Melkam Addis Amet! (A week late.)

Happy Ethiopian New Year!  Last Tuesday was the day that Ethiopians celebrate the new year, as well as the end of the rainy season.  We missed it, but tried to make up for it over the weekend.  On Sunday night we enjoyed traditional food (or at least our version of it) and some music.  Jake made shiro wat (which we eat with rice rather than injera) and shiro-stuffed tomatoes, recipes that are both found in Marcus Samuelsson's "The Soul of a New Cusine."  I mention this because it's really a beautiful cookbook full of African recipes.  Though our celebration was late and a bit thrown together, it was a night of family fun.

Our sweet little Ethiopian.  I still can't get over how beautiful this child is.

Jake and I really want to return to Ethiopia in the next 3-4 years or so.  We've started saving and hope to make the trip a reality.  Smelling the spices on Sunday evening made me nostalgic for the time we were able to spend there in 2010 and 2011.  I am definitely itching to go back.  It's the land that gave us one of our most precious blessings (not to mention four other blessings in the form of three nephews and a cousin...not to mention all of our little Ethiopian friends!) and there is a space in my heart that I yearn for Ethiopia to occupy.  I dream of stepping on the soil again someday!