Bahir Dar by Ann and Max

Max's contribution to the Big Barlow Blog:
"we saw hippos in the nile river.
we saw donkeys."

Bahir Dar was such a cool city. It is kind of like a tropical resort town except that it is by a brown water lake called Tana. After checking into our hotel room, we went on a boat ride across the lake to a monastery. Max got to drive the boat, he was in heaven! Everyone is so good to him over here. He is such a novelty, with his red hair, freckles and blue eyes, everyone wants to touch his hair. Since Max is so friendly, they call him an "African Boy" mostly because here in Africa, the people are very affectionate. They hold hands, walk with their arm around each other regardless of their sex. It is so different than the American culture where the men, especially, keep their distance from each other. Here, in Africa, the men will hold hands with each other, just friendly like. They say that American children are usually more reserved, but we know that Max is anything but. The guides all enjoy walking with Max.

When we got across the water, we were taken to the monastery which was like a walk in the jungle. We saw some monkeys swinging in the trees but they were too quick for us to get a picture. The monestary looked like a huge round straw hut. Inside there were these four walls that had pictures painted of Bible stories and stories of legend. The people couldn't read, so they painted all these pictures so they could teach using the pictures.

I wore a scarf to be covered in the church, it is the culture to wear it either over the head or around the shoulders to show respect in the church. Some of the locals who were following along with us wrapped it around my shoulders. The Holy water they put on our faces was a lot of water. Our faces were really wet after that. I didn't know whether to leave it there or let it drip down my face. We both opted for the drip. There was a lot of chanting (Ge-ez) and a lot of translating through our guide. The Priest blessed our rings and blessed these black strings they tied around our necks that were in place of the cross necklaces we were supposed to have brought with us, but didn't know about.

After the ceremony, the Priest asked to take our photo with his cell phone, which was kind of funny to see that he even had one since he lived in a hut. He was so kind to us. He invited us to eat with him in his house (hut) where we had some ingera with some lentil wot, pretty spicy and cold (I have only had it served hot). I was a little nervous to eat it, because some of the advice we got before coming over here was to only eat food that you can see the steam coming off of to avoid getting sick. I think Kathi was the most nervous. We all sat in his one one room hut to eat. It was such an honor, but we were all nervous. They had a pitcher with water and a bowl with which they poured water for us, one at a time, to wash our hands. When it came to Max's hands, he stood up as they poured for him. The Priests sort of reacted with sounds and soft chuckles. Our guide explained to us that it is Ethiopian custom for children to stand when being served the cleaning water by an adult to show respect for their Elders so Max was "righting" (doing the right thing).

After our walk back to the boat, and a quick lunch of peanutbutter and tortillas in the hotel room, we went to the Blue Nile Falls.