One Ridiculous Sunday

Hey from Mekelle!
We’re doing well here with less than two weeks left in Mekelle, then we hang out in Addis Ababa for a few days then head home—it’s insane and seems completely unreal. Our programs are still going well and we are enjoying what we do. This week was our last with the orphan girls and I was one of the most depressing moments of my life to say “see ya later” to them. Things are going well at the Youth Center and we are still teaching English and playing way too much Uno. We have been able to visit a few outside villages this past week and it’s been really cool to experience a little more of rural Ethiopia. We are in the process of preparing for the other UPC team to arrive as well (they get here in a little under a week!). We are also hoping to go on a little hiking excursion this weekend with the Irish guys, because you’ve gotta climb at least one mountain while you are in Ethiopia, right?
We have also been continuing to hang out with the middle and high school aged girls that are at the youth center. Last week was kind of long, especially because of me being sick and we also had quite a few visitors, so we decided to just have the older high school girls over for a movie on Sunday afternoon. We invited them to come over around 2pm, but really even when you give them a time, they will basically just show up whenever they want. One girl, Rahel, showed up about 40 minutes early (and really, what is more awkward than trying to entertain one person who doesn’t have fantastic English? You can only talk about what they did the night before for so long). Then our friend Jamba showed up right on time (Jamba is the best- we really wouldn’t be able to survive here without her). We were expecting three or four others, so we waited, and finally about 30 minutes later our friends Helen, Winta, and Semhal showed up. So we started the movie (Mr. And Mrs. Smith) and we were all kind of tired and enjoying not doing anything too exhausting. Well, about an hour into the movie, we heard a loud knock on the gate. So I threw on some shoes and ran out to the gate. I opened it and was surprised to see our friends Yeshi, Atsede, Eyrosalem, and Eyro’s little sister, Fana (Fana might be coming home with us if we can convince her to travel in one of our duffle bags). These three older girls are the younger middle school aged ones and are super fun. We didn’t exactly invite them over, but they showed up anyway and informed me that they really wanted to make us coffee (and really, why on earth would we ever turn down coffee?). So they came in and pretty soon everyone seemed to be doing something different. I should preface this with the fact that when we are aware of certain people coming over to our house, we “Ethiopian-proof” the house according to who is coming over. Since it was just the high schoolers, we put away our ipods and cameras and anything that would show that we have expensive things just so we don’t tempt them to take anything. When we invite the middle schoolers over though, we usually put away all our food because they always ask for it. So we had nine Ethiopians running around our house while trying to keep an eye on all of our things. It was literally just ridiculous. Rahel and Jamba were just talking in the corner, Winta, Helen and Semhal found Mindy’s “In-Touch” magazine and were screaming on the couch when they found someone they knew. They also enjoyed cutting out pictures (don’t worry, we were basically done reading the whole thing—and it was pretty outdated). While the older girls were in their own little worlds, the middle schoolers were busy preparing the coffee ceremony. Atsede was attempting to figure out how to light the gas burner on our stove (yes, it IS necessary to turn on the propane before you hold the match up to the burner), Eyro was making popcorn (Ethiopians put sugar on their popcorn-weird, right?), and Yeshi was outside grinding the freshly roasted coffee beans (I got to help with this part and now really want to grind coffee by hand, though I’m sure my passion for this will disappear once I get home). Little Fana found Mindy’s headlamp and was completely amused for about an hour that she only had to move her head and then as if it were some sort of magic trick, the light would shine in the same direction. Mindy and I just stared at each other and were completely overwhelmed by everything that was going on around us. Once the gas burner was under control and coffee was boiling we were in business and ready for our coffee ceremony. Traditionally Ethiopians do three rounds of coffee, using the same coffee ground each time, so progressively the coffee gets weaker (but even the last round is still amazing). You pass around popcorn or cookies in between and just get to smell amazing coffee for a good hour. By this point, our house was pretty smoked filled due to the roasting of the beans and the cooking of the popcorn on the stove. Our house is pretty “western-ized” by Ethiopian standards because many of them don’t have actual floors, so they just throw things on the ground of their home and its no big deal, because its just like the ground outside. So popcorn is getting thrown on the ground, coffee is being spilled, and everyone just walks on it, dragging it with them wherever they choose to walk next. Our poor tiled floors haven’t seen much worse than it did over those two hours. The ground literally felt like a sticky movie theater, but the coffee was totally worth it. It was fun to hang out and just enjoy a little bit of Ethiopian culture in our house. After coffee and kicking the middle schoolers out, we were thoroughly exhausted and ready for bed because entertaining nine Ethiopians is about the equivalent of entertaining 900 Americans. We are having only the middle schoolers over this weekend for a pancake night and another coffee ceremony, we provide the pancakes, and they prepare the amazing coffee. So hopefully it will be another good night.
It’s completely insane that it is going to be our second to last weekend here, but we’re trying to just take everything this last week and a half as it comes and enjoy it all.
I’ll leave you with another fun fact about Ethiopia: just because there is a hot water heater in your house does not guarantee that you will ever get a hot shower J