Back to Bora, Ethiopia Trip -- Day 10

A day of separating and returning.

Dawit and Israel play the drums at the Dejene home

We left Ally in Addis, along with Dawit and Million the prior evening.

Million stand at the headland on the Bora mountain.

Ally, Dan, Jamie, and I talk upon arrival at the airport.  Nice shot of the back of Million's head.

At the airport, Curt left us as he was returning to Ohio through Germany.

Curt with a couple of random boys on the Bora mountain.

When we landed in Washington DC, I stayed with the rest of the group for a while.  We ate breakfast (although we were served lunch food) in one of the airport restaurants -- the name escapes me.

Armin sitting at the Central Cafe in Chencha

After the meal, I left Dan, Armin, Jamie, Carrie and Kristen and headed to my gate.  I still had a long wait for my flight.

Jamie clowns for the kids in Bora

Kristen and Carrie pose at the Longono Resort

I reflected on two of the greatest lessons of the trip -- lessons of friends and family.  Those are the two things that carry the poor people we met in the Ethiopian countryside through their lives.  For them, family means everything, and as a result the families are close knit and spend tremendous amounts of time together.  Those families knit into the larger community that welcomes a group like ours.  While you can't assume all communities in Ethiopia are equally hospitable and open, I would guess the majority are.

Our little group of friends had become a community of sorts, as well.  We all knew each other pretty well after nine days together, and had gone well past just dealing with one another at that superficial level we all wear as a mask.  I would miss my travel companions, although I hope to meet up with a few of them on a future trip or some other event.

My own family laid ahead of me, at the conclusion of the flights.  We certainly don't have the same degree closeness that was evident in Bora or at the home of the Dejene family, but we are close.  The lesson from the trip was that we could be closer if we work at it a bit.

I caught my flights to Chicago, then Omaha, and I pulled into the garage not long after the sun had set.  After a warm greeting from my three littles and Paula, I was initially puzzled what to do next.

Then I remembered Bora, and it was all clear.