So…I realized I’ve been a little remiss in giving information and posting pictures of our life here in Addis outside our little compound, so I’m going to give it a go!

And you can all be thankful this is a little peek in to Addis, and not a little smell into Addis….seriously!!

Addis like any big American city is divided into different areas.  We live in an area called Mekanisa.

This is to the right of our gate.  We were in the car when I took this, I was NOT standing in the middle of the road while a bus came charging at me! 🙂

Directly in front of us is a little wot bait (restaurant) that Marshal eats at a lot.  Or sometimes will just buy the injera (type of crepe bread they eat with everything) if we make the sauce at home.

I haven’t been brave enough to eat there yet, and to be honest probably never will! 🙂

But the people are really nice, and they love our kids!

This is to the left of our gate.  And you even get the bonus of seeing our “hairy donkey friend named Fred”,  he is a regular outside our gate!

And just yesterday I realized after some lady came and dumped her slop in front of our fence that we are the area dump!  Marshal says..”you didn’t know?”  I could have gone without that bit of information for two more months till we move!! 🙂

Anyway…At the corner of the compound where you see the two blue taxi busses, is where we get our veggies.

Here is a picture from the front.  The owner’s name is Gudefee, and he is really nice and puts up with my Amharic with lots of patience and without laughing too much 🙂

Marshal’s the white person.  🙂

A little further down the road we get our eggs, popcorn (non microwavable), milk (sometimes) and oil.

A little past this and on the other side of the street is where we buy bread.

Now I will say, we don’t buy ALL our groceries at these little souks (what they are called here), we get our fresh stuff like meat, cheese, fruits, and american foods like cereal, and such at the supermarket.  But it has been fun to get to know these store owners, and know you are helping them in their lively hood.

If you keep going down this road, you’ll see this…

and this….

directly to the right is the road we use to take Danny to school, and to the left you see rows and rows of condos.

If you continue on, you’ll get to the main road.

This is actually going towards our road.  The one we were just on meets up with this road right at the bottom of the hill where the big building is on the right.

If you were to keep going past that road just a little further, you’d get to our language school on the left.  I’m not awake enough in the morning to remember to bring my camera, so sorry for the lack of picture! 🙂

So, that’s our little Mekanisa area…well the part we frequent anyway!

I hope to continue this in a part two here soon, but I would like to get a few more pictures.  Hope you enjoyed the tour.  Marshal and I have really enjoyed this area of town.  It’s been perfect for us as a family, and adjusting to our new life!