The Outcome of Our Invite

After my post explaining my Meskel party freak out, I never let you know that we survived the actual party and after everyone left, we smiled and slept.

 Because the day started in sunny glory, we set up outside.

Jon and Zelalem built a shade structure with tarps and bamboo to accommodate everyone.

And by the time everyone came, it was pouring. So, everyone shuffled around and we moved the party inside. Before we ate, Mark talked about the roots of Meskel, the Cross.

Little J served injera. She said, “Mom, this is too heavy for me" about .5 seconds before the whole basket flipped upside down.

We had a few in our front room (and were so thankful that Mark and Debbie entertained the girls and ran a taxi service for us! Couldn’t have done it without them!)

When the weather once again turned beautiful we moved outside for coffee, dessert and games.

Many of the kids (the woman on the far right has just married one of our guards, the other two girls are 15 and in high school) made beaded necklaces.

Love this family.

Those are some fine looking necklaces. :)

And then it started pouring. From every direction and so hard that we huddled in our small shelter and made the best of it. Documentation of my first coffee ceremony. I didn’t do the roasting, don’t be very impressed. 

Because Adgo was recently engaged, he had the honor of cutting the bread.

We then ran back inside, wet, muddy and cold. Because we had planned games for outside and talked about them, everyone just sat inside, waiting for the games to start. We ended up having a round of speeches given by four of the men present. :)

And now, I will try not to ever be involved in a sheep butcher ever again at least until I forget this one. :)