Was it Ken Kesey who said you are either on the bus or off the bus?  His bus was called “Further,” I think.  We’re traveling together through the heart of Africa listening to our music and trying to really be here, to not take the cow and goat herds crossing the street as another part of the everyday, to not see the thatched huts as normal.  The hay is piled in stacks and we see little irrigation projects bringing water to fields beside the road.  We passed from a massive plane of dried grass up into more of the same terrain in the mountains.

Down below we saw the most massive sycamore trees ever.  I can see why someone might worship these huge landmarks as sacred and why they would make good church doors for an island monastery.  Up in these hills we see far more strands of Eucalyptus saplings.  I think some might say that this place looks like California in August, but these volcanic hills couldn’t be mistaken for any place that I’ve been in California.  Anyway, we see Africans everywhere.  There is no five mile stretch without someone walking along the roadside.

We are arriving in Gondar now with the familiar clay huts and rusted tin roofs.  There is so much to see in every square mile.  Each dirt road that connects off this wonderfully well-paved road makes me want to know the stories of the people who live there.  We just passed a kind of sub-division, then a kind of steel walled warehouse with the flag of Israel above it and “Queen of Seba Industries”, a giant beer brewery, a “Cotton Ginning” Factory.  But there is too much to see and I must go see it…