This is Christmas

“In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.


"And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you GOOD NEWS of GREAT JOY that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger." Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests." When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about." So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told. On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise the child, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he was conceived.”

Taken from the Bible, the book of Luke, chapter 2.

Mmmmm, Pumpkin Bread

No canned pumpkin so I had to buy the real deal.

With the help of Kevin, we cut it in half and cleaned out the stringy stuff and seeds.

Then, we baked it (in the oven that has no temperature gauge)

The next day, Kadist and I scooped out the "meat."

Later that day, I mixed up the dough and then took it into the office in order to plug the mixer into our one power converter (since the plugs are different here).

Then, I baked it (again, in the oven with no temperature gauge)...and it turned out pretty well! And I still have enough pumpkin left over to make at least 6 more loaves. I'll have to find some other pumpkin recipes maybe.

Getting Around Addis

It seems like we write a lot about our weekend activities. That’s probably because those are more exciting experiences. Our weekdays are filled with language learning, speaking with ministries and churches, and all sorts of various tasks related to Ethiopian documentation and finding things – like a vehicle, home for the girls, office furniture, clothes hangers, and so on. In America, this is a bit easier since there are Walmarts, car lots, classified ads and nice roads leading most places. Here it’s a bit more difficult, especially in getting to places. Here are some examples…

Last Saturday we wanted to go into town to find a desk. The paved road close to our home is a four-lane road – usually two lanes going into town and two out of town. Unfortunately on Saturday, the Orthodox church down the road was celebrating a holy day so all four lanes were heading out of the city for over four hours. There was no city ordinance or police controlling traffic, everyone just thought it made sense to take up all the lanes for outgoing traffic. So that changed our plans a little.

The bank we use is very close to our house, again just across the paved road – which they are expanding to make a divided road. We’re excited for the finished product but at this time, the construction creates an obstacle. They have dug a trench that is about 8 foot wide and 10 foot deep. There are a few wooden planks and rickety “bridges” laid over the trench to cross. The locals usually direct us white people to this high quality bridge, complete with sand bags.

If we need to get somewhere specific or need to get somewhere quickly, we can hire a contract taxi. They’re these little blue Russian cars. To start them, sometimes the driver needs to hot wire the car. They aren’t the cleanest so sometimes we get little fleas biting at our ankles. All the drivers love to save gas by shifting into neutral and coasting downhill. The cars are usually running on the borderline between barely functional and breaking down. Two times, our taxi has broken down and pulled over. Once we had to sacrifice our precious water bottle so the driver could douse the engine to cool if off. No matter what the issue, we’re always assured by the driver with the phrase “chigger yellum”, which means “no problem”. With the help of Dawit our language instructor, we’ve learned to reply “chigger allah”, which means “there is a problem”. That usually gets a good chuckle.

Great Ethiopian Run, part 2

After we left Kaldi’s, rejoicing that we had gotten our camera back, we hopped on a mini-bus with Dawit (our language instructor) to go towards Meskal Square where the race would begin. As we got closer, we saw more and more people in the green race shirts we all were wearing. You had to be wearing the green race shirt in order to get the medal at the end.

We found a spot to wait in the midst of thousands of people. The atmosphere reminded me of a high school pep rally: people were dressed up, excited, taking pictures of each other, doing all sorts of silly things.

The “race” began finally began and we took off—walking. For nearly the entire race, it would have been difficult to run due to all the people. The “elite” runners were all at the beginning so they could actually run. But the rest of us were there to just enjoy the event. Along the way there were lots of entertaining things to see. For instance, we saw a rock band made up of foreigners playing along the race route and water spraying out of a fire hose to cool people down. At both of these spots, people just stopped walking/running to enjoy the entertainment. We thought of how great an example that was of the contrast between American “time-orientation” and African “event-orientation.” At most any race in America, people want to get the best time possible, even if they are beginning runners. Here, at the Great Ethiopian Run, (with the exception of the elite runners) people were there to just enjoy the event, regardless of how long it took them!
So we did our best to enjoy it as well, finishing the 6.2 miles in just under 2 hours. We had a blast!