Saturday

The internet has been out at the seminary for two days now!  So I didn’t get to send anything yesterday, and in the meantime, the adventures and the photos are piling up.  I am writing this, transferring a couple of entries onto a flash drive, and then we are going to an internet café up the street to send it and check our emails.

The adventures are piling up, faster and faster it seems. Perhaps that is because we have reached the halfway point of our trip and we are headed downhill toward  our departure date.  At any rate, we are having lots of new experiences.

There was a funeral a couple of days ago at the campus chapel. The chapel is used for a lot of events, usually two or three weddings per weekend. We were told that the funeral was for the mother-in-law of a bishop of a synod in the area.  We didn’t see the funeral but we saw the hearse with many bouquets of beautiful flowers attached to it.  Then we got home for lunch and our cook, Addis, who speaks no English, communicated somehow that she was going to the funeral. But she took a while to serve us lunch and get going. Then we learned that evening that the woman who died had been the cook in our house before Addis, who began only a week before we arrived. This other woman had suddenly developed a brain tumor. Her family raised the money for her to have brain surgery, which she had. She was discharged from the hospital for four days, then had to go back in for a couple more days, was discharged again, two days later returned, and then she died.  Meanwhile we were told there is another young man somewhere nearby who developed the same symptoms. So people are worried that there is some mosquito or other insect causing this.

A couple of days ago we ran into Million Refete. I may have mentioned her already. She is a former national newscaster and TV journalist who now has her own business, I think she narrates commercials, films etc. She is a dynamo and we had met her when we were here a year ago. She is sweeping into our life here. Last night she invited us to a fundraiser for church youth programs of the Mekane Yesus Church at a brand new, and very fancy, hotel in downtown Addis as her guests. Also with us was Belai, the seminary president and a very interesting woman name Attack (at least that is how it sounded) who had lived in New York City for 20 years and worked for the UN. She explained that she didn’t really live in NYC all that time because she was 5 ½ years in Jerusalem as part of the UN Peacekeeping Mission there, and then another two plus years in Damascus, Syria on a different peacekeeping mission. She has invited us to come for a visit to her apartment. She lives in a glass high-rise and said she has a wonderful view of the city, especially at sunset, so I hope that works out. I’d love to hear more about what she did during the peacekeeping missions.

At the banquet last night, I saw forks set out for the first time in an Ethiopian meal.  Yes, there was injera and a lot of variety in kinds of wat (chicken, lamb, beef, lentil) sauces for the injera. But there were also about four kinds of fresh salad, carrots and beans, fish, fried chicken and three different pasta dishes. And FORKS!  Neither of these two women we ate with took injera, but rather took forks. I asked why. They both said they had already eaten injera that day for lunch, so they didn’t want it again.  The food was good, I loved the chance for fish, and Italian pasta (the Italian influence here is remembered mostly for its coffee preparation and its pasta!) and really enjoyed eating with a fork. Dessert here is always a fresh fruit salad,  mangoes, oranges, bananas, papaya in season. Of course that was also offered, but in addition, there was black forest cake, white forest cake and crème caramel (which someone explained to me was also a remnant of the Italian time.)  It was great for us to have a bit of the taste of the western world!

Today we saw Lucy. She is the million and a half old skeleton that is the oldest known homo sapiens. Well, actually we didn’t see her, but a replica, because apparently she is touring the US for 5 years. I don’t know where. The exhibit at the national museum was wonderful, and she was among the youngest set of bones we saw. There were many archeologists have found from back as far as ten millions years, certainly far before homo sapiens as we know ourselves. But they had jaws and teeth and skulls that resembled ours, though not the same. A very interesting display.

The museum also had Haile Salassie’s throne and robes, as well as those of the empress and various Ras (Lords), including their crowns, headgear and swords. They were full of gold, brocade and velvet. Also lots of lion skin and hair from the lion’s mane.

Then we visited Haile Sulleman Super Market, which we are told is the oldest supermarket in Addis Ababa, from the 1930s I think. It looked to us much like a old-fashioned general store with shelves to the ceiling and goods stocked all the way to the top. The total shop would fit into our living room and dining area, except for the height. There were whole carcasses of lamb and pig from which one could order a specific cut. We got some Dutch cheese, having been told there is only one kind of cheese sold in the souks and local stores, and it has no taste. This cheese looked good, was called gouda, and the label said it was “made the Dutch way” though in Ethiopia. We’ll hope so. We also bought some of the exotic spices here. Peri-peri, pronounced like Barbara, which is a mixture of the skins of hot peppers, and an even hotten spice, I forget the name, which is made of only of the seeds of very hot peppers. I was warned to use only a little bit. And some black cumin, which is also hotter than most cumin. So better watch if I offer you some Ethiopian food. It might be really hot! Then we got oatmeal.  You can get old fashioned oats here, only instant, and some brands don’t absorb any of the water or milk at all. Yuk! So our friend and guide Belete told us which brand he uses and we’ll try that. What an adventure.

Today is the birthday of the prophet Mohammed, so it is a holiday.  The Muslim souks are closed, one of the museums we were going to see was closed, and we saw Muslims all over downtown celebrating and having a good time, gathered in family groups.

The 300 youth are still here on campus, so lots of noise and the faint smell of inadequate toilet facilities permeates.  You can’t imagine all the happiness, politeness to us (lots of people we don’t know stop us to shake our hands), loud speakers blaring either speeches or loud music—into the night, and a wider variety of dress, native costumes to the newest jeans, than you would ever see in the US. It’s kind of fun.

So many experiences! We are so grateful!  More tomorrow---if the internet works!