4th of July

Hey everyone!!! I hope you all had a fantastic 4th of July! Mine
was pretty good, here in Ethiopia.
I started off the morning with a visit to the Shola Children's
Library. This is the Ethiopia Reads library. It is the only free
library for children in all of Ethiopia! Maybe you have heard of
them? Their founder is one of CNN's Heroes, and has been highlighted
on CNN before. This was my 2nd trip to Shola, and as always, it was
fun to talk with the kids! On their property, Ethiopia Reads has a
huge container the size of one of those Pods storage containers. This
is interesting because it is all painted and says "With love from
Kansas". It also mentions that books are donated from the Kansas
Reading Association. Does anyone know anything about this?
After the library, Tiffany and I met up with Ahope's Social Worker to
have a few macchiatos. We had a great time and he was nice enough to
show us a few important shops around the city (including a great place
to buy coffee!). We ended up spending a few hours with him and
stopping at 2 different cafes for drinks. He also invited us to his
house later that evening for a coffee ceremony.
Next, we headed over to Big Ahope where we played Uno with the kids
for about an hour. Then we walked the couple of blocks to the Social
Worker's house. We brought cookies from a pastry shop and had a great
time drinking coffee, eating cookies and popcorn, and chatting with
him and a few of his friends. We were able to talk about various
social issues in the U.S. and in Ethiopia. It was a really great
experience!
For dinner that night, I decided to have some American food as a way
of celebrating the 4th of July. The only person to wish us a happy
4th all day was the Social Worker. He was so cute, he said, "It is
the 4th of July! Do I say Congratulations?". There is a really great
restaurant by our house that has different types of food like Mexican,
American, and Asian. I had a great cheeseburger. I tried to have
apple pie for dessert but it was yellum (they didn't have any).
Instead I had one of the best hot fudge sundaes that I've ever had. I
love food in Ethiopia!