Wow! Well I feel like we have really arrived in Africa now. Today we were invited to Fasil’s family in Yirga Alem, a village about an hour away from Awassa. It was Easter Sunday here, so the end of about 50 days of fasting ( no meat or dairy products) – a big holiday. My guts were still playing up this morning so I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to go but drugged myself up and hoped for the best.

Fasil is our landlord and says his family is small by Ethiopian stands – he is one of seven children. He lives in the same compound as we do with two of his sisters, Mersha and Emebet and his nephew, Abi. They had all gone down to Yirga Alem a couple of days ago so we set off to join them this morning. Awassa bus station was closed but there were a couple of mini buses trying to get business outside. We were quickly directed to one for Yirga Alem but we were the only passengers to start with. After about 10 minutes driving down the road and reversing back up again we managed to fill up. Well, I thought we were full but obviously I was wrong because we stopped a few metres further on and managed to get 5 more passengers in. Ok, now we are off, no way we can get anyone else in…. well, just 3 more then! And so it went on. I couldn’t turn round to count but I estimate about 30 of us in a 12 seater bus. Every so often we would stop to let out one passenger and add a few more.

The scenery is so different outside town, so green everywhere, not at all like you would imagine. Traditional circular thatched houses line the roadside, cultivated land protected by cactus fences. We saw coffee bushes for the first time today, lots of huge avocado trees, papaya, enset, others we couldn’t name. Everywhere so poor, you can see why the drought further south and east is so devastating. Children in earth coloured clothes playing outside their houses, colours muted. This is the reality for most of the population here.

We were besieged by a small army of children at the bus station on arrival but managed to find a phone to announce our arrival. Spotted Fasil in the street shortly afterwards – he must have been waiting. We did have an enforced stop on the way to exchange one bald tyre for another so lost a bit of time. Yirga Alem is much more relaxed than Awassa, just a rural village really. We were made very welcome by the family – Fasil’s parents, brothers, sisters and their children. Bizarrely the TV was on in the corner of the lounge with Brendan Foster commentating on the London marathon! We were in time to see Castor win and Haile loose out – a great disappointment. Still, it is only his third marathon and the weather didn’t look too kind.

The photo shows the bread being baked – the dough is wrapped in enset leaves (like banana palm leaves) and a fire lit above and beneath it – takes about an hour to cook. That’s Fasil’s mother with the big smile, Emebet poking the flames and Abi’s mother behind. They had all been feasting for some time – they had slaughtered a sheep and three chickens! Fortunately they made some tagabino (a kind of spicy lentil dish) for me. We tried teulla, the local home made brew, but I don’t think it will replace white wine for me anytime soon!

On the way home we stopped in at an aunts house and Fasil sent a friend to the bus station to reserve the two front seats in a mini bus for us! Eventually the bus arrived at the door and we were off…. but not for long. The engine cut out after a short while but we managed to get going again. Then it happened again and required some banging about under the bus to get us going. A couple more times this happened, getting more and more difficult each time to restart. Finally, most of the passengers had to resort to bump starting us by pushing the bus back down the hill we had just come up! Looking back through the rear window I could see disaster looming in the shape of a big bus barrelling down the road towards us. Fortunately, this turned out to be our saviour – most of the passengers from our minibus realised the problems were terminal and flagged the other bus down. We joined them and were soon crammed into an already jam packed bus which had come all the way from Moyale on the Kenyan border – some 12 hours away. Brilliant bus ride back to town, with the rain teeming down and a great spirit amongst the passengers – a definite feeling that we had arrived!