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.