Treasures of Zeway

tAs I sit here and listen to a mix of Muppets Christmas Music and Bob Marley i though that I’d share my rather colorful friend with you.  I’ve named him Bob and he visits me quite often.  He hangs out on the wall outside of my office… and I get to watch him sunbath quite often.   Now is he considered a lizard or something else??  I don’t think I really know my reptiles although I do know he’s a lot larger than he looks in this picture… he’s at least 1 foot long.  Quite cool for a friend!

A few mornings ago we awoke to the sounds of screams and wailing.  It was heartwrenching and sent chills down my spine.  I thought for a few minutes and realized that people were crying because of a funeral… a few seconds later it donned on me that I knew which funeral people were crying at.  At that moment it hit me at full force that a young girl from our project died last Saturday.  She was hit by a car on the main road near our office.  She was in sixth grade and a double orphan.   The day before her social worker, Tigist, told me about how she heard about Melat’s death.   She said that it didn’t register, then the name sank in and she remembered her eyes, she remembered her long hair and she remembered how smart and bright she was.  At that moment Tigist nearly collapsed and needed to be helped back to the office.

I too knew Melat.  She played in my office quite a bit.  She was one of those girls who was always smiling and trying to figure out how much she could play in my office before me kicking her out so I could get some work done.

Melat Haragwain T-Wold

Tonight Becky and I are visiting her relatives house to participate in the mourning process.  You might remember that people officially mourn with their neighbors and friends daily for 1 week after a death.  Please pray for this family as they adjust to the loss of this beautiful child.

It was moving day yesterday and it was a crazy day.  I woke up really early in anticipation of all the work for the day.  But enough talk… here are some pictures of me with my stuff and all settled into the new place.

I came to Addis on Thursday to start preparations for Becky’s arrival.  Selfishly it’s been a great few days in Addis.  I was able to catch up with Aynalem & Dereje.  Catch up with some good friends, eat good food and even watch 2 movies in the new movie theater.  By the way I saw The Happenings and the new Indiana Jones movie.  Have to say Indiana Jones rocks, whereas The Happenings took me completely by surprise as I hadn’t heard a thing about it.

Enough about movies…

Becky’s here & she arrived safely in one piece.  Incase I forgot to explain who she is, she’s a teacher who will be staying with me for almost a month to teach English to our social workers as well as to some of the kids in the program.  In the past 24 hours, I’ve dragged her onto mini busses, taken her grocery shopping, went to an awesome church service and am now listening to her attempt the wonderful language of Amharic with one of my old language teachers.  I must say it’s rather entertaining and I fully remember what it is like to be in her shoes, completely overwhelmed by this crazy and complicated language.  She’s actually doing a pretty good job!

So tomorrow, we have managed to catch a ride down to Zeway in a car (definetly beats dragging big suitcases onto the crowded bus).  We should be arriving in the afternoon and then another adventure will begin!

I came to Addis yesterday in preparation for Becky’s visit but I thought that I should share this picture. I’m putting a nice smiling picture in my newsletter, but this is photo shows a bit more how I really feel   My old house is on the right and the new on the left.

This is something I live with everyday as everyday I never know what I’m going to run into or experience. Today I went with my boss to talk for a minute with my landlord. Becky, from Heartland Church is comming in a few days and I wanted to give my landlord a heads up. My landlord wasn’t there and so we talked to his wife who is very pregnant. She said that it wasn’t a problem to have a guest (if I had been talking with Eyasu it would have been). Then she said that we needed to switch houses on Saturday. Panic slithered down my spine. I knew we were going to be switching houses, we had talked about it last week, but I had been told that it would happen in a month not this weekend. I said it wasn’t possible because I was going to be in Addis picking up Becky. she said no problem have your houseworker do it for you.
Just picture this– one single lady moving my bed, cabinet, my oven, my little fridge, my sofa, my clothes=— everything!!! That picture just doesn’t work plus 1/2 of my stuff would be stolen and the other 1/2 would be in the wrong spot. I suggested the following Saturday. She said that wasn’t possible, they’re getting a ton of stuff (to fill up my current house) on Friday. So we settled on Tuesday, less than 24 hours after I return to Zeway with Becky.
This is going to be interesting….

I’ve got myself a cool new bike!!! After more than a year of saying that I’m going to buy a bike, I finally broke down and did it. The timing was perfect because the hardware store (that randomly sells bikes) happened to have the bike I wanted in stock. I don’t think this particular model has been in stock for about a year. It’s a girls 18 speed and I even got a nifty basket to go on the front. Now, I cruise Zeway in style!!

Saturday and Sunday, (June 7 & 8 ) we held our first ever sports competitions. They were incredibly fun and fabulous two days filled with screaming kids, soccer, volleyball, and tennis table competitions. Each of the sites had at least one team in each type of competition– with Zeway having a few more. Kids came out of the woodwork to watch these competitions– with the smaller towns cheering with their cohorts against the big bad teams of Zeway. Jiddo and Bulbulu had their own competitions in Bulbula where Bulbula took all five trophies– but graciously gave a trophy to Jiddo for good sportsmanship. In the Zeway competitions, Tilahun’s soccer team took the cup in a final against Geleta’s team. Abossa women’s volleyball took the cup in the final against Zeway and Adami Tulu’s mens volleyball took the cup against Hanna’s girls (Zeway). After each team won their event all of the kids from that site took off running all over the fields chanting about being the winners and how the loosers only eat spinach. I don’t think I have ever seen such an exciting event in my entire life.

These events are great for these children as it builds up their self-esteem, teaches them about team work, communication and competition. For the children who competed in Zeway, for those coming from other sites, it was some children’s first time to visit Zeway or to take a trip with a bunch of other kids. Just the fact that these children were there and competing was a once and a lifetime opportunity.

Our project has had a dinky old truck for the past few years. After lots of asking, hoping and praying a new car has graced us with its presence. It is (I think) a Toyota Land Rover and absolutely incredible!!

Last week was a busy week, as I said. The regional Africa meeting for Food for the Hungry was held just south of Zeway. At the end of the meeting the participants were broken up into 10 groups and traveled to all of the sites for home visits. Many of these visits resulted in tears as people were surprised by the stories and saddened by some of the living situations that people are facing. This group of visitors was a bit different as the time was more of a whirlwind as they only spent about 2 hours in the town that they visited.