Timket, Resettled, and Reset

High Priests at Timket.

Carrion... is something I am trying to get used to. The sight of it, that is,--almost everywhere (I will spare you all the photos). Ethiopians love beef, and Christmas (Genna) is one of many yearly festivals in which families will cost-share the purchase of a bull and have it slaughtered and butchered in their homesteads. We just missed the slaughtering of the bull undertaken by our staff by a day but did find the remains, a complete head with horns, assorted hooves, and offal scattered on our lawn (much to the delight of the dogs!) This is not the first time we have had the remains of slaughtered animals in our yard. Several sheep and goats heads have been left in the past. The street outside our house also has the remains of butchered animals along the side of the road, in rain gutters and other nooks and crannies. Addis also boasts a healthy stray dog population who never look scrawny--for good reason. 

But despite getting used to the cultural practices around the many feast days here, it has been good to be back in Addis and getting settled back into life here. We were among the earlier returnees among the ex-pat community who evacuated, and we have seen many other friends arrive in the past 2 weeks. School has been in session the past two weeks online for the kids, but they have been able to attend online classes on campus from 8am to noon, which is a relief for us as Rebecca and I have a lot of work to catch up on. Tomorrow (Monday) they will start back into in-class learning as most of the teachers who had evacuated are now back in country. It is good to feel life returning back to 'normal'.

The prime minister has called for a national dialogue to try to bring an end to hostilities, but we do receive news from partners in Amhara and Afar saying that conflict and fighting along the Tigray border is ongoing. There has also been some unrest between the govt. and the Orthodox Church over the use of some public spaces in the city. Things seem much better, but still tense. 

COVID, like the world over, has been rampant here with the omicron variant. Several members of our staff, their families, and a number of our friends have come down with it. I don't know how we have avoided it, perhaps the Pfizer boosters in Arusha have protected us from this latest wave. Case positivity rates are reported to be over 50% at this time, but I have also heard there are hopeful signs that we are cresting over the wave at this point. We are praying that school will not be extensively disrupted in the next month or so. We very much need to have the kids in school as work is quite intense as several partners are launching emergency and recovery projects this month. 

Language study is one of the activities we also need some time to do during the day. Rebeca and I have resumed studying twice per week. We had our first two lessons since returning, last week. With the extensive use of Kiswahili in Tanzania, Amharic had gone into deep storage, and we have been working to resurrect it. Doing lessons is helping, and hearing it spoken has been helpful. Rebecca has been quicker to be able to converse, but I am not having much trouble understanding as vocabulary is recovered. 

We have jumped back into a number of activities we have enjoyed doing, and have found a lot of opportunities to be useful at church. I taught Sunday School last week while Rebecca led worship. This week, because of city-wide 1/2 marathon, our church compound was closed and we offered to host in our backyard. Rebecca was also the preacher this week. It turned out to be quite a reunion as we hosted about 50 people counting kids. We were happy that it went well, and kids enjoyed playing cross-net in our backyard after the service. (I think we are one of the few houses in this part of Addis that has any yard at all!)

Between the two Sundays was a significant week of Orthodox church ceremony. Timket, the celebration of the Epiphany is a multi-day event. Although Epiphany is named for the revelation of Jesus' identity at his baptism, there is quite a bit of other tradition included in the Ethiopian Orthodox ceremony. It includes a city-wide parading of some sacred relics, namely the arc of the covenant (of which there seem to be several) The celebration shuts down a number of main roads in the city for 3 days--Tuesday through Thursday. During those days, several large Orthodox churches have huge processionals that move through town on red carpets (they are pulled up from the back and added to the front as they move.) There are multiple choirs singing and chanting, and priests of many different levels in elaborate costumes. The highest priests wear something that almost looks like a tent on their heads. There is a float with the Arc in a box covered by a roof leading each parade. 

Our office was closed for several days and Rebecca and I were able to walk around the neighborhood and see, up close, 2 of these parades. It was very crowded but we did get to watch for about an hour as one of the processions passed a place just down the road from our house. Apparently, there is also a morning when people are literally hosed-down with holy water as it is sprayed over thousands from something like a fire truck. (we missed that part.)

On Thursday we took a chance and sent the kids back to school, hoping it was over. No such luck, in the afternoon, when they tried to return, they were stuck for well over an hour in traffic trying to travel the last kilometer to our house. By Friday it was quiet again. 

We have taken advantage of the weekends to get together with friends. Oren's friend Beriket, who lives in the neighborhood has been over quite a bit which is good as they enjoy doing things together. Our family went out last Saturday to Entoto Park where there is a nice walking path as well as a number of activities including ropes courses and a trampoline park. We took a healthy walk and had lunch in one of the coffee shops there. 

The following week we went to Gulele Botanical gardens, another park in the hills that has a vigorous 5 km loop that ascends and descends steeply. We went with the dogs, who just love to run around there as we walk, as well as our friends the Kempens, a family with kids the same age as our own. It was a good chance to catch up after not seeing them since before the evacuation. To add to the adventure of the day, we got a flat tire upon arrival at the park. Fortunately, Oren, Beriket, and I were able to change it without any help. 

Other activities during the week included horseback riding, and going out to eat. We have also been able to make some connections with new friends and may have a critical mass of friends to restart our fellowship small group. Something we definitely need here to stay sane!

We are anxious to be able to start traveling in the field again in the near future. We have been coordinating with staff and partners to do a number of field visits, and I think we will be able to visit a number of places at the end of January and most of the month of February. Rebecca and I will probably take turns going out and staying home with the kids. We should have some reports from project sites during the next several weeks. I am actually looking forward to being out in the field again. 

The close of a season

A congregation of Lovebirds at Kili Golf

On another airplane. We are just one week out of 2021 hanging in the aerial borderland, between our Tanzania displacement and “normal life” back in Addis. Will the short flight be sufficient to recognize the frontier we are crossing? It’s good to try for at least a short entry as we crossed the threshold into 2022.

We spent a festive evening with the Taylor family on New Year’s Eve, enjoying a great cookout dinner and a round of their traditional holiday “Name Game.” It’s great to spend time with friends who feel like family. They left before midnight, just to be safe on the roads, but we stayed up long enough to hear the cheers and fireworks around our neighborhood and to catch the midnight scent of newly blooming citrus trees wafting into our veranda. One of the local Verreaux’s eagle-owls was perching nearby, hooting softly as I fell asleep, like the hovering voice of the Holy Spirit.

Mt. Meru from the road at Atomic, Jan 1

We woke early somehow – I guess when you’re used to greeting the dawn, it’s just what you always do! It was a glorious clear morning, perfect for a little 5 km jog down the road to Atomic. I am not much of a jogger, but in our Tanzania neighborhood, we’ve got a perfect quiet straight road, with a good sidewalk, and it feels good to stretch the lungs that way, even when I’m pushing 50. Both mountains were perfectly clear on that first morning of the year, the whole profile of Kilimanjaro angling up to the Shira Plateau, curving up and over Kibo, and then jutting up again at the lower Mawenzi peak. It was a morning for joy, and to be reminded again that courage will be given.

In the afternoon, we joined the Taylors at their house for an online gathering of the Renew Community. Katie was one of the only retreat organizers who was not suffering from viral illness. 

Us watching ourselves leading a recorded
worship song online for Renew

Earlier in the week, we had helped the Taylors record some worship music and an interview about our past year, as elements of the virtual gathering. It was a very nurturing time to think about how to cultivate joy, even in the midst of difficulty and change. Our speaker, Kip, offered us good insights into Psalm 103, a psalm of great praise. We left the gathering determined to “forget not all his benefits” and so this first week of 2022 has been one of working on gratitude.

We had one more Sunday at our Arusha church, where several marvelous musician friends were leading the worship music. Megan needed to play cello and sing, and so I had the honor of holding her 1-year-old daughter. I’m not usually the one who “holds the baby” but holding that child was an entire sermon to me. I wondered if Jesus might have been a lot like her, calm, curious, trusting, and falling asleep in my arms as I was singing and rocking her. It’s quite something to meditate on how ‘the word became flesh’ when you are holding an infant.

the top of Kili from the road near our house

After church,  Paul stayed longer to facilitate one more training session on how to lead Sunday school for a group of new teachers. It feels like he has done this training at least two previous times, trying to pass on his experience before we left – but then Sunday school had to be canceled each time due to rising COVID cases. We pray that the third time will be the charm and that the church will be able to offer Christian education to children once more. Families are certainly hungry for this.

In the afternoon, the Taylors dropped off all four of their kids at our house for a sleepover, so that we could return the favor to them, and give them a day away as a couple, just as they did for us at the end of December. They have such fun kids and it was very easy to hang out with them for 24 hours. Towards evening, we got everyone out of the house for some exercise to throw the frisbee down at the field on the En Gedi compound. 

Frisbee on the field

By the end of an hour we had gathered 18 people, mixed adults and youth, Joshua school teachers and neighbor kids, Tanzanians and Wazungu playing a huge game of frisbee monkey-in-the-middle, with 3 monkeys at a time. Again, I was super thankful for this compound, where there is such freedom and space and the ability to share in a community of mixed cultures. The kids pitched in to help get dinner ready and then to help clean up, and we all enjoyed watching Kung Fu Panda II, one of Oren’s favorites. 

Kids hanging out

Luckily, our couches all have detachable mattress bases, so we had plenty of beds on the floor and then put up a tent for the girls to have a mosquito net in their room. Halfway through the next afternoon, the Taylors came back to pick up their kids, having had a really nice time away together. It often takes years to build up friendships where you can swap each others’ kids, and so we were all really glad we could do this for each other during our time back in Arusha. It’s also good that work things were slower on both sides of the ocean – for Western New Year and for Ethiopian Christmas – and so it was a good time to take some holidays.

Myers and Mosley families together

About 15 minutes after the Taylors all left, our Addis next-door neighbors (the Myers family) rolled in from Moshi by taxi for a 2-day visit. As we wrote before, they left shortly before us to come to stay in a friends’ house in Moshi. We had one opportunity to see them in December and really wanted to have a little time to visit before we returned to Ethiopia. It was nice to show them a little more of what we have loved about our life in Tanzania. We took them to Gymkhana one afternoon for swimming, squash, and just hanging out. We played “the Name Game” with them and took strolls around the compound. In particular, we spent many hours sitting in our covered veranda talking. They treated us to sharing their traditional English Christmas pudding, flames, and all. They have some visa complications to work through before they will be able to return to Addis, so we are not quite sure when we will see each other again. Hopefully, it will not be too many more weeks before we can share drop-in neighborly visits back in our other country. 

High water at Lake Duluti

On Wednesday afternoon, our family had a little opportunity to pay a visit to Lake Duluti –we’d had a wonderful time with friends, but it had also been intensive social time. We all needed a few hours in nature to pair off. Paul took David to test the fishing –they saw a huge crawfish, but didn’t catch any real fish. The water seems to be increasingly high, and it’s tough to find spots to fish from. We found a few of the favorite spots to sit on a bench overlooking the lake. Now the lake had risen so high that the bench was the only path. Oren and I circled the lake and talked. We really needed that time to check in, to talk over his feelings about returning to Ethiopia, and to think about what could make the transition more positive. We also talked a lot about movies – one of Oren’s favorite pastimes – and marveled at encounters with various huge monitor lizards, slapping along the path ahead or slithering down the bank into the water.  

David fishing

Thursday was a serious packing day for me. Fortunately, Oren’s old school friend Abraham came over for a visit and kept him company, while David always loves playing with the En Gedi neighbor kids. In the afternoon, we enjoyed one more ultimate frisbee match. There is nothing that beats running around a field chasing a disc for stress relief! We gathered with the missionary neighbors at dusk around a bonfire for a “sausage sizzle” and salads, for prayer and closure with this welcoming and nurturing community. Again we were so thankful for how well a tough situation worked out for us, allowing us to come back “home” and even stay in our old home, reconnect with old friends and taste a bit of our old life again. It was a gorgeous evening together.

Kids playing board games at Kili Golf

There were a whole lot of issues we had to deal with on Friday: including replacing a stolen backpack from the secondhand market, getting one or two last gifts for staff, and most concerningly, going back to the hospital where we did our COVID tests to follow up on my results. We’d gone off to do the tests on Wednesday morning, and on Thursday the results came back for everyone but me. For better or for worse, we’d chased PCR results before so we knew who to talk to and where to find him in the big hospital complex. He was friendly and playful and said he would have the results back for us within hours. We followed up on the phone several times Friday afternoon. Nothing.

Paul golfing

But we didn’t want to let a bureaucratic hassle ruin our last evening in Arusha. Paul has really enjoyed playing golf again with Mike, and so he planned one last round of 18 holes for Friday afternoon. He got started earlier. The rest of us convened at the clubhouse when school was out for their kids, for cool drinks and board games and a stroll around the course. It was a perfect way to wrap up our time in Arusha, taking in the green space and wide vistas. We shared dinner and one last round of good conversation as the sun set and darkness fell.

The only major problem we encountered at the end was my PCR certificate. I kept expecting to see it on my phone first thing this Saturday morning. But no such luck. We kept phoning Mr. Nanga to say “BADO!” – Not yet received! And he kept saying, “give me another 15 minutes!” Paul was not amused at all by the thought of heading back to Addis and online school without me. It was an extremely stressful morning. At about noon, I sent out a desperate prayer request to a bunch of people and started rearranging the packing, so that if I were forced to stay behind, I would at least have two suitcases with a few clothes, shoes and my swimsuit (not just the suitcases of tea and Christmas ornaments). At 12:50 the results finally came through and we were able to ask a friend to print them so that we could pick them up on our way to the airport at 2 pm. We’d already run out of time to use our borrowed car—it was getting washed so we could leave it in good shape for our super generous friend. Anyway, all’s well that ends well and emergency prayers were answered.

One of my favorite acacia trees
in the morning light

I will remain very grateful for another 6 weeks of long walks or jogs down to Atomic (I fit in one last one with Oren early this morning). For early morning prayer walks around the compound with the sun slanting in through the trees while pairs of lovebirds shrieked joyfully overhead, streaking through like emerald arrows . For an entire season of breathing in the wonderful scent of Spanish cedar flowers whenever I walked past the Joshua Foundation office. They had just started blooming prolifically at the beginning of Advent down near the tent site and ended their celebration of tiny flowers this past week on the 12^th day of Christmas. Their season has passed through and concluded, perfectly synchronized with the season we also spent in their presence, and now it is time to move on to a new season. Of challenge? Of Joy? Probably much of both.

 

 

Kilimanjaro (Kibo and Mawenzi peaks) from the plane
on our way out of Tanzania

 

Scarlet-chested sunbird

David playing monopoly with the girls

David perfected his flip this season, landing on his feet 80% of the time

Taylors New Years Eve

Finishing our Christmas puzzle Jan 1

David sharing cuddles with the neighbor cat

I love the bark on this acacia, 
tones of rose and cream