Saturday is our busiest day here at the Learning Village. This week, Cameron taught Sabbath School. No one else understood, so Bereket taught, kind of, after him so everyone else could understand. Potluck was delicious, as usual. We had prepared a Pathfinders’ song service the night before, and talked about ideas just in case Emmanuel asked us to do Pathfinders (he did :-)). After song service, we ended up talking to them about the Christmas pageant, having them sign up for what part they thought they might want (and I made them write their names down so I could 1. know their names, and 2. learn how to spell them!). While the list went around, we practiced the alphabet and then did a game I made up on the spot. I shall give an example. I had six volunteers come up front, and I whispered a letter to each them. They took turns holding up their letter, and the people in the audience would have to say the letter. Once all six people had done their letter, they all held it up at the same time, and it spelt a word (once again, guessed by the audience). Temmy even got “youthforlife” without spaces. Then people volunteered to fingerspell their names. They have no double letters in Amharic, so I will have to explain how to fingerspell with two of the same letters in a row next time. Even though we described what all of the characters were in the play, we still had one girl want to be Elizabeth, one girl want to be Hannah, and one 16-year old boy want to be Jesus. Thank you, Samson, for making my day. After recruiting some angels (everyone wanted to be shepherds), I taught everyone to say “Can I please have a cookie?” in ASL. They had the hardest time raising their eyebrows, and everyone laughed at everyone else when they came up front to ask. Kiberet came up and asked, very seriously, if he could have two cookies. Kiberet is a grown man. In the end, everyone ended up getting a cookie—even Girma, who fingerspells with his hand facing himself. All in all, I think it was a successful Pathfinders.
No resting allowed, we started cooking for our party on Sunday right after Pathfinders. We had invited Dr. and Mrs. Pearson, Mr. and Mrs. Kim, Hareg, Dr. Gemechu, and Azeb (and Yared and Abebe, but they did not end up coming) to come for lunch on Sunday after the former two couples got out of church. Anisha made dhao (basically lentil soup) and chickpea curry that night (lots of chopping). When I was done cutting onions, I did casting for the Christmas Pageant. I now understand why it takes PT the whole weekend to cast for a play. I mainly went by what they had signed up for, since there were only a few people who wanted to be the same part. Double spaced, it is six pages long, not including the fact that we are singing five songs (and half of the people will be signing one of those). I will email it to Emmanuel to translate.
On Sunday, we woke up early and continued cooking. I made pumpkin cookies for a dessert, and Anisha made hardboiled egg curry and we made a bunch of rice. (“A bunch of rice” plus two messed up batches=LOTS of rice.) S’ike stopped by with a loaf of birthday bread (which is over a foot in diameter and at least four inches high), and Hareg and Azeb brought three Ethiopian dishes, a salad, and a cake sampler from Bilo’s Bakery. THEN S’ike stopped by with injera! We had SO much food! You should see our refrigerator.
No resting allowed, we started cooking for our party on Sunday right after Pathfinders. We had invited Dr. and Mrs. Pearson, Mr. and Mrs. Kim, Hareg, Dr. Gemechu, and Azeb (and Yared and Abebe, but they did not end up coming) to come for lunch on Sunday after the former two couples got out of church. Anisha made dhao (basically lentil soup) and chickpea curry that night (lots of chopping). When I was done cutting onions, I did casting for the Christmas Pageant. I now understand why it takes PT the whole weekend to cast for a play. I mainly went by what they had signed up for, since there were only a few people who wanted to be the same part. Double spaced, it is six pages long, not including the fact that we are singing five songs (and half of the people will be signing one of those). I will email it to Emmanuel to translate.
On Sunday, we woke up early and continued cooking. I made pumpkin cookies for a dessert, and Anisha made hardboiled egg curry and we made a bunch of rice. (“A bunch of rice” plus two messed up batches=LOTS of rice.) S’ike stopped by with a loaf of birthday bread (which is over a foot in diameter and at least four inches high), and Hareg and Azeb brought three Ethiopian dishes, a salad, and a cake sampler from Bilo’s Bakery. THEN S’ike stopped by with injera! We had SO much food! You should see our refrigerator.
We tried to give as much as we could to the Pearsons and Kims, but they did not want much, unfortunately. We had a really good time, though. After eating, we moved into the living room and had pumpkin cookies, tea and cake. We chatted and showed them pictures we took of the Rift Valley. Much fun was had by all. It will take us two weeks to eat all of this leftover food, and we are leaving next week to go to Gimbie (in the west—we know people there) for Thanksgiving. Thank you, freezer. No one was very hungry for dinner, having eaten so much at lunch, so after a small dinner, we watched another Family movie. We watched White Wolves II, which also had bad acting and a very predictable plot, but it was good. 
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