Lots of news -- in about three parts:

We got our last things through Customs Monday. Big relief! We are now
installing the sewing machines, which involves setting up our outlets
w voltage converters.

So I can now leave for the US -- next week. I wd like to stay to get
things off the ground more -- make samples, give basic instruction,
etc, but this is a v good second best. It turns out that I can get free
training for our 5 or 6 current workers via gv't program that supports
foreign investors.

I have several ferret-related things planned for this trip. I'll have a
table at the International Ferret Symposium as well as visiting Zoo at
her Ferret Sanctuary. Plus I hope to visit Barb Clay at Rocky's, and
Karen at Ferret Affair Fuzzy Floors and Kim and Pingford's Porridge!
YES!!!!

A smallish ferret-related disappointment. I think I mentioned that
there is a cereal product here made from wheat that is delicious -- and
is also identical to SwheatScoop litter which I think is the Tops. I
thought I might be able to export it to the US and/or Europe. I even
emailed with SweatScoop and, more extensively, with KIM of PINGFORD'S'
PORRIDGE about collaborating.

I went to an office of the Ministry of Agic this week to get info on
packing my kinche samples for this trip, but they said no one can
export grains now because of the food shortage here.

I'm sorry for us, but glad to see the gv't puts its people above
getting hard foreign currency into the country -- which it really
needs.

[Moderator's note: the remainer or this post and the next two are not
particularly ferret-related. Putting them out here for the people
following Nell's journey, but you won't miss a lot of ferret info if
you skip them. BIG]

{OK, a few days have gone by. Here's news from an email I just sent to
an old friend. We've been out of touch for years till this week}

I'll be finishing my latest Addis Update soon, and then I want to get
some pictures online to support the emails. For some reason I have a
block against doing one of those online things where you post your pix.
I've been pushing against it for a couple of YEARS now. But one quirk
or another does persist I guess. But, let's see -- perhaps I'll push
through this one this week.

I came down w Typhus a couple of months ago, cured it w tetracycline,
but started to feel a little punky again, on and off, abt a week ago.
I think it's something else this time, since my appetite is good.

So I delayed my departure w Luftahansa another couple of days and
spent yesterday aft at the "Korean Hospital" getting tests. I'll get
the results Monday and am scheduled to leave Thurs.

The hospital is run by some Christians -- not sure if they are
fundamentalists or not (they don't bug you) but I kind of think so.
The medical staff is international, but mostly Ethiopian. [btw, I am
slipping into my generic Addis Update style]

It can be great fun over there. Most things you do here, whether gov't
related, commerce, or medical, etc. take a few t several steps, al
involving paperwork and stamps -- the inked type that you whack or
press into an ink pad and then bang down on your document over your
signed name. I've got one too for the biz.

So almost everywhere you go, there are a lot of people doing the same
thing, and you mill around or if you know which step comes next, jostle
for position. In this process you can joke and chat if you want, and
most people get into it. As for me, I am a novelty, being a forenji,
and people often address me as Mother or Mahmie and like to interact.

So back to the hospital. It's considered one of the best in the city,
and is not to far away. When I first came here most of my "family"
and employess and etc had one thing or another wrong with them --
compparatively minor, but longstanding, and not surprisingly w serious
potential longterm consequences. GI H pylori is very common, for
example, taking you down the stomach ulcer path.

So over time I've brought quite a few people over there and gone for
myself too, and so I pretty much know the routine and quite a few of
the staff.

I now have a Korean internist, and he's decided that I am a BAM --
Businessman As Missionary -- because I want to gve a hand to people
while making this biz work. Yesterday he asked me what denomination I
was, after establishing that I am not myself Italian, but that my
"ancestors" are. I didn't realize at first he was asking abt my
religion, then puzzled over how to describe what I "am," and finally
said I had a "private" religion.

He asked Are you an atheist? and I said No, and he asked me if
therefore I believed in God, and I said No, and that I didn't know what
was going on, other than there certainly is organization to it, and it
is definitely not random. I was trying to also say that it is clearly
bigger than we are, but didn't get that actually into words, because I
wasn't wanting to get into God again.

The nurse, a youngish Ethiopian woman, was perked up and and as I
continued, saying that It was not all good and was not all bad, but
there certainly was some organization going on, she and I caught each
others' eyes and she nodded.

We had an Indian dentist for a while, and got into similarly
philosophic discussions. If I get it together and send you the back
issues of this series of posts, you'll read about him.

Right now we are into a situation that's derived from seeing one of our
neighborhood zabagnyas (guards) getting sicker and sicker. These guys
are hired by our neighborhood to patrol and hang out looking for
durieyays (bad guys) and leybas (theives). Our landlord probably hasn't
contribted to their salaries, but that is another tale that I might not
have put into my chronicles.

So I saw Ato (Mr) Ashenafei looking worse and worse, and finally asked
if he wanted to go to the clinic down the street, which is a good one.
We went, and he had, as I thought, a case of tuberculosis. Since he
lives more or less in the neighborhood, and since it's a communicable
disease, his treatment was for free after the initial exam and
diagnosis.

Meanwhile, though, he lost his job because the Rxs are debilitating and
he couldn't get to work. He and his grown daughter, Yeshiwerk (Thousand
Gold), came by and were asking for help early this week -- they said
there was no food in the house.

Since we'd just gotten this massive amount of fabric out of Customs,
and since the sizing and godknows what else on it to repell bugs, etc
was giving some of us an allergic reaction, and since all the cloth has
to be washed to shrink it anyway before sewing, we gave Yeshiwerk a
three-month job of washing and ironing it.

At frst Abeba and Tsige didn't want her doing it, and some creepy days
followed which took some resolution. Tsige had said she wouldn't do
that washing and ironing becase it wasn't her job. I pay her abt 30%
more than the going rate for her work, and she has more disposable
income than any of the rest of us now that the transitor, Customs, and
etc have fleeced us of more than the remainder of our startup money,
and now I am borrowing money just to make ends meet. We have cut way
down on the amount of meat in our diets, for example -- it is no
laughing matter, though actually we are still quite happy now that we
have resolved the quarrels etc.

My interpretation of it all is that when all my personal and business
things arrived at the house it was overwhelming for Tsigey and Sisay,
since they haven't worked for/with foreigners before, and the seeming
appearance of enormous wealth was disorienting.

Each went through some rebellion-- it was weird -- Sisay stopped doing
things I asked him to do, and he asked Abeba to hire someone to do some
of his routine things. According to Abeba and Saba, Tsigey was behind
this -- when I would ask Sisay to do something, sometimes she would
tell him not to do it.

I was hurt and irritated and got quite disoriented myself. We had
functioned as a family for months with affection and lots of joking,
and I had felt comfortable and secure, as everyone else had seemed to
do. Tsigey and Sisay don't have heavy workloads, and in fact early on I
had hird soeone else to do the laundry as Tsigey seemed to me to be
spending too much time and energy on that backbreaking task. We hired a
friend of all of theirs, Teberre, and pretty soon included her in the
sewing project as well. Teberre's son, Halfetohm, had a cronic GI
problem. He was 14 but looked 10. So off to the Koren hosp and he is
fine now after a series of treatments.

Teberre had a rash at her hairline that worsened (she was out in the
sun a lot, walking, anyway, and now she has this job with us, which is
45 min from home by bus and also involves walking to and from the two
ends of the bus rides.

The rash turned out to be discoid lupus -- again at the K hosp, w an
Ethiopian dermatologist, Dr Solomon, a wonderful guy w whom I had two
enjoyable conversations. At one point, he mentioned that he had a heart
condition, and when we went back to the hosp for T's followup a month
later, he had died.

We were all shocked, and when we went to the skin hosp across town
where he had done most of his work (he had only joined the K hosp
recently when we saw him, and he came once a week so they could offer
dermatology), Taberre saw one of his colleagues, a woman I really like,
who was grieving for him.

[Posted in FML 6100]