Tuesday, June 26th
This week is very busy for our team as they finish up their 3 weeks of classes. For the kids & I however, it’s not so busy…..in such a normal way it feels so much like life in the states when we are inside of our house. When I look out the window though it’s a totally different view. The view from our bedroom is amazing-in the distance you see cows grazing on the hillside and the Orthodox Church with its beautiful building standing so tall. It’s breathtaking, then if you look down instead of out so far you see what looks like rows and rows of tin shacks. These are the homes of the majority of the population of Addis. I’m still not used to this. I just can’t wrap my mind around these living conditions. It bothers me that I can be in this nice house, and the people living just outside my door have so little. Looking directly down and at our neighbor behind us, I see her sitting on a tree stump w/a tub of soapy water at her feet. She is doing laundry. Across the street from her I can see two kids peeking out of their doorway b/c they see me, the ferenji (prounounced –“four-n-g” & is anyone that is not Ethiopian) standing in the window. They have noticed that someone else is living here right now (the family that lives in this house is a native Ethiopian woman who grew up here in Addis and her husband is British). There is just so much poverty EVERYWHERE you look that it’s hard to grasp (I think this is part of the culture shock that you here about). This neighborhood just puzzles me though b/c you have so many nice houses on the street and around the area and are currently being built right in the middle of and next door to these tin shacks (one interesting note, the scaffolding is made out of small sticks…I’ll have to put a picture up of this soon).
Yesterday the kids wanted to get out a little so we walked down the hill in our neighborhood. It was a route the little girl who lives here said was good for playing. We were searching for a dirt hill that she told us about, instead we found cows (with horns) grazing in the same area. I wasn’t sure if they were nice or not so we didn’t take our chance at this. Instead we walked to get bread at the local baker that we have become frequent customers at. They are starting to recognize us by now-that’s kinda neat-the 2 young girls that run it now smile when I come in!
I’ve been told when I’m walking around not to make eye contact w/people. This is very hard for me! It’s interesting living here and out and about in the community that they see a white person and they use any English that they know whether it makes sense or not….i get a lot of “thank you’s” or “bravo’s” or “hello how are you I am fine” lol –all in one sentence b/c they don’t know what they are saying. :)
The kids are doing so well-its amazing…I wonder what they are thinking a lot. They don’t ask questions or stare. It seems as if its just something new and they are just soaking it all in all the time we are out on the streets. I am excited that they have this experience and I pray that it changes their lives and that they remember the levels of poverty we are in the middle of. I know seeing the simplicity of life here challenges me in my thinking as far as how much “stuff” we have in the states. This house here is simple, there are not fancy decorations or curtains on the wall, its all practical & the house is comfortable. The boys room is painted blue and the girls purple but there is a pink chair in the boys room, no big deal, it’s a chair, but I think in the states b/c it’s a boys room you wouldn’t put a pink chair…..but does it REALLY matter, really…..NO-I like that it doesn’t matter! There are toys, here in their house they have legos and polly pockets and a Nintendo game cube from a few years back and some current dvd’s & other toys, but its not OVERFLOWING w/toys….the kids are happy and have all that they need…..on the streets you see many of the kids playing “Ball” if they don’t have a real ball we’ve seen material wadded up real tight and string tied around it to make it stay together in a ball shape. The recycle EVERYTHING here—its just very practical and simple—I like this! I see many kids walking around w/a long stick curved at the bottom and wheel looking circle..this is their toy, its probably all they have. I hope to get a picture of this at some point-(Ethiopians don’t like their picture taken & I don’t like to have my camera out when we are walking around, so I haven’t gotten as many pictures as I would have liked so far). As we are walking around Jacob is most concerned about the dogs that are EVERYWHERE—everyone who told us that there were lots of stray dogs here were right on, BUT they do not approach you. Even seeing a dog bothers Jacob. When we pass EVERY one, he says “mom, is that dog aggressive?” After doing this for an entire hour or so on one outing, he then said “mom what does aggressive mean?” lol- J love it!! He is also my little traffic cop. Here in Addis pedestrians do NOT have the right away, at cross walks maybe, but not always so you don’t take your chance. In the states we teach our kids if there is a car coming don’t walk. Well Jacob sees a care 200 yards off and he won’t cross the street. Well it normal to cross here when the car is 20-30 feet away b/c if you don’t you’ll be standing there for a long time inhaling all the diesel fumes (there are no regulations on cars so there is a constant cloud over the city from all the exhaust)…so we’ve had many discussions about this with him. I am proud of him for being extra cautious but I have to continually remind him that mommy isn’t going to purposely put them into danger. Definitely feels alittle like the game “Frogger” at times…. if you’ve ever seen or played the game! The sentence for hitting & killing someone while you are driving is a 15 years in prison-period! This is why most ferenji’s here have drivers!
Today (Tuesday) the weather was more like what we have been told it would be like in the “Rainy season”. It rained all night which made of lots of mud and slippery roads. This made the morning quiet chilly and the afternoon brought more rain showers and then drizzle until dark. Felechek reminded me though today as we were talking about the brief moment of sunshine that peeked through mid morning how much she likes sun, but that the rain is sOOO important for the economy and the agriculture here. So as much as it makes getting around more difficult they are thankful for the rain!
Wednesday, June 27th
This morning we visited the school where the team is teaching and met Falk’s discussion group and had lunch with the team. The people in Falk’s small group that he’s been leading each day were so very friendly! It was a fun time to be out of the house and amongst the people. I really like this! I don’t feel near as fearful as I did the first 24 hours being out. A lot has to do with our new location, but I think some of it is I’m just growing accustomed to the culture more and more each day!
Today they lady who cooks for this family came. She is a very friendly lady, her name is Anngedi. She has 3 kids, no running water at her house, and takes the mini-bus 45 min plus to work on Wednesday’s and Saturdays! Its amazing the food she makes from scratch. It tastes so delicious. I told her that in the next few week I want her to teach me how she does all this. She made from scratch today: granola (that’s way better than any in the store), homemade tortillas-they were to die for, salad dressing, hawaii n pizza…its just amazing to me the things we take for granted in the states. The electricity was out from 9-3 today, this made cooking challenging and she was here until almost 6 this evening. She had such a positive attitude and kept saying “it’s no problem, this happens all the time”-she speaks very good English. I asked her how she has learned it and she said from reading. The positive attitudes of the people that I have met so far is such an encouragement! I’m very thankful for all that I’m learning, seeing and being challenged by so far on this trip!
Please keep Falk & the other team members in your prayers that they will finish out their three week classes strong! Falk has gotten atleast 3 different dinner invitations from students into their homes in the upcoming weeks. We look forward to these opportunities to learn more about the Ethiopian culture!
We are grateful that so far we have stayed away from any MAJOR sickness so far. The girls and I all have all had a few little tummy “issues” most days, but all in all we are so thankful for good health. We think its just an adjustment to the different water more than likely & eating food out and not that we cooked at lunch today.
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!!!
Thursday, June 28th
This morning I decided I would attempt to run first thing in the morning after Cindy told me this is when the majority of women would be out and the streets are the least busy (my one other experience made me think I didn’t want to go out again…nothing bad happened, just so much exhaust from the cars and so many people). Falk had told me of a neighborhood to go to. So I set off around 6:30 to check it out and I’m so glad I did. It’s the perfect streets to run in. It’s a neighborhood that is paved (many streets here are not, and after the rain the past 2 days its pretty muddy out) and the majority of the houses are the different embassy’s from all around the world. It was a very interesting seeing all the different types of houses. It was a very hilly area so that was fun and reminded me of Colorado and some of the trails we’d run up in the mountains. I even saw 2 Asian women out doing their morning exercise and another white man walking his dog….nice to see other ferenji’s in the area.
Falk taught his last class this morning. I look forward to hear how this went. They all were talking about their teaching experiences yesterday at lunch and how much more challenging it was than they expected. There were several reasons they gave, 1. Some of the material they are not as well educated on so they must first do research and learn themselves before they can teach it to the class 2. The stress of living in a new culture & just all the differences that you are faced with 24/7. (our teammates are all unfortunately living in a house that has had MORE than its fair share of “issues” their entire stay. Cindy was saying yesterday that she’s become like “Macgyver” w/dental floss (from the early 1990’s tv show). She’s used dental floss to fix the toilet so it would flush, the light so you could turn it on, and the oven. I feel very blessed and that God has been gracious to our family on this first experience cross culturally & so far we haven’t had any thing happen unexpectedly.
Our house helper Felechek is AMAZING and I am enjoying learning from her—and oh I have SO much to learn. This morning I proved my american-ness. I thought I don’t have much to wash, but the girls “b’s” (blankets) must be disgusting and maybe that’s why they both have had some tummy problems, I’ll just start a small load of wash before Felechek gets here. So like in America I just started the washer. She arrives and tells me that today she tried the water out front and the line is dry (meaning we have no water coming in from the city into our water tank.) –this means you can’t wash on days like this, and you have to limit your water consumption to the most necessary things. She was very gracious with me, and we turned off the washer and she said “tomorrow we can finish this if we have water”—I apologized and told her, “I sure do have a lot to learn don’t I?”—she just laughed at me. I told her thanks for being so willing to teach me and that I wanted to learn-so everything was ok…later she heard me in the kitchen after lunch and she stuck her head in and said “you don’t wash, I do” this is so hard for me to just leave everything a mess for her….today though I think the bigger issue is she wanted to control the amount of water used :) . I’m learning so much…the next thing is that she takes the cream off the fresh milk that we get each morning-(side note: she comes around 7:30 each morning to our house, picks up 2 milk containers & walks to the house where we get the fresh milk from the cow, she then takes ½ to her family b/c we don’t use that much milk and then she brings the rest back here. The milk is fresh so she has to boil it to pasteurize it. Then it has to cool & it’s ready to drink). Well she takes the cream and lets it sit out and she makes butter out of it (gotta watch how she does this next time) then she takes this home and uses it as oil/conditioner for her hair. Then I ask her if she could tell me how to get to another part of town to take the kids to the free play area at the Hilton. She thinks a few moments and tells me to take a mini bus to the round about-“mexico” then catch another one….but then she pauses and thinks, and says “maybe you should wait for Vic to show you in his car” as humbling as it is that I realized she didn’t think I was ready to go out all alone to the north part of the city (we are in the south now) I am thankful that she is honest with me and she said “you must be careful alone w/all the kids”. So I feel like I have a mom here watching out for me J (Nana & Oma aren’t you happy). Tomorrow morning she is taking me shopping. I’m really excited to go with her. We only have to get a few fresh things so we are just going to a shop close by, I hope before we leave though when Falk is here to watch the kids that I can go with her to the market and see what its like for the majority of the people here.
Today we were awakened by what we assumed was the muslim prayer call or what sounds like a man singing in a loud microphone broadcast across the entire city. Everyday we hear this, but today it went on and on and on until after lunch so I asked Feleckech if this was normal and what it was and who it was—you know all kinds of funny ferinji questions I’m sure . I learned that I was wrong, today is a holiday in Ethiopia and that it was actually the Orthodox church not the muslims today praying. Its so loud and so different than what we are used to. Friday’s are the muslim’s prayer time she says. I’ve got to ask and find more information out about this. I asked Feleckech if she could understand what they were saying and she said yes-very curious about all of this and the way the different religions interact here in the city! Today she had some upbeat music playing in the kitchen and I commented that I really liked it and she said it was Ethiopian missionary music—I’m assuming that means christian music. She’s a really neat lady and such a hard worker. She is sweet with the kids and as expected Macey LOVES her and likes to follow her around and see what she is doing
*wanted to let you know, we are still having some internet problems on my computer, so I’m only able to get online when falk is home, which is after 8:30 each evening…last night when I tried to get on it wouldn’t connect, so I’m just continuing to journal and will upload it all this evening I hope
