Some thoughts from home...

Well I’m back in Canada and a little worse for the wear, but surviving. I had written another update to send out, but never really got around to it. These were my thoughts in my last week in Debre Sina:
It is not possible to do laundry when it is raining. You can put them on the line, and they just keep getting wetter.
Tania brought me back a container of Ethiopian Pringles from Addis. I ate one and literally started shaking they were so good. They were all laughing at me. Then I could only eat like 5 though as my stomach has apparently shrunken to the size of a peanut.
Last night we had our first official meeting with the Girls Club we are helping to start and facilitate. We are doing discussions with 11-18 yr old girls and they asked that we do the first session on Gender Equality. We ended up having a really intense discussion about girls’ roles in the community and the very high incidence of rape. They were talking about how basically nothing mattered as their parents would just marry them off young and their husbands would rape them. Or they could just get raped on the way to school. I don’t mean to make light of this or minimize it in any way, as it was actually very emotional for me to hear. How can an 11 year old possibly have the capacity to handle something like this? These girls have a strength I have rarely seen anywhere else.
We held a workshop over the weekend for women only. The first day was on HIV/AIDS, the second was on harmful traditional practices. The purpose behind having women only us so that they can open up and discuss things they might not in front of men. When we do co-ed workshops, they are generally very few women who say anything. This didn’t really work out as well as we had planned; most of the women were really quiet anyways. It really took until the second day for people to open up and that was only because of a specific incident. While Natalia was talking, we heard a noise that sounded like someone dragging something against the wall coming from the back of the room. We couldn’t figure out what it was. A few minutes later the smell made it pretty evident. Anyways, about half the class started laughing, which really confused Natalia who for some reason thought her face was bleeding. After that the class was much more cooperative. It’s a tip for everyone. If you’re ever running a workshop, just fart in the beginning, it really opens things up.
On the previous day I was giving a talk about HIV basics, as well as means of transmission. It was raining really hard that day, at some points so hard I could barely hear myself talk and I had to yell. While I was going over the methods of transmission, one of the girls asked what oral sex was as she had never heard this term. Right at this point the rain started pounding down and I literally had to scream out a description. Definitely a new experience.
One of the most interesting things that come out of these workshops is finding out what the myths are that are believed in the community. On our first day, one of the girls said that God can cure AIDS and that she knows someone who was cured. The basic belief is that if you go to church and pray, God will answer your prayers and cure you. There is very little that I can say to disprove this, especially without insulting one’s religious beliefs. This one girl in particular was adamant that this was true. I’m just not sure why you would even come to a workshop to learn how to prevent HIV if this is the case. If you’re infected, God will just cure you. I have to believe that somewhere deep down she thinks this might not be true and so our information might actually be helpful.
One of the other difficulties is that I sometimes think we hold these women to a higher standard than we hold ourselves. We tell them that to prevent HIV, it is important to use a condom during every sexual encounter. This is the best way to be safe. One of the young women was married and expressed that she wouldn’t ask her husband to do that. We know that it is important to use a condom anyways because we can never be sure of faithfulness, particularly in a community where a lot of men work out of town. But honestly, would we ask our husbands to use a condom every single time? I can’t really answer that but I do think it is a difficult standard to uphold. All we can really do is make recommendations and hope that these women apply it to their lives in the way that is most appropriate for themselves.

Some Pictures!

http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=v6t8z4i.1uhr2vpi&Uy=-cfw2c8&Ux=0

Here’s what I have to say for this week. It feels as though it’s been a fairly eventful few days.
21/10/2006
I am writing now after just having gotten off a 3 ½ hour bus ride. More about that later though.
Yesterday was Tania’s birthday and we had a big party for her with the Tarma Cultural Band. They’re a community youth group who, amongst other things sing and dance. There was lots of music and fun. Afterwards we went to the Tinsae, which is a local hotel/restaurant where we had cake with some friends. Someone got the cake brought in from a nearby town. IT was really good, but very odd; it was basically layers of bread and icing.
Today we got up very early to get the bus to Debre Birhan. We wanted to go to the market there and just do something different for the day, and Tania was going through there on the way to Addis for a few days. We left at 6am and got on the bus, but it didn’t actually end up leaving town until 7. It took us about 2 hours to go 50km. We were on the very back bench of an extremely overcrowded bus and I was smushed up against the side. My feet were dangling over the back stairs of the bus and whenever we’d hit a bump (very frequently) I would go flying into the air. The guy sitting in front of Natalia kept puking out the window. On top of that, we were driving along an extremely narrow road and although I may be being a bit dramatic here, truly felt as though we were going to go plummeting over the side of a cliff on numerous occasions.
So we finally got there and met with some of the EDA staff in the area who were there for a training session. Everyone thought we were staying overnight and going back with one of the staff members tomorrow, however Tania had told us the day before there were no hotels available so we hadn’t brought any overnight stuff. Anyways, after a whole bunch of confusion we headed out to what we thought was the market to do some shopping for the morning. We later figured out it wasn’t actually the market (it seemed rather small) so we missed all the good stuff. The streets are so incredibly crowded! We were constantly navigating trying not to be run over by a donkey or a horse cart. I very literally came within 1 inch of being run over by a bus while trying to avoid getting run over by some sort of animal.
We went for lunch with the EDA staff and actually had the opportunity to have some non-traditional food, which was a really nice break. Afterwards we had to go back to catch the bus, as the last one going to Debre Sina leaves at 3pm. We again ended up sitting on the bus for about an hour before we left. This time we got a smaller bus with apparently no shock absorbers and a gas leak directly into the bus. It took us until 6:30 to get back to Debre Sina at which point Pam, who gets motion sickness, literally crawled off the bus. We are all pretty much exhausted and are planning on going to bed pretty much immediately.
I don’t mean to sound super negative, but it was definitely an experience. I highly recommend never taking African public transit if left with any other possible options (potentially including riding a donkey). It does make me appreciate Canadian public transit though. And not just Montreal transit which I already appreciate, but even the Lantzville bus. It doesn’t come often, but when it does come it doesn’t sit at the stop for an hour in the hopes of getting another passenger. We did get to see a group of baboons (Geladas) on the way back into town that I hadn’t gotten the opportunity to see yet. That was really neat and all the people on the bus were laughing at us for being so excited about it. This is all for today, but I will add more later.
23/10/2006
Today I learned some very interesting information from one of my students. We were having a discussion about different values and about conformity. We were doing an exercise where students went to different sides of the room based on whether or not they agreed on whether or not they agreed on certain statements. One of the statements was “It is necessary to wait until marriage to have sex”. I asked one of the students to explain why he said he agreed with this statement. He said that he would wait to have sex with the woman he married to respect for and that a married woman should not have had sex. He then added though that once a boy turns 17, it is biologically necessary for them to start having sex and they cannot avoid doing this. He also said it is necessary for them to have experience. He added that he had a girlfriend, but she was only there to fulfill his sexual needs as he is a student now. It is somewhat difficult not to judge or have an opinion; I just told him he should probably move to the “disagree” side of the class. Actually, I’m not even so sure this is different from what Canadian guys think. At least he was being honest.
24/10/2006
Yesterday was the end of Ramadan. Why is this particularly notable? There is not a particularly large Muslim community here (someone told me 20 people) or any major celebration. It is notable because it marked the end of middle of the night prayers on loudspeakers broadcast to the entire community every single night at approximately 3am. This is a wonderful, wonderful day.
Today I had another rather interesting youth language class. I wanted to follow up on the discussion we had begun previously, so I decided to have a discussion about relationships. We talked about different types of relationships (i.e.: familial, colleagues, etc...) and I then asked them to describe different types of “romantic” relationships. After about 5 minutes of trying to explain this, a good half the class for some reason didn’t seem to understand what I meant. As no one would volunteer to translate for me, ended up making hugging and kissing motions on myself and although it got a good laugh, it worked. I think I have lost pretty much all sense of shame. In one of our previous workshops, I ended up doing motions to indicate what body parts could be used for sex. Hey, it worked.
My class today was actually surprisingly open to discussion. I asked them if they thought it was possible to have a loving relationship without sex. Our coordinator Fitsum, who was assisting me, and I got a little embarrassed at one of the students’ descriptions of male biological urges and what exactly would happen if he did not engage in regular sexual activity. Given that discussing sex is relatively taboo here, I was thrilled at how honest people were being. Even the two girls in my class got in on the discussion (although I had to tell off one of the boys for asking them a rather rude question). I am finding it rather rewarding. Translation and accents inevitably render each class interesting (I once spent several minutes questioning a student on why he thought “Terrorist” was a good career option when he had really said he wanted to be a merchant).
Tomorrow, I will be spending a good part of the day planning for the workshop we are holding this weekend. It is the first Women only workshop being held here. On Saturday we will be discussing HIV/AIDS and on Sunday we will be discussing FGM. On Sunday I am responsible for explaining what the parts of the female genitalia are and their various functions, as well as giving a description of each of the types of FGM. I am going to spend tomorrow afternoon constructing a rather interesting poster to use as a visual aid. Needless to say, I had to do some interesting Google searches to come up with appropriate images.
If anyone is interested in learning some more on the topic, I found an interesting article on the Unicef website. It is only 4 pages and very well written. I don’t have the link, but the title of the article is Fighting Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting in Ethiopia’s Somali Region. If you Google it you should find it pretty easily.

This is what my week has been like so far:
12/10/2006: I have been lying around reading and feeling sick. I have a bit of a cold. Plus it’s been raining on and off and when it rains here you really don’t want to be outside. Other than the main road, nothing is paved, so you are navigating your way through big rocks and mud. It’s difficult on a dry day. I did go out briefly to the “post office” and ended up getting poured on. At least my hair got washed though!
The post office is a tiny little building about the size of a bathroom. I have been trying to mail a bunch of postcards for about a week, and every time I go, it’s closed. The guy who works there takes like a 2 1/12 hour lunch break and is not there reliably outside of that. Pam and Nat had gone earlier today and asked him when he’d be there and I guess he just laughed. Anyways, I did manage to get them sent, so they should be there sometime in the next month!!! The mail goes out of here once a week, then goes through Addis, then to Europe, then gets sent to Canada/The US.
The kids here are just hilarious. We’re really starting to develop relationships with them. It must be difficult for them to have this cycle of Canadian volunteers throughout the year. We try and establish programs that will be sustainable, but you can’t really do anything about the relationships you forge. There’s this one little boy who always comes by to say hi. He’s 3 or 4 and speaks no English whatsoever so we sort of get by with hand signals. He has an extra thumb and spent pretty much the entire first week we were here pointing it out to us. They all just provide such joy to our day. I will have a million funny stories to tell about them when I get back.
13/10/06
I just about knocked over our guard out of joy. I had put my pyjamas and a bunch of my clothes out on the laundry line to try and get the fleas out of them and we went out to do some work stuff. It started raining while we were gone and I only have one pair of PJ’s with me so I was rather worried I would have to sleep naked, exposing myself to many fleas. Anyways, Barletto took them all off the line and put them under cover. I wish I could bake the man a pie.
14/10/2006
Today I saw a goat get castrated. I thought they were killing it, but no, only maiming. We also saw a babboon with giant blue and red testicles. It tried to attack Natalia.
We were on a day trip to Armanya, which is a community about 15km from here where we are going to be having a rural outreach workshop in a few weeks. We just needed to post advertising etc… We spent some time doing this, and then tried to get a bus home. There are no bus schedules or anything, they just sort of come by every once in a while. Right when a bus stopped for us, it decided to have mechanical problems. We ended up sitting around for about 2 hours while it got fixed and not a single other bus came by in that time. There were about 50 going in the other direction, but none for us. We decided to make the best of the situation and ended up having a sing along with a bunch of the community kids. All in all it was a fun day and I got lots of great pictures.
16/10/2006
There is a cow that lives across the street that sounds like Chewbacka from Star Wars. It makes noise way too early in the morning.
17/10/2006
Some sort of insane robber came and used our latrine, left it extremely filthy and stole all our toilet paper. Seriously, who does that?
We went to a birthday party for our friend Solomon. One of the customs I find strange is drinking very dry red wine, but mixing it with coke. It is actually surprisingly good, but I still find it odd.
18/10/2006
My Youth Language classes are going a lot better. I have a better idea of what the general level of English is, so I know where to work from. The students are generally just eager to practice their spoken English and discuss issues they see as being important to the community’s youth. I guess there aren’t a lot of venues for them to discuss issues that can be controversial to a lot of people. A lot of what I’m doing is just acting as a facilitator and giving them the opportunity to discuss things. I’m helping them find the right words in English and arrange their sentences properly, but most of the information is coming from them.
Pam and I are attempting to start a “discussion club”. Some of my students have asked me for suggestions of how they can practice their English outside of the classroom and I am hoping this will help them out. If we can get a club going with some structure, we can train a couple of the older youth to run it themselves when we are gone. The basic idea is that we will take kids 12-25 and have them discuss a predetermined topic. They will be divided in two and one group will discuss one side, the other group will discuss the other. It will sort of be a group informal debate where each side will get points for making relevant statements. It is still very much in the planning stages, but we are hoping to have an initial meeting next week. I’m not sure if this is particularly interesting to anyone else, but we are really hoping it works out.
I had a really interesting class tonight. We were discussing diversity and the difference between Ethiopia and Canada. We were talking about the fact that Ethiopian civilization has been around for thousands of years, whereas Canada is relatively new. We were also discussing colonization and as I basically said “and then we killed all the natives”… Tania came in and said class dismissed. It was an interesting end to the week!

No turkey for me!!! I hope everyone had a good Holiday. Here's what's been going on over the last few days:

07/08/2006
Well today has been an extremely interesting day. We have spent the last few days preparing for our first workshop, which is taking place today and tomorrow. It is a workshop on HIV and family planning for members of the community and from some surrounding rural areas. I actually got to start out the workshop and taught for half the morning, as well as part of the afternoon. I was in charge of teaching about basic HIV/AIDS realted issues, as well as methods of transmission. I also did an activity on gender roles and the relation to HIV and a section on hoe FGM relates to HIV. I actually really enjoyed myself. We had an audience of about 20, half men, and half women. People are extremely intelligent and really want to be educated. Unfortunately the system is just not in place for the average person to become knowledgeable, even though HIV is such a huge issue here. WE had discussions about a lot of myths that are present, some of which I have heard before and others that I haven’t. For example, it is very common to believe that you can get HIV from animals, particularly animal urine; I was expecting to hear that. Then someone told me that they have heard you cannot get HIV past 10pm. I don’t even know how that could have started. There are so many beliefs that we would think are bizarre. I don’t want it to reflect poorly on the people here as they are generally very intelligent and eager to learn. It just highlights the extreme need for programs like this.
My First Aid training actually came in handy today. One of the boys who lives across the street, Sammy, hurt his ankle really badly and one of the other boys was carrying him home at the same time we were headed back. Since we have an abundance of medical supplies here (thanks YCI) I took care of bandaging him up and making sure he was taken care of as he was in shock. Not a severe injury or anything, but I feel really bad for the kid. I’m sure he wasn’t thrilled to be crying in front of girls either.
So tonight is Saturday night and we’ll probably just chill here and play with the kids until it gets dark. I feel like I’m adapting better and better every day. There are certain things that will never be quite right though. If someone asks what personal belongings we would want on a desert island, it would be easy to come up with all sorts of things that seem important. I know feel quite certain that what I would really want is a flushing toilet, a comfortable mattress and drinkable water. That’s it. You can get used to a latrine, but you will never really love it.

08/10/2006:
Today was day 2 of our workshop. We covered family planning issues, which was definitely an experience. I think the hardest part is definitely the translation issues. We had an expert come in from the family guidance centre here. He would present certain topics to the group, and then give us an English translation of what he said. He of course wasn’t translating word for word, so it was hard for us to tell exactly what he was saying. I had thought he left out certain information and just generally got frustrated. The language barrier can be a huge challenge, especially when trying to explain terms people haven’t necessarily heard before.
On our break we were all sitting outside and there is rather long grass. Fleas apparently took that opportunity tog et inside my clothes. I have a bunch of bites on my ankles, as well as about 15 on my tummy, which means they were inside my clothes. I think I will boil them tomorrow. It is a really really creepy feeling that I do not recommend.
We also have a 5th roommate. His name is Marvin and he lives in our walls and ceiling. He only comes out at night and tries to dig through the ceiling/walls and generally scares the crap out of us. He has yet to be seen, but we can here him.

09/10/2006: Today I had my first “real” language class. It’s a little intimidating as most of the students are in my age range. I can’t teach them the same way I would teach young children. They think I have so much knowledge, but really it’s just my English skills are better. I want to make sure not to talk down to them. A lot of the kids are extremely intelligent and have questions that surprise me. We’ll see how things go. It’s definitely unlike anything I’ve taught before.
Things are going well and we’re having fun. A lot of things are just funny to us. For example, we spent half the day laughing about a translation thing. Everyone here has coffee like a million times a day, and you can get it with varrying amounts of milk. Pam and I like Watet Ba Buna, which is milk with coffee. Instead she asked for Watet Bambino which is a milky young boy. Very funny to us all day. Small pleasures!
10/10/2006
My legs have now become know as Debre Flea-na #2. Natalia’s armpit was #1. This could be an interesting few months.
I am feeling kind of sick today. I think I’m getting a sore throat. Just feeling tired and kind of icky.
As much as I think I’m adjusting, there is always something strange. For example the men here hold hands with each other and are very affectionate. There’s nothing wrong with this, however having lived in downtown Montreal for a number of years, this is often perceived differently and continues to be a daily surprise to me.
We do have some free time during the day, so I've been doing some reading and stuff. Nothing too exciting. We play with the kids, but I definitely need downtown too as they can sort of become a mob. I've been working on Nelson Mandela's autobiography A Long Walk to Freedom. That should keep me occupied for at least a few more days.

01/10/2006
Well it’s been an interesting day. We had no electricity or running water and haven’t had any phone/internet connection for four days. The electricity has finally just come back up this evening.
Today we got up extremely early (5:15) to go to the Orthodox Church. We couldn’t really understand it as it was all in Amharic. We went with Seleshei and his family (he’s one of the town elders who has taken an interest in us). It takes place in a field around a building (never actually got to go in the building) with all the men on one side and the women on the other. I was blessed by an Ethiopian Priest. We all wore the traditional Ethiopian Natella/Gabi to cover our heads (we have pics). The town literally gathered to point and laugh at us, which definitely brought back some childhood psychological trauma. I mean, we get pointed at all the time, but this was crazy. I’m sure it seemed really odd to see three white girls in traditional dress and although I can rationalize the whole experience, it still feels bizarre.
Ethiopia is an extremely religious country. It’s not so much a matter of which religion, but that you are part of one and believe in God in some way. Especially for Christians, but for anyone who really wants to examine their faith, this would be an ideal place to come. There is so much history and many people who are extremely devout. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church is said to be the most similar to the original form of Christianity.
After church we went to Seleshei’s family’s home for breakfast and a coffee ceremony. There is not really a differentiation between meals here. You eat injera at all occasions. This time we had it with eggs and a meat dish with some bread (dabbo) as well. The tea here is absolutely incredible. It is very spicy and not quite like anything I have tasted anywhere else.
In the evening we met with the Tarma Cultural Band, which is a local youth group. They played some music for us and did some dancing. Of all the bizarre things for me to be good at, Ethiopian dancing seems to be one of them. For all of you who have experienced my total lack or rhythm, you will understand what I’m talking about. There is really amazing dancing here that involves a lot of shoulder and head movement. The kids seem to think I’m really good at it, although there is also the distinct possibility that I am so horrible at it that I am amusing them. I don’t really understand 99% of what they’re saying, so I’ll just go with it. I actually have video footage, so you all can decide for yourselves when I get back. We are organizing a talent show of sorts here and have promised the kids that the three of us will do a “North American” dance for them, which should be interesting.
It’s so funny to see which North American cultural things translate here. Somehow, a bunch of the kids have seen last season of Prison Break. They love Michael Jackson, anything Hip Hop as well as Bob Marley (although that one’s not particularly surprising considering Rastafarianism began here and Bob Marley got a state funeral with his corpse on parade in the capital).

02/10/2006
I think I’m starting to adjust a bit better, at least physically; although I would most definitely jump someone on the street for some yogurt and strawberries. Or even just a bowl of Cheerios. What we’re eating is not necessarily good or bad, it just has a very different nutritional content. I am not craving anything sugary, just the stuff I normally eat on a day to day basis. My day is just not the same without a bowl of cereal and glass of OJ. I am having dreams about bagels and cheese. I have to stop thinking about it or I will go insane.
Today was market day (Mondays and Thursdays) so we ventured out on our own to make some purchases. I just picked up a blanket as the mountain air is definitely chillly at night. We have to negotiate as the Farenjis (foreigners) get different prices from Habasha (Ethiopians). It’s sort of a crazy place with people laying out all sorts of goods. We got sort of stuck in the donkey parking lot (literally. There are no cars) for a little while as we were trying not to get trampled.
Right now we are mainly preparing for our classes which will start sometime this week. I’m going to be teaching the oldest group (16 and over). At the moment there are 65 students in this age group signed up, which should be interesting to teach in one class. The dynamics aren’t exactly worked out yet though. We are facilitating a workshop this Saturday on HIV/AIDS, Gender Issues and Family Planning, although the exact details are still very fuzzy. I’m sure it will turn out to be interesting!
04/10/2006
Last night we did the testing and evaluation for the students who will be in our Youth Language/ESL classes. The had to write a test that we graded later. There were tons of students who came out to do the test and I was on duty making sure they weren’t cheating. I will have 20-25 students at this point, although some more may come and it is likely a few will drop out.

In Response to those of you who have emailed me:
On our free time we spend a lot of time with the local kids. They love to sing and dance and play different games. If it’s after dark we just usually hang around the compound with each other.
I’m doing fine without the alarm clock. Most mornings I am woken up unnaturally early by roosters, so it’s really not a problem.

Updates from Ethiopia

I am presently in Debre Sina (you can see it on Google Earth) and have been here since September 24th. We’ll be here for about another 8 weeks and then back to Addis for a bit of time. Here are some updates on the more interesting things that have happened:
Health: I am starting with this as it is probably the most interesting/eventful. Where we were staying in Addis had a slight flea problem (at least in the bed I was staying in) so I am rather flea bitten. By this I mean that I have itchy red bumps pretty much all over my body. They’re not bad anymore as the fleas are no longer a problem, but the ugly lumps are still there. I have also fallen twice, once getting out of the Land Cruiser and skinned my shin and palms. I fell on the muddy rocks again yesterday and skinned the other knee and my ankle. So along with the bumps and hairiness (more on this later), my legs look extremely attractive. Basically we are all rather unshaven as none of us have showered since arriving in D/Sina. It’s not so much that we can’t as we don’t bother with the time to do bucket showers in the morning. Baby wipes are much more convenient. So that my hair isn’t completely repulsive, some if the neighborhood girls braided it today, which is definitely an interesting sight (I have pictures). I was also the first in the group to get the mysterious stomach virus that is going around (I got it while we were still in Addis). It’s probably from something I ate, the water, etc… Who knows. It’s sort of bound to happen. Anyways, long story short I more or less ended up puking all over myself and a taxi on our way back home on our last night in the city. This also made for an interesting 4 ½ hour long trip to D/Sina early the next morning along an extremely bumpy narrow mountainous road. Since I was so dehydrated, I also almost passed out in the street when we were getting shown around on our first day. Memories. I am doing much better now, although the mysterious stomach ailment is making its rounds. We have all become very comfortable with toilet talk.

Food: Most days we eat something pretty simple for breakfast and then cook lunch with supplies we brought, along with fruits/veggies we buy from the market. Nothing too unusual, but definitely a more limited selection. We have lots of Ethiopian bananas and oranges. For dinner we usually go to the Tinsae Hotel, which is about a block away, for traditional food. That basically consists of injera and wat, which is sort of like stew. It’s meat every day except Wednesdays and Fridays, which are fasting days. Then we have injera with things like cabbage and lentils. Coffee is VERY popular here, so we have it frequently throughout the day. We have small cups of very strong flavorful coffee, which is normally served with lots of sugar. We have taken part in two traditional coffee ceremonies so far. The first one was on arrival, but I was too sick to take part. We had another one today for the holiday (explanation later). It basically consists of having three cups of coffee after another, each one progressively weaker. It’s still the equivalent of having three strong shots of espresso. Any of you who have seen me drink more than a small coffee will likely be laughing now.
Being a minor celebrity: This is EXTREMELY strange. I have never been stared at so much in my life, and although it is all meant in the nicest way possible, it still feels bizarre. We are in a town of about 15 thousand, so everyone knows each other. We are actually the only white people here and we have people call out Farenji! (foreigner) all the time. I have also been called Mister on several occasions, as the fact that I wear pants and have shorter hair is confusing. It is also apparently a common compliment to tell people they are fat (which is culturally appropriate). The first day I got here I had a boy who lives near our compound tell me the first time he saw me he thought I was a boxer because I was very very big. He’s a joker and thought it was funny to tell the other boys to tell me this as well. It’s all in good fun we all get random comments on a daily basis (most need to be explained in person).
Religion: Today is one of the most important Holidays in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. It is called Meskel. Last night was the sort of kick off ceremony called Demara. The entire town as well as neighbouring communities gather together and pray and sing. They burn this enormous bonfire with a cross on top. The very abbreviated description of the holiday is that it is the celebration of bringing back a portion of the cross on which Jesus was crucified to Ethiopia. There is a really interesting story but you would get a more accurate version by looking it up online rather than having me tell it. Everyone (actually everyone) is a member of a religious group (the majority orthodox, followed by other Christian denominations, then Muslim). It is very common to ask someone what their religion is; it’s sort of the same way we ask someone what their job is. As I am not actually affiliated with a religion, stating this elicits strange looks and lots of questioning, so I have taken to stretching the truth (slightly) so people don’t think I am some sort of satan worshiper. It’s really interesting to be in a community where religion is such a part of everyday life. While we were taking part in this massive ceremony yesterday, we were also hearing the Muslim call to prayer.
Miscellaneous: It is extraordinarily beautiful here. We are in a lush green valley in the mountains off the road between Addis and Dessie. I have not yet gotten to see the baboons, but this is apparently unusual and we should soon. There are sheep, goats, cows, oxen, etc… everywhere. I was sitting on the stairs of the compound yesterday doing some reading and was almost run over by a herd of sheep running up the stairs next to me so that they could eat some of our flowers. A 6 yr old girl then ran after them, shooed them all back down the stairs, meaning I almost got trampled a second time.
The kids in the area are great and very much a part of everyday life. When they’re not in school they wait outside the gate of the compound for us to be able to play. My Amharic is improving through some very basic language exchange. The kids are wonderful though and whenever things are difficult or a bit overwhelming, they absolutely make things easier. It’s a big competition for kisses and hugs and it’s total chaos when any of us bring out a camera.
It’s very strange being a constant role model. The kids really absorb everything we are doing and take us very seriously. Swearing is strictly off limits (leading to expressions such as holy doodle) and we really have to watch what we’re doing. I will try to explain more about this in person, as it’s very hard to describe like this.