Day 2 - Transfer and a Taste of Poverty

Early wake up today to get on the truck and beat the traffic. We set off on our adventure into the depths of Africa. We past many scenic landscapes and small villages. Lots of people walking to get water, food and supplies. Lots of animals walking down the streets. Goats, horses and donkeys got in the way of our truck on a regular basis. Cute little dogs would pop up along our root. We also noticed some people in the small towns just sitting around and not doing anything. We learned that some of the people in the towns don't have much drive and end up sitting around. The majority of the people looked happy, which was very surprising. The state of the homes that people are living in is horrific. To western people's standards it would be considered "below poverty". Yet we still saw many smiling faces. It was encouraging. 5 hours into the drive we stopped for lunch. Shortly after we hit the road again, we stopped at a scenic lookout. There we met several young kids. We handed out run for water brackets and all of the kids went crazy. As we looked into the distance we could vaguely see little kids running down the hillside full speed towards us. Within the next 5 minutes we became surrounded. Phil had a bag of bracelets in his hands and was completely surrounded by children wanting more! They had never seen a rubber bracelet with writing on it before! This was the greatest gift they have ever received. Phil had to throw some bracelets away from him so he could distract the kids and get out of the mob. As the kids ran after the brackets, some fell over a little ledge and landed on their heads. This was our cue it was time to leave. Who knew rubber bracelets could bring so much excitement, conflict and greed. As we continued on our way we saw many people walking to get water. Even small villages outside of the main city had to get water from places where the water isn't clean. The vast areas we encountered on our journey started to shine a soft light on the big issue here in Ethiopia. When we reached our destination we ate dinner and went to our rooms, for we need a good sleep to take on the tasks of tomorrow.