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!
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