Our fabulous (?) vehicle that took us to the Maasai Mara national park.

Checking out a good view on the way.

The good view.

At about noon we stopped and were met by our guide, Sammy, our tracker, Albert and the lovely four wheel drive in which we were to enjoy our safari.  The part of the wild life reserve we were in was the Naboisho Conservancy.  You can find out more about this particular conservancy here: http://www.maasaimara.com/community-conservation/conservancies/naboisho-conservancy.  The nice thing about this conservancy is that they protect the reserve by limiting the number of people who can come to stay, and allow the guides to drive wherever they wish, even off the tracks.   I have heard that on some safaris they insist that the guides stick only to the marked tracks, which can make it hard to get close to the more elusive animals.  We were able to get very close to a number of animals we otherwise probably would not have seen at all.

The beginning of the Naboisho Conservancy.

We felt a little like we were in a scene from Out of Africa, and indeed a few weeks later, when we got together to watch the film, we realised that the scene where Denys takes Karen on safari was remarkably similar to our lovely experience!  We had a picnic lunch packed for us and ate it amongst the wilder beast and impalas, while dodging a little bit of rain.

Our fabulous safari vehicle!

At about mid-afternoon we arrived at our camp, the Encounter Mara camp.  You can check out their website here: http://encountermara.com/.  We were met at the beginning of an elephant dung track (an awesome form of mulch, by the way) by a group of Maasai men who escorted us through the bush to the tents.  There we were invited to sit and enjoy an ice cold glass of mango juice while the managers, a Kenyan/Spanish couple, explained how the camp worked.  The campsite is unfenced, which meant that the animals could wander through at will, and occasionally did!  To that end, we could walk around relatively freely during the day, but in the evenings we were escorted from our sleeping tent to the dining tent by our sprightly Maasai guard.  These lovely guards were also our housekeepers, and filled our showers with hot water, filled our hot water bottles and popped them into our turned-downed beds, brought us thermoses of hot water for washing in the morning, and zipped up our tents as we retired.  For the record, the tents had an en suite, so there was no need to leave the tents to go to the loo in the middle of the night!  The front of the tents had verandas with deck chairs and a day bed, which I managed to doze on very pleasantly on the second afternoon.

My tent. Not too shabby!

The view from my tent.

After settling into our tents, we reconvened in the lounge tent for a substantial afternoon tea before our late afternoon drive, which included a “sundowner” otherwise known as a gin and tonic (or other drink of choice) savoured as one watched the sun set over the African horizon.  And yes, it is very cool.  We returned from our drive in the early evening to shower (hot water was poured into a bucket above our tents by our lovely Maasai housekeepers) and then were escorted by them to dinner, which began with drinks around a camp fire then a three course meal in the dining tent.  We had originally planned to while the evening away by playing card games but were too tired and were in bed before 10pm.

The Bar! Sammy and Alfred prepare our "Sundowners".

We were woken at 5.30am, again by our lovely Maasia men to a light breakfast of fruit, cereal and tea and coffee.  It was weird at first to have these chaps waiting on us hand and foot… but eventually I think we could have got used it!  Then we were off on our dawn drive.  This continued until about 10am when we returned to “brunch”, an enormous meal that consisted of a buffet of hot foods, salad, juice and bacon and eggs.  So much food!  We had the afternoon free until 4pm and our late afternoon tea, so we chose to laze about at our tents.  Each had a lovely big canvas day bed which I stretched out on in the warm sun, and very nearly fell asleep.  I certainly had weird dreams involving an ex-boyfriend and a lion.  I won’t go into details, mainly because I can’t remember them, but I have an impression that I was on the side of the lion…

Breakfast at dawn, hoping the giraffe show up to say hello. (They never did...)

Dozing on the day bed on my tent's verandah. Loving the view.

We again enjoyed a late afternoon drive, a “sundowner” and continued into the early evening.  Then showers, dinner and bed, then dawn again the final morning.  We enjoyed one last safari drive, then spent the remainder of the morning at a Maasai village that allows visits.  We visited a woman’s home.  Interestingly the women take responsibility for building the houses.  They consist of a wooden frame on which the mud and manure walls are formed.  Inside are small rooms and natty little shelves and cupboards.  There is a small cooking stove, and the women make little lamps from a glass bottle, a piece of twisted fabric and some fuel.

Our welcome from the Maasai women. Jen S and I joined in the dancing!

A Maasai home.

The inside of the Maasai home. I loved the nifty little shelves and stove moulded into the mud walls.

After a final brunch we were driven out of the conservancy by our lovely guide and tracker and were met by our minivan and the return trip to Nairobi.  That evening we indulged in a curry (so good) and started considering our all-important shopping lists for our final day in Kenya.  We hit the souvenir shops early, buying small things for family and selves.  Then, somewhat more importantly, we hit Nakamutt!  On the top of our lists were cheese, bacon, butter, chips, Cadburys chocolate and nice shampoos!  The cold items were frozen for safe travel and the rest were stuffed wherever we could fit them in our cases.  In the late afternoon we drove through the traffic congestion to the airport and finally boarded our flights at about 10.30pm.  Back in Addis and home by 1.30am, we collapsed into bed.  Now if you actually want to know about what animals we saw, you will just have to wait until I write the next blog…

Our little group: Laura, me, Sammy (our guide), Jen S, Alfred (our lion-killing tracker), Tessa and Jen C.

Crowded into a Kenyan taxi with Laura, Tessa and Jen C.

So at 1.30am, the morning after most of us had been on retreat (me with Grade 7s, Tessa with Grade 9s and Laura with Grade 11s), we dragged ourselves out into the car park where Clare had valiantly agreed to drive us to the airport. I really don’t know why it is, but most of the flights in and out of Addis seem to be at “stupid o’clock” in the morning. Jen S was already in Nairobi, having gone a few days earlier for medical tests.

Divine iced tea, served with a little jug of sugar syrup.

We were in Nairobi by dawn and Jen S was awaiting us at her mission’s very nice guesthouse with bacon, eggs, croissants, orange juice, tea and coffee! So nice!  We decided to hit the town and I confess that our first stop was the Nakumatt supermarket at the Westgate shopping mall. What a sight to behold! The shops were so shiny and full of things to buy, and as for Nakumatt supermarket, I think I may have truly experienced culture shock! It never seemed to end… there was so much on the shelves… and there were chips and bacon and cheese and… Well, you get the idea! We shopped for snacks and breakfast food and scoped out all the things we planned to buy, freeze and take home to Ethiopia! We also indulged in such delicious iced tea, you know, the kind where they make it fresh and serve it with a little jug of sugar syrup to sweeten it! So nice…

We had a lovely lunch at a café called Le Rustique which was set in lovely gardens. Check out their website here: http://www.lerustique.co.ke/.  Having lived in Ethiopia, we were all a little bit obsessed with food which meant, of course, that we needed to photograph everything! Java House became a favourite spot for coffee and we took advantage of restaurants selling both seafood and Indian food. Just lovely! I’ve realised when looking through my photos, that I took almost none of Nairobi itself, and an awful lot of the food we ate…

My lovely lunch at Le Rustique: the antipasti platter. Delicious!

On the Sunday morning we went to the International Church to check it out. It seemed to consist mainly of Americans, although we met people from other countries. The church meets in the auditorium at Rosslyn Academy, which is a Christian international school. The academy has very beautiful grounds… we were almost jealous, but we do love our little campus in Addis!

My lovely seafood starter of crab.

However Tessa's meal was much more dramatic, and very tasty by all accounts!

Overall I do like Nairobi (mainly because of the supermarkets and food, I think) but it seemed so very different to Addis Ababa. You rarely see the poverty you know exists in Kenya; the slums are neatly tucked away far from the city centre, so you can pretend they don’t exist at all. I can’t make up my mind whether it is better to have slums and poverty in your face as it is in Addis Ababa, so you never forget it exists, or whether it is better to keep the city neat and tidy and perhaps safer… however despite their efforts, I think Nairobi is renowned for being quite unsafe, especially in the week we visited, a few days after Kenya declared war on Somalia!

A few weeks before the camp my Home Group were visited by Joan, a SIM missionary who has been working to set up the Langano Elementary School.  Her aim is for the school to eventually be able to be run by Ethiopian staff but it is not quite there yet.  The school has about 300 students who come in two shifts; they only have four classrooms!  Joan is the only ferenj (foreign) teacher; the others are Ethiopian and are hard-working given the huge class sizes and lack of resources.  Joan’s aim for the visit of the Grade 7 class was for the kids to assist in English language skills.  Ethiopian students are expected to complete their secondary schooling in English, which is not their first language, and many really struggle in high school (if they get there at all).  The more English support they can get the better.  Joan brought examples of some simple teaching resources, such as flash cards, and asked the students to make some resources to bring with them.  We spent the week before the retreat making cards, colouring them in and laminating them.  It was hard work, but the Grade 7s completely embraced the task and I was very proud of the resources they created.

The other parts of the retreat involved the students being involved in a Bible study and taking part in some team building activities.  We wanted the students to think about their strengths and weaknesses and how God can use them in spite of their weaknesses.  I had a lovely team of teachers supporting me: Cathy, who has been at Bingham for 9 years, and who thankfully knew the Langano area well (her husband is the SIM team leader for the area); Liz, who had been on the Grade 7 retreat last year, so could tell me a bit about what to expect; and Rae and Stafford, who are South Australians like me!  We were also accompanied by Dereje, one of the girl’s fathers, who happens to be a pilot for Ethiopian Airlines (some of the best trained pilots in the world; landing at Addis airport is tough, given its altitude!) and who was really helpful throughout the week.

On the morning of the retreat, we met at the school at 7am, with the aim of departing at 7.30am.  It was going to be a long drive and we wanted to be at Langano for lunch.  We sent Rae, Stafford and Dereje on the bus with the kids and Cathy, Liz and I drove a smaller van loaded up with everyone’s luggage.  It was my first time driving in the country and I thoroughly enjoyed it; it is mad, but not as mad as Addis!

The last 20 or so kilometres of the drive were the most challenging; a corrugated dirt road for about 15km, then 6km of an interesting two wheel track…  Let’s just say I was grateful for the off-road driving practice my parents gave me on our camping trips in the Flinders Ranges.  The pièce de résistance was the infamous “Container Bridge”.  Someone needed to build a bridge over the creek, and apparently had a large shipping container to spare, so voilà, the bridge was made.  The big bus wouldn’t fit through the container so the students were obliged to disembark and walk the last kilometre or so to the Sports Friends campsite.  I, on the other hand, was obliged to drive across said bridge…  I resisted the urge to close my eyes and just go for it; but there was a moment of careful preparation mentally and a deliberate lining up of the car just to make sure I got through without knocking off a side-view mirror or scraping off the paint work on one or both sides of the car.  Cathy admitted later that she had made sure I was driving because she hates driving through the container!  Bless her!

We were staying at the Sports Friends campsite, which includes dorms, a dining room and meeting hall.  All our meals were provided by local Ethiopian staff, but other than that we ran the camp ourselves.  The camp had showers and flushing toilets, although the showers were cold, and on the last morning, we ran out of water!  All part of life in Ethiopia!  I confess to braving the cold shower only once… mostly I was content to remain unwashed!  I did, however, tease my lovely Grade 7 boys for squealing like ickle bitty girls when they tackled the cold water!  We managed to fit all the boys into one dorm, and all the girls into another so we had them nicely contained.  We came up with the cunning idea of making the winner of the tidy dorm competition the gender who got to be served first at breakfast, and this worked wonders, particularly on the boys, who made effective use of their pre-dawn waking moments…

Joan met us after lunch and took us on a tour of the SIM compound at Langano.  She showed us the route to take to walk to the school, showed us around the classrooms, then walked us to the SIM clinic, which is very busy and does some amazing work.  From there we walked to the lakeside.  Langano is a huge lake and is popular because it is one of the few lakes in Ethiopia to be bilharzia-free and therefore safe to swim in… so long as you stay away from the hippos!  We didn’t see any, unfortunately!

We spent the whole of each morning from Tuesday to Thursday at the school.  Joan got the Grade 7s to work one on one or in small groups with a variety of students.  We began with the little kindergarten-aged students (well, loosely aged; the classes have to be arranged on the basis of skill more than age).  The students have little if any of their own equipment; one pencil or a piece of crayon, and an already-filled notebook that belonged to an older sibling is the best most can hope to possess.  The students were almost all Muslim, so our dress code for our visits to the school was below the knee skirts for the girls and long trousers for the boys (shorts are only worn by those who can’t afford the more respectable long trousers).  I had struggled before leaving Australia to find some practical below the knee skirts, but my brother, bless him, found an American company called Macabi that sells skirts especially designed for culturally sensitive travel.  I am now a huge fan; the massive pockets were so very useful for tucking away all sorts of goods and chattels.  However I have to say it was sobering to see the state of the Langano children’s clothes; most items would have been rejected by us for our rag bags.

I wasn’t sure how the students would cope with teaching English to the children.  While many are Ethiopian, the majority of their parents are wealthy, at least by Ethiopian standards, and while they are confronted by poverty on a daily basis on the streets of Addis, it doesn’t always touch them.  However I was so impressed by how they embraced the experience.  It was hard work, and the mornings were very long, but the moaning was kept to a minimum and they did their best to get involved.

Our afternoons and evenings were spent doing Bible study sessions, team building games and with free time.  One of the things I love about my class is their ability to entertain themselves.  Give them a football (the round version), a ping pong table and foosball table and they are happy for hours.  My class loves nothing more than to play a game of football all together, girls and boys included.  Virtually the whole class gets involved and they can quite happily play for the better part of an hour and a half.  Swimming in the lake was an option, but I think most decided the water was too cold.  The other thing that was fun was spotting the baboons and black and white colobus monkeys who live in the trees on the compound.  Such funny creatures to watch!

We returned home on Friday morning, stopping at Sabana Resort for an early (really early; it was barely 10.30am!) lunch!  The students desperately wanted to eat western style food so this was our best bet!  I ordered hot chips, ice cream and a coke… bliss!  Three of the main food groups right there.  We all enjoyed our treat, then hit the road for the long drive home!  We got back at 4pm, and as soon as I had unpacked the van and seen the students off, I raced home to get my washing into the machine, hit the shower, and start packing for Kenya!  Departure for the airport was at 1.3oam the next morning… yikes!

Just a quick word about the Sports Friends ministry.  While I haven’t had the opportunity to see this project in action, I thought some of you might be interested in the work done here.  Their website says this about their ministry:

Sports Friends seeks to empower and equip churches and church planters to use the platform of sports to impact their communities with the love of God. In the countries where we work, children, youth and young adults are everywhere – filling the sports stadiums, playing sports in the city streets and rural fields, and hanging out around the ping pong and foosball tables. They are passionate about sports! We want to tap into that passion to introduce these young people and their family members to Jesus Christ. Sport serves as a magnet, a bridge from the church to the community, a common language by which to build lasting relationships.

There is something extremely powerful about the relationship between a coach and players. The impact of a coach who shows love and attention to young people is tremendous. Sport provides a great environment for a coach to discuss with his players important character issues and life lessons about self control, respect for authority, honesty, teamwork and commitment. These discussions naturally transition to the truths of the Bible. Sports Friends teaches coaches how to be positive life influencers, to identify teachable moments, to catch the good in youth, to love and encourage, to incorporate Biblical teaching, to introduce youth to Jesus Christ, and to disciple them into greater Biblical maturity – effectively Transforming Lives and Strengthening Communities.

Camp Langano – Sports Friends, in partnership with the Ethiopian Kale Heywot Church, is developing the first Christian residential youth camp in Ethiopia, a country with over 75 million people! This camping ministry will be an integral part of the ongoing sports ministry programs of the local churches of Ethiopia. Youth will come to camp with their sports ministry leaders and will return home after camp with their leaders, providing a continuum of effective relational ministry. The camp is … on a beautiful 95 acre property on Lake Langano which has been owned by SIM and the Ethiopian Kale Heywot Church for several decades.

See the Sports Friends website for more information on how you could support this ministry: http://sports-friends.org/

If you are keen to support the Langano school, you can find out more about this SIM project here:  http://www.sim.org/index.php/project/92753.  They need further support because they need to expand their buildings and are looking at having to replace all their textbooks to be in line with government policy.  If you would like to contribute in a more “hands on” way, please contact me.  I have a bit more of an idea of the kinds of resources Joan could use there now.  One helpful idea is putting together stationary packs in cloth bags with drawstrings for the students to have.

You can find out more about the SIM clinic here: http://www.sim.org/index.php/project/92020.  The SIM website states:

The Langano Health Program in Ethiopia officially provides low cost medical care to more than 10,000 people in the Lake Langano area. The program consists of traditional curative health care and laboratory services, as well as preventive health measures. Preventative services include vaccinations, mother/child health care, family planning, providing local clean water sources, building latrines and other community health programs. Because the Langano area is drought-prone, a nutrition program is in place to screen children under five for signs of malnutrition. SIM works with these needy children and their families to bring them back to health by providing high protein supplements.

I’m not sure the staff who work here ever feel their job is done; there are always more patients to see!  Its such important work, and again, I encourage you to consider supporting this project.

Babogaya

I have to admit that my first thought was “Really?  More orientation?”  It’s not that I thought I knew everything about Ethiopia or being a missionary; frankly, I never will!  It’s just that I had already done so much preliminary orientation, and I just wanted to get on with it and learn on the job!  It turned out to be a very helpful weekend, partly because of the sessions, and partly because of the restoring qualities of fresh air and lovely scenery!

The lake.

We had sessions on living and thriving in Ethiopia, accountability and mentoring, cultural do’s and don’ts and the SIM Ethiopia Director, Steve Bryan explained where SIM is currently working in Ethiopia.  I think I probably found this the most interesting; there are some really interesting projects going on all over the place!

The SIM Compound.

Saturday afternoon was free time, and we had the opportunity to swim in the lake (despite the warmth of the day, it was still too chilly for this little black duck!) or to paddle on it in either a little tin rowing boat or a canoe.  Two other new Bingham teachers, Jess, Tessa and I chose to drift aimlessly on the lake for an hour or so, then we collected Jill, a new nurse at the Langano clinic, from the shore and paddled to a nearby hotel to drink tea and coffee in their alfresco restaurant!  I have to say it is the first time I have docked at a restaurant and dined bare-footed!

Boating on the lake. How serene.

The other lovely thing about the orientation was the opportunity to get to know some of the SIM-ers who were working in other projects, many down country.  Normally it would be hard to get to know them, but it was great to be able to chat.  All in all it was a very pleasant way to spend the weekend.

Coffee ceremony on the last day of the SIM orientation.

Of course, I can’t imagine how missionaries coped when there was not even the possibility of an internet connection!

Anyway, I hope to have this backlog of entries up soon!

PS  Just as I clicked “publish” on this post, the connection dropped out again… twice.  *sigh*

The school day begins for staff at 7.45am with a devotion and prayer time. Each week the devotion is led by a different staff member; each one is rostered on for one week in the year; and it finishes with a prayer time during which we pray for each student in the school, three at a time, as well as for other concerns.  At the moment we are praying for the KG1 students; the little 4 year old kindergarten children.  It’s a lovely calm way to start the school day and I think I will miss it when I return to my state school in South Australia next year.  Sure beats listening to people complain about things during morning meeting!

The “warning” bell goes at 8.15am and all my Grade 7s are in our homeroom by the time the second bell rings at 8.20am.  Our “bell” is actually a short clip of recorded music.  It changes each week, and is chosen by Rupert, the Economics/Geography/Business Studies teacher.  In the first week of school it was “Jump” by Van Halen.  I can’t remember what it was in Week 2, but last week it was something by Hot Chip.  We’ll have to wait and see what it will be this week coming!  (PS I just heard what I think might be this week’s selection: “Sweet Child of Mine” by Guns n’ Roses… Oh, boy…)

We have 6 periods each day, each of an hour long.  The first period for all the Middle School and High (think “Senior”) School students is Bible, which is taken by the Homeroom teacher.  We teach this 4 out of the 5 lessons each week; the 5^th lesson is chapel, sometimes combined, but generally just the Middle School or High School together.  The Elementary School also have chapel once a week.  Before we start the Bible session we do the normal things a homeroom teacher would do: take the roll, check on absentees, give any notices and check on the students’ behaviour and academic progress.  My lovely Grade 7s love to be helpful, so I set up a duty roster: changing the date; collecting and returning the register; reading the daily notices; handing out any forms; and cleaning the board; and they are just so willing to do their job, even without being asked.  In fact I think most get upset if they can’t do their job properly for some reason!

The new thing for me is teaching Bible.  Each year level has a set curriculum, and all students have weekly Bible verses they must memorise.  I am starting with a quick look at the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6: 9-13). When that is done, we will do an Old Testament overview, then we will use the book How to Read the Bible for all its Worth by Gordon D Fee and Douglas Stuart, which focuses on the different forms of literature in the Bible (Epistles, Psalms, Old Testament Narratives, Parables, etc) and shows the students how to interpret the Bible in a really common sense way.  Preparing it is going to be lots of hard work, but I am looking forward to it.  The really new thing for me is that there is a different type of accountability to just doing a Bible study with the youth.  I actually have to assess them and give them a grade!

The rest of my day involves supporting a range of students from Grade 3 to Grade 12 with their literacy.  Almost all of them are ESL students of varying ability.  I am part of a team of three people.  Jolene is a trained Special Education teacher in the elementary school and is overseeing the learning support team.  Emily is an elementary school teacher and a reading specialist. My focus is generally the middle and high school students. A typical day might involve running a small spelling group in Grades 7, 8 or 10 (the students can drop a grade band because of their poor spelling in the Cambridge IGCSE exams so getting this under control is important).  I go into Grade 6 and 9 English classes to give support to small groups of students who are struggling with English or who have processing issues.  I also work one on one with several students.  Alex is a Grade 10 Norwegian student who needs a bit of help with writing his English assignments, so twice a week we talk through his latest piece; he is currently studying Much Ado About Nothing which is fun!  Jun is a Grade 12 South Korean boy who has just arrived and is studying in English for the first time.  I am helping him to preview or review his material mainly in History, but probably in other subjects too, so am busy reading all about the causes of World War I at the moment!  I am going to try and get some material on English for academic purposes for him too; he wants to continue to study in English at university, so he has a lot of work to do to get his formal English up to scratch.  Josian and Leonard are very bright German boys in Grades 6 and 8 who just need a bit of help with new vocab and writing, so we are previewing lesson material and I am helping them with their writing especially in English.  Finally there are two South Korean boys in Grade 4 and a Finnish boy in Grade 3 who need a bit of help with reading.  Bless their hearts, they can talk okay, in fact they could talk the hind leg off a donkey!

The ESL stuff is hard work, mainly because at the moment I am still trying to work out where each of these boys is at and how I can help them!  The MEd (TESOL) is finally getting a workout!  I have plenty of communicative resources for teaching them, but generally their conversational English is quite good.  What they need help with is the formal writing, with correct grammar… you know, the hard stuff!

Morning recess is 25 minutes long and we have morning tea provided for us every day, ranging from cake to biscuits, pancakes, crackers and salsa and cinnamon buns, all freshly made!  It’s such a lovely treat to have each day!  Lunch is 40 minutes long.  This week school lunches started, which we have to order a week or so in advance.  There is a different meal each day, including chilli and cornbread, pasta bake, tuna melts, injera b’wat and soup.  It’s nice not to have to think about what to prepare for lunch each day, so I am taking full advantage of the school lunches!

The day finishes at 3.25pm, so it is quite a long day.  We have only one meeting a week, a staff meeting on Wednesday nights.  This begins as a combined meeting, then breaks in to Elementary School and combined Middle and High School meetings.

All in all, while I am busy, and I am sure eventually would miss the responsibility I have at Clare HS, I am enjoying the break and change of scene!  And I am certainly going to learn a lot about teaching ESL from just a semester here!

On our way to Embet's Place.

Our walk was a pleasant one, but it reminded me that Kolfe, the part of the city in which we live, is very poor.  There are ramshackle slum dwellings just a couple of hundred metres up the road; my Year 12 Studies of Societies class from last year would recognise the type of dwelling from our Slum Survivor simulation camp last year (See TEAR Australia’s website for more information:  http://www.tear.org.au/education/slum-survivor/).  The difference was, of course, that we could chicken out and sleep in Quicky, the high school groundsman’s shed when it got too wet that night; these people have no such choice in this wet and muddy rainy season!   We passed many shops and a large vegetable market.

Shops along the way.

A fruit and vegetable market.

Embet had everything prepared for our arrival.  The little stove on the right of the photo below what filled with hot coals and she began to roast the raw coffee beans.  It was a slow and methodical process that was very relaxing!  In the meantime she served us freshly popped corn which is usually served with traditional Ethiopian coffee.

Embet roasts the coffee beans over hot coals.

Once the beans were roasted, they needed to be ground up by hand, in Embet’s mortar and pestle which she had inherited from her grandmother.  We all had a go at grinding the coffee, but none of us were as efficient as Embet!

Tessa grinding the coffee.

The ground coffee is placed in the traditional coffee pot with fresh hot water, and then allowed to brew over the hot coals.

Placing the ground coffee and water in the coffee pot.

What results is a lovely strong, black brew of coffee, which is served in tiny cups.

Embet pours the coffee into tiny cups.

I generally avoid coffee; as a rule it makes me quite ill with an unpleasant case of nausea and a headache.  Apparently Ethiopian coffee has no such effect!  Yes, it is very strong, and I confess I added a generous helping of sugar, but I really quite enjoyed it!  I’m not saying I will be suddenly drinking lattes from the Bakehouse in Clare, but if there is freshly-made Ethiopian coffee to be had, I will indulge, I think!

O., M., Christina and Tessa savour their coffee.

After several hours of talking with Embet and her teenage and adult children, we made our way back to Bingham for a late lunch!  It was a wonderful way to have spent a morning!

Taking our leave from Embet's house.

The novel brought tears in a couple of places; I’m guessing the same thing happens in the movie, so I won’t reveal any spoilers.  However the people I know who have seen it have really enjoyed it!  There is a trailer for the film here: http://www.reddogmovie.com/.  There is a lovely article from the Sydney Morning Herald about the making of the film here: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tall-tails-20110729-1i3nz.html.

If you’ve seen the film or read the novel, feel free to post a comment, giving your opinion!

My Amazing Team!

Above is my amazing team: Meseret, the Ethiopian wife of Jari, who is second from the right and is one of our new music teachers, from Finland.  In between them is Brett, the husband of Kathy, the new Year 2 teacher.  Brett and Kathy are Australian, from New South Wales.  Brett is a pastor, and here is the Grade 9 Homeroom teacher, is overseeing the Middle and High School chapels, and is playing househusband, enjoying a much-deserved break.  On the right is Jason, who is American and a new lecturer at the Evangelical Theological College (ETC).  His wife, Emily is part of our little learning support team and is an elementary school reading specialist.

An Addis Taxi.

We were all driven to Bole, near the airport and pretty much on the opposite side of the city from Kolfe, where Bingham is located.  We were given our first clue and were expected to catch the Addis taxis to complete the challenge.  Taxis are actually blue and white minivans.  A small taxi as we would know it is actually called a “Contract” and is much more expensive than sharing one of these taxis with a group of others.  The young man in the door way calls out the destination of the taxi and takes your money when you get on.  When the door is shut, he leans out the window to keep calling to potential passengers.

Local lads cleaning shoes.

One of the tasks we needed to complete while on our way to various locations was to collect or photograph various items.  The first one was to photograph at least three “typical” Ethiopian sights.  These are some of my choices!  Above, you can see young boys cleaning shoes, a frequent sight throughout the city.  Below is a typical road-side shop selling various small items and a fruit and vegetable stall.  There are several veggie stalls just outside the gates of the school where we can pop to get avocadoes, bananas (waaaaay cheaper than the jewel-encrusted ones we have had to buy in Australia this year, post-Queensland cyclone!), onions, potatoes and other things.

A local shop and fruit and vegetable stall.

Below you can see a fairly normal sight: scaffolding on a new building, Ethiopian style.  Yes, that is wooden scaffolding!  It looks rickety, but I suppose it is sturdy enough…

Scaffolding, Ethiopian-style.

Part of the fun of travelling around Addis is the truly entertaining things one can see on the road.  A heavily-overloaded ute is a normal sight now.  This week I have noticed live sheep with their hooves tied together lying placidly on the roof of a taxi and a dozen dead chickens hanging from the roof of a van.

A ute loaded up Ethiopian-style.

Another of our challenges was to have our photo taken while playing Foosball.  It is easy to find a group of lads around a foosball table.  This group (below) were beside one of the city’s stadiums.  They let us play briefly while I took the official team photo.  Then one of the boys insisted on dragging me into the game and very kindly placed the ball at the feet of one of my “players” so I could actually hit it!

Playing foosball with local lads.

We had to dress up one of our team members in traditional Ethiopian clothing: Brett was our “willing” mannequin.  Not exactly a traditional outfit, but close…

Brett in traditional clothing... sort of!

We had to find someone selling “Ethiopian toothbrushes” which are pieces of soft wood, the ends of which can be softened so you can clean your teeth with them.  We found someone on the street selling them and bought one.  Below, Jason is demonstrating how they are used!  The man we bought it from is on the right.

Jason brushing his teeth with a local toothbrush.

We had to buy a postcard and post it.  We found someone selling them on the street, bought one, then I wrote on it, and we went to the nearby postoffice to buy a stamp so we could actually post it.  I sent it to Mum and Dad and a couple of weeks later it arrived!

Buying a postcard.

Addressing the postcard to my parents.

Posting the postcard. For the record, it made it to Australia!

Of course, in amongst all of these little tasks, we were also supposed to be following the clues to get ourselves to various destinations.  Our first clue was to go either to “Lime Tree” or to a certain cinema.  We accidently went to the wrong cinema and kind of got a bit side-tracked!  Luckily the Ethiopian Amharic teachers were secretly tracking each team and they contacted the teachers organising the race to let them know we had gone off track!  We got a phone call from Dave telling us we were “lost” and we needed to make our way to the SIM headquarters for our next clue!

Collecting the mail from the SIM mail room.

While we were at SIM HQ we had to take our photo in the mail room.  This is us posing suitably!  When mail is sent to me, this is where it arrives.  We need someone to collect our mail every week and bring it back to Bingham.  After that we took a taxi to the Norwegian Lutheran Mission, or NLM, where some of the Bingham staff are living.  From there, we were completely out of time, so we were instructed to get ourselves to the Sheraton, which we did via contract rather than taxi since we were so short of time.

Jari scores the groovy hat of one of the Sheraton's fine employees.

The Sheraton hotel is a whole other world!  It is precisely how you would expect a high-end hotel to be: marble floors, quiet inoffensive music playing, vast swimming pool and extensive gardens, and nice clean toilets with the best smelling handsoap ever!  Our first task was to take a photo of one of the staff members with the groovy little hats.  We were supposed to take a photo with one of us wearing the hat, but were then told by the staff members who gave us the clue that they probably wouldn’t agree to this.  We, however, succeeded!  Jari is wearing the groovy hat!

Being "British" at the Sheraton.

Then we had to go out into the gardens and find the red phone booth near the Gnome Garden (which was a little creepy…).  Once there, we had to take a photograph of ourselves doing something “British”.  This is us lining up, British-style!

Having missed the first clue, we never really caught up, and sadly came last in the race.  We did, however, have a jolly good time, so it really didn’t matter!

I only brought two books with me… no, make that three.  I forgot about my “handbag book” which is a thin novel that fits nicely into my handbag for those moments when I am stuck in a queue or waiting room.  My current handbag book is High Fidelity by Nick Hornby, but the rule is that I can ONLY read it when stuck in a queue or waiting room!

The other two books I brought with me are Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks and Bear Gryll’s autobiography.  The autobiography is in the luggage I sent unaccompanied, which has yet to arrive, and so I have been reading Caleb’s Crossing. I finished it a couple of weeks ago and just loved it.  It is the fictionalised account of the life of Caleb Cheeshahteaumauk, the first Wopanaak native American to graduate from Harvard university.  Caleb was from the island now known as Martha’s Vineyard.  Most of Brook’s characters and the plot is imagined, as there was very little information to be found about Caleb’s life and experiences.  I quite liked the protagonist and narrator, Bethia, who befriends Caleb, and generally sympathised with her frustration at her situation as a young woman denied a formal education.  The archaic language of the novel was generally not too much of a distraction; context usually sorted out any obscure words!

For those of you who teach English Studies in SA I think it would be an excellent novel to consider, focussing on the role of first person narrator, analysing the techniques used to explore the impact of a particular form of religion (in this case the Puritans) on an indigenous people group, or when considering the role of women in other eras and societies.  I don’t know what I would pair it with, although feel free to post a comment on this blog with suggestions!  I’ll find them handy when I teach the course next year (if I can wedge it away from Jos!).