Travels

Jacinta had to go to the Embassy for a Fulbright Orientation so we made a family vacation of it. Here we are on the road from the park to Gonder (in  a short clip you get scenery, a giant hole where the brand new road completely collapsed, and sleeping kids):

We took a detour to Bahir Dar, a sleepy little town on the shores of Lake Tana, source of the Nile (well the Blue Nile, which is most of the water in the Nile). Here is the view of the lake from the balcony of our room:

At the shore:

Lake Tana!

Source of the Nile? Meh. Ice cream!

We then flew on to Addis:

Yet another balcony--this time you can actually see a bit of Addis:

More life in the mountains

The rains have ended (hopefully!) which means it is warmer in the daytime, but it also gets colder at night. Here is Elsa helpfully pointing out the frost on the ground in the morning:

The kids have started sneaking into our bed in the morning while I make the coffee. They pull all the sleeping bags into the bed and make a 'nest'.

The big news around here is that we are having our own toilet built--no more sharing a squat toilet with tourists who can't aim! The kids have been helping with the project:

Gellies and 'jamas: One night the monkeys slept on the cliffs right below our house. The next morning, the kids got to spend some time with the monkeys while still in their pajamas:

Waterfall!

The 500m cliffs around this waterfall are one of the sleeping sites for our geladas. So we sometimes have to go here to look for monkeys. Field work is rough.

"Work"

Fun in our backyard

A day of life in the Simien Mountains

Setting out early in search of subjects to study.

I think we found them. One of them looks strangely familiar...

Unwinding after a long day of work by catching a goat with the neighbors.

Turning in early so it can all start again the next day.