Merry Christmas from Ethiopia!

Merry Christmas from Ethiopia!  We’ve been here just a couple of days, but Christmas Eve is tomorrow.  Initial impressions of the capital, Addis Ababa, are that it’s a fairly peaceful capital, fairly clean, beautiful sunny, warm days, and cool nights, and has some western bonuses like a great hamburger shack, international cuisine like Greek, Armenian, and Italian, and lots of nice people.  We went to the National Museum which features Ethiopia’s contribution to the evolution progression, Lucy.  Actually what we saw was a copy of Lucy, but nonetheless it was interesting to see and learn about.  They recovered about 40% of her bones (shown in the dark brown in the pic) and they assembled a complete skeleton of an upright female that was pretty short. (compare the shortest member of our family, who is quite tall in comparison!)

Besides Lucy, coffee is Ethiopia’s gift to the world, and even though I don’t enjoy dancing to the java jive, it’s enjoyable to smell and learn about.  Ethiopia is the origin of all Arabia coffee in the world, although it produces and exports far less than Brazil and some other nations.  Arabica is the best quality coffee bean, but it can only be grown is very specific climatic conditions, thus the high demand and somewhat limited availability of growing possibilities.
Last, there is a great affection here for the Lions of Judah, and we see lion symbols everywhere. We’re not sure who Judah was, but maybe someone can enlighten us.  Our taxi driver even told us a “story” of how the former Emperor, Haile Selassie, had pet lions that lived with him as friends and roamed the palace freely.  Not sure about that one, but he swore it was so.  Great story if you want to intimidate people, though.  Just invite your enemies over to your house for “supper”.

Kids at a Christmas Fair