Addis Ababa, Ethiopia June 12, 8 AM

We made it through our marathon flight to Addis Ababa, leaving from Newark, transferring at Dulles onto Ethiopian Airlines, which, by the way, is celebrating its 60th year this year (as is Studer and McEldowney), arriving at 6:30 PM last night our time. We successfully negotiated the Addis airport without losing a bag. Our group consists of 5 students plus Pinky and me, and we will be meeting up with 4 others from the Princeton EWB group later today at a camp near Arsi Negelle. Upon our arrival, I learned that the diversion dam placed a couple weeks ago blew out from heavy rainstorms. In fact, the temporary diversion dam, needed to divert flows while we build the permanent masonry and concrete dam, has blown out 3 times now by heavy storms that, we are told, are "uncommon." Great. The students looked at me and said, "We're not worried - you'll think up something." Right. We spent last night in the Addis Ababa Sheraton, a 5 star oasis of luxury. It will be our last taste of anything like this for quite a while. We leave in a few minutes for the Ascend Alliance camp near Arsi Negelle. We'll be traveling by 4-wheel drive 4 hours. We were cautioned to fasten our seat belts because they drive aggressively here, and the vehicles are known to roll over when the tire blows. I'll write again when we go to town in Arsi Negelle, whenever that will be.