Places I've Been

Came across a site which lets you create a map of countries you've visited. Here's mine:

create your own visited countries map

Australia is in the World Cup!

After 32 years, Australia has finally made it back into the World Cup after a penalty shoot-out with Uruguay. Bring on Germany!

A bad week in Ethiopia

After months of only hearing about the latest on the election, I was initially glad to read some different news about Ethiopia. Unfortunately, it's all bad. About 20 people being eaten by lions, flooding killing 6 and polio on the rise. Why is it that the only good news you hear is about Ethiopians kicking butt in distance running?

Anyway, here's hoping they get the lions, water and disease under control soon.

Unity government = one party system?

I'll be honest, I don't get all this talk about a "unity government". Perhaps it's just a matter of perspective, but doesn't a democracy need to have an opposition? Wouldn't having one big party defeat the whole purpose? And how would it change anything? The CUD and UEDF would still have exactly the same percentage of people in government.

I'm no politician, but I think the CUD and UEDF need to just accept the result - flawed or not - and move on to the job of keeping the government accountable. They probably wouldn't be trying so hard if the next elections weren't five years away...

Now that's what I call a bonfire

Now that's what I call a bonfire
Originally uploaded by bitmeizer.

I've just discovered Flickr and am planning on pushing my whole photo collection (most of which was taken in Ethiopia) up to it over the next little while. That's not going to happen with a 20Mb/month limit, so I'm going to have to upgrade to 'Pro', which isn't a big deal since it's currently so cheap. However, I'm having some trouble with PayPal, which does all their payment stuff, so it may take a while. In the meantime, there are some shots of Meskel 2003 up for your enjoyment.

No Longer In Addis

A couple of days ago, I sent out an email that looked like this:

Just a quick note as I am walking out the door. The day I arrived in Addis almost two years ago, my roof started leaking. This morning, my roof was leaking again. Different apartment, different room, but coincidence? I think not. Perhaps the Compound's way of saying goodbye. After two years at Bingham, I am about to start my journey home. A fair bit has happened since my last newsletter, but it will have to wait for another time. In the meantime, for your further enlightenment, here is my itinerary for the next few weeks:

Today: Addis to Toronto (via Frankfurt)
July 4: Toronto to Washington DC
July 11: Philadelphia to Dallas
July 18: Dallas to Brisbane (arriving on July 20th around 11AM)

But for now, it's time for me to say goodbye.

David Peterson, Addis Ababa Correspondent
Signing out.

So, that's why I am currently in Toronto. Actually, I'm in Cambridge, a town/city of about 118,000 south-west of Toronto. I'm visiting Dan Lambert, who was my housemate for the first part of the school year. As for the rest of the stuff that has happened since, here is a quick
summary:

Elections
Ethiopia held it's third ever democratic elections on May 15. The first one didn't really count since there was only one party running (the others boycotted). The election itself was run on May 15, and the official announcement date was June 8th. However, this was delayed to July 8th (due to ongoing investigations into fraud). Just today, I read that it may be delayed again. In the meantime, the government had put a ban on public demonstrations for a month after the poll date, which has now been extended to the announcement date.

Starting on Monday June 8th, and escalating until Wednesday June 8th there were civil disturbances (a.k.a. rioting). What exactly started it is still somewhat unclear, but they resulted in over 40 people being killed (officially - unofficially the estimate is much higher).
For safety, Bingham decided to close the school for the Thursday and Friday, although there have not been any further outbreaks since the 8th. Hopefully this will remain the case after the official results are posted too.

Andrew in Addis
My brother Andrew decided to visit me for a few weeks. He arrived on May 24th and we headed off to the Simeans to climb the highest mountain in Ethiopia (and the 4th highest in Africa) two days later. We made it to the top (braving hail and snow to get there) and back,
although my knees are still complaining about the experience. We were going to visit some other parts of Ethiopia the next weekend, but then the election riots broke out, so we were stuck in Addis. He did help out with some of my lessons though, for which I was greatful. You can ask him to see some of his photos - there are some nice ones.

Those were the main items of interest. Please keep praying for Bingham. There is still a need for a couple of extra teachers, particularly in the maths/science area. As I've said before, God is faithful and provides enough people to do the job, but it would be nice for them to actually have a couple of extras for once :)

As for me, I'm currently planning on trying to get a job when I get back, and then return to Uni to complete my education degree next February. After that, it is in God's hands.

I'll probably post a few more entries about my trip home. After that, this blog will probably lie dormant for some time. For now though, I still have some grading to finish off and email back to Ethiopia. I'd better get cracking.

Flooding kills over 60 in eastern Ethiopia

Contrary to what was a common misconception when I was first coming to Ethiopia, we do actually get a fair bit of rain. And in the last week or so, we've been getting more than is usual for this time of year. Today, for example, we even got hail. It was bucketing down, and I was in our gym, which has a very large tin roof. My ears were still ringing for several minutes after it dissipated somewhat. Still, my problems are small potatoes compared to what has been going on elsewhere.

The Wabe Shebelle river, the largest in Ethiopia, burst it's banks on Saturday, killing at least 60, probably more. This region is several hundred kilometres southeast of Addis. If it's anything like much of southern Ethiopia, it was probably in flood-plain areas, which are usually flooded during the rainy season anyway. It just caught people by surprise this time.

In other news, Brad Pitt has paid us a second visit (the first being with his ex-wife Jennifer Anniston before their much publicised split) to get a first-hand view of the AIDS situation. Hopefully he can help more than me.

They'll build parking lots over anything these days

While finally returning a massive stone obelisk they stole in the 1930s, Italian scientists have discovered a series of ancient tombs under a carpark. The Italians were originally ordered to return the monument in the 1960s, but have procrastinated until now to actually do so, causing Ethiopians great frustration in the meantime. On the up-side, if they had returned it earlier, they probably wouldn't have had the technology used to detect the tombs. All's well that ends well, so the saying goes.

You learn something new every day

Or so the saying goes. In an effort to prove (or disprove) the homily, I have started a new blog - circadianoesis - where I will endevour to daily record the new thing I learn for posterity. You never know, something interesting might get posted every now and then. Click here to witness my slow descent into madness.

Crazy statistics

1.8 million Ethiopians may die from HIV/AIDs in 2008 if current trends continue, according to a report released by (as far as I can tell) the Ethiopian government. That's a decent-sized city-worth (eg. my home town, Brisbane). How do you even start to fight that, let alone try to treat the even larger number of people who are infected? I have no idea.

Note to self:

Avoid getting food poisoning. I've had it happen at least three (probably four) times since I arrive, and usually it's not my fault (eating out in any country is always kind of risky). This time I made the mistake of having some left-over meatballs for lunch and not nuking them into oblivion in advance. It's hard to keep track of food in a house with four guys sometimes...

Ahah!

Not really Ethiopia-related, but according to Defense Tech, the Pentagon has been working on flying saucers! The one on Flight of the Navigator still looked way cooler though.

Bombs in various places

According to Xinhuanet (a Chinese news site), the Ethiopian Federal Police defused two C4-based bombs in a public bus on Friday. And then another one went off at a chicken store, of all things. At 6AM. Apparently it cracked a wall. Thankfully I don't buy my chicken there (Bole is just too far away), and I definitely don't catch busses (not those type, anyway). If this is true, I guess the Department of Foreign Affairs and Tourism was not completely out of their tree after all. Who knows who the culprits were, however.

In other, less explosive, news, we (that being, the staff at Bingham) just returned from a relaxing weekend at Babugaya, a retreat centre on a scenic crater lake about an hour and a half's drive from Addis. The most exciting event (in a negative way) was narrowly missing an Ethiopian woman who was running in the middle of a particularly dark section of the road.

We also saw the two episodes of the Amazing Race which went through Ethiopia. We had heard about this about three months ago, and were anticipating the racers arguing with customs officials, struggling with local public transport, being accosted by beggars and sleeping on the street with some of the locals outside one of the local monuments, waiting for it to open. Instead, they had to put mud/animal manure onto walls, put a roof on a hut, coral a pair of donkeys, match a cross-shaped necklace and run a 4x400m relay. It seems that reality is not all it's cracked up to be...

The Internet feeds the hungry!

The poor of Ethiopia need Ebay! According to Meles Zenawi, a good Internet connection is the "weapon that they need to fight poverty at the earliest possible time". Brilliant! This ranks up there with the government's current primary and secondary school education method - wide-screen plasma TVs emitting pre-packaged lessons (in English) to every public school in Ethiopia. Their teachers now just turn on the screen at the start of the lesson, and turn it off at the end. Why won't Bingham let me teach that way?

Term break!

Yay! Term 2 is over. Only one to go. It seems somewhat surreal that I will be leaving here in about 3 months. Time flies...

On the last two days of school we had the 'Memory Verse Prize', which is a reward for all the kids who memorise and recite all their memory verses for the term. This term it was a day walking through a local National Park. Thursday was grades 5-9 and Friday was grades K-4. Grades 10-12 all had exams this week, so they couldn't come.

Unfortunately, quite a few of the students on the Thursday trip didn't quite make it there. The bus they were travelling in (driven by a local) was involved in a minor accident. Thankfully nobody was seriously injured. Apparently the bus was travelling behind another car, which stopped suddenly at a bridge to let a truck by. The bus had too much momentum to stop, so the driver swerved around the car, only to clip the other vehicle on the front corner. The other car lost control and tipped off the side of the road. Thankfully, it was only occupied by the driver, who was ok. The driver of our bus, however, decided that sticking around was a bad idea and headed for the hills.

After the event, quite a few of the kids just came home, although several continued on to the park. High drama all around!

The next day's trip (which I was on) was much more pleasant and much less stressful. I and another leader were with 6 fourth-grade boys and we hiked out about 10km to a nice little waterfall. A fun day out, all said. And no car accidents.

Well, I've got to get back to avoiding my grading. Until next time...

Blogging in Addis

After a long period of neglect, I have finally uploaded (and post-dated) my newsletters since last April. Some of them are quite long, so you could be in for a bit of a sit-down-session if you read them all. Also, you can now subscribe to this blog with your favourite RSS or Atom reader. Exciting!

In more recent news, we are in our last week of term here at Bingham. This holiday I am planning on doing nothing much, just for a change of pace. Other than grading and report writing, that is. A teacher's job is never done...

Procrastinating in Addis

Checking my records, my last epistle was sent on November 29. That makes me about two months overdue for another one, which isn't too bad, considering my track record. In any case, in the interests of actually sending it out, this edition will be a (relatively) brief overview of the highlights.

December

For the first several days of December I and five other intrepid explorers took a whirlwind tour of Egypt. For the first day, it would just be me, Brian and Dan (my house mates here in Addis). The next day we would be joined by Jamie, Ryan and Laura (friends from around Ethiopia). After landing in Cairo at about 5AM, we visited step pyramids and rug makers in Saqqara, old statues in Memphis, and the Great Pyramids in Giza.

Once the others joined us, we covered a lot of ground - Luxor, Dahab, Sinai, and back to Cairo - on a variety of modes of transport, including an 8-hour train ride, an 18 hour bus ride, and an 8-hour minivan journey through the freezing desert in the middle of the night (featuring flat tyre in the middle of nowhere). Highlights were the Karnak temples in Luxor, snorkling in Dahab and climbing Mt Sinai by moonlight to see the dawn.

By the end of it all, we were quite exhausted. We arrived back in Addis on Sunday evening. On Monday, we were back to work. Fun!

The end of December brought with it Thanksgiving (for the Americans - although they kindly invited us along for the meal) and Christmas. Last Christmas I was in rainy St Albans (England) with Gary Dewhurst. This year, we had a 'sleepover' at our place on Christmas Eve with a bunch of other missionaries from around Addis. And it rained again! I'm almost looking forward to having a sweltering, 40-degree Christmas Day again. Later in the day, my family gave me a phone call (the first I have received from them in Ethiopia!) which was good.

On Boxing Day, I headed east of Addis with the Adams family (Brad, Krisha and Sebastian, along with Uncle Steve - no sign of Lurch). We drove for about 4 hours, finally arriving in Awash, notable chiefly for its close proximity to the Awash National Park. We spent a couple of days there checking out the sights including (but not limited to): Oryxs, dikdiks, baboons, warthogs, lots and lots of birds, an impressive gorge, a big waterfall, a (very) hot spring, and a dead crocodile. And, to our great surprise, we also saw the Djibouti train! This is the legendary (and, up until 10:30 on Dec 27th, 2004, suspectedly mythical) one-and-only (literally) train which runs between Addis Ababa and Djibouti. In all my time in Ethiopia I had heard about it, but never actually laid eyes on it. Also, there was a rumour that part of the track had been destroyed, and it wasn't even running at the moment. Apparently it was, and I saw it! Unfortunately, my camera batteries were flat, so I have no photographic evidence. But I'm sure Brad and Steve would back me up.

January

The first couple of weeks of January were holidays, during which came Ethiopian Christmas. As I've mentioned before, Ethiopia has its own calendar and system of time, and the Orthodox church celebrates Easter and Christmas at slightly different times to the west. This year, Ethiopian Christmas fell on January 7th. Right next door to our compound is a Kale Haywut church (the church established by SIM about 40 years ago). For the past few years they have hosted a big all-night Christmas gathering, which can get a little loud at times. In any case, this year they wanted to show "The Passion of the Christ" at around 11PM, so they asked if we could provide the projector to show it. Being the resident technical guy, that job fell to me. Brad and Bobby (two other staff members here) came as well, so we headed over at the appointed time, which was about 30 minutes before the preacher was ready to finish. It seemed to be a fairly humorous sermon, although I was unable to appreciate it, since I could only understand about 1 out of 10 words. Finally, we were ready to go. It took about 15 minutes to set up the projector and get it working with the guy's computer (that sort of thing is never as easy as it should be). I had been hoping that it would be an original copy of the film, since I have only seen a low-quality pirate version. Unfortunately, it was exactly the same version that I had seen before. Still a powerful film though.

February

The first weekend of February brought with it the annual Field Day. Actually, Field Days would be a more accurate description, since it goes for the whole day on Friday and Saturday. I was in charge the computers (surprise, surprise), so I spent most of the time under a tent entering results. No complaints here - last year I was outside for both days judging the high jump. There was a little tension leading up to the day though, since Brian Hall, who was in charge of organising the whole day, was about to have his visa expire. Thankfully, he got his work permit the day before Field Day. We have three 'houses' - Carey, Scott, and Taylor - and Scott won the day, overall, with Taylor (my team) coming in second. The personal highlight was the 'Fun Relay' at the end, where teams of students took on parents and teachers. The teacher team (made up of David Hicks, Brad Adams, Brian Hall and myself) was victorious, of course.

In Closing

In other news, Housemate #3 (Dan Lambert) has had to return to Canada due to health problems. He seems to be recovering, albeit somewhat slowly. On the plus side, Brian Hall's family has been to visit and his brother Brandon is sticking around until the end of the school year. So we've managed to keep our Bachelor Index up to quota.

Starting in April, the 10th through 12th grade will be taking their external exams (IGCSE, O-Levels and AS-Levels for the curricularly curious). I have 10th grade for Information Technology, so you can pray that I get the required information across to my students, and for them in all their subjects.

And, as always, you can be praying for staff for next year. At present there will be about 5 or 6 teachers continuing next year, which leaves a lot of holes to fill, including the Director position. The Hicks' will be going on furlough (their first in 7 years!) at the end of the school year, so hopefully a suitable replacement will be found soon.

Thanks again for all your support so far. Keep sending those emails (and letters!) - they are always appreciated, even if I don't get back to you immediately. For now, this is David Peterson, Addis Ababa correspondent, signing off.