No-Cameron week

Wow, it seems like I have not updated in awhile, but it really has not been that long. Saturday was good—Sabbath school, church, lunch, Pathfinders. We got halfway through the “hard” ASL game. Oh yeah. After Pathfinders, we went to Amanuel’s house to visit. And we ate dinner there. Sunday morning, Kibret interrupted me in the middle of my breakfast to attend the promotion meeting with the Kalaala community leaders. We caught a ride to Sefara, so we only had to walk half of the way (back home). The rest of the day was spent cleaning.

Monday Monday Monday? Stuff. Haha, we worked out a food schedule for the next few days.
Tuesday, we finally finished the book in second grade!!! Yes! And then the kids and I sang and stuff. We watched House, played lots of Rummikub, and then Abebe arrived to bring us to the airport to pick up Austin, Cameron’s cousin. We saw a bunny on the way to the airport! Yay first wild life in Kalaala (we saw monkeys and baboons in Gimbi). We waited in line and got our entrance tickets, then joined a VERY long cue to get into the line for security. I brought a book so I would not be annoying, which Cameron appreciated. But we found out that, actually, we were in a line to get into the line to get into the security line. Fun stuff. We ended up only waiting in the airport for 15 minutes. Cameron was so happy to see Austin! It was happy. Back to Kalaala, and right in front of the compound, we saw what I have been waiting to see for months—hyenas!!! Cameron and Anisha had both gotten to see them, so it was unfair, but man oh man—we saw SO MANY! Maybe fifty. So many. They were not as big as Cameron described, but the ones we saw were females—the males came by later behind the ambulance and they were bigger. It was really cool. And they were literally right in front of the compound. Soooo cool. Then we kind of unpacked, and hung out and stuff. I eventually showered and went to bed, but they stayed up much later, and still both woke up to make promotion on Wednesday morning.
So yes, woke up early (after going to bed late) to go to the road with Amanuel. It went really well, since we were later than last week, and it was not a holiday, so we got more farmers and fewer students and there were many donkeys. We showed Austin around the campus, and then they stayed at the house and were going to nap, and I went back to the clinic. They did not end up napping haha. We played some UNO after lunch, then I had class with third grade. They are doing a verbal unit now. Well, verbal/reading. While reading with the girls after school, I took note of a few words they had trouble pronouncing because English is stupid like that (enough, near, hear, but then bear, etc). They get to be noisier, so I think they will like it. After class, I sang a bunch with the girls, then more with a different set of girls. Then they really wanted to meet Austin, so I went back to see if he was awake. They had been napping, but he was awake and did eventually come. They named us Hyena (me), Giraffe (Cameron), and Ostrich (Austin). We ate flowers and then played football. Dinner, packing packing packing, more UNO, Bones, shower, then bed. I woke up to see them off. Very sad. Now I am lonelyyyy. No patients yet today. I am sure I will be fine, though. This is why I could never not have a roommate—I LOVE YOU POPS!

Thursday nights through Sunday night, the power went out… tonight… Sunday, it went out right in the middle of me blogging. Jolly.

Okay, Thursday, nothing of note, except my waxident. I got wax all over my computer, the trunk, Cameron’s sink, and my chair. I got it all off except for what is all over my chair.
Friday, I got to be the lab tech and pharmacist for an hour or two, until Isias arrived, and I was demoted to only the pharmacist. Fun times anyway. Friday after school, I hung out with Eyerus and Helen by the milk house. We sang and it was fun. On our way back to the gate, Yobe and Gezehang were washing the car Daniel uses, and I stole the hose, and sprayed Yobe and the girls and me. Yay. It was SO hot. The water felt so good. The power went out while I was cutting papers for Pathfinders next week, and so Saturday morning it looked like a paper factory exploded. Saturday was very interesting. I was bringing the keyboard to church, and I see these two feranjis! Two feranjis. That are not Cameron and I. I am sure I came off rude. Anyway, they are Mark and Nicole from Washington (or Washington DC if you listen to the dude who translated into Amharic for them). Anyway, Nicole and I basically talked the entire time they were here (minus church and Sabbath school). We hit it off great. It was nice to have someone to talk to until they left—the lack of Cameron makes me lonely. We were walking over by the tree that the bees have moved into on the path between my house and school, and A BEE STUNG HER! Those bees, who I walk by all the time, who NEVER sting anyone… and I tell all the kids “Don’t be afraid. They won’t sting you if you don’t bother them” stung her. Oh yeah, and she is allergic. Gah. Sooo we went back, I took the stinger out, gave her some Benadryl, ice, lalala. She was all good. Pathfinders was the last half of the ASL game.

Sunday was so interesting. I had to go get produce and groceries, so I was planning on just having one of the kids go with me. But Tsigue knocked on my door and asked if I wanted to go. So we walked to Sefara then took the mini bus to Girji, then walked to Hareg’s house. I met Edelowyt’s mother. Abu was on the porch, and Meske and Betty were helping him walk. So Hareg and I watched him and chatted. I got new books. Around noon, we ate (YAY, Ethiopian foodz!), had tea, then I went with Tsigue grocery shopping. It was funny, because they made it sound like Yared would take me to a grocery store, but we just walked. She bought supplies for THE NEW KITCHEN AT THE CLINIC, and I bought spaghetti. Then the ambulance drove by, and we got in and went down the road. Theeen I bought bananas and CORN and a papaya and mangos. I think that’s it. The papaya was SO good. And so were the mangos. The corn, which I was so excited about, however, was a different story. I boiled and boiled and boiled it. For about two hours. And it was STILL hard. So I tried to take a few bites, then I gave up and had some chocolate chips. Then the power went out. All night. And all of Monday. And Monday night. Any my computer ran out of battery, Cameron’s ran out of battery, and something else ran out of battery. Oh, my ipod. So Monday night I went over to eat an orange while Meske, Baybe, and China were playing. But then my legs started itching like CRAZY, so I went inside, applied … that whose name escapes my mind. Cata… the stuff you put on chicken pox. Then they itched so much that I had a Benadryl and put hydrocortisone ointment ALL over my legs. I played Rummikub and UNO against myself (I beat invisible Cameron in the former by 40-some points), then the Benadryl took effect and I went to bed because I was so tired. The power was on for seven minutes when I woke up Tuesday morning. Then it went off again while I showered and ate breakfast. But finally it stayed on during the day so my stuff could charge. We had lunch at the clinic. Tsigue and Tsinat made patties and omelet sandwiches. Bayise and I helped too. It was good. Class went okay. Better than Monday anyway. I hope they are ready for the test next week. There is no school tomorrow. I broke out the hula hoop that Aida brought, and everyone liked playing with it. They liked grabbing it too, which I did not like. Pup came, and one of the girls played “bite the pen” and fetch with him, which was sweet. And super awesome because he is such the clever boy playing fetch. Then there was stuff to sell at the pharmacy. Then Tsigue gave me my spatula back. Then I made Baybe and China try the hula hoop. Then I made dinner and watched House. Then the power went out and I played Rummikub against invisible Cameron again. He beat me by 23 points. Mmm cough drops. I sound sick, but I’m not sick because I do not get sick. I do get itchy though.
I suppose things happened on Wednesday and Thursday. I know that the power was out most of the time. I went grocery shopping on Thursday and got over 100 birr in produce. Papaya, mangos that do not taste like mangos, pineapple, broccoli, okra, bananas, peppers, and strawberries. Yayness. Thursday night, though, there was power! And about a thousand million times better than having power, Tsigue came and taught me cooking! Meskeram came too. She asked what I wanted to make, and I said, “Eh, miser wat or green miser wat or green beans and carrots…” So we started cooking. It took me about an hour to realize she was teaching me how to make TWOOOOOOOOOO wats! She taught me miser wat and carrots and green beans. We finished around 730, but I was not even hungry by then. I had a little bit of it, and made me firfir for breakfast. Oh, and that firfir was SOOOOOOO good (might have had something to do with the fact that Tsigue made the wats. I make good firfir. The other thing that tied with best awesomest thing that happened on Thursday, was Dr. Fekede told me that Cameron had called him and HE AND AUSTIN WERE COMING HOME EARLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Instead of coming home Saturday afternoon, they came home Friday MORNING! The whole school went on a field trip, but Dureti did not go because her dad was worried the bus would crash or she would get lost or beat up or something. So she hung around until Abebe and I left. We got to the airport around the time Cameron said he would arrive: 930. Well, Cameron said he should arrive around 930, anyway. We waited and waited and waited. I read a book. I finished a book. I waited and waited and waited. Abebe and I talked, and waited. Around 1115, Abebe said that he was only waiting 15 more minutes. He FINALLY got there around 1130. I WAS SOOOO happy to see them! They were wind-burnt. I think they napped some and we played UNO. We went to Vespers, but only the kids were there, so Austin said something and we prayed and left. We had burritos for dinner yum. Sabbath was good. Austin was happy he was there for pot luck. For Pathfinders we made flowers out of paper and vases out of paper-covered toilet paper rolls. They had fun. Saturday night we watched Star Trek. The projector kept going off so we watched half of it on the projector and half crowded around the computer. Sunday Bereket got married! So me in my nice dress, Cameron in his suit, and Austin with his camera had to hike to Sefara through the MUD. Cameron looked awesome with his pants hiked up and tucked into his socks, and I looked awesome with a big backpack and sandals and a shiney silver dress. We FINALLY got there and saw Asrebeb, and then we sat there for two hours waiting. We said hello to Ato Kinfe and saw Adungya from afar. Finally Kibret arrived and at least told us where to sit. I sat in a tree. Then I switched with Cameron and he had to deal with a branch in his face. The bathrooms there were… very ripe. We sat, watched, then it started to rain so we went under a roof because I had my flute. But then, everyone went under a roof because they are afraid of rain. We ate before we played. It was only decent Ethiopian food. Then we played our songs, but our seats got taken so we got stuck on the music platform. Eventually, they started singing and dancing and so we clapped along. Then we got squished so the bridal party could join us. Then we got kicked off so they could cut the cake. They had doves on their heads (Bereket and his new wife, Meraf). We had asked/told Daniel if he would bring us home, and he said yes. But he left, so we eventually used Adungya’s phone to call him to tell him to pick us up. Austin and I wanted cake so we left Cameron and got cake. Austin elbowed my cake, so I licked his elbow clean because he stole my frosting. We walked some and met Daniel, and got a lovely ride all the way to the gate. We watched two episodes of House, and maybe something else. Monday we went shopping. Lots of stuff to buy. Scarfs, baskets, Cameron got a triton sword for Peter, etc. We were supposed to be picked up in an hour at the Union, but we did not have a phone, and we were late so we just sat there for 20ish minutes. Hareg and Dr. Fekede and Abebe got there and had been worried, but we said we had said that we did not have a phone. They took us to lunch at a wonderful restaurant. It was really cool—there were different sections built like different landmarks in Ethiopia—Gonder, Axum, Blue Nile Falls, etc. Hareg gave both of the guys a shirt and me a dress. They have been so so so wonderful to us. That afternoon I had had to give a test, but since I was not there, I asked 2A teacher to do it. Wonderful she is, and she put them under my door after class. Helen got 24/24 (two wrong, but both extra credits). On Tuesday, Cameron and Austin slept in and refused to come to work. Class was okay. The first half went okay. I had five kids who had to take the test, so 2B teacher took them to do that. I showed them half of a Boy Meets World episode but had to censor the kissing scenes. They went giggle-crazy. Then I said that this was my last class with them and that I had something with them and I would give it to them as they left. Well, that worked for about two kids, and then they mobbed. I kept pushing them back and telling them to get in a straight line. No luck. NO luck! I eventually had to get all the kids back in the classroom and told them to sit down. These kids do NOT understand “get in one, straight line.” I yelled a lot because they were bad and were ruining the sweet part of the bittersweet “last class.” Hmm. Then the three of us crowded with 14 OTHER people into the ambulance and went to drop off of Austin at the airport. We went inside with him and said our goodbyes. At least I will get to see him next year at Southern, but he is still a poor replacement for Cameron. WILL MISS CAMEZOL!

Some week

This afternoon—Monday—was really awesome. We had patients today, Tsinat got a hand-operated centrifuge (for when the power goes out) and it is SO COOL! I printed and cut my tests for third grade on Wednesday, and Abebe found out where the guest house that Meredith and her mother are staying is. Okay now this afternoon. Class went well—I had to skip a whole bunch because second grade is so behind (by no fault of their own). Afterward, I went to play football with Dureti, Hermela, and Firmaye. Then two boys (Alazar and another kid) came, and we were going to play three-on-three, so I divided the teams. Then Firmaye got all put out and insisted on a hands-up-hands-down thing to decide. They turned out to be the exact same teams I had picked in the beginning. Then Fantu came and we all were playing, then Dureti got hit so a few of us sat out so it would be fair teams (2-on-2 haha), and were taking about Fantu’s wig. “No, guys, it’s not a wig, it’s artificial hair.” They asked if the Bible said not to wear wigs. I told them no, the Bible says not to dress up all fancy with jewelry and go around wanting people to tell you are beautiful. Then they wanted me to tell them a Bible story. So I told David and Goliath with Firmaye and Hermela translating. They all really liked it, and a few kids from the afterschool class or water pumping came to listen too. Fantu, as it turns out, is SDA too. She goes to church in Sefara with Firmaye. Coolio.

On Tuesday, Hulu, Adugnyae and I traveled to a remote area outside of Addis Ababa to visit patients that would have a hard time traveling to our clinic. We were going to go to someplace, Asegefach Mariyam, but we could not find it. So armed with blood-pressure cuffs, stethoscopes, and brochures, we picked a village, and met with its inhabitants in one of their houses. The nurses took blood pressures and gave advice about childcare. The rest of the village was gathered at an assembly area under a tree. The nurses gave a lecture about general hygiene and answered questions from the audience. They said that one of their biggest needs is a better way to access the clinic during the rainy season. In order to come to our clinic, they must pass a river that swells significantly when the rains come. Because this community will have much easier access to medical care than in the past, they expressed their deep appreciation and said that they are delighted to have this clinic so close. And the reason that sounds so unlike my usual blog writing is because it is a slightly modified version of an article I wrote for the Kalaala Chronicles.
Class was good. I think Tuesday was the day I killed the spiderS. I was outside and there was a spider. I told it not to go in my house, but it blatantly disobeyed me while I went inside to get a shoe. So I was already panicky, but when I hit it, it exploded!!! Billions, or at least a hundred little baby spiders (all with the potential to grow up big and scary like their mother) exploded out. So I screamed (bloody murder) and went ballistic trying to smash them all, and Dr. Fekede was outside and was like, “What’s going on; what’s the matter?” Funness.

Wednesday. Um, OH! Meredith, and her mother Martha came to pick up Hollis Bilch’a, and they spent the day with us! We picked them up at their signless guest house, stopped by Bole Mini for Dabo Kolo, and went back to Kalaala. Meredith had brought us refried beans and We showed them around the compound, and then ate lunch. I had made patties the night before (a whole batch, so we would have leftovers for supper!!!!). No one ate much, especially Cameron who only had three and Martha who had half of one. But she was sick so… Hollis is SO cute! Cameron learned how to change a diaper. It was really funny. They all came to watch me give my test to the third graders. On test day I am especially firm and yelly and on the brink of mean, because cheating is a big thing, and I cannot tell if, when they are talking, if they are talking about the test or about playing soccer after school! I am not usually that mean, but I have to be extremely cautious on test day. It was really good to get to see them all.
Probably the funniest thing that happened while they were here was their amusement at Cameron’s and my relationship. We are apparently like an old married couple. We argue and joke the same, never fight. We make decisions like a married couple. We’ve been through the “having a baby” phase (except Jennifer wanted a dog), and now we’ve been married forty years and he start bringing me the tomatoes off the stove as I am asking. Oh, and we both wore green today. It sounds really boring when I try to describe it, but it is super funny. Except, Meredith says, that we do not share a bathroom, which we halfway do, because my shower is broken and he blows his nose with my toilet paper. When we leave, it will be like we’re old and he died. See, it’s funnier if you could see us.

Oh, in the morning before worship, I went to find Mek,des (aka Mek’des haha) and Biniam because they passed their test but both missed a question. Mek’des came to worship, so that was no problem, but I went to look for Biniam in the classroom. Dureti, Eyerus, and another girl were there. Dureti had her Bible, and told me that every morning they all get together and read. Enough said.
The rest of Thursday could have gone better. A lady in labor came into the clinic, and I was excited. Except that Cameron had to go meet Other Bereket and had to go pay for his and Austin’s trip up north, and then we had to meet Bereket to go wedding clothes shopping. Yeah, Amanda, shopping. And to stop you laughing, Cameron is wearing a gray suit with brown shoes. I came here to get medical experience and thus far really have gotten none. I guess God has other things for me to learn. I was grumpy all day nonetheless. The NTO stuff went smoothly, and then we spent years in the internet café with Other Bereket doing that thing. I had brought a book, but I am halfway through and still not interested, so I just stopped because it was useless. Then we went to wait for Bereket at the Century building, Dembel City Center. We found a really cool “Restaurant and Snack” and went to have small snack. Cameron got a New Dehli pizza (which was really good without the chicken), and I got the most wonderful mango juice/smoothie/yum. It was yummy and thick and SO worth the 11 birr it cost. It must have been like 5 mangos. 5 or 10. So good. Then we went with Bereket to shop. We found Cameron’s suit (a nice gray color), then his shirt and tie. Then ut oh me. I said yes to the first thing that was halfway decent. It has shiney things on the top, but one is falling off so I have to sew it on. The lady said to wash it, but I am going to see what the fabric is first.

Today has been pretty fine. The meeting got cut short (YAY) because of patients. Then later, Amanuel asked if I was busy to go over the price list with Cameron. Once I found out what he wanted me for, I decided that I was busy, and that he and Cameron could handle it without me. Yep. I should go email all my friends back. Aren’t you jealous that you are the only one who does not get one? (I’m trying to trick you, because no one ever emails me actually.)

Back (b)log

Recently I have been helping Tsinat in the lab. She lets me draw blood sometimes, and I help run the tests.
Wednesday and Thursday we reviewed for the test in third grade. They had a lot of fun. The winning team SQUASHED the other two. I hope this helps them do better.
I do not think much else happened the rest of that week. It rained a lot. A lot. Sabbath was good. Adugnyae and Tsinat came to church, and stayed for “by invitation only” potluck. Yohannes, the guy we met at Kebena church, spoke, and his friend taught Sabbath school. It was kind of cool seeing someone at our church who w e had met before elsewhere. We played an ASL game in Pathfinders. They were kind of noisy, but I hope they had a good time anyway. They all got marshmallows at the end, so I am sure they did.

Hareg came back to the Learning Village on Sunday, and was just hanging out on the porch of the new house, so we went over to talk to her. We figured out about Austin coming and stuff, and Cameron made sure it was okay with her that he go with Samson to a wedding somewhere later that day.
Okay, so my mom sent some SUPER cute clothes for Dureti. But we decided that we were not going to give them to her because, really, she does not need them. She also feels entitled to everything we give her, and everything we deprive her of, and would not be grateful if we did give it to her. So I prayed about it and kind of just left the box on the floor. Well, God sure solved the problem. In His own time, true to form. There is a lady who recently came to work for Hareg. She was raped by her employer, became pregnant, so had to leave, tried to abort the baby (who is the CUTEST THING EVER!!! And he likes me a lot too.) She also had an older daughter, who was living with her father’s mean, mean, mean wife. The wife was making her care for her few other, younger kids (she is only 8, if that), making her clean the house and stuff, and do laundry; basically, she was using her like a slave. So last time her mother went to visit her, she out how they were treating her daughter, and Hareg let her (the mother) bring her (the daughter) back to her (Hareg’s) house. Well, for some reason, I thought of her the other (Saturday?) night, and thought how maybe, maybe the clothes would fit her. And I have no idea how I had that thought.
So I showed Hareg the clothes, and she said that they were the exact size! And they do not have much, and Hareg cannot buy clothes for all the kids she directly or indirectly takes care of. And I know that the girl and her mother would be grateful, unlike Dureti would. Anyway, Betty was so excited, and she even called me! She said thank you, and that she was wearing one of the outfits right now! So, the clothes fit, it is not someone who would go telling all her friends that “Jennifer gave me clothes,” and Hareg said that her mother cried.
Cameron had a wild day of hyena-cave exploring and wedding dancing and meat and walking. I… vacuumed.

Since blogger is not working at all. So I do not feel compelled to update much.

Tonight was our first clinic emergency. Gueremew called Cameron (how good is it that he had his number?), and said to come right away. The lady… well, 21 year old... had a headache and abdominal pain. I did my best, and we called Dr. Debela. Amanuel was on his way though. And even though so many of her family came, none of them spoke English. Whoopee. Anyway, it was probably a peptic ulcer, so we got 73 birr and she got medicine and I got to give her an injection. Very exciting.

So blogspot has been out of commission so long I have lost the motivation to blog, which is good news for all the people who sit through and try to decipher what I write. Wow, I have been starting every entry with a lament about blogspot. Classes have been going well, 23 kids passed their last test, and the second graders’ average was higher than the third graders’ (43.1% vs 36.8%). I went reward-happy for those who passed (and even more so for those who passed according to American standards). Unfortunately, that means that all the other kids were jealous and stuff. Hard knock life, you only got 2/22, so you do not get a chapstick like the kids who got 19/22.

Dr. Gemechu is back—he arrived last week. On Sunday, Samson had invited us to Amanuel’s house, so we went and it was fun. I drank two—read it, TWO—cups of coffee, and had part of a soft drink. Charlotte would die here—soft drinks all the time. I baked banana muffinsishcookiesishbread. I combined the recipe for pumpkin cookies and banana bread, so I would not have to wait for hours for the bread to cook. I also baked Anisha’s Christmas cookie bar mix to bring to Ato Yaried’s house. We had been invited to go to Helen and Eyerus’ house on Monday, so after class we went. Poor little Helen must have been tired, because she walked super slow. It was a lot of fun. They had soft drinks for us (since last time we said we did not drink beer, so how considerate :-)). And Wayzaro Salam had made a great spread for supper. Arsema was her usual charming self. I am glad we went this week, because everyone is fasting now (aka no meat!). But they invited us back again sometime after Easter so they can serve us meat ick. Ato Yared wanted to take lots of pictures, so we have awesome pictures. And then he invited us back to their kitchen, which was weird, and W/z Salam was so embarrassed and kept saying it was a mess (well, it was, but whatever, workshop/kitchen made from put together pieces of tin would be hard to keep organized. Sweet pictures, which I will upload if blogspot ever works. The girls and I have some awesomely funny ones. Ato Yared walked us almost all the way back home (we met Alemayhu, Temmy, Gezehang, and Samson on the way back), and he talks SO loud!

Last week when we were with Bereket, we found out that the cafeteria serves food for the teachers Monday-Friday! AND WE FIND OUT ABOUT THIS NOW?!?! Gah. So on Tuesday, we finally got the opportunity to go get good Ethiopian Bayinetu at the café with Bereket. It was good, too. It had miser wat, potatoes and carrots, and… something else. It was very good. And Bereket paid (how nice) and then we went back to our house and made him tea (the café was not serving any because the power was out).

We also went out Tuesday night. Other Bereket (from CMC church) invited us to speak at some thing for college students at a big church in another part of the city. Just our luck, it was rainy and muddy and ick. We met him at Megeneña and got to the church with my only getting my feet icky once. The church is a little bigger than Meriden. Cameron spoke about the cross, and I told the story of the tree trees (one ended up being Jesus’ manger, one the fishing boat, and one His cross). After Cameron spoke, we did a special music, and we eventually headed home. We met several very nice people. One lady was named Meseret, and a guy who lives near us named Johannes (his mother lives in Queens), but he lives at the university now, I guess. Anyway, we had a hard time finding a bus back to Meberat Haile, because Other Bereket was doing it weird, so we eventually did it our way—go to the main station, and ask someone “Meberat?” Then they find us a bus, and we go. We took a Higer bus back to Safara (weird), but it kept waiting for more people but people kept getting off and it was late and Jennifer was tired and Cameron was hungry. While we were at the smaller station with Other Bereket, someone with new sharp shoes stepped on my foot. It got all muddy. Anyway, we made it back to Kalaala in the dark without getting attacked by drunk men (the town was basically deserted) or hyenas (though part of me wishes I had seen one!).

Now my biggest problem is not that blogspot will not work, but it is that the internet will not even connect—inde?

Dr. Fekede’s daughter Aida is here for a few days. Hopefully Abebe will be able to take us shopping today. It is even okay if I miss class, because third grade is so far behind second.

Oh, something else very exciting about the past few days—many of my friends have sent me nice long emails! I love my friends.

Oh dear. Meseret troubles. She is an older student in third grade, and lives really close to the campus (unluckily for her, the “teacher, it is rain and I live far” excuse does NOT work if I know where she lives). Today, she WALKS OUT OF CLASS IN THE MIDDLE OF CLASS!!! *bigger font* AND THE TEACHER DID NOT DO ANYTHING!!! until I was like, “Uh, excuse me, WHERE IS SHE GOING?” Then he got up slowly and went outside after her, and comes back in alone. Near the end of class, Meseret strolls back in and sits down. Even though I had given the whole class a “that is so rude and she just lost your class a whole point” lecture, I told Meseret again how rude she was. Honestly? Gah. Then, near the end of class, I notice that Firmaye had little pieces of Styrofoam in her hair! I asked who did it, and they blamed Abraham Solomon, then they blamed… Meseret. What is that girl’s problem!? To Abraham’s credit, she had Styrofoam, not him. So I took it away and threw it in the dustbin. THEN after class, Gezehang was handing out some papers, and Meseret was causing more problems, (I do not remember exactly) and I took away MORE Styrofoam that she threw angrily on the floor and huffed out. Oh yeah, and Cameron had loads of problems with her when he was trying to play football with some kids after school. Gah.

Calculating (estimating, more like) back from Easter, I last updated Wednesday or Thursday of last week. That is better than I thought! It must have been Wednesday, because Thursday third grade lost 10 points because they were so busy. Eh, I think I missed a week in there somewhere.

The weekend was super busy. On Friday we were invited by Ruth and Gutu (Amanuel’s kids) to go to Flowha church on Saturday to watch their Pathfinder program. Gutu was going to speak, and Ruth and Nehemiah were also in it. Flowha church is the huge church in downtown Addis. We arranged it that we would be back in time to teach Pathfinders, and that we would meet Amanuel at his house in the morning so we could travel to Flowha with them. All went well—got there on time and in one piece. We attended English Sabbath school (do you know how long it has been since I saw an English hymnal?) which was good. The church was huge! We could have attended the English church service, but we wanted to see the Amanuel kids. Nehemiah was drill sergeant, Ruth carried the Ethiopian flag, and Gutu spoke. Nabon… sat quietly. Mommy was there… cool. Afterward, Amanuel got us on a taxi to… somewhere, and a nice complete stranger-man who spoke ABSOLUTELY IMPECCABLE English helped us know when to get off. Then we caught the taxi to Girji and then to Sefara, then walked home. We were hoping that Hareg would invite us for lunch even though we were late :-D. WE MISSED ANOTHER MEDICAL EMERGENCY! So Dr. Gemechu had been at the clinic with Hulu, and so they had not eaten, so awesome Hareg DID invite us! AND we just took our time and stuff because there was no Pathfinders (thanks for letting me know, I only run it) because some pastor is coming to talk to the kids in the baptismal class next week. So we spent a quiet Saturday afternoon.

Sunday I agreed to go to Selam’s house (one of my third graders). She reminded me every day that week “Don’t forget! Sunday, you go my house!” Mek’des had gotten all put out because we would not go to her house… or her brother Yohannes’ happy birthday (he turned three). I was playing with her and Samuel outside Sunday morning, and again got put out that I would not go to her house, but then her father (one of the guards) came and asked me to come take pictures of his birthday (well, the motions he made were more like “come look at his party with binoculars”), so I agreed we could go to their house at 5 (but not stay long, because we were meeting Selam at 6 (11 and 12 pm American time) to go to her house. Yohannes’ happy birthday was good. I managed to only eat a little little bit, but Cameron was not so insistent. He ate a lot and drank almost a whole soda. THEN we went to Selam’s house. We were expecting a very small, basic house, because when Selam came to the clinic, I swear she said her father was a farmer and her mother did not work. WELL WELL WELL. Their house is the nicest I have seen (except Hareg’s)! Her father, we think, is a driver (for a tour company?) and speaks really good English and her mother is really nice. She is the youngest of four (older brother Ezana, and older sisters Liya and Lidia). They have a kitchen table, and served us HUGE plates of spaghetti (Ezana insisted I eat it all; I could not), and bread, and fish, AND SALAD! I have not eaten salad since America! It is apparently dangerous because it might not be clean. I ate some of the pasta, none of the fish :-), a piece of bread, and half of my soda. We were offered wine, but, eh, we’re good with soft drinks, thanks. AND I HAD SALAD. Could not resist. I have never had eggs in my salad, but the white parts are not bad. The yellow parts are … icky. I like my dead chicken mixed together and cooked, thanks. Lettuce and onions, with lime and salt—can I ask for a better salad? Mmm. They liked the cookies I baked. Cake mix cookies, since our oven cannot cook cake. We had a wonderful time! Before we left, Selam gave me an awesome… t’ibbs or kitfo container! Well, I will not use it for cooked or raw meat, but it is so cool! Best ever. My coolest souvenirs have been gifts!

Monday was interesting. Faskia (the baby born on Easter) and her mother came for their one-week check up. All is well, and Faskia peed on the baby scale, so I did not hold her. I got to draw her mother’s blood for Hgb test. Class went okay. The guards still are kicking the kids out after class, so I played catch with Pup (who is getting the hang of the game), and then I played minibus with Bebe and China. I think Solomon would be proud of his sons’ aspirations. China was the driver and Bebe was the kid yelling the destination out of the window (aka, tree). We rode to Magenenya for only two eucalyptus leaves :-).

On a not so hot note, we found out that someone has been stealing from Cameron(‘s room). They stole candy, cough drops (good ones—Ricola!), pencils, crayons, gum, more candy, but thankfully did not touch the money Cameron has in his room. It was done skillfully, though. They went into his room and into his suitcase and stole 12 big packs of Skittles, lots of dumdums, then took cough drops, and Cameron’s special candy from his desk (not all of it---it was carefully calculated, so hopefully he would not notice that some was gone). Then they went INTO HIS DRAWER on the other side of his bed and took gum and some more special candy. We both feel very violated and feel like we have lost their trust. We do not know when they did it, but it was within the last few days (from the evidence of candy wrappers outside). And now Cameron has to start locking his room, which is really inconvenient for him.

Today (Tuesday), we had a few patients at the clinic, and then went with Abebe to switch Cameron’s plane ticket for when Austin comes. We came home after grocery shopping, and it was late and I was very good and not-complaining about the fact that it was an hour and a half past eating time. Abebe’s wife had his baby—a girl. He is excited, and proud. He name is Ganna, which is the word they use for Christmas. Class went well. Someone stole 100 birr from someone else in 2B, so I had half a class for awhile, but we played hangman until 2B came, and it was fun. We got to play football for a little while after class, and Dureti and Mek’des played that Mek’des was trying to kill us (Cameron and I) and Dureti had to save us. “Don’t kill my mother/father!” Silly girls. During supper … nope, during playing Rumicube time, Meskeram and Dureti came to the window and revealed to us that Estifanos had been the one stealing from Cameron’s room. He buried the wrappers, but had shared some pencils and crayons and candy with them. Meske said that she had eaten some, but did not know it had been stolen. I think I have gathered that he stole it while we were distracted by out dinner-time entertainment. I really hope that the other kids did not know about what he did, but I am really proud that the girls told us when they did know. We are planning on having a meeting with Dr. Fekede and Solomon tomorrow. I wish it had been some random kid from the school, not a kid who lives here, who we thought we trusted. Tragic, really.

WOAH it posted one... maybe others?

So from reading my last blog, I guess I last blogged on Sunday night. The rest of the week (and Sunday) they were working hardhardhard on the house! It is hard to remember the specifics. My mom arrived on Tuesday morning. We went with Abebe, picked up Hareg, and got to the airport, only to see that her plane did not arrive for another hour and a quarter, which means more than that if you account for time to get her bags and go through security. So I annoyed Cameron until she came. Then we cajoled Abebe into taking us grocery shopping, and went back home. We found out on Wednesday that there was a little girl who had a severe UTI (she went septic) who stayed OVERNIGHT at the clinic… and no one told us until afterward. She ended up staying all week. Her name is Yabsira, and her father is best friends with the compound’s driver. He is a prominent community member, and they can afford to pay the bill and since he has millions of friends and relatives around, it was superfantastic advertisement for the clinic. She had hundreds of visitors. All the teachers, everyone who works here, and all her relatives… just so many people. A nyway. She is so sweet, and I read to her a bunch. She finally got better and left on Sunday evening. The Oklahoma people arrived Thursday night night night . I went to bed, and woke up when they came, and in a half-sleep state shook a few people’s hands. All I remembered in the morning is that there had been a guy named Chris, a guy named Spencer, one named TJ, and a girl named Victoria. Haha. On Friday, my mom and I went down with Tamirat to Abijata-Shalla National Park (and saw Lakes Ziway and Langano too). We had a good time. We saw warthogs, ostriches, antelopes, and the hot springs.
On Saturday, the power was out and so our carefully practiced special music ended up being acapella. It went okay, though. Pastor TJ preached, and so it was in English. Pathfinders went really well. We did a special program, the same one we did for the CMC church. On Saturday night, we hung out with the Oklahoma people, and we played Psychologist and Twister. Fun fun. On Sunday we took my mom to lunch and I made bread. Monday I kept thinking was Tuesday, but we had a few patients, so happy me. And we played Imaginary Football with the kids Monday night. Crazy game. It is interesting, being second string to the gum-giving new kids on the block. I really hope that they do not expect us to be able to give them so much stuff once they leave... or when we leave.
It was a bit difficult to have them here. They did not know (nor did they ask) about the rules set for the kids. They let the kids into the gate and even let some of them in their house! One night, all the kids on the compound plus the Amanuel kids were in there (invited, of course). They also gave out gum all the time, which of course prompted them to ask US for gum all the time! We do not mind, but when they ask all the time, and rudely at that, we do not exactly WANT to give, especially when we want them to stop being spoiled with getting gum from foreigners all the time. We do not want them to ask every foreigner who comes for things. Anyway, it was quite frustrating at times, but we know the Oklahomans were just being generous. Mom made many friends while she was here. She got along very well with all the clinic workers, which was nice.

Finally, blogspot. This is old.

Things I forgot to mention: The other night, the kids all came up to our window during supper, and this is what we heard:
Give me rabbit. Give me bread. Give me kick.
Give me kick?
No, give me kick *mimics eating cake*. Give me crazy. Give me Fox movie (that came from Meskeram). Give me grape.

And on our way back from swimming during the rain, Alex, Ephrem and Temmy and the dogs (oh yeah, Yobe and Samson brought Rocky and Pup), left before us. Then, just as we were crossing the river where it crosses with the road. who do we see coming from the right (we had come from the LEFT)? Temmy, Alemayhu, Ephrem, and the dogs! They must have seriously miscalculated their route to have come from that direction.

Wednesday we had one patient, BUTshe had to get a bunch of tests done, so she spent like 100 birr. The kids were talkative and disrespectful during class. But after we finished reading after class, Cameron and I went exploring in the new house. It is beautiful! Their stove (which is on our front porch) is really pretty too. It is almost done! Twelllllllve third graders passed (50 or higher) their test. So proud am I. I went kind of haywire on the little rewards they get.
Thursday was unexpectedly and spontaneously interesting. Cameron stayed home from work because he was not feeling well. His voice is croaky, and has been for the past few days. No patients, and he is feeling better now.

Oh yeah, I have a kid in 2A named Biscuit. It means cookie. COOLEST EVER.

I do not think much happened Thursday and Friday, except that we had TWO patients! One each day, I think. The lady on Thursday spent like, 90 birr on tests, which is good for us. Gezehang came in on Friday, because he was sick. He left my class early on Thursday because he was not feeling well, and he might have mumps (but he said he was feeling better on Saturday). OH, ON THURSDAY I GOT THREE LETTERS!!! A letter from Hanna, a Valentine’s Day card from Liz, and movies/TV shows from Abby! Oh happy. And I got two package slips, and Cameron got two letters from Shelby. We watched FOUR episodes of Glee on Friday :-D.
Saturday was good. No power, so no keyboard in church, and no projector again for Pathfinders. Pathfinders went really well though. Cameron and I made up imaginary people and they had to sign them to one another.
Sunday was pretty much the most boring nine hours ever. Pretty much. The kids got their first semester results, and the first three kids in each class from all the school in the region get together and get awards, so we went with them on the bus to the place to take pictures. We were ready to leave at eight, but did not end up leaving until after 930. (We had to take the second bus.) We sat there for hours listening (or not) to some guy say things, and then they gave us dabo and soft drink, which was nice. FINALLY they started giving out the awards. They did it in the most time-consuming way possible. By school, by grade, by place! So the first kid in 1st grade in one school, then another, then another….. then second place in first grade for each school… etc. Really? They should have done it by school. Or at least only by grade. “And for Shibu Ijersa third grade, first rank, Gezehang Tola, second rank, Samson Alemayhu, third rank, Yosef Asefa.” Would have gone twice as fast. Or half as slow… :-D. Thankfully we made it on the first bus back, even though we had to stand. It was fun, actually. We had them drop us off by Eyeret’s so we could get bananas and vegetables. I was happy to get to go home, but Firmaye and Samara invited us to their house. We said that we had to go back, but she said to just come then we would all go buy milk. Ha. Their mom gave us this spicy tomato something wot, and dabo and soft drink…. and then made us coffee, but Safara is out of sugar, so I suffered through about one regular sip of totally terrible coffee. Their cat had kittens. They already had fleas, even though they are only 15 days old. So after that, we finally went back home, and met Firmaye’s older sister coming back from buying milk! Haha. Unfortunately, they had run out by the time we got there. We did buy injera in town, though, and so we made tofu wot and shiro for supper. And then we watched the Amazing Race, because they flew to ADDIS!!!!!!!! Oh, and then to Lalibela, unfortunately. I wish they had stayed here. Oh well :-(.

Monday-Tuesday, during which our visitors leave, and Mezmoor turns five.

We had a patient on Monday! Wow, I thought I just deleted all that work I did. Whew. We waited outside with the Gimbi people for Abebe to take them back to town. God sent Janelle as an answer to our prayers, because she took a bunch of Anisha’s stuff in her nearly empty suitcase! AND she lives in Collegedale too, so we will not have to get it to her in a complicated manner. So awesome. So *ahem* they accidentally stole the key to our house when they left, so we could not get into my room. That was okay, because Abebe could bring us back the key, but then we realized that they took “lock up when you leave” to mean “lock the kitchen AND the other room.” Ut oh. We never lock our kitchen save when we go to bed! Worse, it was lunch time and Jennifer was hungry, and hungry Jennifer is a bad thing. But thankfully, Cameron had two granola bars in his room, so we prayed, thanking God that we had more than many, including many kids right at our school, and ate, grateful for the small bounty He provided us. Oh, and Amanuel had Cameron’s key to his room (but Cameron had not locked his room that day). Then, I thought to go see if Tsigue had a key to our room or the kitchen…or both. She finally found a key in Dr’s house that unlocked our house! I thought that, for some reason, the Gimbi people had taken our kitchen key and house key, but they had locked up like I do at night—kitchen key in our house! So we were able to eat lunch afterall! Best Ramen I ever had. Apart from the fact that it had like, three things to put on it—oil and spices, “Bantu sauce,” and spicey something. Super cool. Want more for next time. God really does provide for us. Especially since Abebe did not come back to the compound until 430! Class went well. I think one or two more chapters until the second-graders’ test. I bought potatoes and a zucchini after school. We had to wait for the lady who sells our produce to get there, and I was third in line, so it took awhile. They said the potatoes were not pretty, or something, but I said that I did not care, and the lady went out anyway and picked me 1 kilo of better potatoes! They are so good to us here. Five birr later, I had my produce. They also have pumpkins or gourds or something, but we will get one of those after we eat the giant zucchini. Cameron was talking about where all our pens had gone, and said, “Amanuel has one [pen] I borrowed to him.” HAHA. For the win! The verb for “borrow” is the same for “lend” so they are confused all the time when speaking, and I guess Cameron picked it up. Awesome.
Tuesday marked the day when Ethiopia kicked Italy’s butt out of Ethiopia—YAY! Thus, no school/work. Cameron woke up super early and went with Samson to a Kalaala vs Safara football game. We lost 4-5 :-( but he had a good time. I spent the morning lonely. When he got back, he informed us of the afternoon’s entertainment—a birthday party for Samson’s brother, Mezmoor, who turned five today! He came around one, and we went to his house. We got to have lunch their (miser/key wot, gomen, and firfir). And Mirinda mmm. LOTS of pictures I took. It was fun. They had some bila porridge, but by then I was very full. And then we had buna, and they drink theirs with less sugar than most Ethiopians, but I did it. Go me. Afterward, we went to Safara for bananas, carrots, onions, and garlic. I made Eyeret’s wife let me pick out the garlic. The last few times we have gotten it, I have had to throw away more than half of it because it was either soft and icky or moldy. So far, only half of one of the cloves I have done has been icky. I was unable to finish, though, because House came on at 620ish, and we both stopped what we were doing (Cameron stopped in the middle of a word on one of his emails) to watch. Yay. Then we finished/sent some emails, and Cameron’s dad called. I talked to him for a few minutes, and asked if he could call back in a few minutes because Cameron was on the internet. We started to watch another episode of House on my computer, but he called back now so I finally finished my blog up to now!

Satuday-Sunday, during which we have guests, and I disobey Marco

It was interesting having the people from Gimbi here. They wander off (and off campus) all alone, and Cameron and I never do that! The most alone I ever am is walking to the clinic in the morning or to class before Cameron does. And Cameron walks to the clinic alone and goes and gets milk alone. Other than that, we are always together or supervised. Okay Cameron just admitted that he has gone running alone twice. But they are much more independent than we are. I am fine with that, but I did get worried about them out there all alone with no idea where they were. I mean, it is different than going with someone, or being somewhere with which you are familiar. They wanted to walk back from swimming by themselves! Their box is much bigger than mine. I like my box.
Saturday was good. We missed Sabbath school to practice for a special music. We sang Father/Jesus/Spirit I Adore You in a five-part round. It went pretty well. We brought our left over shiro and gomen to potluck with Hareg. I do not know what the Gimbi people did while we did Pathfinders (a walk alone, I think), but Pathfinders went really well. While ASL is one focus, it has also evolved into two commandments per week. Jill sent Anisha some DVDs, and we have been watching them in order. We have 1 and 2, 3 and 4, and 7 and 8. This week would have been 5 and 6, so I had them split into groups after ASL and one group did a skit about “thou shalt not murder” and the two others did “honor thy father and mother.” It could have gone terribly, but out came actors that hid themselves during our Christmas Program. The kids got really into it, and the skits came out wonderfully! They used props and everything! Temmy was a drunk, and he beat his mother, Alemayhu. So funny.
They watched a movie Saturday night, but it looked scary, so I opted out and instead showered, and read Jeremy’s book. NEW BOOK NEW BOOK!
On Sunday, I read all morning, and Cassie and Janelle watched a movie, and Jeremy napped, and Cameron slept in and then did nothing. I finished Jeremy’s book (for a big book, it was much too short), and it was really good. Samson and the Amanuel family came around 130, and we went to the swimming place. Do not tell Mer, but I swam! Yikes. I did not swim for very long, though! Cameron, Jeremy, and I swam, but Cassie would not because she was afraid of shistosomiasis. Cassie, who eats about the least carefully of anyone I have seen here. Wet green beans, no problem. Tomato with peel still on it, no problem. I let Ruth borrow my skirt/modesty changing station, so I had to try to get dry in my wet clothes and the rain. Yeah, it rained most of the way back, but we (Gimbi folks, us, Yobe, and Samson) got back before the downpour started. We were worried about the Amanuel family/group, because they got stuck, but they ended up seeking shelter somewhere, and walked back afterward. I made soup for dinner, and it all got eaten! I knew those small Gimbi appetites would not last too long.

Wednesday-Friday, during which the test results come back, and Cameron gets robbed.

Wednesday, I tested ortho and otoscopes at the clinic. Guess what? All but one works! Tsinat killed the creepy (alive!) bug I found in one of the ear pieces for me. The test went okay. The power was out most of the afternoon and evening, so we graded the tests right before we went to bed. The three highest scores were 20 (Samson, brilliant), 19 (Gezahang, again, brilliant), and 16 (Hermela, hopefully it helped to read at our house after school every day!). Eyerus, the best English speaker in third grade, got a 100% on the front, but missed all 11 matching questions. That was particularly weird because I KNOW she knows the meanings of those words. We also went to Daniel’s house for a clinic baby shower thingamajig. It was the WORST party EVER. We just sat around and drank soft drink and ate some icky cookies and dabo. We did not even really get to see the baby—she and Daniel’s wife both stayed in bed. Very little conversation, and we just came, gave the present, ate, and left. Okay. No matter. The power was out most of the night. We had made the last box of jello Chris sent me, and it finally hardened, so we ate it with some House. Fun times.
On Thursday, my computer got sick. Some Dell Media Direct thing kept coming up when I turned it on, and I could not figure out at ALL how to fix it! I tried restarting it in every other mode possible, and no luck. I found Bereket before class, and asked him to go by our house to take a look. When class was over, I went back, and Cameron had bad news, bad news, good news, and very good news: we have no power, we have no water, [something—we do not remember], and BEREKET FIXED MY COMPUTER! Something about this house button on the top. Thank you, God!
I had Eyerus come to my house and (to the disappointment and curiosity of all the other kids) had her come inside and talked to her about her test grade. I explained to her how to do the matching, because I TOTALLY know she knew them, and it turns out that she just had not understood, so I let her take it again, and she got them all right!!!!!!!!!!!!! ALL OF THEM!!!!!!!!! MY FIRST 100%!!! I did not think I would ever get one of those! I am SO proud of her. A bunch of kids and I read outside, and then Eyerus and Helen’s mother showed up SUPER upset. She did not know where they had gone, and she was really worried and upset at them. I feel SUPER bad about that, and am going to write her an apologyexplanation card and give it to the girls on Monday, since there was no school on Friday. Tsebenesh braided my hair—and it turned out much better than when the littlier girls tried. The power was out all day, but turned back on after dinner.
What an adventuresome day Friday was. It was a Muslin Holy Day, and we had to go to town to pick up the Gimbi folks, so we did not miss work and Cameron did not have to hurry back to teach. We took a mini bus to Meberek’, then Magedeña, then THOUGHT we took a mini bus to Mescal Square. However, “Mescal” sounds an awful lot like “Mexico,” and we ended up in Mexico Square, so had to walk to the NTO office near the Union office. NTO is the National Tour Organization—my mom and I are going to Abijata-Shalla National Park when she comes, and I had to go pay for the trip. On our way, when we were crossing the street about a hundred yards away from NTO, a guy comes up to us. “What’s up?” Well, that gets any feranji’s attention. We backtracked to cross on the crosswalk (my idea, not Cameron’s), and he kind of followed us by crossing where we had been. He continued to talk to us, and then we went to say goodbye in front of NTO, and he shook Cameron’s hand, then slaps his thigh. Super weird, but I was at just the right angle to see him slip Cameron’s phone out of his pocket. I guess he hit the thigh to pop the phone higher and higher in the pocket until he can slip it out. Cameron did not notice at all (though he of course thought it was weird that he was slapping his pocket). When I saw that he had stolen the phone, I grabbed his jacket and said, “HEY, YOU STOLE HIS PHONE, GIVE IT BACK!” At least he was a cooperative thief, and he just laid the phone on the ground and left.
Anyway, they were not accepting credit cards at NTO, so we had to go withdraw money. Well, Gian Hotel has an ATM, the man told us. The guard said that the ATM was in Reception, but Reception told us that they did not have an ATM. The next bank we tried was not open—silly Holy Day. So we had to walk all the way to the huge building with the ATM, which was mercifully open. But it would not let me withdraw the correct amount of birr, so I had to withdraw smaller amounts several times. No matter, we found an ATM, and the power worked. Went back, paid, and during this process, the Gimbi people passed. I ran out like a crazy woman shouting “Feranji!” but they did not turn around. Then I ran up to Cassie and jumped on her and they noticed me then. I realized that Anisha would be lonely if she were here—Jennifer, Janelle, and Jeremy (all Js), and Cassie and Cameron (both Cs). We were hungry (though the Gimbi people had eaten already), so we went to Yeshi. I split an order of shiro with Cassie, and got a peanut tea. I got full, though, so I gave the rest to Jeremy. We walked to places. They had to go get their luggage from the hotel they stayed at the night before, and then we had to find TP and groceries for us. After we got stuff, we needed to get back to Mebirek. The car-parker dude got us a regular taxi, which the Gimbi folks thought was okay (I would have rather taken the mini bus, but Janelle had a big suitcase), and we all loaded in. After we were all situated, the taxi guy told us that one of us had to pass (get out) because according to taxi rules, only four passengers/taxi were allowed. GAH. You tell us this AFTER? So Jeremy, Janelle, and I ended up taking a 70 birr taxi back to Meberek, and Cassie and Cameron took the 2 birr taxi back to Meberek. Pshaw. Waiting around for Cassie and Cameron was interesting. We had to explain that, yes, we were going back to Safara, but not yet, we had two more people coming first. I eventually scrapped together enough Amharic to get the point across. Upon arriving in Safara, I whisked our guests off the main road and around a corner, and Cameron got our vegetables. We made gomen and shiro for them, but they ate about nothing. Friday night was spent playing UNO. While I was explaining the toilet problems I have, Jeremy said the quote of the week: I don’t see how toilets can be broken. They only have two jobs, flush and fill. You win, Jeremy.

Monday-Tuesday

On Monday, we managed to get a ride (better than we expected) to go to the post office and grocery shopping. Cameron had a package from his parents and an envelope from Southern. Abebe and Daniel dropped us off and said they would be back in two hours. We came down from having lunch, and they were there, asking if we were ready to go! We were totally not expecting them back so early! So in our rush, we forgot the most important things on our list: toilet paper and flour. BUT BUT BUT we found soymilk. So I got three boxes. Thank you new favorite shopping place. Please be even better and stock Soft next to the soymilk. We are still struggling with the puzzle Jill gave us for Christmas. Next time, we request one with bigger pieces, or more definite lines and colors. But it is fun most of the time, and we made a lot of progress today. No patients today, but Cameron went to Kebele administration with Dr. and Hulu to get posters and stuff. Showing off that feranji face of his. The third graders have their test tomorrow—pray for them!!

The rest of the week, during which I do not blog because blogspot would not work anyway

Wow, well, I have not updated since Tuesday, because I figured what the point, since blogspot would not upload them anyway. Well, now I have to go back and remember what happened this week. Eh, just as well for you guys—less to decipher!
Very few patients all week. I just had 2B on Tuesday, but on Thursday I finally got to go talk to Kinfe about what to do about that whole shenanigan. We finally decided that I would just have the smarter kids on both Monday and Tuesdays. I am going to start the book again (well, 2B is on, like, the second page, so basically restart), but go through it faster. 3rd grade has their test this week. I am going to have half of them take it on Wednesday, and half take it on Thursday, so we can read the tests aloud.
Sigue came to our house on Thursday, and taught us how to make shiro and gomen. We had started injera on Monday, but the t’eff was bad so the injera tasted funny. We made gomen and shiro again for lunch on Friday, and both turned out really well! On Thursday, we saw this HUGE American cargo plane fly in, and heard a fighter jet come in… wondered what that was all about. I said that they were preparing for the election, and Cameron said that they were bringing supplies to the embassy. Salam came to our house on Friday and invited us to her house on Saturday. I told her that we had church, and she said, “okay, Sunday.” We also finally watched Legend of the Seeker heehee. Pretty good, actually. Our TV choices are so funny. They are shows we would have never thought to have watched in America. The shows we get excited to watch also include: House (new semifavorite), According to Jim (awesome show), and Crusoe.
Saturday was good. We did a special music, and Cameron preached a really good sermon—and it was his first time preaching. We had Hareg try our leftover gomen at potluck, and she was very impressed. She asked if we had seen the plane, which was super cool because we knew EXACTLY what we were talking about! We did ASL in Pathfinders. They learned some basic conversation skills. More next week!
Salam never came on Sunday, but we had another Pathfinder meeting and tied knots. I was going to make bread, but we did not know when Salam would come, so I never did. I mopped, though. We went to Safara for produce around four, and looked for Sigue when we came back (she was going to teach us to make miser wot), but we could not find her. So we will make curry instead.

Monday-Tuesday

Well, no patients until we had gone home for lunch. Amanuel had forgotten his key at home, so had had borrowed Cameron’s, and forgotten to give it back, so since Cameron (for some reason) had locked his room today, so he could not get back in. And THEN there were patients at the clinic who needed medication, so we had to wait for Tariku (Amanuel’s nephew/errand boy), to bring back the key. I had a fun time trying to get the keyboard out of Dr. Gemechu’s apartment, because Sigue was gone and Girma could not find his key. He eventually did, though. We had no water all day boo. At least there is water in the garden. Anyway, Cameron was still not back when I went to class, but I figured he would come soon. Oh class. Oh class. AHHHHH! So, I love Mondays because I love 2A, BUT the 2B teacher tried to explain to me something about how I could not have 2A :-/. So I ended up getting half of 2A and half of 2B (the smart halves). Turns out (I spoke with Kinfe afterward), that there was going to be tutoring Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for the kids who had bad first-semester test scores. So on Mondays I can have the smart halves, and on Tuesdays, I can have 2B? Anyway, so there I was, in the class where half of the kids are on slide 28 and the other half on slide 3! I could either start from where 2B was, and have the 2A kids be super bored, or I could start from where 2A was, and have the 2B kids TOTALLY confused, or I could so something different. I had no idea as to what that “different” thing should be, but in the process of reading with Mek’des, Dureti, Hermela, and Meskeram, I had made a list of words they had trouble pronouncing. I did not have the list with me, but I thank God that He gave me that idea weeks ago so I could use it this week! I think they enjoyed it, and it bought me a week to grasp my bearings and figure out what the heck I should do. Now I have to figure out what should happen. Should I have the less smart kids only on Tuesdays? But that means they have extra class every day after school except Thursdays, and I know a lot of them walk very far and still have work to do when they get home. I am going to go discuss this with Kinfe today after lunch.
Oh, today is Tuesday, and the most exciting thing is that I finished consumable inventory and will “train” Hulu and Adunaye on how to do it when they get back from going somewhere. Hulu’s daughter is here today too.

Sunday-Sunday, during which we get to teach again!

Sunday, we did not go to Safara, because we did not need any produce because we had not used any during the week, and we had bought some that Friday anyway. We did laundry (three loads) and watched a movie. Patients were few and far between this week, but there was so much rain! It is very odd for it to rain this time of year, but it rained every day, and poured half of the time. It even HAILED one day! Teaching 2A was very trying because I had to scream to pretend to be heard over the din on the din on the tin roof. 2B is still frustratingly slow, but third grade went really well this week. On Thursday I introduced the new thing of letting one student read each class period, and a lot of them wanted to read! I am so excited. I could teach them every day, as long as their teacher stays. Oh, ha. He hit a kid one of the days, and I talked to him and told him that he should not hit students. I still have to ask Dr. Gemechu if he talked to Kinfe about him. And then, on Friday, the most amazing thing! 15+ kids showed up at my door, wanting to read (like Dureti, Meskeram, Mek’des, and Hermela usually do)! They had a LIST and took ATTENDANCE, without, I am pretty certain, any prompting from an adult! I have no idea what inspired them to do this, but I eventually figured out that Samson (one of the really smart 3rd graders), wrote the list. I want to teach third grade every day, not just Wednesdays and Thursdays. Some English words make truly no sense. Why would anyone not have trouble reading, “enough,” “through,” and “laughing”? It makes no sense at all. Most of the kids had left by the time it started to pour, but Mek’des, Hermela, and two brothers in third grade (their mother cleans the classrooms), were still here, so we played catch with the football on our front porch. The boys kept slipping on the slick, wet concrete in their shoes and it was so funny. Samuel eventually came up, and then later, Tamu, and much later, the Solomon boys. We sang some songs, and had fun playing catch. Mek’des got all put out because I would not give her a pencil, “You give Dureti pencil!” and I had to have the “You cannot always get what you want” speech with her. We would be MORE than happy to give them things all of the time, but they turn into greedy little monsters! I will eventually give her a pencil, but she is the worst with “give me….”

Saturday was a lot of fun. Amanuel had said we were invited to another church to do their youth program in the afternoon, so we prepared a whole program. Program haha. We played special music for church and I am sure church and Sabbath school were very good. Mek’des and Dureti came :-). Pot luck with Hareg, Bereket, and his brother, who is visiting, was wonderful, but I did not manage to avoid coffee. Hareg gave us a big talk about not eating at our restaurant in Safara, because we do not know who touches our injera, dirty handed people. Then we set out with Samson to go to that other church. We met up with Yobe, who ended up coming with us, which was kind of weird (but super cool) because he does not go to church. We took the taxi to where we were meeting someone from the church. To get there, we passed by an area that TOTALLY reminded me of down south! There were horses and carts EVERYWHERE! All of the horses were too, too, too skinny. It was a nice little church, with pews, a PIANO, and A MICROPHONE! Wowwowwow! At first Samson was the youngest kid there, followed by me, but eventually some more young people came. When our program started, we sang a few songs (Making Melodies, and I’ve Got Peace Like a River), had prayer, and while Cameron read the story of Abraham and Isaac, I set up for the activities. We did the “trust fall” exercise, which was awesome because they were freaking out, then did an activity which involved them being blindfolded and having to tell their teammates where to go to tag all four pieces of their team’s colored papers. I think they all had a fun, fun time. We performed a skit, and Cameron gave a little talk. On the way back, there was a horse with a TERRIBLE sore on his neck! Bad owner. The ominous gray clouds were rolling in, so I bought a pair of sandals so my tennis shoes would not get wet when it started to rain. Samson took us to this superrrrrr sketchy “Café and Restaurant,” and we ordered Bayanet (haha for me) and t’ibs for the guys. Yobe ordered beer, but Samson told him not to do that in front of us (I feel smart for figuring this out even though it was in Amharina). It started to POURRR like WOAH. The power went out so we could not get coffee. Yobe paid (doh, we wanted to do that), and we braved the less-heavy rain and got a taxi (or three) back to near enough to the Summit taxi stop so we could walk home. My pretty new shoes were all muddy, but at least my tennis shoes were still dry, and I could wash them clean. It was such a great day. God totally blessed our program, because Cameron gesticulated and was way more comfortable public speaking than usual, and the activities went well, and we did not butcher the skit. They want us to come back and do the entire day! Yikes. And they want me to bring my flute. We are truly blessed.
OH! Great spellings from the restaurant’s menu. They serve: scrmbeled egg, chpse, Makori with Grarlik, Riec, Meet firfere, and Tomato Soce. They also spelt spaghetti wrong every time, but it is truly a hard word to spell, and they spelt it the same each time. They spelt firfir different every time too. Funny.

Thursday-Sunday, during which the Pathfinder thing finishes

Well, I do not specifically remember anything on these days, except that we picked up some packages on Friday. I like washing breakfast dishes the best. Usually it is rice, dabo (Western bread) and shai (tea). So, as always, washing cups are super easy. My favorite favorite breakfast is real dabo (Ethiopian bread that pretends to be Western), marmalade, and shai. All we have to wash are cups, some spoons, and some really easy plates.
Hmm, Thursday must have been Bruno’s birthday. I saw two sheep in the yard Wednesday, and was a bit worried for their future…. I asked Bekelech if they were for dinner tomorrow or new pets. She thought for a moment, then said quite seriously, “No, lunch” :-/. So, we had sheeps for lunch, for a special birthday dinner. Thanks, ADRA. Well, they also got us soda, which was cool. They built a swingset for the kids, which they really liked. Saturday we made pancakes (can’t skip pancakes for Saturday breakfast). After church, the Germans showed us some cool toys they made. Something like a spinny thing on a playground, and a swing thing kind of but they used a harness and hoisted people up really high then pulled the pin then dropped them. The look on some of their faces was so funny. They had to stop Mek’des after like, one swing because she looked so terrified. But China did it. Go him. I will try to post some pictures.
After dinner on Saturday, the Germans had built camp fires and promised us chocobananas. You slit open a banana, put some chocolate in, and stick it in the fire. When the chocolate is melted, eat it. They also taught us how to make bread on a stick. Super cool. Southern had sent us a bag of big marshmallows, and I had found a perfect marshmallow-roasting stick, so I did that, and everyone was really curious about what I was doing. Only Meskeram did not like them. I swear Samson can make marshmallows out of rocks, because he kept coming up with more of them. Yobe and Samson’s woahwoahwoahwoah! They really, really liked them. I wish we had had more. We ran out pretty quickly once word got out what was going on. Someone shared a chocobanana bread with Cameron, me, and someone else—it was pretty good. We were up later than usual, so I went to bed while the festivities were still going on (what’s new?). And now everyone is gone. No more people. Even the Germans left to spend a few days in Langano before going back to Germany. Such nice people, truly. They gave us some… sandwich spread, and were giving things to Mek’des and Dureti (oh now, they have figured out what happens when foreigners leave!). They ate honey like they had never seen it before! Sillies. I made cookies, but we have no brown sugar, so I had to use only white sugar, and mostly butter because we ran out of shortening. They turned out okay. Who am I kidding? They are cookies! They will be eaten without complaints.

Addis Traffic Laws

Haha, so this was in an Ethiopian Horizon magazine. Some new Addis traffic laws. There are fines for:
Leading animals onto a roadway
Operating vehicles that emit large amounts of smoke
Conducting any kind of business on a roadway
Splashing a pedestrian with water (we assume this refers to driving through standing water in such a manner as to cause the described offense)Not exercising the appropriate level of care around railroad crossings
Pushing or pulling hand operated carts on main roadways
Not following lanes
Parking on a narrow roadway
Repairing an automobile on a roadway
Picking up or dropping off passengers from a moving automobile (this can only be targeted at minivan’s and their weyelas, we don’t know anyone else who practices such foolishness)
Not yielding to traffic at an intersection
Utilizing pedestrian walkways for other purposes
Driving without a seatbelt fastened or enforcing the use of the same for passengers (presumed to be the front passenger but not clarified)
Parking a vehicle on a pedestrian walkway

So funny… for us at least.

Recent Miracles

Okay back to the best part of the day. Remember how I had mentioned about Daniel wanting a digital camera for the school? Well, my mom emailed me and said that one of the fathers on my brother’s basketball team had come up to her today and given her a BRAND new camera! He had bought it for his
God provides in ways we never even imagined, and blesses us beyond our biggest expectations. I thought it would be a big enough miracle to find a used, older camera, but this one is twice as good as mine!
Oh, another miracle, I had let Estifanos be alone with my camera in the clinic because I knew he would not hurt it. I told him just to be careful with the shutter cover thingy (it is broken; every time I turn it on I have to manually open the shutter). Amanuel found me and had taken the camera away, and told me to be careful with it. I told him that it was okay that Estifanos had it. I do not know what he did to it, but when I got it back, it is a bit off-kilter when it is closed, but I do not have to open it manually anymore!
AND God has answered my prayers about having patients in the clinic. Instead of about two per week, we now have about two (or three) per day. :-).
The power went out one (well, more than one) night this week, but this night it was during dinner, so we served everyone in the dark (plus candles), and I prayed that the power would come back on so we did not have to wash dishes in the dark, and near the end, the power came back on, so we washed with electricity!

God is so powerful; what more can I say.

Saturday-Wednesday, during which the Pathfinder week begins!

On Saturday during Pathfinders we sang some, went over the birds we saw last week, and then did some marching. Bekelech and I were so bad it was funny. Falling all over one another laughing our heads off. I am a troublemaker. Oops.
Sunday morning we went to Safara right after breakfast to get some food. Later in the evening, we helped move desks into the new assembly hall. While we were waiting for the “move out” call, I played hide and seek with the kids. I had the bestest hiding places. Behind the main flower thing with the flag. We crawled around it on our bellies to get to the other side and thus closer to the base. The Pathfinder group arrived in the evening.
No patients on Monday. NONE. And it was Hanna’s last day at the clinic :-(. Nothing to do in the evening, since we took pictures throughout the day of the Pathfinder activities. They did knots and had some sort of inside meetings. It would be useless for us to attend, since they are in German translated into Amharic. It took me eight hours to do one load of laundry—NOT including drying time.
Tuesday was much more interesting. We had a few patients—Dureti’s dad (he came into the clinic on Friday, and I found on that it really was him) was back, and a little boy, Yohannes. He and his mother came in with another lady and her baby. His name was…. Obama. When they told Hulu, I started laughing really hard and ran out to tell Cameron. But he is a charming baby. We played peek-a-boo and he was sooo cute. Anyway we had to draw blood for possibly anemic Yohannes, and we did not have a small enough butterfly needle, so we snapped the tip off of a syringe. It took us (well, Hulu) three tries to get it. Poor baby. But he was one tough cookie. We helped serve lunch and wash dishes, and it felt SO good to not sit around doing nothing all afternoon. We hung out at home until Cameron realized they were playing soccer so we went to play. I stinkkkkkkk. Then we helped serve dinner. We dished it up in record time. Super fast. Rice and dabo (bread), which was really weird to eat. But the bread was really good (as was the rice). We washed dishes, practiced some Amharic, watched some House, and now bed!

Wow, greaseee. I mean, we had patients today! I made Estifanos come in—a thorn had stabbed it and it was huge. So after Estifanos got treated, he hung around, and China ended up coming too, so the three of us were in the nurses’ station. Estifanos left, and China was just hanging out, being well-behaved, and then he left, and I called him back because he cannot just go running around the clinic, but he did not come back, so I went after him. Amanuel told me that he had ran by (all the way around) so I go SPRINTING back…. and wipe out on the freshly mopped floor…. and crash into some chairs. I better bruise, after all that. Hulu wanted to bring me to the Korean Hospital at first (why, I do not know…). But I am totally fine.
A few other people came in too, including one of the German people. Would you believe with all this GOOD Ethiopian cooking, they make their own meals? Weirdness. Totally beyond me. It is actually quite a miracle that we get to eat with the people this week, because we would be SO out of groceries by now. This afternoon was some really good green vegetable stuff and fake doro wat (eggs, no doro (chicken)). But man, oh man. We know what makes their cooking soooo good. Oil oil oil oil oil oil oil. Those dishes are SO hard to wash!
HAHAHAHA so. Washing supper dishes tonight turned into a water fight. At first it was Alemayo, me, and Nehemiah, and then Girma came in and we blamed Samson. We had a “You!” “YOU!” “YOU!” “You!” fight in Amharic. Then we got Girma involved and Kibret SOAKED him. It was SO much fun. Everyone ended up wet. Except Cameron—killjoy.

I taught CPR today in the clinic. Yeah so cool. It was horrible, but I tried my best. And lunch was special because it was one of the German guy’s birthday. Dr. Jerry (the leader of ADRA Ethiopia), bought soda for everyone and cake… and two sheeps. ;lkdfja;odifja;s lkd :-(. Poor sheepies. And I do not mean Lauryl and Heather heehee But they had two vegetarian dishes and the cake was super good. The afternoon stuff. Then Greg (one of the Germans) brought out some rope and we double-dutched and jumped rope for a bit. I came back in and turned on the television, and GUESS WHAT MOVIE WAS ON?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! COME AWAY HOME!!!!!!!! I went out to tell Cameron, and when we came back inside, it was on the last scene. I announced that MBC MAX was the best channel ever. The guy was playing his song and Chris and Annie were together and then he asked if he could, “like, um, email or text her or something.” Then they held hands and the last scene happened and the movie ended. We were super confused and sad that we missed the most epic line ever, but we just put in the DVD and watched the last scene AND MBC MAX HAD CUT THE LINE!!!!!!! So, in honor of Come Away Home, “I’m glad you came tonight.” I eat my words about it being the best channel ever.

Thursday-Friday, during which we finally go to the post office!

There were no patients on Friday. Noooone. After lunch, I read with Meskeram for awhile. In the evening, we went to play soccer (for some reason, we no longer play on our field). We play now outside near Samson’s house, on a terribly slippery small field that runs into a threshing floor. Dodging cows and donkeys to get our ball back, priceless. Anyway, we had to stop to ge the ball from one of the guards, and there was an evil creature (aka, goat) tied there, and Yobe grabbed it by its balls and picked up. I could not stop laughing (do not worry, I did feel some pity for the poor thing).
Friday, we had a few patients, and near patients. Why do all the patients come right around 12, as we are leaving to go eat. Cameron cannot leave because Amanuel is usually not there, and we might prescribe something for the patients. We went home and did non-electricity things for awhile. I went into Cameron's room and came back out pretending that Kitty had been in his room. AND HE BELIEVED ME. It was great and super funny. Finallllllllllly… guess what! Abebe came to TAKE US TO THE POSTA BET!!!! Post office!!! Hareg was with us, so we dropped her off at home and then stopped at the post office. I made copies of our passports while Cameron bought peanut butter from the grocery store downstairs. I left with two packages, and Cameron (who had a slip for an envelope) left with three packages and no envelope. Background: The post office lady is a very disagreeable lady, and would not give me the other two addressed to me (Mom they are from you, I assume…. I identified them by the duck tape all over them :-D). They were addressed to Hareg (and me DOH) but she filled out the papers for Hareg, and did not have the time (“no time no time”) to switch the slip and let me take it. Oh, but she can give it to us on Monday. Does she realize how hard it is to GET to the post office? We do not arrange our own transportation, I explained, and it is very inconvenient to come to the post office to get our mail. Monday. Well, we cannot come Monday. Maybe Wednesday. Does she not want us to clear out her behind-the-desk area of all our packages? Anyway. We will be nice to her even though she… is mean. We had a package-opening party when we got home. Cameron’s three were all from Southern, and one of mine was from CHRISSSSS and the other from my aunt! Both excellent packages :-D, THANK YOU GUYS!!! and we got cool things from the SM office as well. Mmm I smell like veggie meat (Friday is taco night).

Monday-Wednesday, during which we have no class :-(

On Monday we had two patients in the clinic [in the morning]. The first man had a super infected wound, which was cool for me but so not for him. It did not look too bad, until Adonya took off the scab. It was sunk in the middle to over a centimeter below his skin! You could tell it hurt a lot, but he did not even say ouch. Dr. Debela thinks I might have scabies. The only problem with that is that in order to get rid of them, you need to wash everything in boiling water. Our washing machine only does cold water, and the biggest pot we have is probably only big enough for my clothes, not my bedding or towels.
The second lady was a lady in labor, so it would have been exciting if her baby could have been the first born at our clinic, but she had had a baby die just after being born last time, so Dr. Debola sent her to a hospital or something. She waited around here for ever, though, because Daniel was taking her and he was in a meeting. Eshi negir at work again. Haha, and EVERYONE was late, except Cameron. I had been up half the night itching, and so set my alarm clock for later then did not get up, Meron and Bayise were late, Daniel was SUPER late with everyone who takes the “service” (gets a ride to work), and we did not see Abebe all day. Class went really well with my favoritest class.
Tuesday…. Tuesday… Oh we were SUPPOSED to go shopping. But Amanuel was sick and something else, so Cameron had to stay at the clinic, but I was (grudgingly) going to go alone, but then Abebe could not even take me grocery shopping (we needed to get money and go to the post office too). I was on the edge of angry… and this week’s Sabbath school lesson is on patience. Well played. Anisha, there are starving children in Africa…… and Jennifer and Cameron were VERY NEARLY two of them! You can tell Jill she can use that on Miranda and Garrett.
Anyway, so I hung out the entire morning with Cameron in the pharmacy. We watched Esther. THEN we find out that it is a half day :-/ so no class. Oh, and by the way, yeah, the kids were right, there is no class for the rest of the week because of exams or something. Thanks, Ato Kinfe. If they want the kids to treat/respect us like teachers, they ought to keep us informed of when we will not have class. Abebe showed up in the evening and took us on a quick (and surprisingly inexpensive) shopping run.
On Wednesday, Amanuel was finally better, but we had no patients all day. We even went back after lunch and there were no patients. So I had a very successful day. I read some, played cards with myself, listened to my ipod, and then was bored. Ha, Cameron said I had too much to do. After lunch, I finished my test for the first half of the Boxcar Children… I hope I actually get to use it…. darn not having class. At least now the second grades are caught up with one another now… I read with Meskeram for awhile, then tried to play soccer, but left shortly after we started because I was going to cook. I made tofu wot and shiro, both of which turned out pretty well, considering, but I forgot to put tomato paste in the tofu wot and ginger in the shiro. Oh well, we ate it. The injera we had bought was turning moldy. Things here go moldy like no other. I think Daniel is arranging a trip to the post office for us tomorrowwwww *crosses fingers*.
WOAH I can make the page a different color… AND make it say “DO NOT COPY” AND add a border! Funness.

Thursday-Sunday, during which we go swimming!

I have some sort of itchy bite againnnnnnnn. They started out on my left leg and my hands and wrists. Now they are on my lower left leg, and both upper legs, both hands and wrists still, and on my hips. ITCHY.
There were no patients on Thursday :-/. I finished inventory and printed the rooms that are finished. Class was good. We finished a whole chapter. They will probably be ready for the test on the first half in two weeks. I started writing the test, and it is really good. Mek’des, Hermela, Dureti, and Meskeram wanted to study, so they took turns reading the Boxcar Children outside our house. We decided to give them all Dumdums, but Dureti left her wrapper. GAH. Thursday night we cooked rice and beans for everyone at the clinic.
No patients on Friday either :-/, but lunch was a success. Cameron’s beans turned out amazing, and the rice was not mushy. We read again after class, and boy, are those kids bold. We really need to lay down the law. Dureti and Mek’des have been following Cameron into his room, asking for things and touching his stuff and asking inappropriate questions, and they followed him into the kitchen on Friday. Dureti took the spoon out of the honey bowl and stuck it in her mouth! And Mek’des had the manners to wipe the spoon with her finger before eating it. Dureti will come right into our house, and we have to physically chase out/remove China. We have to close the kitchen blinds so they do not stand there and harass us. We went to Vespers, but only stayed for the singing—they started really, really late and we were really, really hungry.
On Saturday morning, I told Cameron, “don’t chew with your mouth full!” Oops. Before church, Sinke brought us shiro and injera. WOOHOO. Church was fine. For Pathfinders, we went on a hike/swimming!! It was supposed to be to identify birds, but I hiking was just more fun. The swimming place was only about an hour away. I learned that it is perfectly acceptable to take some shumbra from someone else’s field when you walk by. Yum. The swimming place was beautiful. Girma was the first one in, and soon shed his shorts so he had on a tank top and his underpants. Cameron was the second one in. I wish I was that brave, but I do not want to get parasites. Someone convince me that I will not get sick if I go swimming, please. The little boys wore their birthday suits, and most of the other guys went in their underpants. Gezehang and Alemayhu did not go in either, and Nabon just waded, so I did not feel so bad to not be swimming. We sang some songs after, and walked home. It was very dark when we got back, but it was such an awesome day.
Today Cameron cleaned, we went to Safara, and I mopped. I will make bread when the floor dries. I borrowed Sinke’s mop bucket—SO much easier than using the sink. But I used WAY too much laundry detergent. I basically mopped with bubbles :-).
Today while we were playing soccer, I did not do half bad. Gezehang is a monster. He is so good. Baybe (Estifanos) kept calling my name, then his favorite four letter word beginning with S. He kept trying to get my attention, but I did not fall for it. Meskeram eventually asked me why I was ignoring him, but I was like, “Who?” Ha. And then China kept trying to kick me, but I would just pick up my leg and catch him in the stomach. I win today, Solomon boys. I win.

And I have no idea why everything else is blue and underlined.

Saturday-Wednesday, during which we ride a mini bus, Higer bus, see Epiphany, and have no water for two days.

A picture of the guy's leg tumor.

Saturday was good. We did special music with Amanuel (on recorder). It went really well. We had potluck in Dr. Gemechu’s apartment with Hareg, Amanuel (who was the speaker) and Bereket (who taught Sabbath school). I do not know if I have mentioned, but there will not be potluck anymore. But we have been invited to the apartment the past two weeks, so maybe it will continue that way. I think that we should have potluck, but have it be a potluck instead of Sinke making everything. Sinke can just make the injera, and everyone else can bring a wot. It makes more sense. Pathfinders went well. We sang and then the kids broke into groups and were given a topic to discuss. While they did that, Amanuel, Bereket, Kibret, Cameron and I rehearsed some special musics. In Amharic SWEET. We are singing in four parts. After the kids presented what they had found and answered some questions about it, we showed the rest of Jonah. Then we watched a marching movie.
I do not think we did anything on Sunday. OH! I made pierogies! Curtis and Meredith had brought me sourkraut, and we had bought Vidalia onions at Lomyad, so I made sourkraut, then made them into pierogies. Hey, kids, when there is nothing to do on Sundays, what do you do for fun? Oh, we hang out in front the the feranjiwoch window and giggle while we watch them do strangs things. And we kick their kickball onto the roof. Thanks, China. Yeah, they hung out ALL while I was making pierogies. I let them try a bite of one, and I do not think any of them liked it. Maybe they will not ask us for things anymore. We have a brilliant plan, to give them Warheads or Fisherman’s Friends next time they ask for candy. All we need now is… Warheads and Fisherman’s Friends. And stickers with itching powder. Heehee. Only good little not-greedy children will get nice treats. For dinner, I fried them up with onions like we do for Easter and Christmas, and Cameron really liked them. Yay! They did not turn out badly at all, if I do say so myself.
Monday was Monday. We knew we were not going to have class on Tuesday, because it was Epiphany, a big Orthodox holiday, but we did not know that the kids only had a half day on Monday! I specially arranged to have 2B on Wednesday [even though they are my least favorite class] and 3rd grade only on Thursday, but it turns out that I have to miss 2A too! Drat. I love 2A. They love me. Maybe I will have an extra 2A class on Wednesday of next week. Third grade is already way far ahead. Around 130/2, maybe, I heard Dureti calling and calling and calling my name. I ignored her (she is the worst when it comes to asking for things). I went outside finally around two thirty, and it turns out HELEN had been calling my name, not Dureti! I felt so bad. So no class on Monday. Around 4, Girma came to take us for a walk (?). We went out the back, and then through the fields and it started to rain. POUR, more like it. Girma did not understand why I was okay with getting my hair wet. Haha. We had sheets of mud/t’eff on the bottom of our shoes. We took refuge under the future employee housing for awhile, then went home. We were so wet. We found out that the Florida Hospital mission trip for April is canceled. Well, it has been moved to October, which does not matter to us, because we will be gone. So we are sad that we will not get to see the Yosts again. Boo.
On Tuesday, we had no water when we woke up, which is super weird because it had rained the day before, and we had electricity. Sorry Cameron, no shower. We took a taxi (mini bus) with Girma, Meskeram, and Mekelech to the bus station before Girge, and the girls went on to Hareg’s house. Bereket and Kibret met us there, and we went with them, via HIGER BUS (AHH!), to Megedanya (the main taxi station) and another Higer bus to somewhere near the main Epiphany festivities. There were SO MANY PEOPLE! And some horses—with actual English saddles! Pretty. I want to be an Ethiopian horse policeman. Either that or I can join the RCMP. Bereket guessed 100,000 people. We saw the big parade, and the priests and elders and their cool umbrellas. And the supposed Arc of the Covenant. AND we saw the Pearsons! They were there with some other people from the hospital. It was nice to see them. It was SO hard to move through the crowd. My philosophy was “stick as close as you can to Bereket (or whoever was in front), your eyes on the ground, and keep his shirt in your periphery vision.” When the crowd got really bad, it was easier to follow, since we all basically moved as a unit. It was Bereket’s first time at Epiphany too, which I guess is not that surprising because he is not Orthodox. We ended up seeing another smaller parade, and then we stopped for lunch (YAY). It was called Five Zone, and had feranji food, and some really good-looking pizza, but we got Ethiopian food. I got shiro, and Cameron, Bereket, and Kibret split two meat dishes—t’ibs and something else. It was really good shiro. We had a lot of trouble finding a taxi to get home. We tried at this one stop for awhile, then tried another one. We FINALLY found a Higer bus that was supposed to be going to Bole Road (we were going to go to Kaldi’s for coffee (it is like Starbucks…. so much so that it got sued), and, for me, ice creammmmmmmmmmmmmmm. It ended up going to Megedenya instead, so we caught a bus to Girge, had coffee there, then they put us on a bus to Safara. We got off at our produce stand and got bananas, potatoes, avocadoes (for Cameron) and eggs (for baking!). Then we walked to find Girma, who thought we would get off at the last stop. There were some guys on horseback, and a beautiful buckskin, all decked out in his saddle, went running down the street, sans rider. It was SO funny. The other guys went after it. We finally found Girma, and it started to rain (not as bad as the day before, though), and I joked that every time we were with him, it rained. We STILL had no water when we got home, but we had another surprise. The beans we had been soaking had begun to ferment or mold something, and bubbled over—ALL over one of our chairs and all over the table. It smelt HORRIBLE HORRIBLE HORRIBLE! And we had no water with which to clean. Thankfully, we still had pierogies left over, so we just microwaved them. I had three, and Cameron polished the last 12. I went to bed early, since I could not take a shower.
Still no water on Wednesday, so we told Daniel, who told Yobe, so went with me to look for Solomon. The guy whose wife bit him came in to have his dressing changed, and one of my 2A students came in with a fever and abdominal pain. We tried to do a stool sample, but as of now *ahem* no luck. We went him back to class and said to come again after he eats lunch. Today is going very slowly. I finished inventory as much as I can, and those are the only two patients who have come. Class today was fun. I had 2B, but apparently the communication of “2B on Wednesday, and 3 only on Thursday” failed miserably. There were only like, 20 kids in the class. I restarted the book, we learned bakery again, and I introduced “polite.” We only got a little bit further than the entire class did last week. I made them give me a sentence “May I please have/go….” And once one kid did it, they got a Smartie. And then another kid, and another, until they got the hang of it: Give a sentence, get a candy. Funny, though, no one gave me “May I please have a candy?” I ran out of candy with 6 KIDS LEFT! ONLY SIX! Gah. But I took down their names, and will give them another chance next week. That is what you get for going when no one else goes. Like when Dr. Barnhurst gave us the code word in recitation… which I forget, unless it was elephant… that gave us 10… 10!!! free points on a mechanism question. I wish I remembered the word... Thanks, Dr. Barnhurst, for not putting it on the test key.

I forgot to mention, we went to a new grocery store and out to lunch with Dr. Gemechu on the Tuesday before he left. THE GROCERY STORE HAD ICE CREAM, so we bought a pink one. It turned out to be strawberry ice cream, which I usually do not choose if there is vanilla or something, but it was SO good. It was like, 14 birr for a tiny little cup, but it was so worth it. Lunch was nice; we went to the first restaurant we went to with Abebe. Cameron got a hamburger, and I got pizza again. Dr. Gemechu got t’ibbs, and ate only mostly the meat… with a fork, of course. Funny.