Day 34, Sep 14, Tue,
Today I helped Brother Endalkachew to proof a bidders form for the hostel that they will be building next to the school to provide housing for students who have to travel from far away. School starts very soon; I hope it will all go well.
Day 35, Sep 15, Wed,
Headed to the office bright and early this morning, right after breakfast, and went to work on the powerpoint presentation for class, I did this for an hour and a half, after which I went to the computer lab to work on the remaining five computers that would still work, updating and installing office 2003 and such. Unfortunately in the process one of the computers hard drive went kaput on me, leaving it in a vegetable like state, while one of the other computers refused to accept the office 2003 disc and kept freezing. I might be able to remedy this second situation by copying Office to my jump drive, and installing it via this method. But I digress, after working on the computers till noon; I headed back for lunch, very frustrated by the whole computer situation, so I decided to calm down by saying a rosary before lunch. Afterwards I felt a bit better, so after lunch I decided to take a wee nap, which ended up lasting until 5:00, I guess I was more tired than I thought I was. After retrieving my equipment from the office I played some hearts with Br. Legesse and Br. Dagm, later we greeted Abba Larcher, who had just returned from his vacation visiting family in italy, it’s nice to have him back. We played some more hearts after dinner, and after we were done, I introduced Legesse and Dagm to the MacGyver, series by watching the first one. They enjoyed it very much, Haha, I have gained several more minions for my cult, and soon I will rule the world……just kidding….but seriously though, you sometimes just have to ask yourself, “What would MacGyver do?”
Day 36, Sep 16, Thu,
Spent the majority working on the powerpoint presentation, which in the end I somehow ended up deleting, arghhhh!!!! Also tried to load Office 2003 into the fritzing computer that wasn’t working yesterday via the Jump drive method, it was a no go. Maybe I can download a fresh version of Office via the internet tomorrow, possibly it will work then. I today I got to chat with Katie, Krissy, Kellie, Joey, and my Ma, it was nice get in touch with them, it had been a while since ihad heard from them.
Day 37, sep 17, Fri,
Tried finding a site I could download a version of office from, but all of them were huge, and at the rate that the internet flows over here, it would literally take days, so I started looking for stand alone versions of Word, Excel, and Access, I managed to locate some places where I could get word and excel, but I couldn’t for the life of me find a place to get access.
Maybe I can download word and excel, and then get access from the disc?
I spent the entire day working on the computer in the rec room, finally managed to get avg installed, and after I had run a few scans, I located and fixed 58 problems, wowzers.
Day 38, Sep 18, Sat,
Instead of doing manual work today, I ended up working on the rec room computer all day today, because for some reason something was interfering with the internet card. I tried every thing in the book, even reinstalling avg several time to see if that was the problem, and although it found some more corrupted programs, it didn’t solve the problem, I finally gave up at 4pm.
Day 39, Sep 19, Sun,
Fellow Lay missioner Carlos stopped by today, just to check in with me to see if it would be alright if he stopped by in a couple day to give let me have a look at his computer and see what the problem was with it and install avg, while he was here I tried hooking up his computer to the internet to see if it would work on his computer, the application worked, so that was an improvement, but when it came to signing in, it wouldn’t work. No surprise there, but by some stroke of miracle when I went to try the rec compy again later that day, the application started working, it wouldn’t sign it, but alt least it was working now, God is great.
Day 40, Sep 20, Mon, - Flag Day.
Today we gathered the children (elementary), gave them new shirts, formed them into some resemblance of order (it took forever because they kept breaking rank and roaming everywhere lol) gave them flags of various sizes (the Ethiopian country flag, and the Gambella region flag.) and marched of to the town square singing the Ethiopian national anthem. (we had to stop ever couple hundred meters to reestablish formation because they kept glomping together) and after several stops to fix the formation (and once to break up a fight that broke out with one of our kids and a street kid) we made it to the town proper. There were many decorations everywhere, and there were five militairy/police groups on parading around the square. We joined up with the parade, which led to the flag poles in the very center of the town, where we waited for almost an hour in the blazing sun, there was a lot of speech giving, and then they hoisted the flags, and we were able to abscond to a local hotel for some drinks. Since today is a holiday, there was no work or school, so the rest of the day was spent hangin’ with legesse and dagm.
Day 41, Sep 21, Tue,
I am sick and tired of these Stupid computers!!!!! Arghh!!! Today I tried loading avg in the four remaining computers in the lab but I only succeeded in one of them, (and after scanning that one, I found 520 viruses!!! The heck?) There were some serious viruses on the rest of the comps that I think are preventing me from installing avg, so for the rest of the day I tried to solve this issue. To make matters worse, in the afternoon the accountants computer started wiggin out as well and stopped working, (due to a virus he received via a jump drive) and the secretaries computer’s power supply blew up, AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH, why?
Day 42, Sep 22, Wed,
Didn’t sleep much last night, was to stressed out, so this morning I decided to take a nap after mass until 12:00, so I could face the computers at least somewhat refreshed, However I was disturbed from my restful slumber by a entity knocking on my door, I opened to reveal to Bayu and a Gentleman whom I did not recognize. The gent was Luchin, from the town of zoa, and he was representing a group of people who would apparently be coming next week to learn Ofiice Basics, not only that, but the two week course I had been planning would have to be condensed into one week, so now I only have four days to plan, consolidate, and write up some assignments, I definitely don’t feel qualified for this.
Day 43, Sep 23, Thu,
I made a little progress, and by the grace of God, one of the Computers started working, (after running a scan that found over 1200 Viruses!! What on earth are they doing with these things?)
Continued working on tests for class, but I am not making much progress.
Day 44, Sep 24, Fri,
Much like yesterday today was, working on test, working on computer. But for some unknown reason, all but ONE computer has stopped working, getting every student situated with a computer is going to be interesting.
Day 45, Sep 25, Sat,
I was still dead tired this morning after mass, the heat can really take it out of yah, (the weather has been quite bizarre lately, with days starting out either super hot and dry, or wet and torrential, and then all it once switching to it’s polar opposite) so I decided to take a wee nap, lol, you think I would have learned by now that wee naps are scarcely ever that. I ended up sleeping until 1:00. I woke up feelin’ great though, and since there wasn’t anything important planned this morning it worked out just fine. So for the rest of the day I have been working on the class stuff.
Day 46, Sep 26, Sun, Feast of Mescal (the cross)
Today is the beginning of mescal, where all of Christian Ethiopia celebrates the finding of the cross; I believe it is also considered to be the biggest feast of the year in this country. The day is celebrated by building a giant cross, which is planted in the ground, then in the evening they heap wood all around it and start a bonfire, igniting the cross in the process. I must confess that at first when I heard that they celebrate it by burning crosses, It sounded kinda sketchy to me, most likely due to the fact that burning a cross in America is considered blasphemy. However once I learned that the reason that they do this so that the cross “illuminates” the night, bringing in the light of salvation to clear away the darkness, in an imitation of what the sacrifice of the cross did for the souls of man, I was put at ease. In the end I ended up not going to the celebration however, Abba Larcher had returned today, and he had decided to stay in the chapel for Adoration instead, (He apparently has many of the misgivings that I have had about the way they celebrated the feast, although his particular dislike is that it evolved from a pagan feast, (but so did Christmas though.) so I decided to stay with him, as well as legesse.
Day 47, Sep 27, Mon,
Today was supposed to be the first day of class, but apparently this is the second day of Mescal and is considered a holiday, so no class today. So after mass (which was another very long feast day service) I finished the I.D. cards that I have been working on for Br. Endalkachew, after that I relaxed, Read a bit, watched some ETV. At 3:00 the youths Gathered together for the mezcal games, where they competed in various activities (Kicking a Futball through a tire, carry a ping pong ball in a spoon with their mouth, Sack races, Basket ball Free-throws, Etc.) and the winner of the particular activity would receive a ticket, which they could redeem for a few different prizes. One ticket would get them a pen, two would grant them a Writing pad, and if the accumulated three tickets they could redeem it for a bar of soap. I guess the Salesian compound here holds similar games throughout the year on holidays in order to keep the youths busy while giving them an opportunity to have fun, thus keeping them out of trouble. The day’s events ended around 5:00-5:30, After all the youths had left, Abba Larcher gathered together some of the collaborators together for a meeting (which included two of my associates, Mark-John and Solomon), once they had finished I learned that they had decided to sign on to become full time Salesians and join the order to care for there fellow Ethiopians. It was a very joyous occasion, and Abba decided we would celebrate by taking them out to dinner. When wed had returned, I noticed that the sky was crystal clear, granting a marvelous view of the cosmos, so I decided I would finally break out my telescope see how it performed. I also invited Legesse to join me stargazing, as he had never really seen the sky with any sort of vision enhancing apparatus. So after gazing round and about with the Binoculars I had brought, I noticed that there was planet to the NE so after setting up my Tele, I focused on the planet, which revealed it to be Jupiter, The tele performed admirably, I could see the one remaining cloud stripe (several months ago {in May or June I think} for some reason it lost one of it’s distinctive cloud strips that ran along the top half of the planet, Scientist have not yet discovered what has caused this phenomena, but most of them agree it has to have something to do with the perpetual storm that has raged on the planet for eons) as well as two of it’s moons. This is the first time I have ever seen a planet this clearly through a telescope, It was incredible.
Day 48, Sep 28, Tue,
The first day of class, it actually went rather well, I covered the basics of Word, and although some of them were already familiar with the program, I was able to teach something new to everyone. I must confess that at first I was very nervous; the class did not start as I had planned, but was able to roll with the changes so to speak and it turned out alright. Br. Endalkachew had assigned a translator to me incase they couldn’t understand what I was trying to tell them, Duop was his name, but he ended up not needing to translate anything today, their grasp of the English language is fairly good. He was able to make himself very useful though, and I am glad he is helping me; it makes things a little easier. We had finished the Word overview by lunch, so after lunch I taught them the beginning basics of PowerPoint (something they were very keen on learning) as well as some typing exercises to increase typing speed. They were very receptive to everything I taught, and I think we made some decent progress today. After class I located the key to the storeroom, grabbed a basketball, and started playing some hoops. I was joined by a kid from the elementary, as well as legesse who joined us later. We played until around 6:30, when we had to stop for evening prayer and dinner. Br. Endalkachew, who had just gotten back from his trip to Addis, joined us for dinner, and entertained us with the details of his trip. After dinner I watched a couple MacGyvers with Legesse, after two episodes I was going to shut it down and head to bed, but as I was looking through a file to show Legesse an example of a excel assignment, I stumbled across my old College assignments, which included my powerpoint presentation of my pilgrimage to Europe, so I stayed for a bit with Legesse and basically took him on a trip through my memory lane, It was great to remember everything, it seems like it was only yesterday, we both enjoyed it.
Day 49, Sep 29, Wed,
Today in class we focused on Excel. (Once they showed up that is, they were more than an hour late; Punctuality isn’t big here in Ethiopia) At first we kinda metaphorically stumbled around a bit, what I had learned Excel for, Namely the tracking of items, cost’s and incomes in a restaurant setting, was not what they were looking to learn, once I was shown what it was they were interested in using excel for, namely school related spreadsheets, we started making progress, After lunch I taught them some more of PowerPoint, and by the end of the day I think they had soaked up a good deal of useful information.
Day 50, Sep 30, Thu,
I taught Access today, it wasn’t quite as difficult as I thought it would be, most of them were unfamiliar with the program, so I think I kept their attention for the whole class. After lunch was some more PowerPoint basics, I think we ended well today. Now all I have to do is finish the final assignments I have been working on, I think I’m gonna be up late tonight.
Day 51, Oct 1, Fri,
The tests went well, everyone had remembered what they had been showed (for the most part) and were able to apply it. Unfortunately only five of the fourteen who had started showed up today, so only five students ended up passing. As a gift for taking part in the workshop, their leader bought them lunch at the cafeteria, he was supposed to join us, but he was detained at the gate by an overzealous guard who wouldn’t tell Br. Endalkachew he was hear, lol. After lunch we finished up the testing with a final PowerPoint Assignment. Once they were done, I gave them a copy of Sketchup7, as well as Super Mario Crossover for all their hard work that they had done. I went to sleep somewhat early today, as I was dead freaking tired.
Day 52, Oct 2, sat,
Woke up late and accidently missed most of mass, so I decided to say some extra prayers in the chapel after breakfast to make up for the time lost.
I didn’t do a whole lot today, typed up a letter for Abba Larcher, (which required much retyping due to communication error, lol.) Played a lot of solitaire, taught a cleaning girl how to pray the beginning of the rosary.
In the evening I taught Legesse how to play liars dice and played a few rounds with him, retreated to my room around 9:30, watched a few videos on mah laptop, the retired for the night.
Day 53, Oct 3, Sun,
Slept fitfully all night, woke up at 6:00 with a terrible stomach ache, took some calcium tablets (Tums), and tried to go back to sleep, I was finally able to around 6:30, only to wake up at 7:00 with a feeling of strange unease from my bowels. I spent the next forty-five minutes going back and forth from the bathroom, so far I am matching all the symptoms of Giardiasis, (I am glad that I have brought a travelers first aid book with me) General malaise of the stomach and intestines, many loose foul smelling stools (diarrhea), as well burps that smelled strongly of sulfur, a constant rumbling in my guts, and a low fever. Grabbed an early (and lite) breakfast, I decided to skip mass today so I could stay close to a toilette, so I went back to bed, managing every now and then to fall asleep only to be rudely awakened with the need to use the restroom, I finally managed to catch some good sleep around 10:30, until 12:30 when Legesse knocked on my door and asked if I was going to join them for lunch, I decided it was a good idea to keep the nutrition going, so I joined them, while I was at lunch I made sure Br. Endalkachew knew about my symptoms, he offered find me a driver who would take me to Abobo to get check out at the clinic there, but I declined, because in order to check for symptoms like mine to see what is causing it, they need a stool sample, and I was pretty sure that I had emptied the majority of my bowls, the incredibly rough and bouncy road to the town wasn’t exactly the most desirous of options with the way my guts were rumbling. I informed him that if I felt the same way tomorrow I would make the journey. I spent the vast majority of the day either sleeping or reading, after dinner I retired early, sleep did not come easily though, as I felt just as crummy as when the day had started.
Day 54, Oct 4, Mon,
I woke up feeling right as rain this morning, so I think one of two things happened, either what I had experienced yesterday wasn’t giardia, and was instead food poising, which could be possible, or a miracle happened, I’m leaning more towards the second explanation.
So, feeling invigorated, I hurried to the class to set up for the second group, only to end up waiting for eight hours! Oh well, It was actually somewhat of a blessing, because there was no electricity all morning. So, I spent the time playing card games with duop. When they finally showed up around 4:00, I gave them a spiel about the outline I had planned for the course this week (which had to be modified a bit because of their tardiness) and had a quick Q&A session, then sent them on their way, reminding them to be here early in the morning.
Day 55, Oct 5, Tue,
Started Word this morning, 5 out of 7 came, were only missing 15%, so percentage wise were doing better than the last group. I think I was able to teach more efficiently this time around was able to get more useful information across. Unfortunately only two people came back after lunch, I hope it wasn’t miscommunication on my part, I guess I will find out tomorrow. For the two students that did show up, I taught them the basics of PowerPoint. So, now that I have covered the day’s events, it’s time for some philosophical thoughts. As I was gazing up at the glorious night sky, I couldn’t help but think of how insignificant human beings are compared with the rest of the cosmos, not only that. I was also thinking, that even though the grandeur of the heavens surpasses that of us lowly creatures, it is the universe that obeys all the laws put in place by God, bending and forming to his every desire, and we, the chosen people of God, we who are nothing but clay which, constantly defy his just will. Kinda makes ya think, huh?
Day 56, Oct 6, Wed,
Today was somewhat frustrating, only one or two of the students had ever even heard of excel, let alone used, so I was trying to teach in one day not only the basics of excel, but also how to create spreadsheets to be used to keep a payroll and to track student grades, a very difficult task for both myself and the students. In the end though, I think we managed to cover everything that they needed to know, whether or not they remember it is up to them, we’ll find out Friday.
Day 57, Oct 7, Thu,
This day was similar to yesterday, just replace excel with access and the days would mirror each other perfectly. For experienced people, it might be possibly to completely learn by doing a week long workshop, but these people need more time to practice, I don’t think they are completely learning or understanding what it is they are doing, most of what they are doing is just copying what it is that I am doing, I have to constantly remind them to adjust the formulas to work with the particular data they are trying to input. Towards the end of the classes it seems like they are just starting to understand the concepts I am trying to teach them, I only hope that they can manage to fully grasp and remember everything.
Day 58, Oct 8, Fri,
The day of truth is upon us, I gave out the assignments to them, and by the time the end of class came around, I am pleasantly pleased, it seems they did manage to assimilate the knowledge passed to them in the class. A couple still had a little bit of trouble, but after explaining the concepts behind the actions they were trying to do, they finally got it.
Midway through Bayu came in and informed me that starting next week, I would be teaching a level three English composition class every Wednesday from 8 till 10, and if that goes well, to help out with level on composition Mon, Tue, and Fri, lol, this just keeps getting better and better.
So now I have only a couple of days to come up with a course plan, yay! There was some bad news today as well, Br. Endalkachew has not been feeling well of late, so yesterday he decided to go to the clinic and get a check-up to see what was wrong, the test came back positive for malaria, it is a good thing they caught it so soon though, so he is on medicine now, which is a good thing, but he will continue to feel ill until the medicine takes effect. So as a special request, It would be wonderful if all of you people who read this blog keep all of the Salesians here in your prayers, especially those who are sick.
Day 59, Oct 9, Sat,
Today I wrote up an agreement form for the payment of the education of the group from Zoa, I was able to finish most of it before lunch, all that is left to insert is the expenses, which I will have to wait until Monday to do because I need information from the accountant. Before lunch, I was also able to clean my room, in particular the bathroom, which had been starting to look rather dismal. We had guests for lunch day, so there was different food than usual, including my fave, rice with a spice seasoning that taste a little bit like curry, (I’m guessing its cumin, turmeric, and something else that I can’t quite figure.) I think the group we were eating with was various teachers and collaborators, as I recognized several of them, but I forgot to ask so I am not sure. After lunch I hung out with legesse for a bit, until Br. Endalkachew (who was feeling a little bit better today) came by to drive me and drop me off at Bayu’s graduation celebration.
The celebration started at Bayu’s residence, there were about 10-12 people there, a few of the faces I recognize; there was Solomon and Surafle from the office, as well as mulugeta, an instructer from electrical engineering. They were serving biscuits and drinks, which I refused (on the excuse that I was still bursting from a late lunch, which was true, but mostly I am very hesitant of anything made anywhere other than my compound, for good reason I might add) the drinks were interesting, there was a type of Ethiopian beer, that quite frankly looked like really muddy water, with bits of things that I weren’t quite sure of floating around on the top, as well as what they called gin, which was actually a anise (black licorice for all you non-cooks out there) flavored liquor. Mostly I talked with Surafle who was asking many questions about life in America, which seemed mostly to be based stereotypes and information from our pop-culture and media, for instance, all jews in america are either rich and controlled everything, or scientists, there are no poor people, and how Obama is God’s gift to mankind (which I hear allot), to name but a few, so I tried my best to inform him about some of the realities, for instance how although the condition of living might be better for the majority of people in America, 13% percent of Americans are below the poverty line, how there were many jewish immigrants to our country during the last century which is why there is allot of them around, but how most of the ones I had met ran family businesses, and how Obama had just as many faults as he did strengths, because in the end he is a politician just like the rest of them. Thankfully most of his questions were about how my life was like, which I was glad to tell him. After about two hours, the celebration moved to a different location, were Bayu met up with some of his classmates and instructors. We stayed there for about an hour (during this time Mulugata had become somewhat inebriated, and had started to tell me his life’s story, which I couldn’t understand half the time because his English had become increasingly unintelligible, lol.) and then headed back to the compound via the three wheeled trolley things that proliferate this town. All and all it was a very enjoyable experience.
Day 60, Oct 10, Sun,
Nothing of particular interest has happened today, so I figured I would delve into the relm of my thoughts on how things have been proceeding. So far this has been a highly beneficial adventure for me, That most kingly of virtues which I have sought after for so long has finally by the grace of God started to come to fruition, leading to the development of other virtues that I have never been able to focus on. I have also come to the realization as to why it is God has called me here; it is to help the Salesian staff, particularly Br. Endalkachew get through this year, which has seen an above average amount of students, and a decrees of faculty staff, as well keeping Legesse company on his two year long stay here, while at the same time to offer spiritual support via prayers on their behalf. And since I am the first Lay missioner at this sight, I will be leaving behind a formation of sorts, a path that the others who come after me will be able to follow instead of going blindly as it seems I have been doing. I thank God for this monumental task, and I only pray that the Lord will give me the strength to fulfill his will.
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