Meeting and Seeing round in the Amhara Region

The last three days have passed rather quickly with project related meetings and a good amount of sightseeing close to Bahir Dar and in Gonder. I am very glad, that I had the opportunity to visit Buranest early on the second day of my stay. Now that I saw the village and the buildings I got a better feeling of the context of this project.

There was not much of a rest since I have arrived at the hotel. Right after dropping the bags, Solomon my excellent guide, brought me to the Blue Nile Falls. Although we are at the end of the dry season the falls are quiet impressive with good spray at the bottom. During wet season, the falls are stretching over a length of more than two hundred meters. I think there is the option for me to see this. In the afternoon a visit to the monasteries on Zeghe Peninsula was on schedule. The ride by speed boat over Lake Tana is definitely on the same level as driving the gravel road to the Blue Nile Falls. The round shaped monasteries show beautiful paintings of stories out the old and the new testament.

Day two was a dense meeting day and my first introduction to the Ethiopian way of discussing and decision making. Since Ethiopian people are very polite and respectful it takes a lot of talking and explaining before deciding. Thinking and acting here in Ethiopia is strongly influenced by relationship and emotion, which is not easily brought in line with the very structured and straight forward Swiss way of working. Still we made very good progress on our topics and we were able to schedule clarification meetings for this week.

On Sunday I had a driver who brought me up to Gonder. Although this is a three hours drive it was well worth the time. Despite travelling through several villages and a very different landscape than at home, the city of Gonder offered interesting attractions like the Fasil Ghebbi Castle, the Debre Birhan Selassi Church and the Fasil Bath Ruins. Sad enough the local Dashen brewery does not offer public guided tours on Sundays.

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