I arrived safely at the Addis Ababa airport around 6:30am local time on November 1st (11:30pm EDT October 31^st). I transited through Dulles International Airport in Washington, DC. The direct flight from Dulles to Addis Ababa was 12hr 20 min in length. Unfortunately, I was unable to get much sleep, so arrived feeling very tired.

The only “wrinkle” I experienced during the entire trip was when I was checking my bag at the Charlotte airport. The person ahead of me at the kiosk apparently only partially completed her check-in process, then abandoned it to queue up at a different check-in counter. Before leaving the kiosk, however, she had apparently generated a tag for her bag. When an agent came to help me with my checked bag, she simply grabbed the printed tag and put it on my piece of luggage. Since I used a large box to pack my things for this trip, the agent asked me to carry it to the conveyor belt, rather than doing it herself. As I took those few steps, I looked at the tag to verify that it was checked all the way through to Ethiopia. To my great surprise, it was destined for Newark—an airport not even on my route. I notified the agent, and the problem was eventually rectified. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve given thanks, though, for the fact that I looked at the tag before putting that box on the conveyor belt!!

The SIL office in Addis Ababa had arranged for a taxi driver to pick me up, and I was able to locate him without any difficulty. The trip to the apartment where I’ll be staying until Tuesday morning was uneventful, involving less traffic but a bit more horn-tooting than I was used to in Burkina Faso.

Once I’d unpacked my stuff, however, I was out of energy, so I slept for about two hours. After a shave and a bucket bath to wash my hair, I felt like a new man! David, my host, took me to one of his favorite restaurants for lunch. That trip involved a ride in a taxi-van sandwiched between quite a bit of walking each way. I was a little out of breath by the time we got back to his apartment, and David mentioned that the altitude might have something to do with that. We’re at 7500 feet in the part of the city where he lives.