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.