Although the original plan was to arrive in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia at 1AM this morning, plans changed as we entered the slightly-more-frazzled-than-usual Heathrow airport. Recent Glasgow terrorism reports have raised the airport threat warning level to “critical” which meant it was quite a zoo. As Heathrow airport was taking extra precautions, I took the opportunity to get extra sleep and curled up nicely on an airport bench as our two-hour layover turned into nearly six. For Alex and Charly, who don’t fall asleep just anywhere, it was time for a coffee break and recharging the computer battery.

After our ten-hour straight-shot from San Francisco to Heathrow, this next flight from Heathrow to Addis Ababa was somewhat more forgiving as there was a 45-minute stopover in Alexandria to break up the ten-hour flight. Charly and I had a chance to catch up on reading as Alex watched BBC car racing. Though we were able to nap a bit on the plane, we were all thankful to arrive at our hotel in Addis Ababa at 6AM and grab a few hours of real sleep before our first meeting at 10AM.

Semi-awake and kind of woozy, we guzzled down some much-needed coffee at the hotel breakfast eatery. It was a relief to feel a slight drizzle and fresh air on our faces as we walked out to the car with Tameru Abasaba, the Country Representative of A Glimmer of Hope. As Ethiopia is quite close to the Equator, we had all anticipated hot, humid weather and were happy to find that the weather here is actually quite mild throughout the year due to the high altitude in the highlands (Addis Ababa is on a plateau of 2400 meters). Please note the same can not be said of the infamous Danakil Depression which has an average temperature of 50 degrees Celsius!

As we drove to A Glimmer of Hope’s office, I tried to absorb all the sites and sounds on the busy streets around us, while thinking about Ethiopia in relation to other developing countries. I puzzled over why the Greeks had come up with the name Ethiopia, the “Land of the Burnt Faces,” when everywhere I look, I only see very beautiful, tall, elegant people. They carry the pride of an independent nation in their walk, and you can see it in their faces that they are the only Africans to have successfully staved off colonization. Unlike India, Bhutan, or China, I get the sense that they really care about the way they treat their environment and I had trouble finding very much trash on the sides of the roads despite the rapid population growth rate (2.5%). And yet, I can not ignore the fact that about 95% of the original Ethiopian forest has been lost to farming and housing developments.

Our talks with A Glimmer of Hope were wonderful and we went out to traditional Ethiopian cuisine for lunch, eating enjera (a flat sourish grey pancake) and various types of wat (a stewish type of food with various meats and vegetables).

We finished the afternoon with visits to a schoolhouse, water pumps, and freshwater delivery systems to villages on the outskirts of Addis Ababa. In particular, we saw the impact that A Glimmer of Hope is having in those regions that slip past the reaches of government programs and larger CARE and USAID programs. By partnering with and supporting smaller regional efforts in eight of the nine regions of Ethiopia, A Glimmer of Hope is able to take a deep and multifaceted approach to development (in the areas of freshwater delivery, education, and newly microfinance). Tomorrow we’ll move on to see one of their partners in action, an organization called REST.