One of my favorite days in Ethiopia was towards the end. We were in the north of Ethiopia near Gondar and visited the Falasha (Jewish) village and the Ploughshare Craft training session.
The Jewish village was very very tiny and apparently there are no actual Jews lift. Just some folks selling tchotkes.
We visited a very old synagogue and a cemetery. What I think I liked most about it was that it enabled us to walk through an actual Ethiopian village and get to meet some of the people.
There was a group of boys who were totally fascinated by Andy’s tattoo. They wanted to know if he was a professional “Van Damme” a.k.a. a Jean Claude Van Damme. A professional fighter and all around bad ass. Andy laughed and said he worked on computers. They were way less impressed. I suggested that he was a video encoding Van Damme. Even Andy didn’t laugh. The walk to the synagogue gave me time to take some really nice portraits of the boys. These (other than the ones I took of Davy) were my favorite from the trip. Tomas was very excited to show us his coin.

We also went to the Ploughshare Woman Craft Training Center. It was like dying and going to crafty heaven. Ploughshare teaches single mothers and women with HIV crafts that they can sell for income. It’s exactly my kinda thing. The spinners we even gracious enough to let me try their spinning wheel.
It was a very geeky day for me. I also loved some of these photos as well. If you are in the North of Ethiopia save your birr and buy stuff there. It’s beautiful and goes to a very good cause. More photos are posted here on Flickr.