Hill climb and scavenger hunt

We've been having more sessions on the culture and history of Ethiopia and more language lessons which are very hard. I can count to thousands, say "please", "thank you", ask how much stuff is, complain it's expensive and ask them to lower the price and I know some important words like "coffee", "bananas" and most importantly "soft" which means toilet paper. Sorry to mention toilet paper again, but it's quite important!

Yesterday after the training sessions a group of us climbed a hill
near the university campus where we are staying. There is an open quarry which we go past on the way – which may show up on the satellite image to the East. I'm not sure what they're digging up though.

Today we had a scavenger hunt. We were dropped at the VSO office, then had to go into the city using a "line taxi". These are minibuses which pull up and someone shouts the destination. If it is where you want to go, you get on and your fare is collected on the way. (It's 2 birr maximum which is about 10p). We had to buy bananas, get a newspaper, something with the Ethiopian millennium on it etc. Our group was the last one back as we had to travel the furthest and it was hard finding a line-taxi that would take all four of our group. It was quite fun, but you have to be relaxed about it all and one of our group was
getting a bit stressed.

There wasn't too much hastle. There were a couple of people asking for money at the roadside and some followed us, but we just walked on and they left us alone.

It's funny getting used to Birr. You can't really convert to pounds because it doesn't make sense when you're living here rather than being a tourist. In one sense, compared to pounds a Birr is worth about 5p, but compared to the salary I will be getting, it's sort of like 50p to £1. I will have a better comparison later.

I took a lot of photos on the journey today, mainly because before
when we went into the city I was focusing on what was different, but there is loads about Addis that is the same and I took pictures of similar things today. There are new blocks of flats, petrol stations etc

I've started taking my anti-malarials, second one tonight. I don't know if I'll have any side effects.

That's it for now.