What are you going to do next???
As the time for departure from Ethiopia draws near increasingly people are asking me what my plans are for post Ethiopia. My contract ends in July 2008. At that time I will be returning to the US. Beyond that I’m not really sure. I will be applying for Grad School: Masters in Social Work, but also have a few international options available to me. Right now things are a little unclear, please pray with me that God will give me some guidance and wisdom as I draw nearer to the next adventure and season of my life.
I don’t know if I wrote about my past rat/mouse experiences. As you know I am no longer in the same house, thus no rat problems. I am however still feeling the ramifications of cohabitating with a furry creature. Many months ago the rat ate my mouth guard which is much needed every night as the stress of my daily life reaks havok on my teeth everynight. My dentist back in the US generously gave me a mouth gard back when I went to the US in 2007. I thought that I could survive without replacing it, but nope- my teeth are moving daily and in pain. Well I ordered a new mouth guard from a dentist in Ethiopia. It cost me an arm and a leg but I now have a snazzy new teeth protection and he even gave me the mold of my teeth. I’ve had many molds of my teeth taken in my life, but honestly have never been so excited about being able to call my mouth mold my own. I think this life is making me weird.
I’m in Addis Ababa once again and will be leaving sometime in the next few days for a trip up to the northern part of Ethiopia. I’ve been up there before for some vacations as well as a brief visit to the Simada site when I first arrived in the country. Now I’m going back but this time to Lagayint (a site near Simada), but to facilitate a training about volunteering as a tutor with our child development program. I’m still a little unclear about when I’m going, but mos tlikely I’ll fly up there on Friday— as far as when I return I don’t know. I love not knowing….
But personally exciting news is that I get to stay in Addis for Thanksgiving. I don’t know why I’m so excited about the holidays this year, but I am.
Saturday night my Peace Corps friend, Miranda, spent the night. We drifted off to sleep around 11PM and were awakened by chanting/singing coming from the nearby Ethiopian Orthodox Church. My mind told me that it was dark, but it must be morning time. I looked at my phone (which is also my clock) and discovered it was only 12:30 AM. I drifted off to sleep again and was awakened at 1:00 AM—by even more chanting. This is not normal here, during Ramadan the Mosque does the call to prayer many times a day & night, but normally the Orthodox Church is fairly predictable. Unfortunately because it was the middle of the night the sound carried perfectly into my house (it sounded like they were in bed with us). Well these lovely noises carried on all night until 7 or 8 AM. Needless to say…. We didn’t sleep much
When my house cleaner came in the morning, I asked her if she heard the church all night. She looked at me like I was crazy and said no. She lives on the opposite side of town. Then later, when I was on my way to church, I ran into one of my coworkers. I asked him if he heard the church all night. He looked at me like I was crazy too. I was beginning to feel that I heard the voices in my head and was really crazy. But then I remembered that Miranda was with me and could confirm that I was not crazy and that these noises really did exist. Later that evening, I asked my landlord about it and he and his family cracked up laughing, when I explained how loud the noise was and how it went all night and I didn’t sleep at all. Apparently it was St. John’s day (every day is named after a saint here) and for some reason the priests decided to pray all night. The crazy thing is that it all turned out to be in Geez- the ancient language which Amharic stems from, so on one except a priest or God could understand what they were saying all night.
