08/30/2001
  Francfort - Germany
  N 50°07     E 08°52
  +262

It has been two weeks since the results of Voting Form n°18.

Today, the Car@van is ready for "Mission Ethiopia".

These last days, the Team worked hard, looking for a project that would correspond to the Community's expectations. We finally found Loako, a humanitarian association that has ver very 'Nomad' spirit (see Other).

The group of Nomads is divided in 3 : Franck, 29, Norvegian; Sophie, 23, French; Céline, 23, French. These are already there and wait for us in the Meki Mission. Aurélie, 22, French, will leave tomorrow. Today, Theo, 29, Italian, is now on the road and has to meet up Greg, 24, and Nicolas, 23, both French.
Vale and Aleko are working in the north of France to coordinate the work on the net.

From Ethiopia, Theo will work as a cyber and a film maker, helped by the others of course. We already know that the Ethiopian telephone network is very bad (not as much in Addis Abeba than in the country side). Internet is almost unknown and our daily meeting on the site remains doubtful. Well... we'll see tomorrow...

But click on the picture and watch the video !

 

Wake-un at 5.00 am.

The airport of Rome Fiumicino is already full of tourists coming back from holidays. Many travel groups are kissing and huging, promising to meet each other again around a pizza and pictures. I can't breathe : I can't wait to be immerged in the african perfumes and colours.

The Lufthansa flight is taking off at 7.00 am. In Francfort, I meet Grégoire and Nicolas, two experienced globe trotters. By now, we had only talked by mail and on the phone... and now, here we are in the same Caravan !

The flight that takes us to Addis Abeba stops in Cairo. We just have the time to breathe the Saharian desert's air and we leave again for the South, towards the land of our ancestors...

Ethiopia ! After 8 hours of flight, we pass from the european summer to the african winter (rain, 20°C)... two more hours from the Greenwich Meridian Time.

At landing, the german captain warns us about large holes on the runway... Shake shake shake... At 8.00 pm, we arrive on the African ground, under the airport's dim lights.

Greg and Nicolas manage to pass school books and medicine (for the mission). But the customs officers are much more suspicious about the video cameras and computers... But I manage to keep the with me without paying any fee, with some usual phrases from my last trip with Nomad Community.

Welcome to the Bole International Airport of Addis Abeba

Wow...So cold out there !                           Theo

Sun is never so shiny than a day you leave.

The Loako group - loako@hotmail.com - was born in France in 1991. 

It defines itself as an intermediary between young europeans and development projects in Africa. Composed of young people between 18 and 30 years old, the association works on micro projects of education, as requested by local populations.

Loako offers didactical material and sends volunteers. Apolitical, it believes in the cultural exchanges. 

The choice of its educative action is motivated by the fact "you should teach how to fish, not give a fish". 

By now, Loako has organized 'summer schools' and sent a hundred of volunteers in Togo, Botswana and Ethiopia. The Nomad mission is now going to Meki, a small village in Ethiopia. 

We'll visit Addis Abeba before leaving towards the South, in the village of Meki. But it shouln't be that easy...

team@nomadcommunity.com  - loako@hotmail.com 

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