Awassa to Arba Minch
Using Awassa as our base, we then proceeded to travel from there
back and forth to our sites of work at Alaba and Humbo.
A typical day would begin by getting up at 6.00 am for a breakfast
of coffee and pastries in the Lewi restaurant downstairs. We would get
picked up by the professors at 6.30 and settle in for the drive to Alaba.
Then once at the Alba site we would take soil and crop measurements
at the residue management trial site.
The landowner and his neighbors would show up to talk about how the
various tests were looking, before going back to work.
Normally the children would follow us around with great interest
the whole day, and serenaded us out with cries of 'one birr, one birr'.
The farmhouses next to the site. Typical round wood/straw/mud construction.
We wandered over there and were invited to check them out. Pretty
dark with no windows! Sleeping and storage is in two levels around the
outside.
With a separate area at the far end for cooking.
Nick with one of the patriarches of the family surrounded by grandkids.
Everyone fascinated by Nick's tatoo.
After a lunch of tibbs (fried chopped up meat) in Alaba,
we would jump back into the truck for the ride to Humbo,
dodging people walking along the road in the villages along the way. As in Addis Ababa, the drivers had to constantly watch for people suddenly walking in front of the vehicle, as the average person seems to have no idea how difficult it is to stop a vehicle quickly. Plus it is considered to prolong life to successfully cross the road in front of a moving vehicle.
Close to the site at Humbo we would pass through the town of Sodo,
which is quite high, cool, and usually wet.
But the elevation drops steadily to the Humbo site, causing the temperature
to get a lot wamer and the rain to dry up. The crop here wasn't doing as
well. Here we would do whatever measuring and sampling we needed to do,
while the farmer and his family (here with Professor Mermut) checked
out what we were up to.
In the evening we would go back to Sodo, play some frisbee, have
supper, maybe watch some soccer (when the world cup was on the bar got
pretty crowded!), play some cards, and go to sleep.