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...