Church service and other miscellany

Here are the promised photos from our church service yesterday, including a 20 second clip of the choir singing and dancing.  Just a small sampling of the happiness reflected in the service.  The members of the congregation were thrilled with the wooden crosses we brought and they were passed out very very quickly.  This people, the Anouak, are from the very most Western part of Ethiopia and also from the eastern part of South Sudan, across the border.  They are looked down upon here in Ethiopia because of their color (I think I told you that before.)  But despite their oppression they are filled with joy and kindness.

I just had a wonderful conversation with one of my students, a pastor who has come for a Masters degree in Practical Theology.  He worked for 10 years at a church in an area 98% Muslim, and then moved here to the city and established a congregation 5 years ago.  He said it is in a very poor area and that the congregation in working to help the people.  He said they began a kindergarten this year because public school is only available at age 7. Many families send their kids to kindergarten earlier than that to prepare them for school, so of course, the poor that can't afford to do so are behind the first day their child starts school.  So they notified the neighborhood that they were going to start a free kindergarten and had people sign up. They got the teachers, material and space for handle 40 kids. But 140 showed up. So they had the difficult decision of selecting 40 and turning 100 away. He also spoke of how he handled a beggar who came to him asking for money. He asked the man why he came to him, the pastor for money. The beggar replied that it was because he got all the offerings, so he certainly had extra money. This pastor said, Here, you do the math:  I earn 1730 birr ($100) a month. I pay 700 birr for rent, so I have 1000 birr for everything else. I have two sons and a wife, so we have food and clothing and school tuition and bus fare to pay (no car).  How much do you think I need, and how much should I have left over to help you?  He said the man walked away with a new understanding, having withdrawn his request.  Makes one think twice! And he said he has had several friends go to the United States to study, but they don't come back. They get seduced by the life there. He would go, he said, if it was God's will, but he feels that God wants him here in this place, bringing life and better living conditions and self-concept to the people here.

The standard of living here is of course lower than in the US. We just bought eggs, nice farm-bred brown ones, for $1 a dozen. We bought a package of cardomom for 40 cents and ginger for 20 cents.  We buy a big bagful of fruit (oranges, plums, limes, papaya and mangoes, maybe a pineapple) for a total of about $4. A macchiato at the campus cafe (the best we have had yet) is 20 cents.  Jim bought a kilo (2.2 pounds) of green coffee to roast for $6.  However, gas is expensive.  OilLibya seems to be the main company, though I have seen Shell as well. No one we have been with fills their tank. They buy $5 or $10 worth at a time.
 When we went to the Sheraton Hotel last evening, the oasis, it was an incredible contrast, including the prices in the gifts shops. Silk scarves for $50, gold jewelry for thousands of dollars. Apparently the majority of guests there are Arab sheiks and Americans.  Though it was full last week when the representatives of the Organization for African Unity met here in the city.

Enough for now. Hope the video works. Love to all.

Carolyn

Sightseeing over the weekend

Hi again,

Here are some photos from our expedition around the city Sunday.  The first photo, though comes from a couple of days ago when we visited the Addis Ababa Museum withy a history of the city. Belete and Jim posed for me in front of a lion and a panther. Sunday we were chauffered around by a friend we met last year, and ran into last week: Million Retefe. She is a retired national TV newscaster and has many stories to tell of broadcasting the news during the time of the DERG, the repressive government. She was basically safe, one brother imprisoned and treated harshly, two brother fled to Nigeria, one came back and one has stayed for twenty years.  She is a font of information, a gragarious person you can't help but fall in love with. She and her daughter spent the afternoon and evening with us, driving us through the Italian parts of the city and showing us the main sites, and well as fulling us full of information.

So the next two photos are of us with her and her daughter Favel at a great coffee shop. You can see the types of roasts they offer. Coffee was great and we learned that they put a parsley-like herb in it to enhance the taste. Good. Then you see the barrista with the lion of Judah, Ethiopia's pride, on the wall.

Nest is a photo of the first Ethiopian hotel, built around the turn of the century, I believe. Then a photo of Emperor Menelik II, a national hero who reigned in the later part of the 19th century and was responsible for defeating the Italians at the Battle of Adowa, a very important part of their history. That happened in 1898. 

Next you see photos of a mosque and then of Holy Trinity Orthodox Church, the cathedral of the Ethiopian Orthodox.  It is surrounded by a park and all through the park are people praying, prostrate, or on their hands and knees, or sitting by a pillar outside. Very devotional and pious.

The final photo is of beggars who surrounded our car as we returned to it from the coffee shop. We gave each of them a small amount of money. Two of the women had babies on their backs. So sad to experience.

Next post I am going to try to put in a short clip of the music from the church service yesterday. We went back to the same congregation as the week before because they had asked jim to come and preach. It was wonderful, so full of joy. By the end of the service, there were people singing their lungs out and coming up to the front and dancing, all to the beat of those wonderful drums.  So I hope the video will load!  We'll see.

Love from Jim and me! 

Barbecue

Hi to all,


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

Hi all!  The internet is working again today so I can send you some photos. My last two posts have been from an internet cafe, where I used a different computer, so I wasn't able to add photos.

Today I have photos from a wedding I crashed on Saturdya.  Yes, it isn't only in the movies that people crash wedding!  Actually, it was the reception, on the seminary campus, in a yard surrounded by hedges. But I was so curious to see what was happening that I tried to get in.  A student we know went and asked someone from the wedding if I could come in and take photos, and so I actually got permission.  The last photo in this row is of two Oromian women dressed in their traditional gowns for the wedding.  I asked to take their photos and they were very pleased!  They really did look beautiful, and I love that the best thing they can wear for a special occasion is their tribal dress.

You can see that a stage was built in the yard, with draperies hung to surround this platform where the bride a groom sat.  They had big chairs, almost like thrones, of white with white upholstery. In front of them is a framed photo of the bridal couple, and during the reception, all of the guests go up to greet the bride and groom and sign the photo with their good wishes.  There was a large buffet table with food for the wedding guest, and they lined up to partake.  Injera, wat and some deep-fat fried vegetables and perhaps fish were served.  One of the photos is of a group of older women sitting eating. They too are wearing traditional garb and look so lovely.  There was a platform built out in the center of the reception area, with a very tall tiered cake. It actually looked like a bunch of little cream puffs piled on one another, tier after tier.  The bride and groom climbed up onto the platform and fed a piece to each other while everyone stood around and cheered.

After eating, the music started, very loud and piped in. I'd say world rock was the species. The dancing started and they were at it for several hours. I went home, so didn't take photos of that in the dark.

I see that I have now had more than 500 hits on this blog. I am overwhelmed, and so grateful that I am able to share our trip with you in this way.!  I am now going to post another one with photos from our weekend sightseeing.

Love to all, Carolyn

Carolyn in Ethiopia

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!

Museums etc

On with the adventures of yesterday!  The Red Terror Martyrs Museum, situated ironically on Moscow Square, a huge square right in the center of the city named after the Russians because they supported Ethiopia after Salassie fell, is right next to the Addis Ababa Museum. We went there next, climbing a big flight of stairs.  This Museum traces the history of the city, founded by the wife of Emperor Menelik in 1847. It is situated on the highest point in the city, and right in the center. The building was at one time the villa of a government minister. It is, by Ethiopians standards, a huge house, all built of wood, including wood floors.  Terribly in need of repairs, from the peeling paint to the dirty unfinished wood floors, to dust all over, you almost wondered whether it was worth going in. But inside there were costumes of the Emperor and his coterie from the late 1800s, as well as marvelous photos from that era of the way of life of the elite.  We saw a costume worn by the emperor which was lion hair and silver, with a big ruff around the neck and lots of wooly animal hair as a wig. Made to look scary and mighty, it seemed.  A photo showed the emperor wearing that costume, seated on a bench, with his feet resting on the head of a lion which had been made into a rug. The museum also had old crafts, like large baskets used as tables, and many stretched animal skins with pictures painted on them.

Then we went for lunch at Finfinie, a restaurant and hotel nearby which had been built and operated by the Italians in the 1930s. A wonderful buffet of Ethiopian food was set out in an open-air pavilion. It was a great place to sit in the warm shady midday and eat good food.

Had to go back to teach another English class that afternoon.  I should say, though, that if you thought Italian drivers were crazy, Ethiopians have even more bravado. We haven’t seen a single traffic light in this city of 3 million, though there are traffic circles and squares. In Moscow Square, cars drive diagonally across it in any direction, so there is no traffic flow in a single direction. Literally, cars are going every which way, and busses, and minibuses, even carts and wagons.  You would be a fool as a pedestrian to think that you can cross in a pedestrian zone with the cars stopping for you.  They may stop for cows or goats, but not for people! 

Today we awoke to the absence of electricity and the sound of a couple thousand young people coming here for the weekend for a conference. These are 20 to 30 year olds coming from all over Ethiopia. Tents are set up on campus, rented chairs are everywhere. We understand they are sleeping in the tents and in classrooms and in local homes. There are 2500 extra people here for Friday through Sunday.  I haven’t seen any port-a-potties, so I am really wondering how that aspect is being handled. I did not that the faculty bathrooms are locked today. As we walked the ¼ mile from our house to the office and classroom area, we met hundreds of young men, mostly, and some women, going to the direction, past our house, to the huge tent where the conference will take place. We’ll take a stroll down there later and see what is going on. Tonight we agreed to go to a fundraiser at a local hotel which is for additional support for this conference. I guess the money ran short.

Tomorrow our dear Belete is coming back to get us and continue our tour of Addis Ababa. That’ll be great.  Right now the campus internet server is down,  so we hope that doesn’t last for too long so I can post this, and photos, before too long! Love to all.