Paradise Lost, Cannabis, and a Taste of Home

Our next morning didn't start off too well. We sat down for breakfast with our guide and driver. Suddenly the thought of food didn't seem too appealing to me, however, I knew I'd regret it if I didn't eat, as we were going to be on the road for most of the day. I ate what I could of my scrambled eggs, toast, and drank my papaya juice.

As the men around me talked, I entered into that familiar battle with my stomach. You know, the one where the stomach says, "please let me empty myself, I'm not at all happy" and your brain says, "Shhhh...you're just making it up. You'll be just fine." This continues for minutes while you try to look happy and participate in conversation. That is until your stomach yells "You'll be sorry!!!!" At that point I asked for the keys to our room and started to return there, just in case. I walked carefully, not too fast and not too slow. I saw our hut. I was almost there. I saw a very well dressed couple coming toward me. Then boom, I saw the flower bed, which was now covered in scrambled eggs, toast, and papaya juice. As I knelt there my stomach seemed to give a shout of victory while my mind was still a bit shocked. Not at all liking the thought of telling someone to clean up after me, I just stayed in the flower bed, covering it up with dirt. That was how Joseph found me.

Joseph packed up while I lay on the bed. This is where we left some of our toiletries behind. Things like shampoo. So, from there on we just pretended we were backpacking.

The road trip home provided many interesting sites.

I guess all those cows on the road were spies afterall.

This was just odd.

We saw two overturned, large trucks. Our guide was particularly annoyed with this one because it had been WAY overloaded and was very topheavy.

We saw three men standing around looking at the ground, so we stopped to see what they were staring at. They had just wounded a python. Sometime between the python and before the camels we got a flat tire. Not a big deal, and everyone around was VERY eager to help.

As Joseph first raised up his camera for a shot of these camels (the only ones we saw) and their herdsmen, our guide nearly leaped out of his seat, shoving the camera down and saying no no no no! We drove only a bit farther when he turned around and said, now. Apparently the nomadic tribe in charge of these camels is impossible to deal with. They pose for pictures when you stop, encourage you to take many, and then demand money. They charge per camel, so they end up asking some crazy price liked $2,000 for your photos. Why not just drive off? Well, that's easy enough I guess if you are in your vehicle, but if you are out, then you are out in the middle of nowhere saying no to a man with a spear. I guess we cheated :-)
Daniel and us by a lake. We saw so many along this road that I don't even know which one this was.
I tried to sneak up on this enormous scavenger bird, but it flew away.

Here is the taste of home - corn on the cob. We bought it Ethiopian style drive-thru: little kids chasing our jeep with corn in their hands. We stopped and they eagerly brought up a steaming pot and pulled a cob out for us.

Also along this road trip was our brief stop with the Rastafarians. I'm still a little perplexed by Rastafarians, but mostly they believe that Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie was/is their savior. Apparently a prophet in Jamaica back in the the time of Haile Selassie said a savior would come from the east. People thought maybe he would be from Ethiopia. Haile Selassie visited Jamaica during a very severe drought and as soon as his plane touched down, it rained; thus the worshipping began. He allotted a huge portion of land in Ethiopia to his faithful worshipers and they began to return to the homeland.

The Rastafarians we talked to spoke mostly of the tremendous benefits of cannabis, Obama (maybe their savior has become incarnated in him now?), teachings from the Bible (including that the West will be destroyed first, so East is a better place to live), and how to roll cannabis to look like a cigarette. Joseph spent the whole time watching a man 'cleaning' an amp. This consisted of pushing all the dirt from one side, to the other side, and back.

We don't have any pictures here because it is the only place Daniel told us to hold our camera tight and run back to the jeep. Note to self: don't move to Shoshamani.