In Africa, no one can hear you scream………..lol.

Day 82, Nov 1, Mon, All Saints Day,

Turns out I did the I.D. Cards wrong, I had written the second and last names in the wrong placese, (although it wasn’t really my fault, that’s how they were written on the files that I was getting information from, plain weird If ya ask me.) So I spent the entirety of the morning fixing the darned things. In the afternoon I was finally able to get around to checking my email. I think something has happened to the internet, It is really hard to get a good connection from my office, it takes forever to do things now, Blargh!!!



Day 83, Nov 2, Tue, All Souls Day,

Finally!!! I finished up the I.D’s, And this time they are correct (I discovered that I had also screwed up some of the ages, darned 7 yr difference between E.C. and G.C.) So I printed them out and started putting them together, however, only about 2/3 of the employees had their pictures taken, so now I have to wait for them to show up to finish everything 100%. In the afternoon half of the office day I worked on my composition class, tomorrow we will be covering verbs. Before I left the office for the day, I had been playing around with the scraps of leftover paper from the I.D.’s, making them into Helicopters and Airplanes. Surafle and Astere (the Accountant and the cleaning lady) noticed what I was doing and became fascinated, I ended up staying late and making some extra Helicopters for Astere and Her kids, as well as playing around with different paper airplane designs with Surafle.

(I should mention, Astere, Surafle, Bayu, William, and Legesse have become my four closest friends. I spend most of my free time with legesse, and when I’m in the office, Astere teaches me a bit of Amharic, and I am always having conversations with Bayu, Surafle & William.)

This evening, as I was walking to the chapel for evening prayers, I gazed up at the night sky, as is my habit, and to my surprise the night air was chock-a-bloc full of African fireflies, spectacular!



Day 84, Nov 3, Wed,

English went well, (Although I ended up waking up late, My Alarm clocks acting up again) And the homework count was up as well, it seems as time goes on, most of the people who were not really interested in learning strained away. After reviewing the homework though, I have observed that there are a couple people who are copying each other’s work, so I will have to have a word with them next time. After Lunch I found another praying mantis, and this time I was able to take some good pictures of him, (I’ve named him Ferris, Because the Amharic word for Praying Mantis sounds similar) and I even managed to construct a sort of terrarium of sorts, so I’m going to try and keep him as a pet of sorts, it depends on if I can successfully feed him, if I can’t I’m just going to release him. I hope I can though, I think Praying Mantis’s are the coolest insects ever! In the evening I taught the seminarian comp class, today’s subject was the hardware, the segment went over well, the students asked plenty of question, and we used up all the time allotted.



Day 85, Nov 4, Thu,

Gah! I’ve accidently slept in for the past two days; I think my body is telling me to get more sleep. It’s very difficult to get to sleep early though, I just end up lying awake, tossing and turning until forever it seems. What I usually end up doing is stay up reading a book or watching TV until I get sleepy, which is usually somewhere between 11:00-12:00pm. Blargh, stuck between a rock and a hard place. But I digress, the morning was same old’ same old, but in the afternoon we stopped by the sisters to pick up something they had prepared for Br. GianCarlo’s feast day (Which I’m still somewhat confused about, it’s not his birthday, and it’s not the celebration of his becoming a Brother, it has something to do with the Milan province of Italy, as well as the feast day of St. Charles Borromeo. I think it is just an excuse to have a feast day, which is perfectly fine by me, lol) the dish that the sisters gave us turned out to be pizza! (Well, more like a bisquick flatbread of sorts with topping, but I’m not complaining.) Not only that, but it was three different kinds, one was onion, one was tomato, and one was cheese. We also had a kind of curried rice of sorts, a dish of chicken, and salad, holly bloated bellies batman! A feast fit for a king. I also found out that Ferris (My praying mantis) likes to eat shield bugs, which can be found in abundance at night, so I think I will be able to keep him, sweet.



Day 86, Nov 5, Fri,

Tonight I lugged out my telescope and set it up in the middle of our residential compound. Jupiter was out again and this time I was able to see three of its moons, as well as the major and minor stripes. The night was so clear that I could see the Orion nebula with my naked eye, it was even more amazing through the telescope though.



Day 87, Nov 6, Sat,

Today I woke up early and rode with Abba Filipo, Abba Thomas, and several church members to the town of Lare. (There was a trio of elderly ladies in the car with us, who for the majority of the trip were either singing songs, or cracking jokes, it was pretty funny to see these old birds so full of life.) We were going there to celebrate the institution of a priest as pastor of the parish. The town is about an hour and a half to the north east of Gambella, a mere seventeen km from the border of Sudan. We arrived at around 7:20am, the town is an interesting place, very different from Gambella, a great deal of the town is under water during the rainy season, very swampy, so there are elevated walkways going to the houses and stores. Thankfully most of the water had dried, so all that was left was cracked dried mud. The people at the church were very welcoming, even the children, (from my experience so far, most of them are usually quite shy in this area of Ethiopia) and everyone crowded around to shake everyone’s hands, it was a bit over whelming.

There were a few people who were here for the celebration from other towns I recognized as well, there was Carlos and Maria, from Abobo, Abba Tulio from Itang, And several of the sisters of charity, from Gambella. Bishop Angelo proceeded over the service, which lasted close to two hours. (The mass itself included the confirmation of several candidates, as well as much musical presentations by the villagers. After mass there was much picture taking with the bishop, then everyone gathered for lunch, consisting of rice, Wot, Cabbage and carrots, and some kinda fish, not too bad. We left right after the meal and started back for Gambella. On the way, one could not help but notice all the people swimming in the plethora of streams and ponds which dotted the sides of the road, most of which were wearing nothing but their birthday suits, lol. Needless to say, I spent the majority of the time focusing on the landscape instead, which was stunning, some of the jungle was still flooded, and the light streamed through the branches and leaves and reflected of the water, magnificent. I wish I could have taken a picture, but my camera had run out of batteries half way through mass. We arrived home around 2:30pm-ish, and the rest of the afternoon was spent seeking relief from the heat. (The roads are so dusty now that I had to take a shower when we got back; the amount of dust is obcene.)



Day 88, Nov 7, Sun,

Today I finally made some progress in the oratory. I had crafted a checker set (consisting of a cardboard playing board and bottle caps for pieces) I convinced Br. Legesse to play a round with me, and sure enough a crowd of children gathered round to watch. After we had finished that round, several of the kids played me. I lost every game, so I guess it was also a lesson in humility for me as well, lol. (Anyone who knows me, knows that I really, REALLY, hate losing…at anything) I am going to make a habit of attending every Saturday and Sunday, no matter how busy I am.



Now for this week’s prayer:


Teach me, teach me dearest Jesus,
In thine own sweet, loving way,
All the lessons of perfection
I must practice day by day.


Teach me Meekness, dearest Jesus,
Of thy own the counterpart;
Not in words and actions only,
But the meekness of the heart.


Teach Humility, sweet Jesus,
To this poor, proud heart of mine,
Which yet wishes, O my Jesus,
To be modeled after Thine.


Teach me Fervor, dearest Jesus,
To comply with every grace,
So as never to look backwards,
Never slacken in the race.


Teach me Poverty, sweet Jesus,
That my heart may never cling,
To whate’er its love might sever,
From my savior, spouse, and king.


Teach me Chastity, sweet Jesus,
That my every day may see,
Something added to the likeness
That my soul should bear to Thee.


Teach Obedience, dearest Jesus,
Such as was Thy daily food
In Thy tiresome earthily journey
From the cradle to the grave.



Teach Thy Heart to me, dear Jesus,
Is my fervent, final prayer;
For all the beauties and perfections
Are in full perfection there.


Day 89, Nov 8, Mon,

Busy, busy. In the morning I went about doing my usual Monday routine, (preparing for Wednesday class, updating the chronicle, updating the I.D. whenever someone showed up to get their photo taken, etc.) and after lunch (which is usually semi-free) I walked to the Church to help Abba Thomas with the parish computers. First order of business was getting the internet to work again. Abba had recently obtained a broadband adapter from addis, but they had forgotten to include a simm card, so we headed out to the telecommunications in Gambella to see if it was possible to obtain one. As we were walking into the building I got a bit of a shock, I noticed a man out of the corner of my eye walking down the street, holding a pistol, not in a threatening way or anything like that, but it was like he was playing around with it. He was handling it with the proper amount of respect it deserved, which sooner or later will result in accident. I prayed that no-one would get hurt due to his carelessness. He disappeared around a corner and I continued inside with Abba, (who I think had missed the spectacle, or maybe he was just better than me at hiding his surprise) the incident was soon forgotten as we waited to be attended to. As we were waiting, I noticed that there was another individual who had a similar adapter, apparently these things are more popular then I first thought (or maybe they just had more problems and that is way he was there?) Eventually our turn came up, and we found out it would be possible to get a simm card there, but it would take a day, and Abba would have to come back with some I.D. and a photo. So we headed back to the church and I started to defrag and clean up Abba’s compy, but unfortunately the power went kaput, so I waited around a little to see if the power would come back on, but it didn’t, so I headed back to the residential compound and read. In the evening Abba Filipo came by, so dinner had a bit more variety. During dinner the power switched (the compound has a generator that they switch on in the evening for prayers and dinner, if power returns to the town, they have to turn off the generator first, and then they switch to town power and turn it back on, resulting in a about minute of darkness in between) and during the darkness Br. Legesse made rat scurrying sounds, which freaked us all out, twas quit funny. After dinner I decided to try and go to sleep early, so I could wake up semi refreshed for once, but I ended up reading until around 9:30, which is still earlier than usual though.



Day 90, Nov 9, Tue, Happy quarter anniversary!

For the next ten days, I will be taking over on of Abba Larchers class periods while he is away at a meeting in South Africa. I will be teaching spoken English as well as how to apply it to giving speeches, proper greetings and how to treat customers, and also how to record conversations effectively. So in today’s class I decided only to go over a general outline of the coming classes so that would totally be freaked out. After class, Peter (our driver) handed me a receipt for a package that was being held for me at the post office, lol, about freakin’ time, it has been nearly a month since I was told by my family that they had sent it. I had a few tasks to complete first, so I had to wait until after lunch to go and get it. At 3:00, I was finally free to go, so I asked William, (our other driver) to give me a ride, and soon I was standing outside of the post office, a rather diminutive building, and waited for them to locate my parcel. Once they found, I had to show them my passport, sign a waiver, and pay a 7birr handling fee, (which is the equivalent of about 50 cents) and finally it was mine, Mwahahaha! It was A LOT bigger then I had imagined it would be. Once I got back to our compound I unpacked everything, SO MANY THINGS!!! Japanese candies from Uwajimaya, (White rabbit creams, Pocky, and mango rice jubes (Uwajimaya is an Asian specialty store that I used to frequent frequently) Beef Jerky, (Huzzah!) Gummy bears, (I kid you not, I had actually dreamed about those little bugger more than once since I’ve been here.) A bag of chocolate chips (which had unfortunately had almost melted into a single slab of Gooey goodness) Halloween peeps, (lol, only 9 days late I guess, well, there is always thanksgiving, aye?) “Oat n’ Honey” “Natures valley” granola bars, (Good Lord, THE CRUNCHY GOODNESS!!!) A couple packs of instant potatoes, (Lol, nothing lets you know that your loved like a bowl full of mashed ‘taters.) Packets of green tea & hot coco, (Thank goodness, I was getting somewhat tired of drinking the same thing every morning) A jiffy popcorn stove popcorn unit, (what more could I possible need to watch MacGyver in style?) a few packages of water balloons, (which should come in handy during the coming dry season, Aye?) a snowglobe of seattle, Wa. (Oh crazy seattle, how I miss thee so!) And best of all, an armload of letters, as well as a birthday card with pictures of the whole family. (Which I wasted no time in showing to the peoples in the office, ^_^) I actually teared up as I was reading the letters, It was so nice to hear from them, (and I do mean hear, as I was reading, in my mind it was their voices that I heard.) it seems like forever since I have been part of their lives. I am incredibly grateful to God for giving me such a wonderful family, receiving this care package has made my stay here both easier and harder, easier because I know I have the support of my family, and harder because I can’t wait to see them again. Today is also my quarter anniversary; I’ve been here for ninety days! It seem like it has been so short, and yet the time remaining can seem so immense. Needless to say, tonights MacGyver episode is gonna be sweet!



Day 91, Nov 10, Wed,

English comp was a bit complicated this morning, we were learning about adjectives and the students had some difficulty understanding the concept. In the second half of the class they made some good progress though, I guess I’ll find out when they turn in their homework assignments next week. Speaking of homework, this week almost all of them have turned in theirs, not only that, but the majority of it was correct, in that regard at least I know were making some ground. Today we also had some visitors, a delegation from a from a group of NGO’s that are supporting the technical institute, In alphabetical order they are: Barrack, Gloria & Maria-sarah. I didn’t really get to talk to them much; I had the seminarian class this evening, (Which went well, we covered the various kinds of software programs, and their uses, as well as how to install/Uninstall them.) and when I had gotten back they had already retired for the night, so I stayed up a bit with legesse and played a quize game on the computer. (It was one of those Encarta dictionary programs; it had some pretty fun knowledge tests)

I am very excited about tomorrow, I have been granted an opportunity to talk in front of the morning gathering of primary students, and I have been practicing a magic trick that I will be using to enhance the message that I am trying to get across, gonna be great….hopefully.