The start of the rest (one year) of my life.

Greetings my homies, just got a connection, so I thought I would drop a line when I had time, so here ya go!

Flight to Gambela was uneventful, was met at the airport (if you can call it that, it was literally just a landing strip next to an old hanger) by Br. Endalkachew, (I think I spelled that right) and on the way to the compound we gave a ride to a British couple who were there on holiday, turns out they worked at the British embassy in Addis! Made it to the Salesian site in time for the competition phase of summer camp (called Summer Together) they were running, which involved 550 youths. Met my superiors as well as several of my fellow Salesians, Abba Larcher, Br Ephrem, Br. Lagesse and Abba Thomas, after the camp we prayed the rosary with a couple of the kids from camp, and at 6:45 we performed the evening liturgy of the hours, followed by a very tasty dinner, consisting of stewed potatoes & carrots, injaara, a stewed meat (either goat or cow, not sure which), as well as thick bean sauce/soup.
After supper the rest of the Salesians grouped in the meeting area to relax and watch some E.T.V. (Ethiopian Television) I declined, unpacked into my temporary room, and retired early, (not without reservations though, there were bugs EVERYWHERE!!!) I woke up several times during the night, I think the temperature hovered in the lower 80's the whole night.

The next morning, Day 2, we headed of to a nearby town, Pignudo, about an hour and forty five minute drive from Gambela, for the commissioning of a new hall with the bishop of Gambela. The service involved several choirs from different groups, each sung differently. Afterwards we gathered for the blessing of the hall, which was followed by song's from the choir, and several dance's from groups in the community, (including a very skillful Italian salsa) had lunch there with the Bishop and the group of Italian Salesians who were working there, got back for evening prayers, watched some Ethiopian T.V. then retired, (again with much reservation)

Day 3, Mass this morning was wonderful, the liturgy is the same as in the U.S., except that most of it is in various African dialects, and the music was decidedly Ethiopian, with a drum and a different rhythm that they sing to.
In the Afternoon the Salesians continued the Summer Together camp, it’s amazing how many youths turned out. (although I don’t suppose there is much else to do) in the evening I learned that Br Ephrem had never played chess, so after teaching him the basics we engaged in heated battle, and for his first game he played well, and by the second game he had almost fully grasped and was taking advantage of strategy.
The mosquitoes were out in force that night, and the thought that one of these little suckers could be carrying malaria is always in the corner of my mind, not much I can do about it though, except use bug spray, wear long sleeved clothes in the morn and evenings, and most important of all, prayer, because I see it like this, if God wants me to contract malaria to learn some sort of life lesson or virtue, then It’s going to happen, whether I like it or not, so I try and not worry about it toooo much by putting in the hands of God.
That night My fellow salesians took me out on the town for dinner in celebration for my offered service.

Day 4, Noticed some sort of white fungus that was starting to grow on the stone tile, at first I thought it was mold, but it’s was growing way to fast to be mold, so I think it is probably mildew of some kind, (probably has something to do with the leaking plumbing from the toilette and the sink) whatever it is, I’m allergic to it, so after flying halfway around the world I am confronted with the same situation when I left, *shakes fist* confound you allergy’s!!

Aaaaanyway, today I got my “office” (which actually is pretty cozy) and I got to work on my computer lab, and at first it looked pretty good, there were 22 compy sitting nicely in 4 rows, decent brands, not too old, but then it turns out that there were only five!?! That actually worked, the rest had various problems, lol, when I had signed on to do this, It was described that the needed someone to help teach kids how to USE computers, turns out they could have benefited from and IT techie, aaaaand they're stuck with me. Thankfully I am not one to turn down a challenge, and I do know a little about computers, (mostly overheard or gleaned knowledge from my mother and my brother) so we set to work testing comp’s to try and see what was wrong with them, (and by we I mean my secretary and myself, yeah that’s right, I have a secretary now, more of an apprentice {don’t know how much I can actually teach him, odds are he know just as much or more than me.} I don’t know how to spell his name, but it’s pronounced like the word Bayou…..I think.)

First thing we did was just start up as many of them as we could, and as was expected, 5 powered on, however, one of them wouldn’t load windows, so that one was out of the picture and we were down to four, slightly discouraged, but nonetheless determined, I preceded to open up the guts of the 4 working consoles, after comparing them to find out how they were supposed to look like inside, I opened up the rest of the computers and compared those to the working ones, (thankfully all but two were different models) and after locating what was missing, which wires went where and the like, I managed to get one more working.

Invigorated by this triumph, I preceded to disconnect a power supply from one of the working computers and went one by one and replace it into a compy that wasn’t working, in this way I got 8 more to power on, one of them even booted up perfectly, however the rest of the of them would only power on, nothing would display on the monitor, and a couple of them emitted a loud beeping, (much like you would hear from a laptop that is low on batteries) I suspect it might have something to do with the display adapter, but I am afraid this is out of my realm of knowledge, so if any body has suggestions, feel free to comment.

So, needless to say, that evening I was quite tired, so sleep came rather quickly despite the 89.6 degree weather, no before I checked my colony of Fungus/Mold/Mildew, which had at least doubled in size over the course of 16 hours, so I decided I would attempt a “cleansing”, so after sweeping the floor I filled a water with hot water and soap, poured it on the floor and removed what I had hoped was the rest of it.

Day 5, first thing I checked was the bathroom, not only was the Fungoldew (Hmmm, has a nice ring to it) back, but I am pretty certain that had developed a hierarchy as well as national boundaries and a central government.
There wasn’t any thing else to do about the computers for the mean time, so I focused on planning what I would be “teaching” and came to the conclusion that the most useful things the youths would take away from this would probably be Typing, Excel, and Word, as almost any job involving computers can benefit from knowledge & practice in the use of them.
After holding a discourse with Br. Endalkachew I learned that most of the students I would be teaching have a basic understanding of excel and word, so more practice would benefit them greatly. I had been trying to come up with something that would be more enjoyable to learn when I stumbled across Google sketchup7, it’s a 3d modeling program that is free, the file size is fairly small, and it’s fairly comprehensive, much like the program that second life uses.
I spent most of the day fiddling around with it (as well as another program called minos 2.2, it’s a bit more professional, and as a result is a bit more difficult, however it is more reminiscent of CAD, so it may prove useful) and I have to say, it is incredibly entertaining, I highly suggest it to anyone who is into 3d modeling.

That evening was spent updating the computer in the living room of the compound (I was trying to get it to play videos, I managed it, but due to the connection speed over here, I had to wait 22 min for a 1min 45sec video, lol, so I gave up), and after laying siege to the Fungoldew kingdom with a broom one more time, I retired for the night.

Day 6, the weather cleared up today, and I think the hotter climate has put the Fungoldew kingdom into a recession, as they have not grown at their usual rate.

Another relaxed day, I spent most of the day learning the ins and outs of Google sketchup7, as well as starting an actual schedule for the class lessons.

Although I did discover a book on one of the shelves here (in English, yay.) called shadows in the grass, and it’s about the Sudan – Ethiopia border history from it found sometime in the late 19th century and modern times, very interesting.



Day 7, This is a declaration of war, I hereby state that, due to unrelenting terrorist attacks on my nostrils by the Fungoldew kingdom, and despite my many attempts at negotiation, all of which have gone unanswered, I have no choice but to engage in open warfare.

Bombarding their citadels with air-to-ground brooms has done little to ebb the flow of attacks on my allergies, and although I have considered SND (Strategic Nuclear Deployment) I have come to the conclusion that the resulting fallout from said attack would less than acceptable, so, having no other course of action, am left but on alternative, Chemical Warfare!

Having procured a copious amount of charcoal from the locals, I preceded (after bombarding them again with strategic broom air strikes) to carpet the area in a layer of the charcoal, and, after getting the previous stated broom moist, continued to spread the charcoal mixture over the entire surface of what once had been the Fungoldew kingdom.

After letting it dry, I checked by, several hours later, and the results were promising, although it seemed as though there had been a few survivors who had formed frontier colonies, so after another use of a air strike, I again carpet bombed the area with Charcoal, we shall see what the results of my raid is tomorrow………………….Ohhh, and we had adoration today, soooo, other than the day was fairly uneventful.



Day 8, My attack has failed, although it has managed to slow the advance, though just barely.

I am at a loss as to what I should do, if I had access to bleach or some sort of Lysol, I would use that, alas, for the moment those are out of reach.

Oh well, for the moment I will continue my air strike campaign, and I guess maybe a few souls might be relieved in purgatory eh?

Did some more work planning, did a computer assessment to see which parts we needed so the list could be sent to Addis in preparation to do a part gathering trip, and I went with brother Endalkatchew on a short sight see about the town, twas enjoyable, (learned that there are quite a bit of crocodiles in the river Baro, and I also learned that that weird round thing on Google maps was actually Mt. Jejebe)

*Perspiring*

Wow, time has really flown these past two+ weeks, been crazy crazy, and now that I have a little free time, I figure I should update a bit, lol, seeing how it has been forever since the last time.

so, after miso, we headed of to port chester to help out with a summer camp the called "Salesian summer Daze", where we split up into groups and basically just interacted with the kids, holy smokes were we kept busy, thankfully every other day we also did other activities, for instance we went to the U.N. building for some talks on the role they played in the world, (where it turns out that the salesians have a Representative since they are considered the primary source of expertise on street children and gang prevention), and received a special guided tour, (check out my facebook profile for a very "revolutionary" picture, lol) as well as several talks about salesian spirituality and the like, not to mention that I think I have walked Manhattan end to end at least 7 times, lol.
we had 1 free day, so a few of us decided to head to the beach and take a swim, and compared to Washington's beaches, NY's was somewhat warm, HOWEVER....They CHARGE for admission to EVERY beach!! whats up with that? Coming from the west coast, where the beach is considered everybody's property (for the most part) this was a major shock.

Anyways, so that week went by quite quickly, and if it is any indication as to how the days are going to be passing in Ethiopia, I think this next year will will just fly by.

so, from there, I went on retreat with the rest of my fellow salesians to stoning point, NY, for a week long retreat.
This was a nice change of pace, to go from rushing around like mad peoples, to sitting serene like monks, lol, we had morning prayers at 8:00, followed by breakfast, then usually a talk or a prayer activity, which led right into mass, continued on with lunch, followed by more talks and discussions, which broke for an adoration holy hour, and then the talks and activities went on until evening prayer, which was followed by dinner, which the rest of the night usually somewhat free.

It is amazing how much bonding can happen over such a short time, I went from not knowing a thing about my fellow missioner's, to them becoming deep friends, I think a great deal of the reason why we have been able to grow so close is that we all have a common goal and cause which we are striving for, and I can't help but think this is what soldiers experience as they prepare for battle.
One thing is for certain, as we split up to go our separate ways, there was definitely a ache in my heart, because I know that, for whatever reason, I might not ever see some of these friends again, thankfully we didn't all brake up at once, about a third of us went back to port chester to wait for our flights, so the goodbyes were a little bit easier.

I can't believe it has been more than a month already, and by this time 2 days and several thousand miles from now I'll be in the heart of Africa.
Well, I have about 12 hrs left before I have to leave for my flight, so I thought I would try to go see the Museum of Natural history before I left, maybe catch a movie as well, so if I can i am going to post another entry later today, but if I don't get around to it, this will be my last entry from the USA, (and Hopefully not my last one period) So wish me luck and keep me in your prayers.