Today I get to brag about my boyfriend Luke, and what he did at the Take Root Center while we were in Ethiopia. Luke is an elementary art teacher  here in Madison so prior to us leaving I knew he was going to feel right at home. Luke worked on a music project with the students, he helped them record songs that either they have written or their teachers did, he also had them create album art and he taught them basic video editing. He will be putting together an album of all the songs that he worked on and will hopefully sell them to raise money for Seeds of Africa.  Together Luke and I made videos of the songs, I would take video clips throughout the day and then Luke would put it all together, you can see my favorite one here. Luke also had the idea to put together a little documentary about the Take Root Center, you can watch that here. I have heard from many people here in Madison that Luke is an incredible teacher, and although I have never doubted it, it was so wonderful to be able to witness him in action, it was an amazing experience to share with Luke and he is the best travel companion a girl could ask for.

During our time in Ethiopia I took a few rolls of film, and after I got them developed I wished I would have taken more. Below is a collect of my film shots, I only took a few at the Take Root Center but most of them are from our last days in Ethiopia where Luke and I spent it exploring Addis - drinking coffee, searching for cassette stores and wandering the beautiful city.

This week on Ethiopia Monday I have a collection of images of the staff at the Take Root center. They all were incredibly dedicated, treated us like family and made us feel very welcome.  We worked with them at the center and had lunch every day over at Genet's house - always amazing and always made me eat way more than I needed to.

As most of you know I have just returned home from just shy of a month long trip to Ethiopia where my boyfriend, Luke and I spent the majority of our time working with Seeds of Africa , teaching at the Take Root Center (See blog about my teaching here). Along with teaching the Seeds I was asked to document the TRC, staff and the community, so I have many photographs and stories to share -so for the next several weeks, Mondays will be 'Ethiopia Day' - I will be posting my photographs and telling my stories from our travels so be sure to check out my blogs on Mondays!  

Today the following images are from our time out in the playground with the kids, everyday between classes and after classes were done, Luke and I would get to jumprope, play football and I would usually get my hair done (no photo proof of this).

For more information as to what Seeds of Africa does please visit their website here

For the last few weeks I have been spending my days in Adama, Ethiopia teaching and photographing for Seeds of Africa , a nonprofit educational organization that runs an after-school program that includes academic projects, cultural enrichment, the arts, ethics, sports and student health education. In addition, students are provided with nutrition, medical services, clothing and school supplies. I encourage all of you to click to the link for Seeds of Africa to learn more. My boyfriend, Luke and I were asked to come and teach art at the Take-Rook Center , Luke did an amazing music project with the kids, together we made a series of videos and I taught photography thanks to a handful of my friends who donated their digital cameras (I showed up to the center with 10 great point&shoot digital cameras that I was able to leave there for the kids to use!). For the next few weeks my blog posts will be filled with many of the photographs from my time at the Take-Root Center along with my students work. Stay tuned, and enjoy.