Book - Pages 14 & 15

After court, lunch, the National Museum, and the market, we went to the Silk Factory.  This factory was created by a lady that adopted three children from Ethiopia.  She eventually relocated to Addis and opened a factory to give unemployable women the opportunity to work.  She then manufactures the scarves and sells them to distributors in the US.  

The factory begins with silk worms collected on the property.  Alexa was surprised by how sticky they were.  The silk is collected from the cocoon once the transformation from worm to caterpillar is complete.  Solomon put a butterfly on Alexa’s head and it pooped on her (and me).  Solomon said it was water but if it was water, that was the most brown/yellow water I’ve ever seen.  In addition to watching women spin the yarn, we also saw them using a variety of plants and herbs to dye them.  After the tour, we were able to go to the shop.  There was so much to choose from.  As you can see from the pictures, everyone got bored waiting for me to choose.  Solomon was popping Owen and Ian’s back and Alexa was taking self-photography pictures.  In the end, I chose a blanket for Aiden.  It was very cool to purchase something that I had just seen made on a loom in the next room.

 On Saturday, our plan was to go outside the city to Debra Zeit to eat lunch at a resort there and go kayaking. However, the Ethiopian/Nigerian soccer game was being played that evening and it was recommended that we be back in the guesthouse by early evening, in case the game didn’t go well. We also found out that the guesthouse was sponsoring a fundraiser for Onesimus. So we stayed in for the day.

Onesimus is a ministry that serves the streetchildren of Addis. We learned that there are approximately 100,000 children living on the streets of Addis Ababa. The name is based on Philimon verse 11. A coffee ceremony is very important to the Ethiopian culture. They serve coffee, burn incense, and pop popcorn. This was our first experience with the coffee ceremony.

This is the group from Onesimus. We volunteered to go to the Drop-in center on Wednesday to see what it was all about. Several kids shared their testimonies of what it was like to live on the streets and how involvement in the Onesimus program changed their lives. The first step is the drop-in center, then school, and then moving to a half-way house.