SLEEP DEPRIVATION!
on Tara's Ethiopian Adventure (Ethiopia), 26/Oct/2009 08:48, 34 days ago
My sleep deprivation comes from an unlikely source... the local  church. I think the local priests have the attitude that‘if we are up and praying, the rest of you should be too’. Every morning they start their services at about 5am, while it is still dark, using a VERY loud speaker to project their service to the neighbourhood. The sound carries so well at that time in the morning it actually sounds like they are in your house with you shouting at the top of their voices. The services normally last for about 3 hours. They don’t take a break for the weekend either– in fact they often have longer services then (see below).The first time this happened it woke me bolt upright but after a week or so I learned to block out the sound and drift back to sleep until about 7am. However... it seems they have cottoned on to this and are finding new ways of waking me up. The last few days they have been turning the volume up louder (I think to compete with another church that is a little further away). I have also noticed (quite hard not to really) that the last 2 weekends they have decided to go for all night prayer sessions starting at 10pm or midnight! I was told last weekend the all night prayer session was because it was the 7thday of the month (according to the Ethiopian calendar) and therefore a particularly holy day. Every Sunday is also especially holy and therefore warrants loud prayers in the middle of the night (normally starting at about 2am).I get the impression that rather than complain about this noise I am supposed to be grateful for all the prayers etc. I certainly don’t want to offend the locals. However, with my limited Amharic it is difficult to appreciate the sounds as I cannot make out any of the words. I have to say... I am impressed by their dedication to church with several church services available for people a day. However when people need to get up and work the next day it seems it would be kinder to let them sleep. As I said before... I am getting more used to it but when the noise goes on most of the night and I have only been able to drift in and out of sleep it can be difficult. Without sleep I am much more irrational and emotional! This morning I woke up (if you can call it that when you are not sure if you’ve been to sleep) feeling like I haven’t slept all weekend. My head is pounding! And so another week begins! Church willing... I will get an early night tonight and catch up my missing sleep.