So last evening the coffee ceremony we were invited to, at the President's house, next door to us, turned out to be much much more. We started sitting out on the lawn in the late afternoon sunshine drinking soft drinks, then moved to the patio for injera, wat of several kinds, all made with lamb, salad, green beans and carrots, all spicy enough to make you sit up and enjoy it. Emma Bet, President Belai's wife, said, "Save room for barbecue" because that came next, cooked, as you see in the photos, on an open fire on the patio. All this while, a young girl was roasting coffee beans, then grinding them in a mortar and pestle, then preparing the coffee, which we had after the barbecue, along with orange slices and then candies. The barbecue was very spicy thin strips of lamb and was just delicious.
I just loaded four photos of this evening event, and only one showed up--can't figure that out, so I'll try again later with the other three. Attending this event were the President, his wife (who lives most of the time in the US and is a nurse there and is standing in front of Jim), his two sons, a Finnish family with three children, two in the photo, an Ethiopian contractor and his wife, a banker, and Jim and me. Photo taken by Carolyn Weber, another English teacher here at the school.
Today was a totally different day! A Swedish theology professor, retired, who comes here every year (and lived here more than 25 years) for three months--in the winter of course--to teach graduate theology courses, stopped by for a visit and to invite us over for lunch tomorrow. He gave us about an hour and a half of background on the school, then tensions with the government, both during communism, during the 1990s when things here were very difficult, and also now, as well as some greater understanding of the layers of society which affect decisionmaking: tribe, clan, family, spouse, intermarriage between tribes. He said, so many layers make it almost impossible for a westerner to understand. The longer we are here, and the more people we talk to, the more we understand that we know less and less of this culture.
We spent a lot of the day with Belete, a pastor we met last year who came to look us up and offered to take us around Addis Ababa. We toured the downtown, where we drove through Pushkin Square, Mexico Square and the largest, Moscow Square. Amazing contrasts between the tall glass and steel buildings and the lean-to souks, or street markets. Then we visited the Red Terror Martyrs Museum, remembering the time when Haile Selassie was overthrown in 1978 and the DERG, a committee of military rulers took over. They specialized in terror and indisciminately imprisoned and tortured and murdered Ethiopians. Half a million people were killed, all without any charges ever being lodged againsst them. It was a very difficult place to visit, very graphic, and our personal guide, who spoke excellent English, was a man who had been imprisoned for 7 1/2 years. We found that our pastor/friend had known him in prison and he had been imprisoned for 2 1/2 years. There are many many scars here in people's minds. The museum had a photo of a women involved in the dedication 2 years ago. On one night militia broke into her house and murdered her four children. There is a statue in front commemorating those four children with a quote from her. We cannot even imagine
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