Ship of the desert

I've just finished reading the book "Cutting for Stone", a wonderful book set in Ethiopia, that had me completely engrossed for days.  I would recommend it with a few reservations, but that's another post.  When I finish reading anything that has me so involved, I feel at a loss, something is missing.

Within 24 hours  this card arrived from Ethiopia.  Ethiopia!  It made my day.   It came with beautiful stamps too.

(I can't seem to persuade Blogger to allow me to display them at sensible sizes)

On the stamps you can see the unique script of Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia, although there are 80+ languages spoken in the country.  It is a country with 12 months of sunshine per year, the land of the coffee bean. Did you know that Ethiopia is the 7th largest producer of coffee beans, and the largest producer in Africa?  I didn't.

As I write this, Ethiopia, with the Horn of Africa, is experiencing one of the worst droughts in over 50 years, worse even than the 1984-85 drought when over 1 million died in Ethiopia and Sudan.

This is a post for Postcard Friendship Friday, which is hosted by Beth Niquette at The Best Hearts are Crunchy.