My own niche

I have some time on my hands, especially while the students are taking tests (when I’m not supposed to be grading 300 exam papers in one weekend, I mean….), so I’ve been reading: books I brought with me, books from the high school’s library, and even a book a coworker lent me.

That last is The Sign and the Seal by Graham Hancock, a British writer who became interested in the Ark of the Covenant when he visited Axum shortly after watching Raiders of the Lost Ark.
( Read more... )

Anyway, I suppose it is possible that the Ark of the Covenant was removed to the Egyptian island of Elephantine (there was a Jewish temple there) during one of the more destructive kingships in Israel, and later taken into Ethiopia to Lake Tana and Axum. It would be hard to say that *couldn’t* have happened, and though there’s a lot of long journeys involved, there’s also evidence that *someone* did that travelling at some point – hence the Falashas. Now the question is whether or not I want to visit Axum while I’m here. It is the oldest civilization here in Ethiopia, has some neat obelisks…and is not far from the Eritrean border. That gives me serious pause, of course, though there haven’t been any problems there that I’m aware of in Axum itself. There’s no chance of actually seeing the Ark – they likely bring out a replica during Timkat, and it’s in a restricted area the rest of the year. I’m used to visiting relics that you can’t see or touch, though, so I don’t see why that would be a problem. Also, there is a Salesian community in Shire that I’d like to visit, so I could do both at once. My co-workers definitely think I should travel within Ethiopia while I’m here, and I tend to agree. Before I make any plans, though, I need to find out what the deal with my summer plans/work are. And I think Axum is not going to be first on my list.

I found another book by Graham Hancock here in the volunteer house called Lords of Poverty, and despite my hesitation to trust anything else this author has concocted, I figured it was worth checking out. So, I read it, but I'm not sure what my thoughts are on it yet. It's an expose of the Int'l Aid 'business' and well...economics was never my strong suit. And of course, criticisms of Westerners trying to 'help' hit a bit close to home for me!

So, what’s next on my reading list? Well, the students had model exams last week and midterm exams this week, so I have one more mind-numbingly boring day of watching them take tests left (and six behind me). Yesterday I picked up Neil Gaiman’sStardust from the library. I’d never read anything by him, though he’s come highly recommended, and it starts with the same poem from Howl’s Moving Castle. Today, I chose The Amityville Horror, though I’m not sure I really want to read that….

That, and winter is coming. Not really, of course! I have the first two books of ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ here, so I’m almost finished A Game of Thrones.

The people I work with had teacher training Friday, Saturday and Sunday. That sounds like an awful form of torture to me, but my name was not on the list, so I did not attend. In fact, I had a three day weekend (no school Friday!) so Marnie and I took a trip.

( ”TheLake” )

( ”Soddo” )

Ethiopia’s a big country, and the different parts of it are all quite distinct – dramatically different landscape. The different regions have their own peoples, languages and customs, so if I spend all my time in Addis, I miss out on a lot of that diversity. For instance, injera is a food of the north, so they have different staples in Soddo (some sort of yam/cassava stuff). And the traditional outfits are a lot more colorful there! So, all in all, a good trip.

And we brought the sun back with us! It’s been a beautiful, sunny week here!I don’t think it rained at all until Thursday afternoon. And I’ve been supervising students taking exams, oh joy. It’s so boring that reading a dictionary/medical dictionary is more interesting. Fri/Mon we have classes, luckily, but…next week is midterms so even *more* ‘invigilating’ to look forward to…

I only see my classes 6 more times each. So, basically that means I finish up the topic we’re on, show a movie, and then review for the final…which is in late June. The 9th grade have been reading The Secret Garden, so hopefully they’ll enjoy seeing the movie version of that. The 11th grade has been doing creative writing, so any movie that counts as ‘storytelling’ would work…I’m considering The Princess Bride (hey, the 12th grade enjoyed it…) or True Grit (though the language in that might be tricky.) Teresa shows movies to the kids every Sunday, so I know that action and horror go over well (surprisingly enough), and also that a lot of the kids here like romance, comedies, and kids’ movies. I’d like to try out The Dark Crystal on a class here. Maybe next year! New releases are easy to get here; it’s the older movies that they have no exposure to.

*I don’t want to alarm anyone by the reference to malaria meds. I’m taking them as a preventative to avoid getting malaria; I don’t have it! There is no malaria in Addis Ababa (high elevation for the win!), so it’s helpful to take extra precautions when I travel south (like sleeping under a mosquito net). The only side effect to the meds is to make me more of a vampire than usual (sun sensitivity).

Ethiopians may be okay with passively sitting in church most of the time (I don’t know), but they certainly have the (Western) Catholics beat on the up-and-down action on Good Friday.
I feel like I should have dressed for the gym, but of course dress code for church is more: long flowy skirt, nice top, and headscarf wrapped around your shoulders. So, that’s what I wore, and the kids told me it was all very pretty.

So, here’s the workout routine. Kick off your shoes. Touch your shoulders (like you’re playing ‘head, shoulders, knees and toes’). Now, cross your arms to touch the opposite shoulders. Then, kneel, and touch your head to the floor. Hop up.

Simple, right?

Now, repeat about 50 million times.

Suddenly, it’s not so simple.

In the morning, I went with the kids to the Orthodox church across the street. Orthodox churches are really compounds; a lot of people stay outside and don’t go in, but are still quite devoted. So, there were a lot of people setting up picnic blankets and performing the above routine as often or seldom as they liked.

I went into the church for a few minutes with the kids, but we came back out pretty quickly. Mostly, I just sat on a log with kids in my lap and hanging on me. They were pretty well behaved, considering.

About 12:30, Marnie and I went to the Catholic church in our compound. There was some sitting and listening to readings, but when everyone adjusted their netellas (headscarfs) and stood up, we knew it was go-time. And, after doing the oblations for awhile, I was seeing stars. But I thought that sitting for awhile would be fine. Nope, the second time around, we were doing doubles (as soon as you straighten up, you do another one), and I was definitely winded after doing that for awhile! So, I sat out most of the rest of them, though Marnie kept right at it with no cheating. We left the church at 3 PM,

…and then I went and passed out for an hour.

How the Orthodox do 50 days of fasting and then do this *all day* (9 AM to 3 PM is the Good Friday church service) is beyond me. There were women older than me doing this…all day. I think that, traditionally, you’re supposed to do 1,000 reps.

Go Ethiopia! But I don’t think my legs can stand that. My calves have lost all their definition after quitting kendo (not surprisingly), but it’s the thighs that take a beating on this one. Maybe I should do something about it. Fasting is good for making there be…less of me…but I’d like to be a bit in shape too.

Speaking of fasting, I must say that fasting all through Lent made it much easier to do my traditional Good Friday fast. Usually I cave in and eat something after church in the evening. But this time I was helped by reading the beginning of The Two Towers during dinner time. I know, I know, not exactly spiritual reading, but it’s all about endurance and doing difficult things because you must, so…it was helpful! (That, and nothing can distract me from food like that story!)

Lest anyone is concerned, my clothes still all fit. So, yes, I’ve lost a little weight, and am slightly less ‘padded’ than I was, but nothing drastic. I am amused that ‘dieting’ on essentially bread would have that effect – I’ve eaten more bread in the past month than I have in the past year, I think! Of course, reintroducing chocolate into my diet will likely reverse the effects of all those weeks of fasting quite quickly!

It’s no secret that I’m not a huge fan of shopping for clothing. Shoes, yes; clothing, no.I’ll go to the mall once a year, either for Christmas shopping or back-to-school. The only items of clothing I bought for my trip to Ethiopia were a cotton dress I got for $5 on Main St. in E. C., a Ravens t-shirt from Walmart and a grey shirt I got at a thrift store in Port Chester to wear with my Curufin costume. So, when I feel I need to add to my wardrobe (read: I haven’t done laundry for awhile…), I tend to go to the local Value Village/ Goodwill/ Salvation Army shop and pick up a few items. [I even know which day the clothes are discounted…] I’ve gotten some nice things there, and of course…always for dirt cheap. I packed up several bags of clothes for goodwill when I moved the last time [and left them for my roommate to deal with, whoops], so I guess that counts as sharing the wealth.
Anyway, shopping in Ethiopia is a rather different experience. You don’t go to the supermarket and pick up your groceries…you go to the bakery for bread, the egg-and-milk shop for dairy, the fruit-and-vegetable stand for fresh produce, and the little stores for random packaged goods (and I do mean *random*). These are all within easy walking distance (just down the block), so making trips when you need things is normal enough. [The internet café is next to the bakery.]

So I hadn’t even thought about the equivalent of thrift store shopping. I mean, there are places that sell clothes here, but a skirt costs maybe 300 birr ($18), so I’ve done more window shopping than buying. [Not that there are windows, but you get the idea.] Until…my first solo adventure into Addis.

Going into town is easy; you just hop on a minibus headed to Mexico. [There’s a square called Mexico.] Each trip costs 2-3 birr (<$.20). From there, you catch a minibus to where you actually want to go. In my case…the Post Office.

I’ve never paid my taxes online. I learned how to fill out tax forms when I started working as a teenager, and disrupting the process would mean learning a new way of doing it. Since I perpetually screw them up (minorly, I hasten to add), using phones or computers to file has always just seemed like a bad idea. And, well, they seem so eager to have me do it online that I have an extra incentive to stay a luddite. So, April 15th (or the 16th, if the 15th is a Sunday) has generally found me driving to the post office late in the evening to make sure my envelope was stamped with the correct date.

So, this year was no different, except that I actually had to make an effort to gather my tax information in January (not lose it like I tend to and then make some panicked phone calls come April). I printed the forms out and brought them with me, and had my Mom forward information that wasn’t available yet when I left. But by the time I actually sat down to fill them out, it was already a week till the tax deadline. So, while generally I just leave mail in the community here, and they thoughtfully take it to the post office and pay the postage for me, I thought that this might be a case where it was worth it to take it myself to make sure it was in the mail on time.

And so, on Thursday April the 12th, I mustered up my courage to go into town all by myself. I’ve gone multiple times with other volunteers, and I don’t think I was seriously worried that I would get lost. But, with me, you never know. I had the day off work (Holy Thursday here), and no hurry, so it was a nice chance to go exploring.

Enter…street vendors. They set up a tarp on the sidewalk, and display their (highly random) wears. And they call out to you when you walk by, drawing attention to what they have. It’s really the easiest way to shop; you expend almost no effort. You don’t have to walk into a store or look through a large selection of things. Still, I mostly ignore them, because no, I’m not interested in the random junk they have for sale. (And would anyone really buy a bra on the street like that? I can’t imagine the underwear vendors do good business.)

So, I made it back to Mexico, and wandered down a side street in search of a juice bar. (The smoothies here are fairly awesome). I didn’t find it, but did run into the Sudanese embassy and some kids who thought it was hilarious to say “Hi!” to me. Anyway, on the way back, there were people setting up shop on the sidewalk, and I ignored them, as per usual. But then I walked by a guy who pulled a shirt out of his plastic bag and showed it to me. It was so random; I couldn’t even see the rest of what he had for sale, and the shirt he handed me was *exactly* the type of thing I’d buy at a thrift store in America. And…it seemed to be my size. So, I asked him the price, and he told me 50 birr ($3). It was like a thrift store where someone picks out the item for you! So, I bought it. I don’t give money to beggars, but I figure if I buy something here, I’m putting money into the local economy. Sure, 50 birr was probably too much and I should have haggled, but…I’m not going to miss the $3. [Also hard to ask for the price to come down when you are paying…with a 50 birr note.]

That probably won’t happen again, and I don’t intend to add much to my wardrobe while I’m here (if anything, I intend to leave most of my clothes behind to donate), but it was just too funny. I haven’t told the volunteers yet; I think I’ll just wear the shirt out one evening (after I wash it) and see what they say.

It rained Friday! First time I’ve really seen rainy weather since I left the states. It did rain (briefly) the first week I was here, but it looked threatening all day and finally rained in the evening, maybe for three or four hours. Chances are, we will have some other rainy days this week. Which is cool…but a bit frustrating, since the Austrians and Marnie all have family coming during their spring breaks. I mean, we’ve had perfect sunny weather for two months straight, and as soon as people are here to go explore the country and see things…it looks like it’s going to threaten to be rainy. Ah well. Hopefully, it will be dry in the Simien Mountains, and a little rain in the evening shouldn’t spoil things too much. It is a lot of fun to meet people’s families, though.

A taste of the rainy season might be good for me. I was under the impression that the weather never changed here, but it has been warmer at night recently. So maybe it’s getting to be spring-like after all. And, well…dragging the dust out of the air is the one good thing the rain will do. Unfortunately, it is also likely to multiply the fleas, and I don’t know what can be done about that.

( ”Fleas” )

In more pleasant news, I am showing The Princess Bride to the 12th grade. So far, they seem to like it. I had to think about what in my movie collection fit the description of – comedy, romantic, action, and not rated R (since most of them told me they prefer comedy/romantic movies). It seemed to fit the bill. Figuring out how to use the AV room was a bit trickier. Asking for permission merely resulted in, ‘Of course you can use it,’ which didn’t really answer any of my questions about keys or hooking things up. But it turns out that standing in the AV room in front of a TV looking clueless eventually leads to people coming in and helping, so now I can show movies (if people are around to help me find things).

The students laughed at the repeated ‘Inconceivable!’ so I know they’re following it, more or less. Of course, now all the other classes will be begging me to watch movies. It sorta defeats the purpose of having a native speaker for a teacher if I just let them watch movies (and that means they aren’t speaking), but at the same time, it’s good to hear English that’s not me, too…right? I think I’ll make them summarize the movie to the current point before showing them the rest of it. One problem is that the movie *completely* distracts me. I’m used to showing Planet Earth in class. I’m supposed to be interviewing students while the rest of the class watches the movie, so that might be tricky. Ah well, I’ll figure it out.

And soon, I'll loose my 12th grade classes as they get ready for the National Exam and 'extras' like Spoken English get dropped.

This Lent reminds me most of Lent ’04, probably because that was the only year I’ve tried a meatless Lent. I…went a bit overboard with the fasting, and likely that was because I lived on my own and cooked for myself, so it was no big deal if I skipped meals, etc. Also, we have green olives in our fridge right now, and that spring someone left a giant platter of pickles and green olives in the fridge at work, so I often munched on them after work (which I find myself doing again - see below). It was also the Lent two very influential movies came out – The Passion of the Christ was released on Ash Wednesday, but more significantly (to me), Return of the King came out that Christmas. The journey through Mordor is, of course, a rather intense image of fasting and pilgrimage…or, well, mission. So, anyway, I did a meatless Lent (except for Sundays), and fasted on bread and water on Fridays. I remember being really hungry a lot ;).

I re-watched LotR (including the EE of RotK) and re-read RotK this Lent, so I’m feeling in a rather sacrificial mood :).

This year, I’m in Ethiopia, so I’m following the local fasting traditions. It’s very simple; not a lot of rules at all. And, surprisingly, it’s not super difficult, though it certainly makes you mindful of food (and sleepy). I think I like it, though I’m not sure I would try this at home.

You are not supposed to eat (or drink) before 3 PM, which is the time the church service starts. So, ideally, each day you go to church and then can eat afterwards. As I am not Orthodox, I don’t do that part, but since the school day ends at 3:15, it’s very easy to say that I’ll eat after work. [Mass here is at 6 AM, so it’s more an issue of waking up for it [see above; sleepiness], not of fasting beforehand!] I drink water during the day, because I think not doing so would be a Bad Idea. I’ve fasted for 24 hours without drinking before, and I usually throw up the next morning. Since this is every day for 6 weeks…I’m not going to risk that. On weekends, you can eat after 8 or 9 AM, since services are earlier.

After 3, you may eat anything that is not an animal product. So, a strict vegan diet: no meat, fish, eggs, cheese, milk, yogurt, gelatin, butter, etc.

But what is allowed can be a bit crazy. You are, for instance, permitted to eat: honey, alcohol, candy that is pure sugar (no gelatin or chocolate), baking chocolate (no milk or butter), fruit, fresh vegetables, deep fried battered vegetables, French fries, salad, injera, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, coffee and tea with sugar (but not milk; though I was tempted to order a fasting macchiato just to see what it would be like), bruschetta, meatless chili, etc. I don’t think I’ve ever had a fast with so much sugar involved ;). I’m used to giving up things like candy and junk food, and certainly I know plenty of people who give up alcohol or coffee. So…it’s an odd fast!

On the taboo list would be: cakes, cookies, and most baked goods (though we’ve made vegan banana bread, carrot cake and Sprite cake so far); most kinds of wot that aren’t shiro, tegabino, or fasting firfir; pizza (unless it is cheeseless); noodles containing eggs; beef and chicken broth (this makes soups a bit trickier to make); jello, nutella, donuts, etc. And of course, burgers are right out. I think I miss cheese and eggs the most so far.

So, fasting food: Jack and Coke
Non-fasting food: biscuits made with butter

See why this can be so amusing? I had fruit cake after dinner last night.

Because this is a very common thing, most restaurants here have a fasting menu, and if you’re not sure, you just ask, ‘fasting alle?’ and they’ll tell you. Makes it very easy. It would be a lot harder in the US, where you’d have to ask about milk and butter, etc, to know what goes into something. Also, I’m living with people who are either doing this, or willing to eat vegan dinners, so…it’s easier to coordinate.

Friday afternoon Stations of the Cross were also a reason to go to the local church (it’s in the compound where I live, right next door to the volunteer house). They’re in Amharic, of course, so it was difficult to follow, though it helps that I know the stations. Certainly, the kneeling is taken more seriously, with people kneeling throughout the entire station, not just genuflecting at the ‘We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.’ And little old women wrapped in netellas (white gauzy shawls) following the cross make it seem more authentic. ;) I think we were singing the Stabat Mater between stations (at least the tune seemed familiar), but they certainly do Stations differently here, with a random litany of the saints thrown in about halfway through. Since I regularly get to attend English mass and morning prayer, it’s not like I’m complaining. It just would take some getting used to, and would be more meaningful to me if I could follow the prayers/readings.

Almsgiving is also supposed to be part of Lent, and that is something I have *not* figured out here. There are a lot of beggars, and I make a habit of ignoring them all. Street kids walking up to you and saying ‘money?’ are easy to brush off, but obviously there’s some grinding poverty here and I’m not really sure what I ought to be doing about it. At home, I’d give food, not money, and that when I was driving by. Here, I have to walk by people, and if I were to give to someone local…everyone would hear about it. Ferengis are, of course, easy touches, so beggars always single me out anyway. I don’t think giving out food here is really an option. There are plenty of good organizations working here, though, so I should probably make a donation to some of them. Or….I could have gone to the Irish Embassy’s Charity Ball for St. Patrick’s Day at the fanciest hotel in town ;). That would likely have been fun, but it would be a lot cheaper to just make a donation.

But the usual 'what should I give up for Lent?' question is mostly a moot point this year - I've mostly limited that stuff severely for the entire year ;). So, I can enjoy the internet as much as I want...for the hour or so a week I'm online ;).

Read that Tolstoy short story this week. Depressing until the last page, of course, and (unfortunately) apropos. I’ve already missed two funerals while I’ve been out of the country – my grandfather’s friend and the deacon from the church where I grew up. Both were elderly and had been sick for a long time, but still…I don’t like missing funerals. When I was local, I was typically the representative from my generation at family stuff like that.

But two people I’ve never met died this week. One was Abba ‘Sandro. He was an Italian Salesian who was rector of this community for three years (I think). He got cancer, though, and had to go home to Italy a couple of years ago. So, we were never in the same country at the same time. He was supposed to have another surgery that was delayed several times. He had it on Tuesday, finally…and died on Wednesday. He was 47. I’d heard about him and his illness before I even came to Ethiopia, and the community frequently got updates on him. So, I went to the memorial mass for him at Gotera on Thursday night. If you’re curious who comes to your funeral if you are a missionary priest who dies at home, the answer is…your brother priests, all the local sisters, and of course the foreigners. So, at the sign of peace I turned around and shook hands with a Missionary of Charity. We didn’t stay for the gathering afterward, because it was late and we came with the Italian family who had little kids.

[All the names here mean something; Gotera = grain silos. Debrezeit = halfway point of the fast. Sarbet = grass houses. No clue what Mekanissa means, though. Addis Abeba = New Flower]

Then, Thursday night, one of the mothers of the children in the project who had been very sick for two years died. Teresa has been working with the family for the past two years, and was called to the hospital by the children (older teenagers) when she died. It’s a real shame, because in the past couple of weeks, she’s been doing much better. Her medicine was working, her heart arrhythmia was under control, she was happy and doing things around the house…. And then she suddenly couldn’t breathe. :(

In other news, I’ve found an English radio station, so I got a selection of international news on Saturday. So, I know the weather in BahirDir and Gonder (as well as Venice and Copenhagen), that the pope made it to Mexico, and that Khofi Anan is visiting China…as well as that the African Union is going after what’s left of the Lord’s Resistance Army in South Sudan.

The tropics are timeless. There is little sense of a change of season; it doesn’t get warmer or colder, the days don’t get shorter or longer. Everything is more or less the same all the time. Granted, there is a rainy season, and I’m sure to notice that, but even so, it’s still not the significant transition or marking of time. There are growing seasons, after a fashion, so while mangos and oranges are both in season right now, guava isn’t. But…more or less, it’s difficult to remember what time of year it is, or even what year. Everything is always…the same.

So, it would be easy for St. Patrick’s day to escape as just another sunny day. But, nope, we weren’t about to let that happen! Marnie’s family is also very Irish (she studied abroad in Ireland), so we set out to make some St. Patrick’s Day plans.

First on the list was to check out the Irish embassy here in Addis to see if they were doing anything special. After all, we figured we could always gate-crash even if we’re not Irish citizens. Of course, they *do* have something every year, but unfortunately it’s kinda a big deal, so we can’t go. It’s an annual charity ball at the fanciest hotel in Addis (and…built by a Saudi prince means *quite* fancy), with a limit of 500 tickets sold for the price of 1000 birr per person [200 birr = $12, so that’s not as bad as it sounds] But, $60 for a night out on the town is quite ridiculous for a volunteer budget here. Not to mention, none of us have anything to wear. To remove temptation, all the tickets were sold out long before we found out about this. So, we’d have to have a bit more modest of a celebration.

We began on Friday night, with local beers with limes (here, lomi) for Anna and Marnie, and Jack Daniels and 7-up for me, and the not-too-unusual event of watching a movie in the volunteer house. And the movie in question was…The Boondock Saints, courtesy of my DVD collection (courtesy of my last trip to Walmart two days before I left the country). *grin* So, I enjoyed it! I’m not sure the Austrians could really hear the dialogue (well, apart from the ubiquitous f-word), but we had subtitles on, at least. And they insisted they recognized Norman Reedus, so I’m kinda curious what they’ve seen him in (I know he was in a German sci-fi film at one point). And I think I’m going to work a bit more on my fanfic on that; I haven’t done much writing since I’ve been here (or really at all in the past year), and I’d like to get back into that.

Saturday, I wore my green t-shirt and bandana (and Marnie wore her green sports bra under a grey t-shirt, since we belatedly realized she doesn’t have anything green to wear, oops). I decided to *finally* clean my room, so I opened the windows, swept the floor, and mopped. The place feels much cleaner and brighter. I can’t leave the windows open long, though, or the room will just get super dusty again. Smooth white tile is fairly easy to keep clean, at least! [For all my family members and former roommates despairing of what could possibly motivate me to clean, the answer is…copious bug bites.] After the community night dinner, it was off to the pub, a local(-ish) bar that tries hard to have a UK flavour. They were showing the Ireland-England rugby game, so we sat out on the porch and indulged in girl talk. We had Sarah, the 11-year-old daughter of the Italian volunteer family, with us, so there were some fun texts back and forth to her mother along the lines of ‘Don’t worry, we’re taking your car and your daughter to a bar, but everything will be okay.’ And of course it was. Jo and I got Baileys, which was of course very good…but also quite pricey. I should have at least asked about Jameson first, oops. The two drinks I had cost over 150 birr, so I felt a bit badly about that. I need to learn to drink something cheap and local, but tej is not as easy to come by as I’d think. And then back home, I put on Scythian and the Electrics on my laptop.

Sunday, I promised to make cabbage and potatoes for dinner. Cornbeef isn’t something I’d know how to come by, and besides half the volunteers are doing the Orthodox fast for Lent and wouldn’t be able to eat meat anyway. I wonder what berbere tastes like on cabbage? But I'm going out for dinner, so I'll maybe have to make that tomorrow night, oopsies...

So, all in all, a good celebration!

…he will always fear, I think.

The Yellow Face, it burns us, my Precious….

I didn’t skulk in the shade this week; Thursday, I actually found myself playing soccer in the blazing sun at noon. I wore sunscreen, of course, and long pants – though that was as much to protect from sunburn and dirt as because every student in the high school and primary were watching!

March 8th was International Women’s Day, and so the female teachers and staff at the two schools organized a friendly football match to celebrate. I was of course recruited (with good nature), and must admit to having been a *bit* intimidated by the idea of showing off my complete lack of running ability in front of a bunch of Ethiopians.
But the key was…women. So, no kids, no guys. Fitness is not exactly emphasized for adult women here. And so…while I felt like I was making a fool of myself, I received many compliments and was told I played well (but then, people here are so polite, they would have said so anyway). I ended up on the staff team, because they did not think it fair to have two ferenji on the teacher team. Personally, I would have stolen Marnie if it was a choice between me and her (she was a college athlete…last year), but oh well. I can’t remember the last time I kicked a soccer ball, but I haven’t played an organized game for a long time; with jerseys, not since my freshman year of high school ;). The teachers won, 2-to-0, and the students seemed to enjoy the game. I think I only kicked someone in the shin once.

I must say that playing soccer on dirt (mixed with some loose gravel) while wearing tennis shoes is *not* ideal. It was difficult not to slip near the sidelines. There was also no reffing to speak of; I totally had a hand ball that wasn’t called, and you could kick it out and claim possession if you wanted to. I had said I would be a defender, so I stuck to my half of the field…mostly. Watching the guys play Friday after school – with cleats, jerseys, and even the tall socks – made it clear that there’s a difference between their skill level and ours ;). Of course, they are all young men in their 20s, mostly in shape, and have clearly been playing soccer most of their lives.

But, I survived, it was a lot of fun, and I didn’t even get sunburned. (Well, I did on Saturday, because I was outside waiting for students at the Spelling Bee…more on that later). I certainly felt it walking up steps a few days later, but no side effects. It was an unusual way to celebrate Women’s History Month, though! The Italians were so cute about it, and Br. Donato gave icons to all the volunteers to celebrate.

I’ve never quite gotten the hang of cell phones. Here, they’re called ‘mobile’. And mine is currently in Ziway. It’s not entirely my fault, but exactly the sort of thing that happens to me.

( Trip )
Ah yes, but the cell phone…I noticed it wasn’t in my pocket in the car ride back from Ziway. And it’s not in the van. Soooo…it’s still in Ziway. It may have fallen out of my pocket, or perhaps a kid took it (though my money was in that pocket, and that came home with me, so that seems unlikely). So, we’ll see if it turns up there, but in the meantime, I am phoneless. Not that I used it very much anyway, but still annoying. It was serving as my watch ;). Though…the volunteer house has a landline, now, so I’m not *actually* phoneless. Chiggaryellum = no problem. :)

*Flea and lice update: So I didn’t let the kids braid my hair last week, but I *did* let them sit on my lap during the movie, and now I know why ‘flea-bitten’ is a word. My leg is just covered in flea bites. In theory, one can see fleas – they’re small black spots that jump. I’ve been looking at every bit of lint to see if it has legs or moves, but I’ll just keep washing all my bedding frequently in hot water and hope to stay a few steps ahead of the fleas and lice. And maybe clean my room, so there are fewer black dots to check ;).