Expect the unexpected!

This country amazes me everyday, and just when I think I'm feeling secure about things, something happens to upset the apple cart! For someone who likes organisation, control and predictability this country is a real challenge to live in!!
So the latest here is we have cancelled school for Friday - yep the day after tomorrow! And we found this out a few hours ago! So there goes my planning for the day, lessons will be carried over to next week, I'll miss my amharic lesson, kids will be home and need minding, and my house help won't come (and that's the worst part - there are definite perks to living here and Alimetu my help is surely one of them!)
So why I hear you ask? As you may have heard the PM died a week and a half ago, and his funeral will be Sunday morning. Before then millions (yes millions) of people will flock to the city for this time, and mourn his loss. The problem is others may be celebrating the event, and the coming together of the two in such amazing numbers may cause some problems.

On Sunday there were thousands lined up to view the PM's body at the palace!

 So as visitors to the country we will keep low profiles over the next 5 days, and pray that peace will continue in this place. As a strategy to keep it peaceful in the past phone lines and internet lines have been shut down, so this also is expected any time from now. Hence this weekend of writing newletters and updating my blog may not be possible. See how I'm learning to be adaptable!
Those of you that read this and are believers please pray for peace in this country, for the deputy PM Haile Mariam Debre to make good decisions in the near future as he takes office, and also for the Orthodox church. Their leader also died last week, and now they will elect another 'pope' who we pray will be sympathetic to evangelical churches in this country.
So all sorts happening here. Stay tuned to hear what happens - although you may know more than I do outside of the country with the media machines in the western world. Here it seems to be word of mouth on the street more than anything. we don't have TV and wouldn't understand it if we did, so perhaps you can let us know what we miss while we're holed up for the weekend!! Lets pray we miss nothing, because nothing happens!

Buses, taxis carry posters celebrating his life. People even wear t-shirts with Zenawi on them! Can you imagine Julia t-shirts in Australia???

That's Africa!!

Hi everyone,
This blog is well overdue and a lot later than I wanted it to be, but hey, just think of it as me turning African!! No seriously there are reasons for this. It is so frustrating here at the moment as we slowly learn to smile, laugh and go with the flow. I remember someone emailing me from here and giving me the advice to just laugh and say "That's Africa" when things don't work or go according to our plan. It seems to me at the moment that things don't work, more often than they do work, and you can never rely on things!

People are never on time...wonder why?? This is normal traffic!

 So sorry Mum and Dad, for not skyping or emailing etc etc the past few weeks. The network here at school has been on the blink time and again, leaving us unable to use technology we want to. Then of course I'm such a novice at such things anyway, I changed my email address and there went this blog page. The few people that are up with fixing things at school like this, have been more than snowed under so its taken me over a week to be able to log in and try type this.....oh well, that's Africa!
What else is new?? Rain, rain everywhere and not a drop to shower in!! We have no water here at the moment in our school compound! A pipe down the road has apparantly burst and all water is cut off....and they're not sure when it will be fixed. So its bucket bathing, and boiling the kettle to wash a few dishes! The funny thing (not really) is school begins tomorrow with 300 kids arriving at 8am tomorrow and no water, no flushing toilets!! Oh well, that's Africa.
The shops have run out of sugar. It's been about 8 weeks since anyone had sugar to buy here. It's good for dentists - no sugary substances for kids to eat, but puts a dampner on cooking treats for recess for the kids to eat! I still have a small amount from some they left for us on arrival, but its needed for when I have to drink tea or coffee. I haven't been able to drink the stuff without the sweet fix yet!

Talking of coffee. I had my teacher assistant Lydia and her hubby, 2 yr old and 10 month old for lunch on Sunday. I cooked all day Sat to prepare a feast for them. It's the best way you can show respect for someone - to give PLENTY of food. Well I'm still learning what and how to cook here, but I served beef curry, rice, flat bread (my house help had to  make this!) and 3 salads - tomato/cucumber, couscous (this was a hit) and lettuce/avocado/mango. Following this we had rhubarb crumble, cream (took me over 10 mins to thicken it!!) and lemon slice (which uses condensed  milk not sugar!!!). They loved the sweet things, which is a huge novelty to them - they don't have dessert in their homes. ANYWAY back to the point - we tried to give them Eth coffee to finish the meal like all good people in this country do, and the bloomin coffee pot wouldn't work. It was one of those silver things on the the gas. You put the jug on the gas, the powder in the bottom with hot water under it and wait for it to perculate through. Well 10 mins passed, 20, 30 and there was no coffee coming up. At about 40 we were laughing and serving a cup of tea!!! Who knows what went wrong. The hilarious thing was, our guests with their cup of tea used 3 teaspoons of sugar each!!! No wonder the country is short on sugar! Oh well that's Africa!

Waiting for coffee with our Ethiopian guests - Lydia and her family.

The final clanger I will add is while trying out my new found language I went to my fruit and veg man and asked for 'An kilo nej shinkort amasagenallo' and walked away with a kilo of garlic.......when actually I wanted some white onions!!   Oh well, that's Africa!
Chow

Driving adventures

Sorry I've taken so long for this second blog, but a rodent of some sort was hungry and ate through the phone cabling here leaving us without Internet for the past 5 days!
Anyway I'm back and want to tell you about driving here. I have my license now (despite no practice really which is scary!) and have driven once on the roads (with me at the wheel). To get my license I had to verify at the embassy I had an Aussie license, then verify the verification at an Ethiopian place, and then go to the transport office and sign papers, wait a long time, pay ,more money, then they gave us a license on floppy pink paper, which will last two years. After this we will need to go through the whole process again!! Good money raising ploy!!
Finally with paper in hand I needed to do a car test with sim who own the vans we drive here. So there I am with a left hand drive manuel car, on the left side of the road watching out for pedestrians, donkeys, goats swimming pool size pot holes, not to mention other cars that randomly pull in front of you. Anyway, the lovely local man testing me said I changed gears smoothly, and did fine!! What a miracle.
So here are some of the rules I' ve learnt here
Don't use your blinkers on the roundabouts ( which are often 3 lanes across) because it confuses people!
Only indicate to let people behind you know what side they should pass use on!
When passing a car ( you can use left or right side) beep your horn to warn them
When animals or people are on the road beep your horn to make them get off!!
If you break down simply leave your car where it is and put some rocks around it so drivers won't hit it.
Stop lights don't need to be obeyed if it is busy traffic. Just go when you feel like you should!
There are no lane markings so make as many as you feel like.
Lock your doors and have windows only slightly open in busy market part just in case someone wants to grab your belongings. ( rare in occurrence)
If  you are in an accident try to pay money immediately and don 't involve others, because it will always be your fault and cost you!
If in doubt of anything, honk you horn!!
So there you have a western point of view about driving. Let me tell you, it's never dull and always an adventure!!
Until next time
Salem ( peace to you)
Naomi

We made it!

Our fruit and Vegie man is so helpful and polite!!!

Well finally we got here to addis after two and a half years!! Now we've been here all of five days I finally have a chance to fill you in on what it's like! The first thing is, anything I describe will not do justice to how things actually are here!! After seeing videos, reading books and talking to Ethiopians I thought I was well prepared but nothing can truly prepare you for addis! The color, sounds, smells are amazing.

Firstly the streets. It's rainy season here and even though the sun sometimes comes out in the days it doesn't dry out so the roads are mud, dirt then more mud. There is quite a lot of litter around, and basically everything looks and is filthy. But this is just the backdrop of a busy vibrant place full of noise and color. There are yellows,greens,blues of clothing, tarps, painted iron, all against the brown mud! People are busy, traffic congested and crazy! It seems there are no rules! Horns honk all the time warning cars you're passing or people are in the way, or just hello to others! Potholes the size and depth of swimming pools make things interesting and the main road to our compound has rocks on the side of the road for trucks to put behind their wheels whe they break down!! Then there is livestock that roam the streets with herders behind them. Donkeys carrying heavy loads, goats and sheep everywhere all add to the confusion and chaos. And to think we have a driving test Monday in all this!! Oh I forgot they drive on the other side of the road and the driver is on the left side of car not right!!

Potholes Everywhere!!!!

A bogged car outside the Church we went to.

The noises here are full on. The streets are full of people ( imagine after a footy game walking to your  car amongst the supporters that is how congested it is) and we are the only white ones. We stand out a mile and people openly stare. They look serious but then they smile and it changes their whole face! So you hear voices, sheep and goats, cars honking, Muslim mosques chanting, or in our case our unit is right near a pentecostal church and they sing and sing and sing into microphones turned up full! Nothing is ever silent here!

Goats and donkeys everywhere!!!

Finally the smell. With fresh livestock among the streets it can be a bit smelly. Few people have toilets and use the gutter so that isn't great either although with so much rain it is washed away, so currently is not too bad.

Lucy and I walked up the street near us today to but bread from a small sook ( a little galvanized  shop). When we have been out it is normally in the school vans but today we went by foot. Boys called out wanting to shine my shoes and one cheeky boy said "hey good thing come my way" in English!! Another group of boys yelled feregi (foreigner) and giggled and stared at us and a boy called money money, but accepted my " no sorry" so all in all it wasn't too bad!

Not sure what their hats are made of!

I think that will do for now, but soon I will take photos of our apartment and describe our living conditions and the food here.
Chow (Amharic for goodbye!!)