Happy New Year for 2008 and Happy Christmas from Ethiopia
on J and M in Assosa (Ethiopia), 12/Jan/2008 16:01, 34 days ago
Happy New Year for 2008 and Happy Christmas fromEthiopiawhere Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas on 7thJanuary.We flew from Addis on1/1/08on the last flight to Assosa for 2/3 months with Katie and James our visitors. We spent NYE showing Katie and James the sights of Addis ending up in a cultural restaurant where you could sample traditional Ethiopian food, music and dancing finishing off the evening with a Black Bush.Our New Year was overshadowed by world wide events inPakistanandKenya. We were interested in both countries as we were offered a possible placement inNE Pakistan2 years ago andKenyabecause one of our fellow volunteers in Assosa, Robert, comes fromKenyaand in fact his wife and child were living in Eldoret where there has been a lot of trouble.He was in Addis for other reasons but decided not to come back to Assosa until he had made contact with his family and knew they were safe. Apparently their home was looted but they were eventually able to move to another part of the country where they feel safe. Robert felt the situation was stable enough for him to return to Assosa during the week. It must have been a dreadful dilemma so far from home and not able to do anything to help.Katie and James after a good nights sleep explored the market on Wednesday morning and in the afternoon they climbed Inzzy (our one and only hill) with Mulatu as guide– James soon decided that he was not comfortable in the afternoon heat.Thursday they had breakfast out and explored the town and then all the bureaus were given the afternoon off to attend the town celebrations for Christmas. It was a good occasion with football matches, a hockey match which is only played at Christmas, an eating competition with bananas, water and bread, a tea drinking competition, dancing from the different ethnic groups, singing, a karate display, a sack race, a tug of war, javelin throwing and a strange game involving a live chicken with lots of women fighting over it.There were a number of important people interviewed by Ethiopian TV and then they interviewed Katie– presumably they decided she was the most photogenic of the lot of us. On Friday they visited the MI and the local village nearby and we enjoyed a beer after work on the balcony of the Bamboo Paradise Hotel watching a wonderful sunset. At work we saw the first consequences of no flights as the bank had run out of money so the MI had no cash to pay the salaries just before Christmas. Big problem.Saturday Katie and James arranged with a local guide to walk to the 3 waterfalls. We have walked to the first one and it is certainly a great walk. They had a shower under the third waterfall.Sunday they left for their trip of the northern part of the country starting with a 9 hour drive to the next sizable town Nekempte. We have that delight at the end of the month.Monday being Christmas Day we were invited with Diana to share it with Martha and her family which was lovely. They now have a TV and DVD and insisted that we watch Mr Bean a hot favourite here! Mulatu spent Christmas with his family in the village where they killed a goat. Being Monday everyone is supposed to be back at work and school on Tuesday but you cannot return until all the meat is eaten.We spent some of our time clearing out the house and we are beginning to make some inroads but need to have a few more bonfires. Mulatu also needs to get geared up to do some selling of paper, bottles, padded envelopes etc. He stands beside the bonfire and takes off half of what we put in saying‘I can sell that!’ Trouble is it sits around then until I insist he takes it. Now he has not got so much time. However he was sent a 100birr at Christmas by Shirley, previous volunteer, and he asked us to keep it for him saying ‘I need to keep this for food after you go’. Heartbreaking to think at his age he has to worry about where his next meal is coming from.We were able to reassure him that we would pay him for February until the next volunteers come into this house. However in his world there are no certainties.