This fall when we visited the Little Family, we became part of the Big Soccer Scene of young athletes all over America. Little Sweetie #2 dribbles naturally and easily, not looking at his feet, but in the game he waits for the ball to squirt out to him and doesn’t hurt people’s feelings for going after
Must be brief! Why? I’m on a writing retreat with these author friends (and others) and I should be thinking about my fiction, NOT about Ethiopia Reads, NOT about my blog, NOT about all the other things that tug at authors including how am I going to pay the rent THIS month? I often try
After starting my last post with a “tag, you’re it!” I got somewhat distracted by the joys of reading and forgot where I was going with tag :> Where I was going was to say that last weekend I played tag with three little kids–four, five and six, I think, for the first time in
The lovely and elegant (and yummy) Strings restaurant in Denver will be the latest gathering of people interested in books, Ethiopia, kids, reading and writing, not always in that order. Friday, September 23 · 5:30pm – 7:30pm That’s tomorrow! Here I am outside the restaurant just after having had tea with Lanie and one of my talented
A new school year. Whew. When I was five and six, we lived in Maji. One of the big things Presbyterians were doing in that part of Ethiopia was running a clinic (with a nurse and someone whose title was “dresser”) and running a school. We had church in this school building on Sundays, and
For much of my adult life, the question just about every American could answer was, “Where were you when you heard that JFK was shot?” I was in boarding school in Addis Ababa. I can remember leaning against a cement block wall, smelling that musty, mineral smell of rock and sand. There had been a sense that
I know I’ve said it before but I simply have to say it again…I’m astonished and oh so pleased that my parents were willing to let go of their moorings, shake their foundations, and head to Ethiopia with three toddlers. Okay. My older sister would have been insulted to be called a toddler at five-years-old. Still!
Four years ago, my brother and I took a group of teachers to Ethiopia. We told everyone it was an experiment–an experiment in good listening. An experiment in teacher-to-teacher sharing. One of the teachers, Alicia, turned out to be not only a terrific trainer but an incredible fundraiser–and her community in upstate NY really got behind
There’s nothing like a trip to Ethiopia to remind a body that happiness does not lie in the amount of stuff a person owns. Many households in Ethiopia can fit inside one small room of middle class American houses. How is it that people still laugh and dance and tell stories and hug their families and
Kids in American schools make surprised noises to hear that the enormous continent of Africa even has cities. They gasp to see photos like this one I took last time I was in Nairobi, Kenya. When I was a teenager, Addis Ababa was a fun city to get around. Change was in the air–I was waiting
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