I’m feeling energetic today so I decided to post some pictures that I took last weekend when we went to Entoto. So here they are enjoy.
This is the church we went to see. I love how colourful it is 
This is a view of Addis
This is a great picture of Yenealum. Is she cute or what?
Happy Friday the 13th
Well there are only three weeks left until I go back to Canada. I’m really excited! Since it’s getting down to the wire though I’m trying to cram as much cool stuff as I can into my last few weeks here.
Last weekend me and Melinda and Tony and Yenealum (finally I have the proper spelling) went to Entoto. It was the capital of Ethiopia before Addis Ababa was founded. It’s just outside the city actualy. There is a really beautiful chrurch up there and a little museaum which was pretty cool. We also got a tour of the palace that Menelik had there. Since it was more of a camp then a city when it was the capital the palace is not what one usualy thinks of when picturing a palace but it was really beautiful none the less. Entoto is up in the hills too which was cool because we had a great view of Addis from up there. It was really beautiful and I took a lot of nice pictures. If I get energetic I might post some of them on here this weekend but I’m not promising anything.
I also just booked a plane ticket to go to Gondor and Lalibela. I finish work on Jan. 27 and don’t leave for Canada till Feb. 3 so I ‘m going to go up during that week off. I’m really looking forward to it since I’ve been wanting to go to Lalibela ever since I got here.
Othere than that there’s not really anything new. I think the next few weeks are going to fly by and I should be seeing all of you soon.
Hi everyone
I don’t know if anyone still reads this since I do such a bad job of keeping it up to date but I figured I’d update it and post some pictures on here for those of you who still check it from time to time.
I hope everyone at home had a really good Christmas. Mine wasn’t bad but it was strange. It’s really hard to feel christmasy in 30 degree weather. On Christmas day me and my sister and her husband and some friends went out for dinner to a Korean restaurant that was very good. Then on boxing day I went to Sodere with some people from work. Sodere is a resort that has hot springs and lots of monkeys.
Oh for those of you who don’t know my sister is adopting a little Ethiopian girl. Her name is Yanny Allum and she’s six years old and she’s a really sweet heart.
I don’t really have much to talk about. Work is ok although the managment at the school sucks and is a constant source of frustration. The lastest thing that they’ve decided to do is extend the school day. The fun part is that they didn’t bother to tell the teacers about it and we had to read about it in the news letter that they sent home to the parents.
I really miss everyone at home and I’m looking forward to seeing all of you in just over a month when I come home.
And now for the pictures.
This is Langano where me Melinda and Tony went back in November
This is the home of the family who invited us for a coffee cremony when we were in Langano
These are the hot spring showers at Sodere
This is the pool at Sodere it’s full of hot spring water swimming in it is like swimming in a bathtub
This is a monkey monkeys are cool
I didn’t post anything for quite a while because to be honest my life was pretty boring that however was not the case last week. I don’t know if any of you have been following the news from Ethiopia but if you have you’ll know that there has been a lot going on here recently.
In May there was a federal election that seemed at first like it was going to be truly fair and democratic or at least more so than usual. Unfortunatly it didn’t turn out that way and the same party that has been in power for the last 15 years remained in power. Many people however question the legitimicy of the vote. Right after that vote in June there were some student demonstrations and the goverment supresed them by shooting a bunch of protesters. The goverment has continued since then to be very represive and to do things like shut down newspapers and arrest members of the oposition party.
Anyway the opostion party who still rejects the election results as unfair had called for people to participate in various forms of peaceful protest against the goverment. One of these forms of protest was for people to honk their horns. A large numbe of taxi drivers participated in the horn honking protest and so the goverment took away the licences of several hundred taxi drivers which is a big deal since these men don’t really have any other way to make a living. It was last Monday that the licences were taken away.
On Tuesday people started protesting because of the licences. So as they did in June the goverment decided to deal with this by shooting a bunch of people. I’m not sure how many people died that day but I know that two of the dead were police officers. It was a little weird on Tuesday before I found out what was going on because halfway through the morning parents started arriving at school to pick up their children and by lunch time all but a handful were gone.
On Wednesday I thought things would be under control but no such luck. Only aobut 60 out of 400 kids showed up to school that day. Halfway through the morning protests broke out all over the city mostly at highschools and once again the goverment called in soldiers to start shooting people. There is a highschool just up the street from where I work and we could hear gun shots from where we were. We could also see people running off of the main road down side roads. That was a very scary day. I very much wanted to come home to nice politicaly stable Canada that night. Luckily I live close to the school so I didn’t have to wait long before it was safe for me to leave the and go home. I don’t know the exact number of people who were killed that day but I think it was around 30. The worst of it was that they were shooting highschool kids. These kids weren’t even old enough to vote yet.
Thursday morning things were pretty quiet but there were no taxis running and nothing was open so things were far from normal. Melinda and Tony and I had booked a trip to Langono before all the fighting started and were trying to find a way that we could still go that morning. One of Tony’s friends found us a car to rent and so we were able to go and we left the city before much of anyting got started. On our way out of the city though I did see a truck that had been turned over in the street a burned the night before. Later we found out that after we left that day several people tried to escape from prison and suprise suprise 7 people were shot and killed.
It was both exciting and a relief to get out of the city that day. The country side was beautiful and things outside of the city were calm.
On Friday I spent a wonderful day at the beach. I also got to go have coffee with a family who lived in a mud hut. It was a very interesting and eye opening experience. They were really lovely people and the coffee cerimony there was the highlight of the weekend.
Back in Addis things weren’t going as well. Soldiers went around that day and arrested a couple of thousand young men. Nobody knows where they are being held or when they will be realeased. There was also speratic fighting throughout the day. Some of my friends who spent the weekend in the city said that they could hear gun shots from time to time on Friday and Saturday.
On Saturday I did nothing but swim and lie on the beach. It was wonderful! I did however get quite the sunburn. I learned an important lesson about the diffrence between the sun here and the sun in Canada that day. Saturdy in Addis things were pretty quite nothing was open and no one was going anywhere but there was very little fighting.
On Sunday we left Langano and came back to the city. Things here were the same as on Saturday minus the fighting. The President went on t.v. that day and made a speach about how he regreted the loss of life and how soldiers were being attacked with grenades and guns which was total bull. Needless to say the speach didn’t make anyone very happy.
On Monday I went to work and found that there were no kids there and hardly any staff. Not a single parent sent their kids to school that day. The goverment however was saying that schools were open and that there was no problem etc. The taxi drivers were still on strike that day and so people were pretty much limited to staying close to home unless they owned a car which most people don’t. There were a few business open but the ones that were had their windows covered and they all closed well before was normal.
On Tuesday things were unchanged in the morning but some time late in the afternoon the taxis started running again.
On Wednesday things were pretty much back to normal. Taxis were running shops were open and there were children at school (mind you far fewer childern than normal).
Now it’s Sunday and everything is normal and I think that at school tomorrow we’ll be back up to full attendance. It really is a releif that things are normal again I didn’t realize how stressful the uncertainty of the whole situation last week was until it was over.
I really would have liked to blog about things as they happened but when everything was closed I had no access to the internet. I’ll try to get some of the pictures that I took while I was in Langono online as soon as I can.
Oh btw sorry for all the spelling mistakes. The computer that I’m using right now is so mind numbingly slow that I just can’t bring myself to spell check so you’re all going to have to live with my horrible spelling
No time to write because I’m on the super exspensive intenet at the Hilton on the plus side I do have time to post pictures. These are of my kindergarten class and the last one is of some of my grade four students. I hope everyone had a great thanksgiving. I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few days daydreaming about things like stuffing and broccoli casserole.
It was Meskel on Tuesday which is the finding of the true cross. They had a huge celebration at the main city square where they do a bunch of stuff and then light a big bonfire made out of Damair. We were late and so we were at the back of the crowd but we could still see the giant flames. 
Shortly after this picture was taking people started running away. At first we couldn’t figure out what was going on but then we realized that people were throwing rocks at the soldiers and shouting anti goverment slogans. That’s when we decided to leave. We ducked into a coffee shop to wait out the comotion and then went home (so all of you worriers out there don’t) no big deal.
We then went to the the neighbourhood meskel celebration which was cool becuase we got the light the bonfire thing. Here’s a cool fire picture.
Finaly since I can now put pictures on here I will put one of my tiny apartment.
Anyway it’s late and I gotta go I promise I’ll post more pictures soon.
Hi everyone!
Well I’ve been here for about two weeks now and I’m starting to feel good and setteled. The telecom situation here is horendus it’s hard to get a phone number and most internet ports are blocked out so that people can’t make voice over ip calls ( although they manage to anyway). This is all very frustrating though because it makes it hard to keep in touch with everyone back home.
Anyway school started this week even though the kidergarten classrooms weren’t ready yet so all five kindergarten classes are in the cafeteria for now. This solution is needless to say less then ideal since there are five classes with 20 children in each class none of whom have ever been to school before. After Monday and Tuesday I was seriously doubting my desire to be a teacher . The last couple of days have been much better though and I’m looking forward to next week when I’ll have a classroom and only 20 children to deal with. The kids despite being a handfull are very cute and sweet although the fact that they don’t speak english makes things very challanging at times. Luckly each class has two Amharic speaking assistants in it, I’d be lost without them. I’m still slowly picking up more Amharic words this week I figured out the word for toilet (it’s not hard to guess what that word means when a three year old is saying it while doing the I have to pee dance).
I’m getting much braver about exploring the city I’ve even started being able to take taxis by myself which I was really scared of at first. The public transport system is very weird here there are buses which are very cheep and horibly over crowded, there are taxis which are reasonably priced and run certain routes and there are contract cabs which are expensive but will take you where ever you want to go. The city doesn’t function on addresses either you have to know the name of the area that you’re going to and then you tell the driver wereage (don’t know how you actualy spell it) when you get to where you’re going. Nobody except the filthy rich get mail delivered to their house everyone has to get a PO box. Hopefuly I’ll be able to post some pictures soon and when you see some pictures of the roads the no address thing will make much more sense.
Well I’ve probably bored everyone enough for now since I’m sure everyone only read this far in hopes of hearing about more headless sheep. I do promise that sooner or later I will indulge everyones darker side and post some pictures of what meat looks like in the meat shops and maybe of a skull in the street if I think to take a picture the next time I come across one.
Hi everyone well I’m here and it’s great so far. I have a little apartment very close to the school which I like alot it’s small but cozy. Ms Jill has been great she’s made me feel fabulously at home here. I went to the grocery store yesterday and I was amazed to see Pringles, Jucy fruit, 7Up and Keloggs Corn Flakes as well as many other recognizable brands for sale there.
Tomorrow is the Ethiopian New Year which is a huge celebration and every family slaughters a sheep and a chicken which I’m glad I was told early because there was a headless goat in the cortyard outside my house this morning.
The weather here is also very familiar temprature wise it’s almost identical to Canada at this time of year. The rain is different though, it will rain really hard for a few minutes and then within five minutes of the rain stoping it will be sunny out again.
I’ve only been here two days so I’m still just getting a feel for the place. I wish I could post some pictures but for now my computer is offline and I have to sneak onto Jill’s computer if I need the internet. I will definetly post some as soon as I can get connected.
I miss everyone back home and hope that you are all doing very well feel free to email me and/or to post comments they’re really nice to get even if I don’t have a chance to get back to you.
Well I’m finally off or almost. Jesse and me decided to come to Toronto the day before my flight so we could spend some time realxing before I left. So here we are.
view from hotel room window
me in our hotel room
We went down to Queen st. last night and hung out with my friend Heather who just started her first day as a teacher (YAY Heather!!) My flight doesn’t leave until 6pm so we have most of the day here again today which will be nice. It sure beats franticly finishing packing and then driving to the airport terified of being late.