in an assignment that we have done on Cement Industry and its impact on the environment, in the course Environmental Engineering. We know now the date for the final exam in Economic Geography, 6^th of June. And we are going on a field trip with this class the 8^th of June – really excited for that!

     Out of order.

Josefine & Antonia

                ♥

This week has been a really busy weak with the project. In Monday we were on Gudar market in Ambo and did a lot of research. Then in Tuesday we went to the big abattoir here in Addis (in Mexico Square) and this time we actually had a meeting with the boss since our friend and “teacher” Beshada knows him. So we gave him a letter from the University in Addis and prayed that he would let us in. After a lot of questions, hopefully we answered correct, he said that we could come back next week to attempt in the slaughter process. FINALLY! It has only taken like 4 weeks to arrange it – and when I was complaining to Beshada he told me that it was quick. Well, not exactly as we do it in Sweden. Everything here is so slow and sometimes it drives me crazy, you know my patience have never been so big… The boss will do a schedule for us and then we can go back on next Tuesday – or else I will go mad! In Thursday we went to Shola market with our new assistant Tesfaye. It was his first day with us so we only did  5 interviews and 5 behavior surveys. But for once everything went really good. The people were helpful and we got a lot of good information. I also got a proposal from a man that wanted to marry me, well we see about that. I will answer him next time when I’ve done some thinking!

The animal handling is very unlike that in Sweden and sometimes it’s really hard just to observe without saying or showing your true feelings. Sometimes the beating of the animal is hard to see and the sound when they are beating them is even worse. Also, in Sweden I would never have gone so near to a big steer but here I am practically standing right behind it and its not always so good but what to do when you have another big steer on the other side. Its very crowded and I can actually understand why they have this sticks, because if they hadn’t and the steer attacks you would be smashed. Not that I’m saying that you wouldn’t be even if you have the stick…

Yesterday in the afternoon we went to Kara-Alo market but when we finally got there, after one hour in the minibus, it was closed since 30 minutes. One guy remembered me since the last time we were there, in March, and he was so nice to us and promised to help us with everything when we come there next time. You want to know why he recognized me? Yeah, because the last time we were there I had my lovely cap and he thought that I looked like the guy in Crocodile Dundee. Really funny right? NOT! Anyway, we will go back on Sunday and meet him.

The plan for Sunday is to go to Kera market, the biggest in Addis, on the morning and then in the afternoon go to Kara-Alo. A really hard day and I can guess that we will be pretty exhausted after that.

This was just an update about our research but I promise that the next update will be about our adventures, if you can stand to hear them??!

We are Africans, almost!

Josefine & Antonia

              ♥

We were heading of at Ambo early in Saturday morning. Whenever we want to go to Ambo we just call the Vice President of the University and he sends a car for us. How good isn’t that? We are so happy for everything that he does for us, he is really great! It is about 100 km between Addis Ababa and Ambo and it takes approximately 2 hours to drive, depending on the speed. Since there is no speed limit on the roads you can drive how fast you like, with some risks of course. For example, there is a lot of animals on the road, especially cattle and sheep but also some donkeys and horses. On our way to Ambo we saw two dead dogs in the middle of the road and one big car accident with a lot of blood and it was clear that no one in that car had survived, after that the driver actually slowed down for about 20 minutes and then he was going in the same speed again (100-150). When we came to Ambo we stayed in Ethiopia Hotel, but after this weekend there we will take the other hotel instead. Antonia and me were sleeping in the same bed but the bed bugs only attacked me, of course, so now I have small marks over the entire body that itchy a lot! Never this hotel again. Ouch! On Sunday we went on a trip to Lake Winshi with Tadesse (V. P.) and his wife in their big jeep (private driver of course) and I totally understand why we took it – the road was really narrow! We were jumping up and down in the car for about 1 hour and when we came there we were still jumping when we were standing on the ground. But it was absolutely the best car ride in my complete life, the landscape here; I could barely breathe when we were passing it. It is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. The small houses, the fields, the kids that are running around everywhere, the animals that are grazing, the mountains, the Acacia trees; everything. It is Africa – and I love it! I get this wonderful feeling in my soul, almost like I’m supposed to be here. Maybe I am an African after all…

Lake Winshi is a 78 meters deep crater with a big lake in the bottom. It was, no doubt about it, the most beautiful place on the Earth! Unfortunately, the road down in the crater wasn’t that beautiful – in fact I don’t think you can call it a road. But in somehow we managed to get down and I have absolutely no idea how but we did. The road had in some parts fell down, there were rocks and water and if we haven’t had the land cruiser we would never have been able to get down there, and to get up was even worse. But down there we were taking a lot of pictures and just sat on the grass and looked on the beautiful nature around us. We also took a boat over to a little island where we visited a church and walked around for a while. We were about 10 people in that small boat, and we were still floating, and two of those men were paddling. After several hours of the best day in my life we were heading back to town again and immediately when we came to the hotel we fell asleep.

In Monday morning we went to Gudar market with Chala, from the head department of Animal Science, and two other men – Dabesa and Kemer. They are instructors in Animal Science and Chala had asked them if they could help us to collect data on the market so now they were ours assistants. Like that! Today a lot of people recognized us since the last time (more than one month ago) and they talked to us about our research. Really funny because we want to make friends that can help us! It feels a bit uncomfortable to walk around in the hedge with all the big cattle with these huge horns and also the people with the big sticks. What if they miss the animals and hit us instead? However, we did about 10 interviews and 10 behavior surveys. Dabesa and Kemer will go there the next Monday and the Monday after that to do a total of 40 surveys. When we will come next time, in the beginning of June, we will do some more behavior surveys but the main purpose of the research is to map the market chain on Gudar. Hopefully we will finish our work there next time but we plan to come back one more time after that before we leave Ethiopia.

On our way back to Addis we practiced on a presentation that we will have tomorrow in Economic Geograpy. We and eight others have done a term paper on the mining sector in Ethiopia compared to that in Sweden with an economic perspective. So Antonia and Fisseha will present it and I and the others in the group will have questions about our work. We needed to prepare ourselves a lot! In this class we are about 45 guys and 10 girls, very different from Sweden where we are 36 girls and 1 guy, so it’s nice with a change for once. Honestly, to work with guys are better than to work with girls. Now I said it, don’t kill me!

Africa in our hearts!

Josefine & Antonia

              ♥

Beloved friends, family, not friends, first readers and everybody else!

Unfortunately we have been sick in tonsillitis since last Friday and about the same time as we went down the internet did as well! Therefore we have had some problem with the blog because we haven’t been to any internet café when we were sick. The internet will be fixed next week and we will be fixed about the same time. 10 days on a penicillin cure and hopefully we’ve never been better at that point!

The courses at the university are a bit hard and we have been struggling a lot, especially this week when we had the Mid Exam in Environmental Engineering. It is 30 % of the grade so we really wanted to do well. It was 10 questions; 5 multiple choice and 5 ordinary questions. One of the questions included some calculations and we haven’t done any calculation at all on the lectures so we were totally lost (we didn’t even have a calculator). When the class questioned the instructor the next day he simply said that with the knowledge from earlier courses we (they) should have been able to figure it out. Good for us to know next time!  Maybe we should study all the courses that they have taken before this one so we at least can pass the Final Exam… Even worse; I was sitting next to two girls and they were cheating! I was in chock and I didn’t know what to do because if I had told the guy that was guarding us, the whole class would have hated me forever. But I am really surprised how easily they did it, passing their answers to each other and one of them (maybe both) had notes that she was hiding under the papers. Well, it is their problem, but still – weird!

We have some news about our guest house as well. The family to one of the journalists that are in prison here, Martin, was living here with us last week. Not in our house but in the flat above. We talked to them a few times and they were really nice! The mum had studied on Ultuna to LARK back in the good old days, cool convenience. They told us a lot of things that we didn’t know about the situation and we hope sincerely that the men will be released soon.  The prison here is not of the standard that the ones in Sweden; snakes, rats, diseases and inhumanly conditions! The other news is that we are getting a new roomie in the weekend! I think we told you about Lusia, the Spanish girl who lives here that is volunteering on Mother Theresa. If not – now you know! She has this friend José who is a nurse and he will be living with us for the next 2 months. It’s Spanish people all over the place since there is moving in two other Spanish people and also this Mexican guy next week. Help!

The weather condition here is not so good right now. It’s cold and rainy and we are freezing most of the days. It’s the little rainy season now, a bit too late, and in June the big one will come. Not exactly looking forward to it! Hopefully May will be as nice as everyone is telling us: sunny all day long and warm. Would be lovely…

Living the dream!

Josefine & Antonia

Now I think there’s time for us to tell you a little bit more about the school here. The system is quite different from that we’re used to in Sweden, in more than one way. I can give you several examples so listen carefully. Today we went to the main campus at Sidist kilo to start our new course that I told you about yesterday. It was hard to find the right room but finally after several descriptions from kind people we found it. We thought that we’re late when we came 07.55, because the class started 08.00, but there were no students except from us. So we got a bit confused and after 15 minutes when still no one had showed up we asked a girl that sat outside if it was canceled, and guess what – it was! There is so bad information system here. When we’re at the other campus for the Environmental course, that’s supposed to start 10 o‘clock, the teacher didn’t show up until 10.30 and he always does it, the same in all the lectures we’ve been to. In Sweden you would leave if the teacher doesn’t show up but here you sit and practically waste your time. Disrespectful I think! Even if he says that the class will be going until 12 o’clock it never does. That is of course nothing bad (hehe), we’ve a lot of other stuff to do, but it’s weird that you only have like maximum one hour of active lecture. It was hard in the beginning to listen and write everything in English because you translate it automatically into Swedish before writing it so we’ve a lot of sentences that begin with English and ends in Swedish. Fun to read our notes after the lessons! We’ve been so much better in speaking English since we arrived; it’s incredible how fast you adapt it. Today when we’re talking to Naomi about our plans for the weekend I began in Amharic, continued in Swedish and ended in English. The brain is working hard!

Back to the school: when the teacher told us that we would have the quiz today the other students protested loudly so he moved it to tomorrow instead. We didn’t exactly mind but it was weird that he changed it because it’s up to him to decide and he had informed us that it would be today. Last week he also told us that we would hand in the assignment on Tuesday, but then the other students told us Wednesday so we believed them, but now he told us that it would be handed in today. Panic again! So he changed it as well and we’ll hand it in tomorrow. This is his first course teaching and it’s pretty obvious, he is nervous. I think he needs more structure and then it would be fine (and also stop talking so fast and saying “you know” in every sentence). But he will learn! He is so kind to us so I don’t care so much. Another thing that is annoying is that the students are talking with each other during class, they are whispering really loud so it’s like an annoying background sound all the time. The good thing is that we got soft copies of all the literature and also of the PowerPoint presentations so it’s no stress to write everything during class.

We’ve big plans for the weekend, thanks to Naomi! She invited us to celebrate Easter with her family so this Sunday we’ll go to their house and see how the Ethiopian holiday is. Also on Saturday we’ll go out with Naomi and her friends to some traditional places and learn how to dance their traditional dance (at least she thinks that we will learn but we are not so shore about that…). It’s a big celebration going on here and has been going for 3 days, lots of people are out in the streets and they have party tents everywhere like big markets. Really cool!

Now we need to study to the quiz that we’ll have tomorrow afternoon. The schedule is also a bit changed, the class will be 10-12 instead of 15.30 to 17.10 and the quiz is in the afternoon at 16.30. Naomi told us not to be nervous but how could we not be?!

Sunshine!

Josefine & Antonia

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