Transcript (Addis Ababa, Sat April 9, 2004)
Phone rings...
David Peterson: Hello, David speaking.
Pause
Mysterious Stranger: Hello?
DP: Hello?
MS: Hello.
DP: (slightly exasperatedly) Yes, hello...
Another pause
MS: (somewhat nervously) Hello. I would like to introduce myself. Would you like to be my telephone friend?
Stunned silence
DP: Uh, no.
Confused silence
MS: No?
DP: No.
MS: No?
DP: (attempting to cross the language barrier) Aye! (means 'No' in Amharic)
MS: Aye?
DP: (emphatically) Aye, NO!
MS: Oh. Goodbye.
DP: Good...
Click...
DP: ...bye.
Sunday, April 11, 2004
Thursday, April 01, 2004
Alive in Addis
Yes, contrary to the evidence (or lack thereof), I am still alive. Looking back, my last email was November 30, so I’m a little behind schedule. As such, this time around you’re getting the ‘snapshot’ edition. If you want a pretty version with photos and lots of colour, click here (and make sure you have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed).
Christmas this year was spent in cheery London. We had three weeks holiday over the Christmas period, so I took the 17-hour trip to the Old Dart to meet up with Gary Dewhurst, my flat-mate of two years, who was returning from a year of exchange study in the US. We tripped around London, getting as far out of town as Windsor Castle Stonehenge and Bath. Christmas Day itself was spent indoors, keeping out of the fairly lousy, apparently typical, London weather. Plus, I got to see ‘Return of the King’!
Field Day at Bingham went over two days, with students from Kindergarten through to Grade 11 competing in events ranging from sack races to sprints to javelin. I looked after the high jump, which we had to finish up quickly so that competitors could toss javelins in our general direction. Bingham has three teams – Carey, Scott, and Taylor (named after famous missionaries). I am in Taylor. We tried hard, but in the end came second to Scott.
Debre Lebanos is an area about two hours north of Addis Ababa. There are two main attractions – a Portuguese/Italian bridge (its original constructors are disputed), and an Orthodox monastery, complete with a cave in which an Ethiopian saint lived, praying for 29 years (the last 8 of which with only one leg).
The view at the bridge was fantastic, and the monastery and cave were also very interesting. We were also given a tour of the monastery and cave by some of the local monks.
Over the term two break, I headed off to Kenya for a few days with some of the other staff here at Bingham. After a few days unwinding on the beach at Melindi, we returned to Nairobi and saw the sights – the highlight being some of the local wildlife. Amongst the many different types we saw were elephants, buffalo, warthogs, zebra and giraffe. Unfortunately we didn’t spot any big cats, rhino or hippos, but it was good fun anyway.
While in Nairobi, we also took the opportunity to visit the nearby schools of Roslyn Academy and the Rift Valley Academy. Several kids from Bingham have gone there (and a few from Ashgrove Baptist, too, I believe), so it was interesting to see how they were set up.
Overall, I’m still doing well here. Time has flown—it’s hard to believe there are only 3 months left until I’ll be back in Australia. And still so much to teach before the end of term!
Please keep David Hicks (our director) and family in your prayers, as they are trying to find out what the condition of his heart is and what will be required to fix it. We worked out the other day that if they have to return home for an extended period of time that there will only be one family with more than two years of experience left at Bingham!
There is still a need for teachers in the coming school year, in both the elementary and high school levels. I am considering coming back myself, particularly since there is a good chance all of the current computer staff will be gone (including Binyam, the Ethiopian who helps keep everything running), and we don’t have anyone confirmed to take over yet.
In any case, thank you all for your support thus far, and I promise it won’t be four months until the next installment.
Christmas in London
Christmas this year was spent in cheery London. We had three weeks holiday over the Christmas period, so I took the 17-hour trip to the Old Dart to meet up with Gary Dewhurst, my flat-mate of two years, who was returning from a year of exchange study in the US. We tripped around London, getting as far out of town as Windsor Castle Stonehenge and Bath. Christmas Day itself was spent indoors, keeping out of the fairly lousy, apparently typical, London weather. Plus, I got to see ‘Return of the King’!
Field Day
Field Day at Bingham went over two days, with students from Kindergarten through to Grade 11 competing in events ranging from sack races to sprints to javelin. I looked after the high jump, which we had to finish up quickly so that competitors could toss javelins in our general direction. Bingham has three teams – Carey, Scott, and Taylor (named after famous missionaries). I am in Taylor. We tried hard, but in the end came second to Scott.
Debre Lebanos
Debre Lebanos is an area about two hours north of Addis Ababa. There are two main attractions – a Portuguese/Italian bridge (its original constructors are disputed), and an Orthodox monastery, complete with a cave in which an Ethiopian saint lived, praying for 29 years (the last 8 of which with only one leg).
The view at the bridge was fantastic, and the monastery and cave were also very interesting. We were also given a tour of the monastery and cave by some of the local monks.
Kenya
Over the term two break, I headed off to Kenya for a few days with some of the other staff here at Bingham. After a few days unwinding on the beach at Melindi, we returned to Nairobi and saw the sights – the highlight being some of the local wildlife. Amongst the many different types we saw were elephants, buffalo, warthogs, zebra and giraffe. Unfortunately we didn’t spot any big cats, rhino or hippos, but it was good fun anyway.
While in Nairobi, we also took the opportunity to visit the nearby schools of Roslyn Academy and the Rift Valley Academy. Several kids from Bingham have gone there (and a few from Ashgrove Baptist, too, I believe), so it was interesting to see how they were set up.
Over and Out...
Overall, I’m still doing well here. Time has flown—it’s hard to believe there are only 3 months left until I’ll be back in Australia. And still so much to teach before the end of term!
Please keep David Hicks (our director) and family in your prayers, as they are trying to find out what the condition of his heart is and what will be required to fix it. We worked out the other day that if they have to return home for an extended period of time that there will only be one family with more than two years of experience left at Bingham!
There is still a need for teachers in the coming school year, in both the elementary and high school levels. I am considering coming back myself, particularly since there is a good chance all of the current computer staff will be gone (including Binyam, the Ethiopian who helps keep everything running), and we don’t have anyone confirmed to take over yet.
In any case, thank you all for your support thus far, and I promise it won’t be four months until the next installment.
Sunday, November 30, 2003
Running In Addis
Editor's Note: I know a lot of you were looking forward to getting Not In Addis: Episode III, but the subtitle was going to be 'David doesn't do much at a couple of lakes', so I decide to summarise it in this much more interesting installment instead. So, here's the summary:
David doesn't do much at a couple of lakes.
Ok, ok, here's a bit more detail:
Trip 1: David goes back to Babugaya for part of a day for the Worship Team retreat. Although not officially a part of the worship team yet, he thought it would be good to meet some of the gang. Unfortunately, the bit he got to was pretty boring, so he ended up wishing he's just stayed home and done some marking instead.
Trip 2: David goes to Lake Langano to relax after a grueling 13-week term. Does as little as possible.
Trip 3: On the way back from Langano, David gets dropped off at Babugaya again for the Faculty retreat. Does as little as possible, although manages to do a bit of marking.
Ok, that's over with. On with today's installment...
First of all, an update on Danielle Hale. She's the girl who was hit in the eye with an errant hockey stick a few weeks back. She is now back at Bingham with both eyes intact. She was initially diagnosed with having four tears on her retina, which could have lead to the retina detatching, which is never a good thing. So, they headed back to the US to have lazer surgery, but when it was checked by three experts over there, there was no problem to be found. God is good! She calculated that she had people praying for her on 6 continents. Thanks for adding yours.
Today is the 30th of November, 2003. For many people this is a date they have been preparing for for months. I was not one of those people, although in retrospect that probably would have been a good idea. For today was the day of the 2003 Total Great Ethiopian Run. And I was runner number 5627. Out of 18,000. Yes, that's right - 18,000.
The run is 10 kilometres in distance and consists of a couple of loops around the centre of Addis. My preparation for the big event was grueling. I ran about 1 kilometre about three weeks ago. In my defence, that was after playing squash for an hour-and-a-half. I had intended to do more after that, but never quite got the time and/or motivation. So, this morning I woke up at about 7 o'clock, had a quick breakfast, put on my cool souvenir running shirt, laced up my runners, and headed out to Meskel Square.
Brad Adams (another teacher here from Australia) and I caught a taxi in (which, as usual, included a couple of moments where life traditionally flashes before your eyes). The taxi driver took us as close as he could before the roads were closed to cars and we walked in to the starting line. Of the 18,000 runners, I'd estimate that there were probably about 100-200 non-Ethiopians. Unusually, nobody struck up a conversation with us while we waited for the starting gun. Too focused on the task ahead, I suppose.
My goal for the race was to run the whole distance without stopping or walking. I also had in mind an hour as a target time. I can walk 5km in an hour, so 10km/h didn't seem out of reach. A month ago, I was pretty confident. Today, I was much less so. I did some running last year with some friends, but I'm not sure that we ever cracked 10km. It took me a month of running to do 6k without stopping. And that was at sea level, not 8,500 feet above.
Finally, the big moment approached. Brad and I joined the mass of runners, managing to get a position towards the front. The crowd surged forwards, forcing the policemen trying to hold the starting line to retreat. The siren sounded, and we were off. From this point on, time was measured in distance. Especially since I didn't have a watch on.
0m: So far, so good.
50m: Slow going with thousands of people attempting to get to the front at the same time.
100m: The crowd thins a bit. Already there are runners ahead of us as far as we can see.
300m: A guy stops in front of us to retie his shoelaces. We dodge and keep going.
500m: We hit the first hill. The hills in Addis are generally longer but less steap than those in Brisbane.
800m: Top of the first hill. That wasn't so bad.
850m: The crowd of runners starts a chant for a couple of minutes. Soon everyone is running in time. Interesting experience.
900m: First sharp corner. A middle-aged white guy hits a traffic island he couldn't see coming and face-plants. He gets up quickly and keeps going.
1km: Slight downhill. Feeling good. I can do this!
2km: Bottom of the second hill. This one's a bit steaper and a little shorter than the last one. Still doing ok.
2.2km: A group of people from Bingham are waiting to cheer us on.
2.4km: Top of the hill. My legs are starting to complain. Time to slow down a little. I keep jogging, but Brad goes ahead.
3km: Finished the first loop. I am ready to stop now. Legs have signed a petition and contacted their local member. Start chanting "Every single step" in my head.
4km: Finally at the top of the first hill again. The second loop takes a slightly longer route between hills at this point. Still running (albiet slowly) Legs on fire. Now chanting under my breath.
5km: Missed the sign and thought we must have gone at least 6k by now. A friendly Ethiopian passing me corrected that delusion for me. "Every...single...step".
5.2km: About 500 people pass me when they take a short cut through a petrol station instead of going the extra 100m of the hairpin turn.
6km: Around this point an Ethiopian (who's name I can't remember) decides to join me as a running buddy. I'm sure I'm slowing him down.
7km: We hit the second hill for the second time. Legs have given up their protest and decided to try blisters instead.
7.2km: Halfway up the hill, the Bingham crowd misses my passing while chearing for another guy from the school just ahead of me. I barely noticed. "Ev...ry...sin...gle...step".
8km: A thoughtful soul has set up a fire hose and is cooling everyone down. Yay! Blisters multiplying. I'm going to die...
9km: A kid on the sideline puts out his hand for a high-five. I attempt to comply, but the activity saps about 40% of my remaining energy and I miss anyway. Note to self: Don't do that again.
9.3km: Ask my running buddy how long we've been running. "1 hour" he says. Bummer.
9.5km: The crowd picks up pace, and I try to do the same. Burn another 50% of remaining energy in about 50m. Nearly stop and throw up. "EVERY SINGLE STEP!"
9.8km: Round the final corner and see the finish line. Halelujah!!!
9.9km: See the time above the finish line: 59:45. Try to pick up the pace. I can do it!!!
9.97km: 1:00:00. Doh!
10km: Take the final steps over the finish line. 1 hour and 10 seconds.
So, I achieved my goal: I ran it the whole way without stopping. And only 10 seconds over the hour. I'm happy with that. The guy who came in first (an Ethiopian, of course) did it in 29 minutes, 54 seconds, which is a new course record. I'd estimate I came about 5000th, which is not a bad effort.
It came at a cost though - my calves are making me pay. Flights of steps and slight inclines will be a challenge for the next couple of days, I think. But I did get an extremely cool medallion, just for finishing the race.
In other news, we have finally reached the end of first term (the first of three). 13 long weeks. Everyone has found it hard going, not only due to the length of time, but also the fact that most people were hit by a mystery virus that took people down for about a week. I managed to avoid that one somehow (every other Australian on the compund got it), but did get a stomache bug of some sort that knocked me back to about 50% for a day.
We are also saying goodbye to three of the teaching staff this week. Tim and Ally Hicks head back tonight (or more accurately, early tomorrow morning). Tim and Katie Strawn and their son Aiden leave later in the week. We have been given the blessing of a replacement teacher for Ally in the 11 Psychology classes she taught though, which is excellent. I'm still not sure who's looking after 5th grade yet, but something will be worked out for the next 3 weeks until their new teacher arrives in January.
Also, we've had rain the last two nights in a row. In the middle of dry season. Woohoo! Hardly ever happens, but it's good that it did. We're already getting power rationing.
Anyway, time for bed. God bless,
David
Prayer Points
- Praise that Danielle's eye was healed before a finger was laid on it.
- Pray for David Hicks, who is currently on a tour of the UK and USA trying to drum up teacher for the next school year. With 12th grade being added, we're going to need even more than we have now, and several will be departing.
- My calves. Just kidding.
Director's Commentary
- No, that isn't a grammatical or spelling error. Total is a petroleum company and was the major sponsor of the race. Back to the story.
- The astute among you will have recognised that name. It's the same place as where the giant bonfire happened a month or two back. Back to the story.
Wednesday, October 29, 2003
Not In Addis: Episode II: David hangs around with 7th and 8th graders near a lake
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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