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.