Grain, sugar, salt

Yacob told me that the most expensive grains in Ethiopia (at least where we were in Awanno) was teft and wheat, with corn coming next, and barley the cheapest (if I remember right). I believe teft was selling for about 60 birr for a farasila, which means 60 birr= $7.30 for 17 kg. of grain. Ears of corn were 3 for a birr, about. There was an area out in Tubena where they sold earlier than the market because somebody had worked out some irrigation. Those people had a good deal going and were making money as they were known all around for having corn before the harvest.

Sugar was about 10-12 birr ($1.25) a kilo, and salt was about 2 birr a kilo. That's why they didn't sweeten their coffee. They sold the salt at the market as really chunky looking stuff- a lot thicker than our sea salt- and it would just be laying out on some kind of tarp. I asked where it was made (do you make salt??) and I guess it is not a local product, but comes from storehouses in Addis. And seeing as it is all coming from one place, how hard would it be to iodize it? There were so many women with huge goiters, not to mention hard to pinpoint or asymptomatic thyroid disease, it would make a big difference if they had readily available iodized salt.

On goiters, when we drove over the mountains from Jimma to Sodo, beautiful drive, we saw maybe 5-6 women just walking down the road with large noticeable goiters in the period of just a few hours. Apparently higher altitude affects soil composition or something.

I have started at Good Sam again and I am orienting for a few weeks. It feels like nothing has changed, and is so funny to think I lived an eternity in the bush in Africa and I am back here now. Maybe if nothing has changed I will readjust quickly. It is good to be there again.

Sam, Rebecca and the kids are so fun to have around. Simeon is still not so sure about me, but Etienne is just happy. Grandma is in major Grandma-mode, that's for sure.