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

               ♥

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

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

             ♥

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

               ♥

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

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

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

                ♥

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 

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

              ♥

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