Several weeks ago, Nicole, Jonas, Ariana, Sonia and I went to pick up our househelpers from their villages. Adesay (Nicole's househelper) has worked at Gesses for a number of years. She is deaf and lives in a village about 15km away. She was home for the holidays and we were picking her up to bring her back to Gesses. On the same day, we were also picking up Mesalech (our househelper) for the first time from the neighbouring village of Addis Alem. 
This is a coffee tree but the berries are still all green so you can't see them very well. Imagine....just picking your own beans from your backyard.
In my desire to be a visitor and not a tourist, I failed to take pictures of Adesay and Mesalech and their homes/families but I am sure there will be another opportunity. Adesay and Mesalech are both in their home villages at the moment but we will pick them up when we return to Gesses.
It was an interesting experience being in an Oromo village since all my experiences with highlanders has been in Amhara villages. A lot of the Oromo people do know Amharic but certainly not all. Mesalech has taken all her education in Amharic so she reads, writes and speaks Amharic fluently. I am sure I will learn some Oromo overtime though.
This was the path we needed to take to get to Adesay's house. It took us about 20 minutes and there were places we needed to walk along logs.
Jonas had a wipe out and was carried the remainder of the way. Ariana was also carried partways but she wasn't too impressed.
It was an interesting experience being in an Oromo village since all my experiences with highlanders has been in Amhara villages. A lot of the Oromo people do know Amharic but certainly not all. Mesalech has taken all her education in Amharic so she reads, writes and speaks Amharic fluently. I am sure I will learn some Oromo overtime though.
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