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.