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.