Not In Addis: Episode II: David hangs around with 7th and 8th graders near a lake

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Editor's Note: The following email message is viewable in two formats. Those wishing to get through quickly can access the Standard Edition by simply reading through the message directly. For those wishing to access the full text of the Special Extended Edition (including extra scenes and exclusive director's commentary), watch out for the special links to the extra features.

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Previously in 'Not In Addis': David cheats death while riding in a vehicle driven by Dave Hicks across several hundered kilometres of Ethiopian landscape, and nearly doesn't fall off his horse. Now, back to the story...

After returning from the Bale (pronounced 'Bah-lay') mountains, I was confronted by the monster that all teachers aproach with fear and loathing (well at least the latter of the two): student reports. In this case, the ones in question were mid-term reports, and at Bingham they're done by hand. And every student gets one in first term. For those just joining us, I teach Kindergarten to grade 6 for Computer Studies, as well as 7 & 8 for Mathematics. With an average of 20 students per grade, that adds up to around 180 students. Around 120 of which I'm still trying to attach names-to-faces for. Thankfully I was given mercy on several of the elementary grades by their full-time teachers, so it was only around 100 or so I had to write myself. My word, is that a draining job to do. Do you know how hard it is to come up with useful, constructive comments for that many kids? By the end they were becoming less useful (although hopefully not destructive).

Anyway, after that ordeal was over, it was time to face up to the next one - trying to choose two videos that would both appeal to and be appropriate for a bunch of 40 11-14 year olds. Because that weekend (October 17th-19th) was the Grade 7-8 Retreat, and I was responsible for picking the movies. Easy, you would think. Ha! But more on that later...

Friday lunchtime came, and with it the last-minute-mad-rush to get everything and everyone packed and loaded onto the vehicles. Finally everyone and everything was onboard, and we headed off to the Babugaya Guesthouse.

We were headed south again, but this time our destination was only about an hour out of town - much more reasonable than the last trip. We arrived intact, and upon disembarking, I got my first view of the lake. It was not to bad.

Over the weekend, there were lots of things happening, from fun/bonding activites, to swimming to dressing up in toilet paper. A couple of the more memorable events included being tied to each other for 3 hours, the Talent Show, and the councelor hunt, which involved all the teachers hiding in the dark for an hour while the students tried track us down.

As well as all the fun stuff, there were opportunities for more serious discussion. All the teachers had a 'family' group of about 4-6 of the students, and the boys I was responsible for and I had a couple of good discussions over the weekend. There were also three devotion times, given by one of the students' parents, which were also good. They spoke about Joseph and how he used his talents for God, and how he delt with temptations of different sorts.

And then there were the movies. The first night, we made the movie a surprise. The kids didn't seem to appreciate this - the most popular question all day was "What's the movie?" At about 10PM, we started it, showing the 1960's version of "Romeo and Juliet", which the 8th graders have been reading in class. Understandably this wasn't terribly popular, so after a couple of minutes we switched over to the real movie, "Finding Nemo", which was much more appreciated. Some people also went out "Hyena Hunting", which involved going to the tip and attempting to attract hyenas with meat dragged around behind a vehicle. I wouldn't have minded participating in that event, but since I was responsible for the movies, I kind of had to stick around there. The second night, there was another movie scheduled. Unfortunately the short clips I showed before the movie as 'trailers' were more popular than the movie itself, which was "Mystery Men" (which I quite like - apparently my tastes are not shared universally). Anyway, both movies finished around 1AM, so by the time we'd packed everything away afterwards, the other occupants in my cabin were already in bed, and most of them were asleep. Which was better than them playing Monopoly all night, which had been threatened earlier.

At the end of the weekend, we all got a final photo, piled back into the vehicles and headed home. Another weekend successfully accounted for. And I got the opportunity to develop my relationships with a lot of the kids, which was one of the aims of the event. All 'round, a good result.

And now for some important messages from our sponsors. But stay with us for the shocking conculsion of "Not In Addis" in Episode III: David goes back to Babugaya and doesn't do much.

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Director's Commentary

• The Babugaya Guesthouse was established over 50 years ago on the shores of the Bishaftu crater lake. It is owned and run by SIM (Serving In Mission), who also runs Bingham Academy. Back to the story


• I was found by about a third of them, although my quest was not aided by three of the 7th grade girls, the first of which said in a loud voice, "There's someone over there," after which the other two proceeded to scream a the tops of their voices. I didn't think I was that scary... Back to the story


• The clips, for those who have seen my collection, were the "Terry Tate Rebok" ad, "Matrix Pingpong", the "Funny Cats" clip, and the trailers for "Return of the King" (Lord of the Rings 3) and "The Incredibles" (both of which I think everyone on the planet should see). Back to the story

Not In Addis: Episode I: David (mostly) rides a horse in the mountains

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Editor's Note: The following email message is viewable in two formats. Those wishing to get through quickly can access the Standard Edition by simply reading through the message directly. For those wishing to access the full text of the Special Extended Edition (including extra scenes and exclusive director's commentary), watch out for the special links to the extra features.

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Well, three months ago today I headed out to Brisbane International Airport, jumped on a plane, and headed off into the wild blue yonder. Well, it hasn't really been terribly wild so far. And it's really only been blue for about half the time. It was definately yonder though. That means I'm about a quarter of the way through my time here. It really has gone quickly. Anyway, on with the newsletter...

Three weekends ago (circa October 10th) I finally (after being here for about two months) got to see some of the Ethiopian countryside outside of Addis Ababa. About a dozen of us piled into a van (including the Hicks' and Anne Hutton) and headed south. The drive down was full of beautiful landscapes, interesting sights, occasional traffic jams, and local buildings, and took about 6 hours. That's a long time to be cramped into a small space like that, even with breaks along the way. Near the end we stopped and picked up our guide, who lead us to the place where we would switch to horseback. Eventually.

When we got to the location, we all unloaded and repacked our bags so they could be transferred to the pack horses. All was going well up until the point when we were ready to depart. At which point the discovery was made that there were only 3 other horses. For 11 people. Hmm...

About an hour later they had rounded up (quite literally) enough horses for us all and we were off. As some of you know, I had never ridden a horse before. But so that you don't get too concerned, I didn't fall off at all on the way up the mountain. It was quite fun actually. Apart from the fact that I couldn't quite fit my foot into the left stirup, and that my saddle kept slipping, it was fairly comfortable. Definately better than walking. My noble steed (whom I dubbed 'Binky') did a better job than a lot of the horses of avoiding smacking my legs and other body parts into nearby stationary objects (trees, for example).

About three hours later we reached the summit. By then it was about 7PM, and, as a result, quite dark. We all dismounted, rugged up, and tried to regain contact with body parts long lost to feeling. David and Sylvia Hicks, along with Anne Hutton got about cooking dinner and in no time we had lamb stir-fry, ready to consume. Yum!

The next day, we got to sleep in a bit (8:30! Way better than 5:30 the day before). Upon getting up, we discovered a clear blue sky day, giving a great view of everything around. After a bit of breakfast, packing up the bags tents, and reloading the horses, it was time to head back down the mountain. I managed to arrange a saddle exchange, so this time it was my right foot that didn't quite fit in the stirup. It was way better than the other one though. And I only came off once. We even galloped in several places, which was made all the more thrilling by never being sure if your saddle would stay attached to the horse it was on. David Hicks' saddle actually came off right near the end. A long drive later we finally made it back to Bingham on Sunday evening.

But my journeys out of Addis were just beginning. Stay tuned for the next exciting episode: David hangs around with 7th and 8th graders near a lake.

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Director's Commentary

• Addis Ababa literally means "New Flower", which gives a somewhat more picturesque image of the city than reality presents. Back to the story


• Apparently there had been a miscommunication about the number of steeds we would require. David Hicks had asked in advance for 11 horses, 3 of which were bigger. Somehow, the part about 11 in total got lost in the translation. Back to the story


• All Terry Pratchett fans out there, the answer to your question is "yes". Back to the story


• Ok, here's how it happened. We were riding through a well worn path at the time, so the ground was about 5cm below my stirups. Stephanie Hicks had lost her hat along the way, so I had a momentary lapse in good judgement thought I'd pick it up for her. Without getting off. About three-quarters of the way down the saddle slipped, and I took a short trip to ground level. I got the hat though. Back to the story


• One thing which made the drive home a little more exciting (other than the bumps/gaping holes in the road, of course) was not quite being sure whether we'd run out of fuel on the way home. We had less than a quarter of a tank of fuel for the return journey, and the discovery that the local petrol station was out of diesel was not a welcome one. The only other option there was to buy individual 1 litre cans for 20 birr (about AU$4.00). Dave Hicks wasn't impressed with that, so we headed off, hoping to find a place further down the road. Two petrol-stationless towns later, David stopped and asked a local if there was anywhere we could get fuel. He jumped in and led us to a small store that (thankfully) had what we needed - at only 3.85 birr (about 60c) per litre. While we refueled, pretty much the whole town gathered around the van and looked at us. I hope we were entertaining... Back to the story

Exercising in Addis

Well, I've now been out of Australia for a little over two months, and in Ethiopia for about six weeks. Looking back at my last post, I realise it's been a few weeks since my last epistle. There are two main reasons for this. The first is that I've been pretty busy. The second is that it hasn't been terribly interesting busy - mostly just preparing lessons and fixing computer problems. And I know you don't want to hear about that. Oh, and the third reason is that it usually takes a good hour or so to write one of these, so I require some momentum to get it done in one sitting. Anyway, on with the show...

Firstly, addressing the title of this post. I thought I'd pick a topic to talk about with regards to life in Addis for each newsletter. Stay tuned for future issues on food, time and language.

This week though, it's sport and fitness. The main reason for doing this topic now is that yesterday I received my kit for having registered in the Great Ethiopian Run. You get a cool green, red & yellow t-shirt, a Coca-Cola cap/visor/thing, a waterbottle (white and oblong donut-shaped), and a number. Oh, and a small booklet about the benefits of using latex contraceptives (in Amharic, of course) and an advertisement for a brand of said contraceptives which doubles as a calendar (also in Amharic). Handy! Not only that, but if you finish the course, you get a commemorative medal! How cool is that!?!? And all this for the extravagant fee of 30.00 Ethiopian Birr, which converts to about $5.00 Australian.

The run itself is 10km around the hills of Addis Ababa. It is part promotional and part fund-raising, as far as I can tell. Extra funds raised go to a couple of different projects, which last year included famine relief and AIDS victims. I am number 5,627 and they're expecting about double that number to participate. The information sheet says you can run, jog or walk. I am expecting to do all three at some point in the course. It's on the 30th of November, so I've still got about two months to get into shape. I haven't done any running since New Years Day, so I should probably get onto that soon. There are two main places you can train here. You can do the 1km loop around the perimeter of the compound wall, or you can go to an old Cuban airstrip, which is apparently about a kilometre long. Which seems ridiculous to me. I haven't been out there yet, so I can't say one way or the other.

I have been doing other stuff though. David and Tim Hicks are both keen (and talented) squash players, so I've played them several times. There are also a couple of other guys on the compound who are learning the game too, so that's been good exercise. Also, there are sports nights on at the gym we have here that are open to people from outside the school on week nights. There is volleyball on Monday, hockey on Tuesday, soccer on Thursday. I've been playing soccer each week since school started and volleyball when I can. I haven't made it to hockey yet. Volleyball and hockey are mostly ferenji (foreigners), while soccer is mostly locals. Oh, there's also basketball on Saturday afternoon, if you're that way inclined. Which I'm not.

On the topic of sport, last Saturday the Brisbane Lions won the AFL premiership for the third year running! I had been hoping to get live updates on the Internet during the game, but it was not to be. The Internet connection here is flakey at best, and although I managed to get the nail-biting (up to the 4th quarter anyway) semi-final between Sydney and Brisbane the week before, I was almost entirely unsuccessful that day. I managed to get a score at half-time (at which point we were 6 goals ahead), and then gave up and headed off to a bazaar at IEC (the International Evangelical Church), which had lots of interesting local stuff, some of which you may get to see if you ask the right people around Christmas.

Later that day, several of us attended the Meskel celebrations in town last Saturday. Meskel (which means Cross) is a local holy day celebrated by the Orthodox church. According to legend, Emperor Constantine's mother found a piece of the true cross of Christ, which made it's way to Ethiopia. Fire was involved in the discovery, so there are two main features of a Meskel celebration: crosses and fire. Anne Hutton and I, along with two other people from the compound went into SIM headquarters and met up with Jamie, an American woman who was the only veteran in the group - she had attended last year's celebration. Along the way, she prepared us for the event: don't put anything of value in your pants pockets, don't stand up too long or you'll get rocks thrown at you by people behind you who's view you are obscuring, if everyone suddenly stands up, get up too and push towards the front to avoid being crushed. As it turned out, this year's event was much more organised, and none of those issues eventuated. Although people were getting rocks thrown at them.

(Aside: Apparently rock throwing is somewhat of a national pastime. You don't see many cyclists in Ethiopia. Apparently the locals see people on two wheels as being a challenge to test their rock-throwing skills on. People who have been cycling across Africa get to Ethiopia and are pelted with rocks everywhere they go. We were driving along behind a flat-bed truck the other day, and one of the guys on the back of it was casually tossing stones at pedestrians as the truck drove past. And these aren't just pebbles either - I've seen rocks the size of billiard balls being tossed.)

It was still quite interesting though. We got there at about 3:30PM and there was a crowd of several thousand (probably at least 60 thousand, and probably more), mostly sitting on a large embankment. On Meskel Square itself there was a large crowd of clerics in in brightly coloured outfits, lots of soldiers, and continuous parades of people doing Meskel-related things (most of which we couldn't see due to the clerics). Oh, and a really, really big bonfire.

The bonfire itself is of course the main event, and it wasn't due to be lit until dusk, so we kept ourselves entertained by trying to photograph clerics who were facing our way (mostly they were trying to see the same stuff as us, and so were looking away) and some of the small horde of kids who emigrated to our area. Jamie and I had digital cameras, and the kids loved us taking photos of them and then showing them the result on the view-finder. One kid in particular (Samuel) ended up sticking around until we left and then followed us most of the way back to SIM headquarters afterwards. He was 'very hungry', which may or may not have been true, but since we didn't have any food (or much money anyway), and generally giving cash is not seen as good practice, he ended up not any better funded for the efforts. A lot of the kids sell little packs of tissues or lollies, and most Bingham people will buy something if they have the right change on hand, since they are at least being somewhat enterprising. But begging isn't usually encouraged. It is difficult knowing what is the right thing to do - we have so much in comparison, but simply giving money isn't necessarily doing them any favours anyway. It's a conundrum.

Anyway, the time of the big event finally arrived. The head-honcho of the Orthodox church (sorry, I can't recall his official title - but he did wear a cool silver/white hat and carry a big silver cross) carried a flaming torch around the bonfire three times and then finally lit it. It went up very quickly, and soon was a huge blaze. Once the fire started, the riot police charged in and started moving people back from the fire. Unfortunately my batteries ran out about then, so you're going to have to imagine the rest.

There are (at least) two superstitions about the bonfire at Meskel. The first is that once the fire collapses, if it falls to the north it will be a good year, and if it's to the south, a bad one. The second is that if it falls north, it then becomes a race (once the embers cool a bit) to get a piece of the bonfire to aid your own good fortune that year. The scene reminded me of what happens at the end of an AFL game at the Gabba. For the uninitiated, the crowd waits until the third siren and then a large portion of it tries to be the first to get to the middle of the field. Imagine that, except that instead of about 100 people doing it, about 5 times that many are going. It wasn't too hectic in our area though, so the event finally being officially over, we headed back to the bus. On the way back the crowd started a rendition of 'Ethiopia' (not the official name) which is roughly their equivalent to 'Watzing Matilda' to Australians.

Prayer Points

There are a couple of things you could pray for, if you are so inclined. Firstly, there have been a few sick or injured people on the compound. I've mentioned before the other computer teacher broke his leg a week before they were supposed to return from the US. He is now off crutches, but still in his inflatable cast, and he's got about 7 pins in his foot holding it together. His son broke his arm about three or four months ago (a compound fracture - not pretty, apparently), and one of the bones has still not grafted properly. And several of the other staff have been battling various stomach bugs on and off. Aly Hicks, Tims's wife, has also had a bout of pneumonia, which has knocked her out for the past week or so. So health is definately a prayer point. I've been pretty well so far, but I've still got pleanty of time.

Secondly, we still need more teachers. We currently have one English teacher for the whole of the high school (7-11) which means he's taking 28 lessons a week. Other teachers have a pretty heavy load too, particuarly David Hicks, who is doubling as director and taking about 10 lessons a week on top of that. Also, we are loosing three teachers in December - a 5th grade teacher, a music and psychology teacher, and our art teacher. We are hopefully getting a new art teacher, but we're basically two teacher short of optimal as it is, so we can use anyone that can come, even if it's only for a few months. And then there's the next school year...

Anyway, it's now past midnight here, which means that most of you (in Australia anyway) will be getting out of bed soon. Well, unless you're one of my brothers, in which case you probably won't be up for several hours. But for me, it's time to hit the hay. Until next time...