Still Enjoying Home

Lest you think I've sunk into a warm cozy couch, or gotten lost in a mall somewhere, or am sitting in an eggnog latte induced coma somewhere... let me assure you, I am alive and well :)  What an amazing thing it is to have electricity all the time.  I sewed a skirt yesterday, and was able to finish the entire thing in one sitting, because I had electricity and clean surfaces on which to work.  It was a bit of an adventure in craftiness, as I have never sewn in a zipper or darts.  I'm also in the midst of knitting a dish cloth.  How domestic of me, eh?

Tomorrow, I shall be enjoying some snow in the great outdoors with my dad.  We're taking our snow shoes and heading for the hills for the day.  I hope I don't freeze, but I'm sure it will be lovely up there.

I've also been slowly but surely chipping away at all the work emails and stuff that I still have to do.  I'm afraid I'm about a week behind my little self-imposed "schedule" of what I wanted to get done... but, well, malesh, it will all get done eventually... I hope.

So, stay tuned tomorrow for some winter-wonderland photos.  That is, of course, if the world doesn't end tomorrow.  Did those Mayans just run out of clay, or were they on to something... only time will tell :)

Have I Told You Lately...

... How much I love home?  East or West, home is best.  Hot water comes out of the taps.  Traffic follows rules.  I can talk to anyone and everyone in any shop, gas station or cafe I go to.  I know what is going on *most* of the time.  It's really struck me coming home this time how much I like home, and how wonderful it is to be surrounded by *my* people, enjoying things that are familiar.  And not sweating through it all.  Sigh.  I'm in my honeymoon period of being at home, and really, really enjoying being at home, and really, really glad that I don't have to go back to Jbs yet.

Mmmm....

... Cheerios.  And that's all I have to say about that.  Because my battery is about to die, and I didn't bring my power cord into my office... er, I mean, my local Starbucks.  So I guess it's time to go home and plug in, before my midnight skype meeting into my normal office back "home". 

Maybe scheduling a meeting for 9am their time wasn't the wisest thing on the planet to do... hopefully I will be able to stay awake through the meeting :)  Good thing I've been fuelled by a bit of Starbucks...

Feeling my age...

... Plus about 20 years.  I think I'm getting old.  Not sure how that suddenly happened, but by the end of the day, I'm pretty wiped out.  This evening, I wandered over to my neighbour's house to borrow a DVD... and found all the "kids" (that is, all the newbies who are under the age of 30) gathered in the house, getting ready to make Christmas ornaments.  Once I turned up at the door, they kindly invited me to stay, so I stayed a few minutes and ate a brownie... but then, I left, because I'm so tired!  I do think it's partly because, well, I actually have a LOT of work to do each day.  So by the end of the day, and the end of the week, my brain and body are tired!

But it does alarm me a little, because I used to want to go out and play all the time!  I used to be the one who wanted to have people over to play games and watch DVDs and have fun with a grand group.  But now... phew, it just sounds like a lot of work to have people over.  I talk with folks all day during the day... and when the sun goes down and the day is done, all I want to do is wash my dishes, sit in my chair under my fan and drink a cup of tea.  If I'm like this at my age, seriously, what on earth am I going to be like in 10 years?!  Or in 20 years!?  It's a bit alarming to think about.

Perhaps the world will look a bit brighter once I've had a holiday at home, as my friend here would say, "In the bosom of my family."  Then I can curl up by the fire, eat a bowl of Cheerios, and enjoy my family and friends, and familiar things of home to restore my soul. 

Have a good weekend everyone.

It is Finished!

Yup, no more teacher training until January :)  Whoot Whoot!  Even though teacher training is one of my favourite parts of my job... I am also glad that this last workshop is over, because, well, it as a bit tiring!  I saw some great teaching happening, and the trainees learned a lot, which I actually think they might take back to their classrooms with them... but it will be good to have a week in the office to do all the other bits that have been piling up on my desk.  I shall try to get as much done as I can this coming week, because the following week, I'm already starting my trip HOME!  Yup, that's right, watch out, North America, I'm coming home!  Well, at least, for a month or so :)  More teacher training awaits me in January in Jbs! 

I just bought my ticket for the first leg of my trip.  And I'm really hoping that tomorrow, the paperwork and approvals from various offices will go through tomorrow so that my ticket for the big leg of the trip will be paid for and issued.  It's coming close to time to travel, but I'm still waiting for various folks to figure out who needs to approve it so that my organizational account can be charged.  When I start to think about it, I get a bit nervous... what if I lose my reservation because someone wasn't in the office, or the internet goes down... or... all sorts of horrible things could happen.  I'm sure it will all work out in the end, it's just that it's coming down to the wire here, and I don't have my ticket issued yet.  Yikes! 

But today is Sunday, a day to rest and relax.  And rest and relax I shall do.  I have already listened to a sermon from my home church - what a wondrous thing the Internet is.  And I have eaten a yummy oven puffed pancake.  And I have plans to wander to the corner restaurant to drink an avocado juice later on.  So, all in all, it's a good day so far.

Only not so perfect thing is that the generator is set to go off in about 2 minutes, and then I shall begin sweating once again.  It's really heating up these past few days.  At the moment, it's a balmy 33C in my living room with the fan going.  Once that fan stops... it might be time for a class of icey water and a nap...

Happy Sunday everyone!

Teacher Training

The training continues!  The participants are doing so well... it seems like all the things we've been trying to teach them for the past year or so are actually starting to stick into their minds, and they are starting to become habit!  It's so encouraging to see!

But it seems like this workshop has been slightly plagued by sickness :(  Several of the participants have been sick with various ailments.  Others have had to leave to attend funerals.  So we haven't really had much of a full house for many days.  It's going to make it hard for those participants to really catch up on what they've missed, as it's only an 8 day workshop... if you miss a whole day or two out of only 8, well, you've missed quite a bit :(  So here's hoping that tomorrow we are all back to full strength!  Even I was feeling rather poorly yesterday - but I had to teach a few hours.  It took a LOT of my energy to be "on" when all I wanted to do was curl up in bed while whatever it is that was in my stomach had a little dance party.  I won't give you all the gory details, but I ended up taking some medicine yesterday afternoon that seems to have shut down the party in my belly.  For that I'm very thankful!

Anyway, I have sent a bunch of handouts for tomorrow to the printer... so I best toddle off to the printer and get my ducks in a row for tomorrow!

Just wanted to let you know that all is well here...

A Wee Break

In the midst of all the worskshopping and keeping myself clothes in clean clothes and eating off clean plates, a girl has to have a bit of a break now and again.  So today, my neighbours dragged my tired little butt out of bed at 7am, and off we went to the "mountain" that sits to the West of town.  It's not a very big mountain - more like a giant pile of rocks, and the town has grown all around it.  Most of the foundations for all the new buildings in town have been built using rocks that have been smashed (usually by hand) off of this mountain.  I kid you not - there are probably a hundred people sitting around with basic tools (a hammer, a chisel...) literally breaking rocks by hand in the shadow of that mountain.  Today we even met several folks who have come from a neighbouring country in order to sit under the sun and bit by bit, piece by piece, chip away at the mountain to sell for building material.

Anyway, there is still plenty of rock to tromp around, so off we went.  By 7:30am I was already sweating, and I believe I have a dehydration induced headache this evening, but it was really nice to just get off my little compound and do something a bit different.  Nature always refreshes the soul, even if it was stupidly hot and humid and rather overgrown!

I don't have too many grand photos because... well... um, well, we never actually made it to the top of any of the pile of rocks!  We were going to go up the highest "peak", but we ended up not being able to find a path... and with thick grass that was about 7 feet tall (seriously, not an exaggeration!), we decided to abort the push to the summit of that one.  So we went back down to the "valley" and went up another side... but we were thwarted on that attempt, too, by some serious rocks.  So, we had a nice walk up and down half the mountains and through the valley.  My attempts at speaking the local language always come in handy in places like that, because there are a ton of people up there, and they never expect a foreigner to greet them in their own language.  So it was good fun to surprise them and to chat a bit about the place... in the local language :)  So fun!

But like I said, it was a sweaty, sweaty affair.  I think the humidity was around 85 - 90% today, with a temperature (according to the car thermometer) of 36C.  How's that for mountain climbing weather?!  I had sweat dripping off my elbow at one point.  Who knew your elbows could sweat?! 

I also got nicely marked up by the grass.  Somehow, I seem to be allergic to whatever grass we were walking through, and I came out of the grass forest with huge red itchy welts on my arms and legs!  They were pretty impressive - I wish I had remembered to take a picture of them.  But you can imagine the sight that we were when we finally got off the mountain and went for a Coke at one of the fancy lodges in town, which just happens to sit at the foot of the mountain.  We were a pretty sad sight - drenched in sweat, muddy, and me with my welts... to top it off, I had forgotten to bring my wallet with me, and my friends had also forgotten to bring money with them!  So between three of us, we dredged up about $3.50... just enough to buy two Cokes, which we shared between the three of us :)  Most people go there and spend rather a lot more than that - the lunch buffet there costs $18... but there we were, with our $3.50 - exactly enough for those two Cokes.  We even walked up the counter to order our own Cokes, because we didn't even have enough to leave as a tip for a waitress!  We were the last of the big spenders today...

... But never fear, I did get a chance to spend some money later in the day.  I had to do my weekly fruits and veggie shopping today, too.  My main diet is veggies and fruits, so the weekly marketing trip is an important one, to say the least.  Unfortunately, prices keep going up.  I went with my other neighbour, though, who is quite the talker, and he got us all sorts of little gifts and discounts!  I was absolutely amazed at how many potatoes he got for $2 - I think he got twice as many as I got from the same potato seller last week!  It's good to go shopping with him, though, as it sharpens my own bargaining skills :)  We did get some beautiful fruits and veggies, though!  I can't wait to make fruit salad tomorrow with the giant passion fruits we found today!

And, I'm sure you are wondering what Zane was doing while I was sweating out under the sun today?

Good thing he was guarding those teaching aids so well...

Still Kickin'...

... albeit slowly!  There's nothing like a bit of good old fashioned hard work to tire a girl out.  And man, this past week has tired me right out!  But it's a fairly good tired, if you know what I mean.  We started a teacher training workshop on Wednesday, and man, by the end of Wednesday, I was SO tired.  I mean, like, so tired I could barely put together a proper sentence tired.  I had used up all my words with some hours of teaching during the day, and just didn't have anything else in me.  Then yesterday, I went straight from workshop to Zumba to hosting 10 people in my house to start up a new Bible study series.  I didn't realize my house could hold that many people, but it did... barely.  I'm not sure how I feel about 10 people being in our "small group" for the Bible study... but that's a post for another time!

Today, we had another full day of workshopping.  But I am encouraged to see that the teachers we're training are really starting to "get" it. I  mean, we've been working with the same teachers for some years now, and old habits are finally dying :)  They are really starting to teach with kids in mind, and kids are actually starting to learn to read!  So it's really exciting to see the teachers learning new methods and being able to practice and apply them.  Plus, as tiring as it is, I really do love to teach! 

But, that being said, I haven't been turning my computer on hardly at all - except to prepare my plans for the coming days.  I'm just excited and pleased that I cooked some supper for myself and got my dishes washed this evening :) The rains are continuing here, for some crazy reason.  Which makes for some very humid, very sweaty days in front of the class.  And unfortunately, there was no water this morning, as something happened with the water pump over night... which means I am ripe for a shower... so, I'm off to the shower, then under the mossy net to hide from the flocks of mosquitoes in my house.  Sorry to not be more entertaining these days. Hopefully once the workshop is over, I'll have more energy to be entertaining online, instead of expending all my energy to be entertaining in the classroom...

Had a Fabulous Post All Planned...

... and then I could barely keep my eyes open.  Seriously, it's 10:05pm and I am already under my mosquito net with the lights off.  Why am I so tired?  I will probably never know.  All I know is I want to sleep.  So sleep I shall.  Good night.  Maybe the fabulous post will come tomorrow...

More Holiday Photos

Because it was just so gorgeous, how can I not share more photos?

We got up pretty early the day after touring Middle Earth, and drove in our red van to see some more amazing sights.  The drive was beautiful - lots of quaint pastoralist scenes of folks doing their farming.  I think our driver thought we were nuts, because my friend is fluent in Amharic, and we've both lived in Africa for several years, so I think we were different than the typical tourists that they see in those parts.  Surprisingly enough, most of the tourists around were my parent's age, and wearing zip-off pants.  Neither my friend or I were wearing zip off pants, you can be sure of that!

 We drove for a few hours from Gondar in our trusty van, stopping to take some photos, and examine the teff growing in the fields.  Once we got to Debark, we stopped at the Simien Mountains National Park office to pick up our guide and our scout!  After the all important macchiato, we toured the little market, and picked up some bananas, toilet paper and even a couple of Snickers bars! Imagine, Snickers bars!

But it was really the garlic that was amazing.  Fresh garlic EVERYWHERE.  You can imagine the aroma.  I've never seen garlic like that before, and you can bet that had I been coming straight back home, I would have had a bunch of garlic to surprise the customs folks with :)  But, I didn't think any of my travel companions for the next 3 weeks would want my suitcase smelling like garlic... so, I took a photo instead of some garlic.

Mengistu, our guide, and Ato Berhane, a wizened old man with a wizened old rifle, piled into our van, and we started up the mountain.  You are not allowed to go anywhere in the park without a "scout", and he was a jovial old man, so it was fun to have him along, but it did feel a bit odd to have him sitting in the back seat of the van with his gun the whole time!  He was pretty happy to share our snacks with us, though, and was quite amused by our continuous stopping of the van to take more pictures...

We arrived at "home" to our Lodge just as the fog was rolling in!  But that's ok, because it was definitely lunch time!  While we ate our lunch, someone else carried our suitcases up the mountain to our room... which was just fine with me, because, well, at over 10,000 ft, just walking up the mountain was making me huff and puff!

After lunch, though, the fog rolled away, and we went for a little walk with Mengistu and Ato Berhane.  Good enough, we started out walking downhill :)  And I had to stop a lot to take pictures.

See how much fun I was having, hiking?  Seriously, it was amazing to be in the mountains, to wander through the hills, to breath the fresh air (that is, when I could catch my breath!) and just enjoy creation and its Creator.  I've really, really missed that living in Jb.

We borrowed Ato Berhane's blanket and pretended to be shepherds and scouts, much to his amusement.

Really, though, we were hunting for the endemic baboon, found no where else in the world!  I'm a bit wary of baboons - never having had any good experiences with them in East Africa.  But, I was assured that these ones were friendly, and not only that, but they are the world's only herbivore baboons.  They just sit on their butts all day, eating grass, and smiling for photos from the tourists.

The van came down the hill to pick us up... but we were like, "nah, we're still young, we can walk back up..."  After falling in a stream and worrying dear Ato Berhane... I have to admit that we were pretty happy to see the van waiting for us half-way up the mountain :) 

Some photos of the last few weeks

Zane was all packed and ready to go the night before.  Unfortunately, he couldn't find his passport in time, so he had to stay home :(

 

My friend and I flew from Addis Ababa to Gonder, in the Northern part of the country.  Amazing!  It really was sort of like being in Middle Earth.  I mean, I've seen more impressive castles in Europe, but the fact that these are African castles, and have such an interesting history of their own, it was really amazing to wander around and try to imagine what life was like back at the height of these empires.  The castles were pretty well preserved, and we took lots of pictures of the details of the various castles and ruins in the Royal Enclosure.  But I'll spare you too many photos...

 After touring the Royal Enclosure, we drove up to one of the famous churches - this one is famous for all the icons and paintings inside.  The ceiling paintings were the most impressive!  Row upon row of Ethiopian angels looking down at you.  You're supposed to try to count all the angels... but I just spent my time enjoying the scene and taking photos.  We learned a ton of the history, and learned a lot about the Orthodox Church, as well, but I'll spare you the details - if you're interested, you can look it up in Lonely Planet :)  We had a good guide, though, which made for an enjoyable day in Gondar.  After an avocado juice and a nice dinner overlooking the statue of Emporor Tewodros, we went early to bed in our very nice hotel, ready for a drive up the Simien Mountains the following day...

I'm Home!

I'm sitting in my favourite chair, under my favourite fan (though it's only on "1" speed at the moment, since it's pretty cool this evening), and listening to my favourite BBC radio station.  I don't even have to share my chair with Zane, because he's currently curled up inside my suitcase, which is sitting on the floor, under the fan, drying out.

Yes, I said "drying out".  I had a grand entrance into Jb today.  First, I was a bit shakey, because wow, we had a bit of a rough landing!  Ethiopian Airlines has a great safety record, and I have flown on them a TON in the past years... but today, wow, a bit rough.  You could hear everyone let out a bit of a sigh of relief when our plane came to stop on the runway, so I wasn't the only one who was feeling like it had been a bit of a rough landing...

Anyway, after the landing, everyone exited the plane.  Of course, there are none of those nice walk-way things that bring you directly into the airport.  Here, the flight crew opens the door of the plane, which turns into a handy-dandy little stair case, which you walk down, onto the runway, and find your way across the runway to the terminal.  Today, when I got off the plane, I looked across the runway and could literally see the rain coming.  The far end of the runway was soaked, and you could see the rain quickly moving our way.  Unfortunately, a plane carrying some VIP just arrived in front of us, and as soon as I saw the rain and was about the make a run for it to the terminal, we were all stopped in our tracks by the security detail for this VIP.  And we all had to stand there, watching the rain come, with a rather large, well, security contingent between us and the terminal.  Nothing to be done but stand there and get soaked.  The very second the VIP passed and we were allowed to go, we all made a mad dash for the door!  I think this is one of the only times I've ever seen anyone running in this town!

Of course, then by the time our luggage made it to the terminal, it was completely soaked through, as well.  As soon as I got home, I unpacked, and hung all my dirty laundry all over the house, making sure that it dried a little before throwing it in the dirty clothes hamper!  What a nice welcome home, eh?  At least Zane was sitting on the porch, awaiting my arrival.  He sure was happy to see me, and promptly plopped himself in my wet suitcase, and has only moved from the wet suitcase long enough to scarf down some pumpkin for supper!

But, it's good to be home, to be in my own space, to get back to "normal", after a wonderful trip to Ethiopia.

Simple Needs

I like to think I'm pretty low maintenance.  For example, at the moment, I am sitting in a beautiful little house in Western Ethiopia, sipping a cup of tea, and finally being able to get online!  And I'm happy.  Really, it all comes down to communication for me - if I can get online, I'm happy.  If I can't get online... well...  That doesn't make me high maintenance, does it?  I hope that I'm not too difficult for my hosts to take care of!

Our teacher training workshop started today.  So far, so good!  I couldn't believe it, but almost all of the participants were at the workshop hall, even before we were this morning!  They have all come... and hopefully they will all stay, though we have heard that there might be a religious holiday at the end of this week... which means that they might all go back to their villages to celebrate the holiday... and then apparently, they sometimes don't come back :(

Anyway, things have started out well, so far.  There are 4 guys in the workshop that I have met before, on various trips to this country, and so it's been really nice to see them again!  They all gave me a warm welcome.  It's also really great to be in this place, too, as there are so many people who speak Arabic here!  I seem to have endeared myself to them with my little bit of Arabic - in fact, they even gave me a round of applause as I introduced myself today.  Who would have thought all my experience with Arabic would help me here?!  I have also been trying to pick up some Amharic over the past week, so I have a few more phrases and words on the tip of my tongue.  However, my time in Axum brought back some of the Tigrinya language that I know... so really, it's all just a big muddle in my head.  All three Semitic languages, and I keep forgetting which word belongs to which language! 

Speaking of Axum, though, it was really an amazing place.  I didn't really think that it would be all that great - I was thinking that it was probably just a bunch of tall rocks standing around to look at.  But I was wrong - there is so much more there.  Including the little chapel where they say they keep the actual real Ark of the Covenant!  Another highlight was an ancient stone - sort of like a Rosetta stone with various languages on it, including Greek, Sabean and Ge'ez.  And it just sits there in a little shack, for anyone to look at and touch.  It's all crazy old stuff, just sitting around in fields to look at and touch.  Really fascinating history in that area, and it was great to see it and hear all the stories.

At some point I will get fast enough internet to post a few photos of it all... enshallah.

A few highlights..

I'm having such an amazing vacation! From Gondar, we were driven in a rather nice van  up towards the Simien Mountains. The drive itself was quite stunning, beautiful fields of teff, wheat, barley, oats and lots of horses, cows and sheep everywhere. The colours, and the plain "pastoralism" of the scenes were fascinating. The bright yellow Meskel flowers were in full bloom, and it was so beautiful.  We had a very comfortable van to drive in,  and a friendly driver, Tamret, who had good taste in music. I gotta get. Y hands on some Teddy Afro music! Not only that, but he was a good driver - not something to take for granted around here. He was cautious enough, and you could tell he was looking ahead and anticipating what was coming, but still confident enough to know what the van could do. And this was all very comforting once we goth to some of the crazy roads in the mountains!

We drive for a few hours, then eventually got to a town called Debark, where we picked up a "scout" and a guide for the mountains. The scouts are a requirement, and the guide was part of our package deal.  The scout was this wizened older man, toting an old Kalashnikov rifle and a plastic bag with a bottle of water and a blanket.  Our guide was a you get guy, all smiles and full of useful information. The highlight of this little town was the fresh garlic int he market! Never seen (or smelled!) anything quite like it!

Once we left Debark, we started climbing up the road into the mountains proper. The road was amazing, the views were stunning, and Tamret was getting a kick out of me wanting to stop to take photos all the time!

We made it to the lodge In time to have a late lunch, then went for a walk around the edge of the escarpment with our guide and our scout. The dear scout was such a gentleman, and was quite concerned that we kept our footing and didn't fall off any cliffs!  This old wizened man has been a scout for years, and you can tell that he's been climbing up and down those mountain trial since he was a toddler! Me, on the other hand, was having a hard time catching my breath at over 10,000 feet! Good thing I've been Zumba-ing! It was so nice to walk through the forest and enjoy the beautiful views, and just be hiking in nature once again!  So refreshing to the soul.

We also found big troops of gelada baboons, which aren't nearly as ugly or scary as the normal east african baboons that I'm used to. These baboons just sit on their butts all day, eating grass! They were great to watch. And our guide, of course, knew all about the plants and trees and stuff.  So we got lots of good info, too... Which, of course, I've forgotten most of already. I'll blame that on the altitude!

I had a lovely evening, sitting around the fire, sipping tea and chatting with other Guests and guides and drivers.  The best part was that when you leave the main lodge to go to your tukel, they give you a hot water bottle to sleep with. And seriously, you need a hot water bottle to keep warm! It was COLD up there! A feather duvet, wooly socks, a big fuzzy blanket and a hot water bottle, though, made for a beautifully cozy sleep. There was no way I'd be equipped to do a back packing trek through these mountains like a lot of people do.

The following day, we drove down the road to Chennek camp, taking lots of photos along the way, and took a hike to hunt for the walia ibex.  We didn't have to walk too far, when we found a group of the rare creatures, which are found only in this park. We also spent some time just munching on homemade granola bars (which my friend had made!) and enjoying the views.  At the camp, we were able to eat some shiro and injera, to fortify ourselves for the next hike to a waterfall.

It worked out that for quite a long way, Sheri was walking up front with the guide, chatting away in Amharic, and I was A bit behind with the scout, who was also chatting away in amharic! He was trying to teach me - so I mimicked quite a lot of what he said, to his satisfaction, but I haven't a clue what any of it meant. The dear old guy didn't speak hardly a word of English! But he was very sweet!

The road was stunning - just a rocky path winding and clinging to the side of the mountains, with some pretty steep switch backs along the way! Like I said, I was glad that the driver seemed to be very able, and very careful, as well as very experienced on that road. We had a really nice time all together with out little party.  It felt a bit odd to be going everywhere with "our" scout, guide and driver (for just the two of us travellers!) but we couldn't have done this sort of trip any other way, without our own vehicle. Park rules require that you take a scout, and the guide... Well. He came with the tour package that we booked, and really, we would have had no idea where to go or what to do. It's a national park, but nothing like Banff where you have signs and maps and brochures to tell you where to go!

We stayed a second night in the lodge, and then got up bright and early to return to Gondar yesterday. We had a local lunch of what has now become my favourite Ethiopian food - tagabino with injera. So, so, so good. But they only make it in some parts of the country. Tamret was very kind after lunch and was willing to take us to the market to buy some scarves. Gondar is in the heart of Amhara culture, and the white scarves you can find there are cheaper and more beautiful than elsewhere. So we bought a few :) I think tamretnwas officially done his duties with us, but he was doing us a favour, because Sherri charmed him with her perfect Amharic :) I just do a lot of nodding and smiling and trying to look pretty, while she does all the talking!

This morning, we got on another plane, joining the throngs of tourists, and came to Lalibela. It was almost a bit surreal to be standing in some of those churches, seeing them with. Y own eyes, because I have wanted to see them for so long! I've seen so many pictures of them, and have been quite fascinated by them for several years now... And here I am! I took rather a lot of pictures (which are all on my camera, and I have no way to get them from the camera to the iGadget ;( ) the history,a nd the culture... So rich.  Our guide here is an Orthodox man himself, so it was really fascinating to watch him kiss the doors and do his bowing and crossing each time we entered into a new church. It's also good to get the story and explanations of the churches from someone who believes it.

He was also quite funny in that he didn't like big tour groups, and we were constantly trying to stay anead of (or behind) a couple of larger groups - Chinese, Italians, and Germans seemed to be the main nationalities of tourists today. Some times I think the tourists are more interesting to watch than the actual sights!  One of the tips we had gotten from friends in addis was to use bug spray before entering the churches. They said that fleas often live in the carpets, and since you have to take your shoes off to enter each church, the fleas are some times a problem. Apparent,y others had heard that too, as they were wearing long knee socks, with trousers tucked in, and we're seen spraying their feet before entering the churches! I just wore my chacos, with bare feet, and sprayed before I left the hotel! So far, so good in terms of no flea bites. After running around I bare feet all day, though, a good foot wash is going to feel good before bed!

The churches really were amazing, though. It's not really quite what I expected - they ere all a bit closer together than I thought, and st George's church was smaller than I thought. But it was all still amazing the way they built those places, and all the symbolism and tradition that just drip from the stone.

Tonight, we are staying at yet another beautiful hotel. We watched the sunset for our private balcony, and. Ow I'm sitting int he lobby, sipping tea and enjoying a bit of CNN on the telly. There were so many tourists everywhere today at the churches, but thre don't seem to be many staying at this same hotel.  Sherri booked a package deal through a travel agent in addis, so I don't really know what all the other options for hotel etc are. But I know that so far, things have been beautiful. Having a package deal is definitely the way to go - they even confirm our flights for us, and make sure we have everything that we need. No haggling for taxi fares or guide prices... It's all taken care of by the agents.  Definitely a relaxing way to travel, and I wouldn't recommend to do this sort of trip any other way.

Tomorrow we fly into Axum, and the following day, it's back to Addis already.  Saturday, I fly to a small Town in western Ethiopia to help with a teacher training workshop! So at the very least, I'm seeing a good chunk of this country this month!

Middle Earth?!

Several months ago, I was talking with a friend who lives in Addis.  She has never been to the North of the country yet, and neither had I.  So , we decided to plan a little holiday together.  And this week, this holiday is actually happening! I wasn't sure it was going to happen ... Already,my flight out of Jb was cancelled yesterday, thought thankfully the was a later flight, and there was space on it for me! So I got to Addis after only one false start yesterday.

Then, we were scheduled to leave the house at 5:30am to catch our flight to Gondar this morning.   We're to have the full day in Gondar today, enjoying the palaces of a mideival kingdom, as well as some of the churches and the Kings swimming pool.

Instead, once we checked in for our early morning flight... We learned that it, too, was cancelled! But we were already at the airport, and set for a later flight.  So what could we do,  it while away the hours (6 of them, all told!) in the airport.  Of course, it was about 5 1/2 hours into the air that I finally discovered that there was Internet in the airport!

We finally made it to Gndar, around 2pm, and the tour guide was there to pick us up. We decided to book the whole trip through a travel agency, because they take care of everything - and we both wanted a holiday, not a stressful haggling fest at every turn!

And so far, so good.  Even though we were 6 hours late in arriving, we still managed to see the highlights of Gondar.  What an amazing thing it was to stand there, gazing up at the castle walls that I have seen so often In pictures... Taking my own pictures of them! This place is so steeped in history, and it's amazing to have the opportunity to be a tourist here for a few days and to see it all first hand.

Tomorrow, we are off to the Simien Mountains for a few day, to look for baboons and ibex!  I'm just hoping I can make it up the trail... Gondar is built on the mountain side, and it's been hard enou climbing thought the streets of Gondar, which are nearly 9000 ft high!

However, the driver is careful, the tour guide was friendly and informative (but not overly friendly!), and I have learned a lot a out this country, the Orthodox church and tradition, and even Ethiopian art and Insruments today!

It really does seem about as far away from my normal life as Middle Earth!

A New Tradition?

So, turkey and all the fixin's ended up being a few bits of very, very overcooked turkey, plus sukumaweki (Kenyan greens), rice and ugali (stodgy "porridge" made from maize flour).  We weren't sure if this was going to be the start of a new Thanksgiving tradition or not...  I was quite disappointed with the food, until they brought out some more meat to put on the grill.  So I had a little piece of steak (which I could actually chew through!) and a little piece of grilled chicken.  That wasn't so bad... but, it certainly wasn't mashed potatoes and gravy.

So, on Monday, I needed to make mashed 'taters, gravy and I even cracked open a can of corn that I had in the cupboard.  I asked my neighbor to go down the street and pick up a few pieces of grilled chicken from the restaurant... and voila, Thanksgiving meal with (some of) the trimmings!  I had just had my heart set on mashed potatoes and gravy, and my gravy wasn't too bad - a chicken bouillon cube, margarine and a bit of flour can work miracles!

This evening, I'm starting to pack for a big trip - on Friday I leave for Ethiopia!  I'll be gone a few weeks - 5 days of holidays with a friend first.  I've wanted to go to the North of Ethiopia, to see Lalibela and Gonder and the Simien Mountains for SO long, and have never gotten there.  So last time I was in Ethiopia, I was talking with a friend of mine who lives there (she works for the same organization that I do), and she's never been up there either.  And a plan was born.  For the days before a teacher training workshop, I'll be seeped in the beauty and history of Northern Ethiopia!  I'm so excited to see it all!  I just hope that all goes well and that my friend and I enjoy each other's company, too.  It's always an unknown, travelling with a new person... but I think we'll be fine.  The teacher training workshop is also in a different part of the country than I've ever been to, as well.  So in the next 3 weeks, I'll have seen more of Ethiopia than I have since I first started visiting the country in 2006!

My cat senses that something is going on... he's been sitting on my lap all evening, which makes it hard to get up and do much packing.  He gets a bit funny whenever my suitcase comes out, 'cause he knows his whole little world will be turned upside down :(  And that reminds me, I have to find someone who will be willing to feed the poor fuzzball over the next few weeks!

It might be a while 'till I post again, but hopefully I'll have some good photos and some good stories (but not TOO many good stories!) to share later.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am giving Thanks for a lovely, restful morning.  What a joy it is to not even have a shower or get dressed all morning.  It is already 1:30pm and I still haven't even managed to shower or put on "real" clothes (but don't worry - I'm wearing a very proper "mumu"!). 

This afternoon, I have opportunity to go and munch on turkey with all the fixins' with my fellow Canuks here in Jbs.  It's a yearly tradition, and thankfully, I have a couple of friends that I can accompany to this supper.  Otherwise, I don't know any other Canadians in town!  And somehow, I am a bit shy to walk into a room, all by myself, and plop myself down with someone for dinner.  You'd think I'd be over that sort of shy-ness by now, but, alas, no.  So I am thankful for friends to accompany :) But am really looking forward to meeting some new folks, with the safety of a friend to sit next to, in case no one else wants to talk to me!

But it is also just a good time to think about what I am thankful for, as cliche as it is.  I do have SO many blessings.  And around here, it's easy to forget all those things, as it's easy to just see how challenging things are here.  Instead, though, I am still asking myself, "Why me?"  I mean, if I had been born as a woman in THIS country, there's no way I'd have the opportunities that I have had in my short little life.  There's no way I'd have a chance to choose to do the work that I do every day.  There's no way that I'd have a house like I have, and the time and resources to spend a morning on a soft chair, under a fan, listening to a sermon on the internet, or reading a book.  There's no way I'd have a chance to use the resources that I have to know who God is, and to even get a tiny glimpse of his glory and how he is at work in this world. 

So, yes, things can be challenging.  And it is not so much to be away from my family on holidays and not have the chance to be with them more often.  But, there are so many other good things to be thankful for!

Happy Thanksgiving to you all, and enjoy cultivating your gratitude today!

And now, I better go jump in the shower (which will be nice and warm by now!), or else my new "friends" really won't want to sit next to me at supper tonight!

Why Me?

I read a blog post today called, "The Flip Side of Why Me?"  Twas so good.  Because it's too easy to focus on the negative things here and ask "Why Me?" about all the challenges of life.  And let's not deny it - there are challenges to life.  But how much better, how much more God-glorifying is it to ask, "why me?" when thinking about all the amazing wonderous things that he has done for me and blessed me with.  And actually, I have often thought about this, when I look at my friends here.  Why was I born where I was born, with the opportunities that I was born with?  A 15 year old girl in this country is twice as likely to die in childbirth than she is to finish Grade 8.  Why was I not born into that?  Why do I sit here, healthy, with my laptop, under my fan, with the generator buzzing, a glass of cold clean water next to me... when literally 20 feet from my door, people don't have this option?    When you look at life in those terms, it's hard to complain about the things that we complain about, isn't it?

It's the little things

And there were a few little things today which made me smile a grand smile:

The electricity was on this morning when I got up!  I could make coffee using my fancy schmancy electric little espresso pot, which was bequeathed to me last month by a visiting linguist.  Gotta love those visiting linguists sometimes!  (Not that I don't love the bodum which was also bequeathed to me, but, a girl needs options once in a while, doesn't she?) 
 
And, I took a shower with the lights on!  And, just because I could, I dug out a hairdryer and actually blow-dried my hair before going to the office this morning.  Just because I could.  The electricity stayed on, so when I came back from the corner at lunch time, all hot and sweaty from the walk to the corner to buy a shwarma, I could sit under the fan and cool off :)  The man who sells shwarmas is getting quite familiar with me - at least once a week, I wander down to the corner for one of the best versions of  Jb "fast food".  For a mere $2, you get a hamburger bun, stuffed with meat and tomatoes, topped with a sort of sticky "ketchup" and mayonnaise.  Delicious.    Once in a while you get a little bone shard in the meat, and I normally only get them for lunch, when they are selling too many for the flies to settle for too long on the meat...  We're not talking home quality shwarma, but, hey, this is Jb, and I will take any kind of "fast food" that someone will make for me!

On that note, another wonderful thing was that I got invited to a neighbour's house for dinner!  Yum!  She's Chinese, so we had amazing stir-fried veggies with shredded chicken and amazing garlic, ginger and onion sauce.  Amazing.  Normally, I'm not a fan of a lot of ginger, but this sauce - amazing.  It's always great to see what other people come up with to cook with the same kinds of available ingredients here.

And last, but not least... my shower is no longer dripping!  After 8 months of a dripping shower head, and a bathroom that never, ever dried out (neither the shower nor the surrounding floor, next to the toilet).  The shower drip was fixed yesterday, and, wow.  Amazing.  So not only did I have a shower with the light on, I showered in a dry, clean bathroom!  And since the floor was actually dry, I could use a shower mat when I stepped out of the shower, which meant that the bottoms of my feet also actually got dry.

And the best part of the shower fixing...  It was fixed up by this guy:











Yup, our new handy-guy here on the compound is the spitting image of Red Green.  I kid you not - he even SOUNDS like Red Green.  I heard his voice outside my office the other day... and I swore someone was watching Red Green.  So, I think we're going to have a good time with maintenance on the compound for the next few months!

Nom nom

It's been a while since I've posted any photos.  I guess there hasn't been anything too photo-worthy lately.  Or, alternatively, I've been here too long to think that anything is out of the ordinary and photo-worthy anymore!

But I thought you might like to see how we relax around here.  On Saturday morning, we had a brunch with all my colleagues who live here on the compound.   It's really been a very social compound lately - brunches, dinner parties, movie nights... a bit more fun to be had than in previous months! 

This is what we all look like on Saturday mornings:

I just couldn't believe the amazing food that we all came up with!  Cinnamon rolls, oat pancakes, baked french toast, egg casserole with sausage and CHEESE... amazing stuff, I tell you.  I can't take credit for any of the food, since I provided the coffee :)  I mean, a certified barista has got to use her talents somehow.

Now that the tukel is all cleared out and not being used as a workshop anymore, we can use it for FUN!  It's a great place, even on a hot day, to hang out.

Even "Max" thinks it's a pretty OK place:

Personally, I am of the opinion that monkeys have absolutely no business on our compound.  But it ended up that the day guard was feeding him guavas off the tree on the compound, and my other neighbours were feeding him bananas, in order to get photos like this out of him.  Surely there is some law against this sort of thing!  No one should be feeding the wildlife - especially when that wildlife has big teeth, is smarter than me, and is able to carry off small children and kittens!  My neighbours even named the creature!

I'm just hoping he doesn't remember the directions to our guava tree...

Comfort or Christ?

This afternoon I watched a sermon that my neighbours had downloaded from their home church.  It was a pretty challenging one about the letter to the Church of Laodicea.  It was all about, in our daily lives, do we choose Comfort, or do we choose Christ.  And even when I'm sitting here in Jb, in, frankly, sometimes not the most comfortable of situations, it would be pretty easy to say that "Yes! I have already chosen Christ over comfort... because if I wanted to be comfortable, I certainly wouldn't be sweating it out over here..."

But, in reality, I often do choose comfort over Christ, because I choose to do things that are easier or more convenient for myself than things that are encouraging or better for other people, things that will ultimately give more glory to God than the fabulous Pumpkin Spice Latte that I cooked up in my kitchen this afternoon, all by myself.  Mind you, it was a pretty darned good pumpkin spice latte, but perhaps there could have been other things, that could bring more glory to God, that I could have been doing this afternoon.

Anyway, like my beautiful pumpkin spice coffee this afternoon, the sermon was some pretty good food for thought.

Also, on a more superficial note, I've been a bit immersed this week in the Hunger Games.  My neighbour lent it to me on my Kindle app, and oh, wow, I got a bit obsessed.  Ended up reading the entire trilogy in less than 4 days.  I even had dreams of Katniss, and muttations, and people with blue hair.  And I gotta find some place that will sell me some gold eyeliner!  One of the urgencies of reading the first book was that my neigbours got the DVD of the Hunger Games while they were out of the country last week on their holidays.  But, I really didn't want to watch the movie until I'd read the book... and then once I'd read the first book, I really didn't want to see the movie and have that destroy my own images of Katniss and Gale and Peeta until I was finished the entire trilogy.  Also, I just couldn't seem to put the book down, once I started...

So we watched the movie last night, and I ended up reading the final few chapters after I saw the movie - Peeta, especially, was nothing like the Peeta that was in my mind, but, such is life.  Remember, I live in the middle of nowhere, and so I hadn't even seen a trailer or an advert for the movie, so I had no clue what the characters actually looked like.  And I liked it that way!

It was quite an interesting story, with some unexpected twists and turns.  And definitely turns me off reality TV.  Good thing I don't have a TV here :)  But, now that the books are over, the movie has been watched, I can extricate myself from Panem, and will get to bed a wee bit earlier tonight...

A New Office?

Since the austerity measures dictate that the generator goes off at 4pm, I have borrowed a long-life battery from the office :)  So, now I have a few more hours of power in my battery so I can keep on working... but the other issue is that itꞌs smoking hot in my office!  So, I have found a new one.  Iꞌm enjoying the open air!  Itꞌs not all that much cooler, and Iꞌm still sweating as I sit here... so much exertion to move my fingers over the keyboard... but at least there is a breeze once in a while.

The downside, there are also a lot of people wandering by!  Iꞌve been interrupted by 8 people already in the last few minutes!  Pleasant interruptions of people just wanting to say hello... but, interruptions all the same.  So, not quite sure if this is the ideal office spot yet, or not.

On that note, with all the interruptions, no actual work is getting done, so I might as well go and start on my supper.  On the menu tonight - guacamole with an avocado, gifted from a friend from Uganda, and homemade flour tortillas (because, well, are there really any other kinds of tortillas found in this neck of the woods?!).

Sundays...

Have I mentioned lately how much I love them?  I love Sundays.  Today, I didn't venture out to church. It was just too nice of a day.  Sunny, but a nice cool breeze blowing.  And I was itching to sit home on my own and eat french toast and sip my coffee.  And wow, it was a lovely, lovely morning.  My french toast turned out perfectly, the maple syrup seems to just keep lasting and lasting and lasting, and the Tim Horton's mug holds enough coffee to make me imagine that I am sipping an extra large double double.  So nice.  To top it off, the internet was working well enough to listen to a sermon from my home church.  So, there I was, laying on my couch, a belly full of french toast, sipping my coffee, and listening to Pastor Mike.  And then, my cat came and plonked himself down on me, and listened to the sermon as well.  Every one of God's creatures needs a little spiritual refreshment now and again, don't you agree?

I think the cat came because I was wearing a black shirt.  He somehow has some sort of instinct that causes him to like to sit on things that match.  If there is a black bag, a black shirt, a clean black anything, no matter what size it is, he will go and make himself fit onto the blackness of it.  Crazy cat.  But his strategy seems to have worked so far, as he's over 5 years old, and for a cat in Jb, that's downright ancient.

Downside of the day - with all the rain lately, and today's beautiful sun, all of God's vegetation decided it was time to pollinate.  I've so far taken 3 doses of two different kinds of antihistamines... and my nose is still dripping like my faucet.  The whole compound can hear my compounded sneezes, and I can hardly hear the howling dogs outside because my ears are so plugged.  In fact, even my teeth hurt because there is so much snot inside my head.  And my forehead is itchy.  So, I think it was best that I just stayed home all day, because I am not a pretty sight.  I have also gone through 3 hankies with my leaking nose.  Due to austerity measures (and the fact that a box of tissues will run you about $4 and a roll of toilet paper almost $1, my sweat rags (about $0.50) are doing double duty as snot rags today.  But that might be more than you wanted to know on that topic...

Gotta go wipe my nose.

Austerity Continues...

... But I'm still eating well :)  Since the generator goes off at 4pm these days, I've been having time to do some exercize, and make some nice suppers, all on the same day.  And it's been making me happy.  There is something to having a bit of a balanced life, you know?  Today, I made beautiful scalloped potatoes (without the cheese, butter and heavy cream, of course, but by Jb standards, I thought they were pretty darn amazing!), and I ate them with the last of the sausages in the freezer (and I use the term "freezer" lightly, since it's more of a very cold fridge, without much electricity, but so far, I have not poisoned myself with the sausages :) ). 

It's nice to have had a bit of a slower week in terms of the office work - the past few months have been rather crazy, and I was pretty tired.  I'm feeling much less tired at the end of this week than I usually am, so that is a very good thing.  I'm sitting here on my couch, listening to the how the world is going a bit crazy out there on BBC radio, enjoying the cool breeze from the fan, and thinking about the fact that life is not too bad these days. There's lots to be thankful for:

• I have a bucket full of peanut butter (yes, I mean a bucket full of peanut butter - I asked one of the women who works here to make me some peanut butter.  She goes to the market, buys the peanuts, shells them and cleans them up, roasts them, and then grinds them into pure deliciousness for me.  But she doesn't seem to realize that I am one person in the house and even I really can't eat THAT much peanut butter!  Anyway, it does last for quite a while, and I might even could make some peanut butter cookie things.)
• I have a very cozy house which is full of more stuff than I really need (even though I got news this week that my rent is going up $100 as of 1 October!).  
• I get to spend my days doing a job which I really quite enjoy (at least, most of the time!)
• There's no one protesting at any embassies here in my town, and I am safe and pretty secure here in my little compound.
• God is here.

So, really, there are so many things to be thankful for - those are just a few of the little bits of life that are, at this very moment, making me a bit happy... even in the midst of this rather interesting place...

Austerity Measures

I know, I haven't blogged in a while.  Frankly, I've just been tired in the evenings, and our internet has been slow, and there hasn't been any electricity.  So, all in all, not a great combination for me sitting with my computer and thinking of something entertaining and somewhat coherent to say.  Anyway, I don't even really know if anyone reads this anymore!  I've been feeling a bit disconnected from, well, from life lately, too, just because there's been so much going on, so that also doesn't help motivate me to expend the energy to write.  But, maybe it's time to turn over a new leaf yet again and come out of my shell a bit again.

At the moment, I'm sitting in the dark in my living room.  Austerity measures have come to our organization.  There's been no diesel in town for some days now, and no good prospect of more diesel coming in soon.  Which means that we have cut down the hours that our generator runs each day.  Of course, the government ran out of diesel a long time ago, so we haven't had city power in quite some time, so we're solely running on our own compound generator once again.

And, since my computer battery has somehow been pooched by the heat and crazy power situation, I only get about 10 minutes of power on my laptop before it also loses power.  So, when the generator goes off, I have to come home and plug into my back-up battery system.  Which I am so thankful that I have!  I had gone for quite a few years without any kind of power back up.  Because I kept being so optimistic that we'd have more stable electricity from the government.  And it's a relatively big investment to get a back up system set up.

But finally, early this year, when I realized that I would be sticking around this country for another little while, and that the electricity situation was not likely to get better, I finally put out the cash and got myself a big old battery.  My neighbor happens to have an inverter and charger, which he uses in his mud hut.  So I just added my battery on to that system, and we ran a long wire from the mud hut into my house.  He kindly wired up a light in my main living room/kitchen area, and ran a little extension cord down into the house itself.  So now, when the power is off, as it is now, I can come home and plug my computer into my little extension cord, attached to the battery in the mud hut!

I don't have the light switched on at the moment, since I'm trying to conserve the battery a bit - without long hours of generator, the battery doesn't always charge up completely.  Having this system has made a huge difference in my frame of mind over these past few months of little electricity!  What a joy it is to be able to actually SEE the vegetables that I'm chopping in my kitchen for dinner at 6:30pm!  How much fun is it to be able to see my contact lense container when I take out my contacts at 10:30pm?  And is there nothing better than actually being able to work on my computer past 4pm!?

That being said, the austerity measures have definitely hit here. No more milk for our tea at tea time at the office.  No more Nescafe option, either - just black tea with some sugar!  And we have to pay for our snacks at tea time - though $0.75 is a small price to pay for a little bowl of freshly roasted peanuts. 

At least I can eat for free from the fruits of this compound!

Mmm.... that's right, it's pumpkin season!  These were the first fruits, that came off the vine last weekend.  So deliciously sweet.  I tried to ameliorate the austerity measures in the office today when we cooked up a huge pumpkin to share with all the folks here.  A very normal breakfast for people here during pumpkin season is a chunk of steamed pumpkin - just chop the thing into pieces, with the peel still on, and put it in a big pot on the charcoal.  Put a little water in the bottom of the pot, and let the pumpkin bits steam for a while.  When the pumpkins are as deliciously sweet as these ones, you don't need anything else with it!

At the moment, we've also got a ton of guavas growing on a tree, and greens growing wild in the back garden.  There's even a tree bearing a funny fruit, which I think is called a custard apple in English.  But it's most delicious, and the strangest looking fruit you ever did see! 
 
So, even in these austere times, I am a very blessed girl.

Ah... rest

I had such a wonderful day today.  Sorry, no pictures to show for it, though.  But, you can paint a picture in your mind - it starts with a bit of laundry - fresh, clean, colourful clothes fluttering in the breeze on the line, the blue sky above, green grass below...

... until it started to rain.  Then paint in your mind a picture of my little house, with damp laundry covering every available surface and hanging from the mosquito net ... fluttering in the ... well, no breeze, because there was no electricity all day.  But it's mostly dry now.

The rest of the day was spent in making good things to eat, eating them, washing the dishes from the making and eating, and watching the last episode of Downton Abbey.  I tried to drag Downton out for as long as possible, because I didn't want to have to say "goodbye" to my "friends" there.  But alas, every good thing must come to an end... and I'm really looking forward to Season 3!   I think I need to start at the beginning and start watching Season 1 again...

But after the long night on Friday, the really long day of teaching yesterday, and a long week of work, and a long two weeks of workshops before that... it was good to lay on my couch for a few hours, together with my cat, and watch a good show.  It was especially nice that it was raining for most of the afternoon, so it was nice and cool, with the sound of the pattering rain drops on the tin roof... quite a perfect Sunday afternoon, if you ask me!

What a Week!

Well, Zane's week didn't get much better!  He spent one day locked in a drawer, and the next day, he spent stuck on a roof.  Yes, that's right, the stupid cat got stuck on the roof!  He didn't come home for breakfast on Thursday, but, he's done that before, so I wasn't too worried.  But when he didn't show up for supper... well, I was starting to wonder where he was.  So, when I went out to the garden to collect some weeds for supper, I called out to the crazy cat.  Faintly, in the distance, I heard him mew-ing again.  Sure enough, I looked up to my neighbour's roof, and there he was, crying to me. 

Of course, I had to bring in some reinforcements, because, well, climbing up onto a tin roof in my flipflops and skirt is not exactly my idea of a safe, fun time.  But RM is always game for climbing up onto a roof... so he went to fetch a ladder, and got up on the roof.  Of course, the stupid cat being, well, a stupid cat, decided to run away from RM, even though they are usually good friends.  So, no rescue was possible.

We left the ladder at a gentle angle, hoping he might find his way back down, once RM was safely on the ground.  But of course, he didn't.  Eventually, I climbed up the ladder, to try to coax the cat down.  I still didn't fancy the thought of walking around on the roof, though, so I ended up having to grab the cat by the scruff of the neck... and before he could escape... tossed him.  Good enough, he landed on his feet, as most cats do!  He was pretty happy to have a good long drink of water once he made his way back home.  A tin roof isn't the coolest place to spend the day!

I've also had a different ending to my week.  I spent a few days this past week preparing for a day of teacher training today.  Unfortunately, there was a funeral next door last night.  They started testing the microphones and giant speakers at 11pm!  And when I say "giant speakers", I mean, GIANT speakers.  There is a tradition here of doing "Overnights", which means that they sing and play music ALL NIGHT LONG.  It's the most amazingly obnoxious and annoying thing.  In my house, I closed all the windows, stuffed my ears with cotton, and literally put two pillows over my head.  Yet my bed was shaking because of the loudness of the music.  There was no way any of us on the compound were sleeping.  But I had to teach all day today - from 9:30am - 5pm!  So I needed at least a few hours of sleep.

So, at around 1:30am, I decided to move into the computer office, which is in a more sealed container on the opposite end of the compound.  So, there I was, dragging my pillow and mattress across the compound in the middle of the night.  I almost tripped over the sleeping night guard on my way to getting the key to the office.  At least someone was sleeping through all the noise...

I settled down on the floor, next to the photocopier, and got a few hours of sleep.  I was woken up at about 5am by someone who was also coming to the office to take refuge from the noise.  He is a boy, though, so he was kind enough to not want to disturb my sleep and allowed me to just keep on sleeping, while he went back out into the noise.  I guess it was a case of "first come, first served'! 

I ended up having quite a good training with some teachers and folks from the Ministry of Education today.  But, I was so out of it when I left, that I realized that I hadn't brought my main handouts with me to the workshop!  That resulted in a quick trip back to the compound at lunch time, and a bit of switch on the fly of my original plan.... but once again, the tweaked plan seemed to work out even better than what I had originally planned.

Now, on that note, I'm exhausted after so many hours of teaching - in fact, I didn't get back home until 6:30 pm!  And thankfully, the party ended at 7pm, and the tent has been taken down, so tonight we shall sleep in peace...

Ah, the best laid plans...

Both Zane and I have had a few changes of plans this week.

Yesterday morning, when I left the house to go to the office, I noticed that Zane wasn't in his usual chair, snoozing away his breakfast.  But, no time to go searching for the crazy creature - there were meetings to attend!

At tea break, at 10:30am, I ran home to use the loo (there are no "office" loos available here, so I have to run home every time nature calls...).  While at home, I noticed that I had accidently left a drawer open on my desk in the house.  So I shoved it closed. It felt a bit "sticky", but that's not that unusal, as it's an old, decrepit desk, and, well, nothing closes smoothly in this town!  I ran off to the meetings.

I came back for another break at lunch time, and still, mused to myself, "hmmm... wonder where that cat got to..."   But rushed back to my meetings.

Later, around 5:45pm, I finally made it home, and had some time to do some Zumba.  While setting my computer up on the desk to start the Zumba DVD, I heard a faint, "Mew, mew..."  But I couldn't figure out where it was coming from... but I soon realized that it was Zane's cry for help.. coming from somewhere in the vicinity of the desk!

After a few minutes of searching, and taking all the junk out from beside the desk, I realized that he was in the drawer!  And he was quite happy to be released.  So, his big plans of whatever it is that Zane does all day, were quite interrupted, as I accidently locked him in the drawer!  Thankfully, he seems to have slept most of the day away in there, and didn't have any, well, calls of nature whilest in there.

We've also had pretty good city electricity over the past few weeks, so I decided to cook my brown rice in the rice cooker... only to have the power go off a few minutes into the cooking process :(  Dinner became quite late, and rice was a bit mushy. 

But, another plan that went awry today is a plan that I've had already for some months.  I was invited by some visiting linguists to facilitate two days' of teacher training for some folks from a language group that they planned to bring together to do some linguistic research.  I was supposed to have two days with the teachers of the group - about 30 in total, on Thursday and Friday.  Whoo hoo!  What an opportunity.  To do teacher training, I normally like to have an experienced trainer with me, who is is a mother tongue speaker of that language, and is an experienced teacher in the methods that we use.  So, I had someone all lined up - it's been organized for two months now, that he would come to help me train.

Well, first plan - instead of 2 days, I was given 1 day.

Then, the 1 day has now turned into next Saturday, due to the Eid holiday on Monday.

Now, the 30 teachers have turned into 2 teachers who are teaching in the classroom.  The rest of the 10 participants in the workshop are from the Ministry of Education. Granted, they are in positions like "coordinator of languages" and "inspector for languages"... but they are not classroom teachers!

And, this is the kicker, I heard through the grapevine that the guy who was meant to help me teach didn't actually come to our city for this workshop, as he is not feeling well. 

Good thing I didn't do too much preparation yet, because my workshop has just completely changed :)

Anyway, it's a good opportunity to work with this language group, and I'm excited about the 1 day workshop, with a small, but potentially very influential, group of people.  But tomorrow, I will be back to the drawing board on my lessons plans!


It's all just a day in the life of me (and Zane)!

A little bit of nothing

Do you ever get the feeling that you have too much to do, and you really don't know where to start, so you just sit on your chair, watching your cat sleep and listening to 'Top of the Pops"?

That's about what I'm doing this morning.  I have quite a long list of things that need to get done.  And some of them need to get done, like, well, two weeks ago.  But I just don't have the gumption this morning to start tackling them.  So. I will continue to sit here until it's time to go to my next meeting in 20 minutes.

And I will try to enjoy these few minutes of "nothing" to think about some of the good things of the past week.  First, we've had so much city electricity!  I have only had to use my new back up light twice in the past two weeks!  What a difference to life it makes to have electricity most of the time!  It's also been pretty nice and cool all week.  We've had so many beautiful, overcast days.  Upon waking in the morning, it's been a chilly 24C in my room!  At the moment, it's only 27C in my living room, and with the power running the fan, it's downright pleasant.  I did enjoy the workshop last week.  Everyone seemed to enjoy our lesson on Moringa, and it was a good experience to teach with one of my colleagues here, who I have not really taught with, or even worked with too much.  But it was really good to get to know him better, and to see how we could work together quite well.  I think it was good for our relationship! 

I also got an email this morning that a workshop that I'm teaching next week is still going to go on, but there are only going to be 6 teachers there to train, instead of the expected 30!  And, Monday is a public holiday here, so the workshop isn't starting on Monday anymore!  Which means that I have another day to prepare, and I only have to prepare to teach 6, and not 30!  Which makes a HUGE difference when I am planning to print literacy books for each of them to take home.  It was going to take me many, many hours to produce 30 copies of 3 different basic literacy books for them.  Now I just have to print off 6 copies of each book. 

So that was a bit of good news, though a bit bittersweet, as it would have been so wonderful to have this opportunity to train 30 teachers!  My organization is not paying for the training - it's being sponsored and organized by a different organization, and they have just invited me along for a few days to train the teachers that they are gathering.  So it's a real opportunity - and just the sort of thing that I would love to do more of.  None of the logistics issues or the expense - I just pop in and do the training :)  So it's a bit disappointing that there will be only 6 teachers... but at the same time, with all the other things going on, I have to admit having only 6 teachers takes a little of the time pressure off of me.  And it's easier to get 6 teachers to do some practice teaching, instead of trying to organize 30 teachers to practice!

Ok, it's about time for my meeting - and I should probably put something other than an old t-shirt and trousers on!  Looking smart for meetings around here is a very high value - shows that you respect the folks that you're meeting with.  So the fancier you dress, the more valued and respected the folks you're meeting with feel.  So, better run to find something a bit nicer to throw on...

Workshopping once again

So, not too much to report on.  We had a workshop last week, in which we revised Primers and made Part 2 of the Primers in 4 different languages.  Was good fun, but it took me nearly the entire week to get my head back into this place!  I think all of us facilitators were a bit loopy, just because we've had so much going on lately!

This week, I'm on the other side of the chalk-board, so to speak.  For the first time here in Jbs, I'm a PARTICIPANT in a workshop!  Thing is, many of the topics in the workshop are things that I've actually taught before!  Oh well... at least I get to see a different way to teach the material.  And it is good stuff - it's a workshop on how to teach adults.  So we're looking at making lesson plans, and principles for how adults learn, and getting some ideas on participatory learning tasks and stuff like that... but admittedly, today, when we were learning how to write learning objectives, I switched my brain off and started thinking about the next workshop that I have to lead next week... because at the last training workshop, I taught a few days on how to come up with good learning objectives.  All the students were so inundated with learning objectives that their refrain was, "By the end of the session, learners will...", "By the end of the tea time, participants will...", "By the end of the lunch break, students will...".  And we had lists of wonderful action verbs to make objectives out of. 

The afternoon was spent with one of my colleagues who I was working with, to plan a lesson to practice teaching tomorrow.  So we're going to team-teach a lesson about the wonders of the Moringa tree!  Such a beautiful little tree it is.  Hopefully, we will be able to convince people that they can consume some moringa, and hopefully will help keep them a bit healthier than they are, since folks in these parts really don't consume enough vitamins!  All they eat is meat and flour.  Not exactly the most nourishing of diets, and they are constantly sick.  Anyway, we'll see how the lesson goes.  Should be interesting to teach something that is not literacy related.

It has been a bit tough getting back into life here, though, after being away for so long.  It's SO nice being in my own little house, cooking what I want to cook... even though that also requires a lot of cleaning and dish-washing and shopping.  I kind of forgot how much time that takes each and every day!

But I haven't actually sat at my desk in my office yet, since we've been in workshops this whole time.  I'm wondering a little bit about where my desk chair went to... You leave for a few months, and people start thinking you don't need a chair anymore!  All I know is, I'm NOT going to sit in a plastic lawn chair at my desk for the next 2 years... so that desk chair had better make its way back to my desk :)

There are also a LOT of thing going on, workwise, which I just can't keep up with.  There are some really great things going on - seems that some serious NGOs and other folks are starting to see the writing on the wall about languages in education, and have been knocking on our door!  It's a wonderful thing, but... phew.  Hard to know which opportunities to invest our time and resources into, since, wow, we can't do it all!  It's a great "problem" to have.

So, on that note... time to go read some of those never ending emails, since I've gathered as many learning aids as I can for my lesson tomorrow :)