Wednesday-Friday: during which we celebrate Cameron’s birthday, play soccer with the people, and cut the cheese

Wednesday was Cameron’s 21st birthday! We spend Tuesday trying to figure out birthday cake because the cake mix Hareg helped us secretly buy required three eggs, and we do not have eggs. We also do not know if we can eat eggs yet…. We needed a pan to bake it in, and needed to learn how to work the oven, so Sike showed us, but Dr. Gemechu said if we wanted to bake stuff we should do it at Hareg’s house. And he also said that they would just get him a cake. So Tuesday after work he gave us the cake, and we decided it had to be refrigerated, so we wrote Dr. Gemechu on it and stuck it in the fridge. When Cameron asked us what it was that night, we said it was Dr. Gemechu’s and he just wanted us to keep it in the fridge for him. And he bought it. We did a lot of very obvious things (like kick him out of the cabinet that had the cake mix inside) and he never caught on. Heehee. Wednesday we inventoried all of the surgical instruments (scissors, Alis clamps, towel clamps, hemostats, forceps, etc.) that we had sorted the day before. And… that’s it. Then we had lunch and gave Cameron his birthday cake! The frosting was really good. However, it was coffee flavored. AHhhh. I ate most of my piece (go me), but it was nasty. We went on a really long walk, including behind the clinic. Sike had also made the equivalent of Ethiopian birthday cake, which tastes like really moist, heavy Italian bread. It was really good. And HUGE. We still have over half a cake left. Then we decided to go kick a soccer ball around outside to see if any of the kids would join us. We ended up playing with the two little boys who watch the sheep, Thomas and Samuel, and two older kids named Alex and Samson, and Guermo, one of the guards. Other people came and went (we were first just playing “kick the ball around”), but at the end, we split into teams and played. None of us had noticed the altitude, but we sure did a few minutes into the game! Then we went back home and Cameron made guacamole, and I made mac and cheese from the foul smelling cheese Hareg got. Cameron and Anisha thought it came out okay, but I miss Velveeta. The guacamole was not bad at all. I picked out the parts with lots of onions. Thursday, we were supposed to check to make sure the computers worked, but they have not finished running the electricity to the clinic, so we spend the morning in the conference room waiting for Dr. Gemechu and David and peoples to get out of the Pathfinders meeting. We also moved everything from the blue bathroom so it would not get wet just in case the water was turned on. We just relaxed after lunch, until Thomas showed up outside our window. We got the hint and went outside and asked, “eger-quas?” (football?). *big nod and smile* So we played soccer for a few hours. There were tons of kids. Samuel was mostly tending the cows and donkeys and horse, and Thomas and a few other kids were ball hogs, but it was fun. A lot of the little girls were wicked shy, and scared of the ball. I ended up playing some games with the girls (two of which were Maskerem and Meck’edeck). One was kind of like ring around the rosy, and I got some of the words (which I have since forgotten), and then they wanted to sing. Maskerem (whose English is quite good) sang “Lord Jesus help me day by day/to grow like You in every way…” and then they wanted me to sing a song, so Anisha and I sang “Jesus Loves Me” (Camp WNKG style), then they same a few more, including several in Amharic and “5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed,” which was hilarious because I had never heard it sung before. “No more? Monkeys? Jumping on the bed.” Then I joined in the game and Maskerem and Meck’edeck and another little girl, Mishtoch, wanted to play, so we did. There is a guy here who only has one partially-functioning foot (one is shorter than the other, and the one that he uses looks like it is on backward), and he uses a stick to help him walk and he is a FANTASTIC goalie. I said that I wanted him on my team when we were just passing the ball around. Alas, he was on the other team when we were playing. He also wears a bandana around his head (mouth and nose?). We tried to score when he was not at the goal. I do not like eating so late. We had leftovers. I had PB&J. Today we were going to do the computers, but the electricity is not working yet, so we went on a walk instead. Now we are back here, and we plan to clean up after lunch. Oh! I forgot. We lost power on Wednesday! Most of the day, I think. But it did come on in time for us to make dinner. And then yesterday we lost it again most of the day and after soccer, Anisha and I were walking around with flashlights and headlamps, and then I realized that it had come back on while we were walking around in the dark, so we felt funny. It is on now, though :-).
Fin