Ethiopia Week

This week, Ethiopia week, was our first time in Africa!

To be honest, this was a bit of a light week, content wise as I was pretty stretched at work. Nevertheless, we had fun learning about a new culture and country.

Crafts

We intended to make paper necklaces using this tutorial, and to make Ethiopian flags out of fabric and other materials. We didn't get to those crafts. Instead, Asher and I did a fun weaving activity out of construction paper. This was really simple, and it actually lasted longer than I thought it would (of course I forgot to take pictures). Weaving has been a way of life in Ethiopia for centuries, so this was a nice tribute to that tradition.

Coffee is another mainstay in Ethiopia. Today, more than 3% of the world's coffee is grown there [source]. To honor that  significant contribution, we made "art" with coffee beans. I drew a picture of an Ethiopian girl and had Asher decorate her with coffee beans that he glued on. I would say this was mildly successful. He had fun for a few minutes, though the results are...abstract.

Culture

We learned about the geography of Ethiopia through this video. We also got to watch a day in the life of Keneni, a 5th grader in Ethiopia. And, we learned about the Ethiopian Jews--such a fascinating group of people with a cool history. It was neat to see people who live such different lives than us, but still have something important in common with us.

Food

We kind of phoned it in for this week, but I regret nothing. Where we live is a hotspot of Ethiopian culture and cuisine. There are a lot of great Ethiopian restaurants near us, and after scouring online recipes for inspiration, we decided to order-in. I mean, look at this!

This vegetarian platter has a lot of our favorites, including injira (the bread) and various wots (the stews). The wots include lentils, collard greens, chick peas, cabbage, and lots of great spices. Most of the wots aren't spicy, but the red misir wot (red lentils) is. The kids loved the injira and the yellow dishes--those were the least spicy. 

It was a fun week in Ethiopia--next week we head to Thailand!

See our other country weeks here.