Orthodox Easter (Fasika) and Early Rains

Fasika, traditional dress

"Belg" and "Kiremt" are the two rainy seasons we have in Addis Ababa. Normally Belg is shorter, more or less in the month of February and some of March. "Kiremt,' the longer one, begins sometime in June and seems to go through September. Unlike in tropical countries, rainy season here at 9000 ft above sea level is cold and damp. People will wear heavy coats, even parkas. We find ourselves using the fireplace in our house several times per week. We have to dry all our laundry indoors, strewn on various furnishings in the living and dining room. 

You might be wondering why I am describing Kiremt now. In theory, we should be in the space of several months between rainy seasons which, as summer approaches, should be relatively warm. In fact, we have had precious few sunny days since February. This is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, the blessing of rains have extended over nearly the whole country, and areas in the South that have suffered years of drought are experiencing relief, even flooding. But there is a need for dry weather to plant. Many fields are too muddy to plant or sow at this point. 

This could be climate change, but it could also be the effects of the cyclical change in Pacific Ocean temperatures known as "El Nino". The change from La Nina to El Nino has just happened this March for the first time in 3 years. "El Nino" is usually accompanied by increased rain in this part of Africa. 

Moving out of the scientific, rainy season is not my favorite time to be here. The damp cold wears one down, makes swimming outdoors very unpleasant, and breathing takes on a distinctly phlegmatic character. In fact, illness, in the form of colds, bronchitis, pneumonia, etc., seems to be pervasive at the moment. This has been made worse in the past 2 months with a vaccine-resistant strain of mumps that has been ravaging the Bingham school community, and much of Addis. Children come home from school with it, and suddenly both parents have it as well. Although I don't know of anyone who has been hospitalized, many adults have been unable to get out of bed for a week to ten days. (On the plus side, our vegetable garden looks great.) The unseasonable rainy season has also led to funny situations like the middle school "Beach Party," It was planned for the sunny days of May with a homemade pool built of tarps and haybales, slip and slides across the field and other wet activities. But on a cold and drizzly day, the favorite spot for middle schoolers was in front of a roaring fire in the teachers lounge! 

I am trying not to think about home leave, which is still a ways off, but I admit that I will appreciate a break from constant rain and cold. (I did experience this during 2 winters in Seattle when I was in grad. school; the weather in Addis feels quite similar to a Seattle winter.)

Dividing the bull

In the last blog entry, I talked about our Holy Week activities leading up to a sunrise service. In fact, the following week, everyone else in Ethiopia celebrated Orthodox Easter (Fasika). The observed Holy days are about the same, but occurred a week later in this particular year. One big difference is that most people go to church on either Friday or Saturday night, and stay up all night until 6am Sunday morning when they go home. Following this all-night vigil, on Sunday morning there are almost no church services because people have been praying and celebrating all night. Rebecca had a bit of an unexpected surprise when she arrived early to prepare the music for our service on Sunday morning and found the church completely locked up and the empty sanctuary in shambles, with food and trash everywhere, the furniture rearranged, and a massive rented sound system blocking the way to our office. There had clearly been a huge celebration the night before!

Besides the all-night service, the other Fasika tradition involves finally eating a lot of meat following the extended vegan fast of Lent. Many people prepare by buying a share of a bull and then slaughtering it, or goat if one cannot afford a bull. The bull is usually slaughtered on Sunday morning at dawn, with all 'shareholders' in attendance. As soon as it is killed, a chunk of meat is cut off and everyone eats their fill of the raw beef dipped in some berbere spice. The very friendly bull we had in our backyard met a similar fate on Sunday morning about 5:30 am. We looked on from our front porch but did not participate in the feast as none of our family are fans of raw meat, All of our office and guard staff were there to get their shares to take home for Fasika lunch, and to participate in the raw meat eating ritual. We bought a share on behalf of the organizational lunch provision and spent a number of hours cutting it into storage bag-size pieces for storage and food over the coming months. This included the entire lung which our cat loves to eat. 

Hana at home with Thursday, her puppy

I did eat some kitfo (raw beef) later that day when Rebecca, Oren, and I went over to our accountant Hana's house for lunch with her parents and brother. We went last year for Meskel as well and enjoyed a number of Southern Ethiopian delicacies. Beef is usually the meat of choice for this event. The family was very gracious and we had a nice time.

Back at home, our compound lawn is always a bit appalling afterward with a large pool of blood, quite a bit of small pieces of flesh, and an entire bull's head sitting out for a number of days. The dogs tend to sniff around in the compost for various pieces of offal that they will drag out into the yard, or even the house if they get a chance. (Our younger dog Bella actually dragged a piece of skin onto David's bed! He slept on the couch for three days afterwards) It is not uncommon to find carcasses and heads of goats and bulls discarded throughout the neighborhood, lying in rain gutters or on the side of the road. 

 Work-life has been a bit stressful the past 3 weeks. With the start of our new fiscal year, there is a lot of 'legal' work, involving re-signing agreements with all of our partners for their grants in the coming fiscal years. It is fastidious work with partners resubmitting annual budgets based on current inflation rates (this means adjusting scope, not getting more money, in most cases.) It has been a hard year all around because of the economic dynamics here. Ethiopia's inflation was about 35% in the past year, with no devaluation in currency whatsoever, so our dollars are worth less here and partners have in turn had to limit their plans. We are all feeling the pinch of high prices. The causes are complex, but the civil war with Tigray has been a major factor. War is expensive; paying for it is painful.

Youth group hockey

We have been very encouraged by peace negotiations with Tigray, but this has led to new conflicts in both Oromia and Amhara regions. Amhara region seems to be in the role of the 'older brother' vs. the Tigrayan Prodigal Son. As the Federal Govt. makes concessions for peace, Amhara which is adjacent to Tigray and bore the brunt of the invasion by TPLF is not fully welcoming of a reconciliation which may cost them land, or less security.

We are planning to have a 'learning tour' of leaders coming from MCC US and Canada in the month of May. We have planned this for about 10 months, and lined up a wonderful tour of some of our most visually expressive projects in the "safer" parts of the country. Now, the new tensions are rendering the security situation very dynamic in Amhara. We are reconsidering decisions about which project sites to visit and changing plans at this late hour is quite stressful. 

Among our stress relievers, choir has been one of the better ones. We rehearse on Friday afternoons and have a concert coming up. We have been doing a number of show tunes, from The Greatest Showman, Encanto, Brave, Fiddler on the Roof, and Harriet. It should be a lot of fun, although the arrangements are difficult. 

School is coming to an end, with end-of-year activities like banquets and award ceremonies. Oren, a senior, received an Academic award in the awards ceremony. He is a very good student and made the decision to attend the College of William and Mary (Williamsburg, VA) in the fall, Rebecca's alma mater. Sadly, he had an ankle injury from a sprain back in October that has not healed properly and will need to have surgery when we get back to the US. He will probably start college with a boot. He and we are trying to take it in stride and arrange summer plans accordingly. 

Senior Class

Holy Week Activities

Easter Cat

Time flies and here we are in mid-April. It now seems like Zanzibar is a distant memory. We crossed an important milestone, another MCC fiscal year ended and a new one started on April 1st.  There is normally a flurry of activity including many reports due, and lots of financial documents to complete. We also have an annual audit for the Govt. of Ethiopia which requires quite a bit of administrative work. I notice this year, at our third crossing of this boundary in Ethiopia, that we are actually a bit better at it this year. We kind of know what we are doing. That doesn't lessen the workload but makes it less intimidating. 

Junior high youth group

The past two weeks have been somewhat eventful. Most recently, we just passed through Holy Week. I will start by saying that celebrating the Gregorian calendar Holy Week in Ethiopia is a bit odd because Easter is one week later in the Orthodox calendar, so there is not much general community celebration on Western Palm Sunday. On our Easter Sunday, everyone else was in the streets waving palms and singing Hosanna. Finally, this coming Friday through Sunday is a national holiday weekend and everyone else is entering Maundy Thursday today. 

We did have a really good Holy Week notwithstanding. We actually hosted a Youth Group for the Middle Schoolers on Saturday. It was also a Birthday party for our next-door neighbor so kids got together and played games and did a scavenger hunt. They all know each other well and it is great that David has a group of friends that he likes. 

Jr high challenge

Palm Sunday was pretty normal. We enjoyed a church service with lots of green decoration, palm fronds and communion. The Sunday school kids sang a song that we had prepared. 

Following this, we had a busy week at work as the new fiscal year started. Meanwhile, Rebecca actually took a flight with our Program Manager Solomon over to Dire Dawa to see the graduation of a group of 'Peace Ambassadors' who had been doing a 3-year course through our Mennonite Church Partner. She will tell about her experience here:

One of the great things about working in Ethiopia is that it has an amazing network of frequent and affordable domestic flights that can take one to many corners of this huge country. This is especially helpful at the moment, since it isn't wise to travel through many different parts of the country. So, Tuesday morning, I was able to leave the house at 5:30 am, join our colleague Solomon at the airport a little after 6 am, and arrive in Dire Dawa by 8 am to start our work day. We had time to drive through this eastern, Somali-culture influenced city and check into our hotel before joining our partner staff for their graduation ceremony. 

Peace Ambassador graduation

Three different groups of people have been trained and accompanied over the past three years: church leaders, women leaders and Sunday school teachers. In particular, the Sunday school teachers have been learning about how to use a new, specially designed curriculum for children called Christ's Shalom. It goes beyond teaching bible stories to introducing a relationship with Jesus, and naturally integrates the best concepts of peacebuilding and dealing with conflict in a godly way. This project has now ended and so the trainees attended a special session of graduation as "ye Salam Ambasadors." The project coordinator, Mekonen, had asked me to share the word of God, and so I preached (with translation) about the character of a peacebuilder from James 3. Other leaders shared messages of encouragement and several graduates shared testimonies of what the training has meant to them. 

After the graduation, we had lunch and more conversation with Mekonnen, his fellow trainers, and several other church leaders from the Eastern region. I was glad to get to know the women's ministry staff leader, Kelem, as well as the Sunday school trainer Haymanot. I started to hear more about their recent visit to the far West of Ethiopia where the Meserete Kristos Church is also engaged in trying to bring conflicting ethnic groups into Community Dialogue. More on that later.

There was some time in the afternoon to catch up on the dozen emails that concerned the beginning of the fiscal year. And then I took a walk up and down the main street of the town. The community was noticeably different from Addis, just feeling more relaxed and integrated. Eastern Somali culture is somehow more accepting of different backgrounds, and I learned that more than 80 ethnic groups make up the population of Dire Dawa. Of course, the main item for sale by street vendors was "chat," and many young men were walking around with that glazed expression like their eyes are open but inside they are asleep. 

In the morning, we went back to the meeting hall for a final training session on peace with younger people. Students from several local universities and high schools had been formed into peace clubs over the past two years. They have ended their training by learning about the road to reconciliation. It was truly delightful to witness such an engaged group of young people. The majority of them are Muslim (reflecting the character of Eastern Ethiopia), but some were Orthodox or Pente (Evangelical). They demonstrated real respect for each other and commitment to thinking carefully together about what is ailing their communities. They held a lively debate about which part of the body is the most important and concluded that it's vital to respect what everyone brings to the table. Mekonnen asked me to share about the peace clubs MCC supported in Burundi, and it was good for me to look back and make connections with our past experience, in order to encourage these youngsters. The challenge for me was that the entire training was in Amharic. I can understand a lot, but not everything, and it becomes very draining to try to pay attention and grasp at meaning. I left for the airport at the end of the training session and got back home just before everyone was headed to bed back in Addis. 

While Rebecca was gone, I held down the fort as far as kids. Oren is getting down to the last 3 weeks of high school (there is an extended period of exam study leave from mid-April). David continues to plod to the end of the year. 

Good Friday was a real highlight. About 15 years ago I wrote a drama based on meditations on the last 7 words of Jesus during the crucifixion. It is told by 3 characters, the Apostles James and John, and Mary Magdalene. The setting is in Golgotha, some distance away but in view of the crucifixion. With each saying of Jesus, the disciples reflect from different perspectives: James is angry, almost cynical, but hoping for God's punitive judgment. Mary is emotional, hopeful, but devastated. John is circumspect, trying to make some sense of what has transpired. The meditations are presented in a Tenebrae service where the church gets progressively darker with the extinguishing of a candle at each reading. Between each reading was an interlude of Taize music. Rebecca and a group of musicians led the Taize music. 

Actually, the music came together through near-divine intervention.  Rebecca had organized a team and practiced earlier in the week. But several musicians became ill the night before the service. With 24 hours' notice, she asked a very talented young man, Christopher, to help out with some of the instrumental parts and he brought his whole family as well as another talented young musician who filled out the singing incredibly. It really became a community event as most of the musicians were together for choir practice, all hopped in our car, scarfed down take-away pizza and rearranged the sanctuary. Some of the musicians didn't even have time to rehearse, but they were all so skilled that they were able to pick up the improvisational harmonies easily. 

The ending is quite dramatic with the person playing Jesus (Oren's friend Bereket) stepping down off the dais, after saying "it is finished" and blowing out the remaining white Christ candle. At the same time, I cut all the lights and left the sanctuary in complete darkness for a 5-minute discipline of silence. Then Rebecca began to play the song "Within our Darkest Night, you kindle the fire that never dies away" as the lights slowly come back on and others join in. The other moving moment was a bit earlier when the thief says "Jesus Remember me when you come into your Kingdom, followed by Jesus' response and the Taize song "Jesus Remember Me" was sung while members of the congregation were invited to light a votive candle and set it before the life-size cross on the dais. 

Holy Saturday was fairly subdued, one of the only days that was not fully programmed. Rebecca and I took a walk with David in Gullele Park where the dogs love to run around. We usually take about a 5k hike. It is vigorous because the park is on the side of a mountain and goes up and down over 1000 feet in the course of the walk. In the afternoon Rebecca and the kids made a batch of cinnamon rolls for our Easter brunch at church, and we colored about 2 dozen boiled eggs that we planned to take to the brunch as well. 

We went to bed early because we had an Easter sunrise service at 6am and had to leave our house about 5:20 to get there. We made it in good time and most of the rest of our church was there as well. It was outdoors at the Norwegian Lutheran Mission compound, a place with a large yard, children's playground and an amazing dining hall and industrial kitchen perfect for potlucks.

The service was very nice and we put flowers on the cross that had been used on Good Friday so it looked beautiful after the service. We had a very well-provided potluck brunch featuring many Scandanavian brunch dishes, since many of the families in our church are Scandanavian. 

After church, we came home and spent time with Oren to finalise his decision about where he would go to college. He had 4 good options and finally settled on The College of William and Mary, Rebecca's alma mater. We were very proud of him and took him out for dinner at Laphto Mall to celebrate that evening. 

As explained earlier, since this was not Orthodox Easter, Monday was a work and school day, so the ending to Holy Week felt a bit abrupt. Oren is down to his last 2 weeks of school before the exam period. David is still plodding along for another month though. One addition to our household this week is a bull in the backyard purchased by the MCC team. It is traditional at Easter to buy shares in a bull and slaughter it on Orthodox Easter Sunday morning. Our Ethiopian colleagues love to eat some strips of raw beef sprinkled with beriberi spice. I may pass on that particular ritual as I am not a huge fan of beef sushi!

Work has been quite intense this week as it has been every week to get end-of-year things in, as well as starting the new fiscal year. When we are not on the road, we try to take time to do things together as a family, especially listening to audiobooks together and playing board games. Our current favorite board game is Catan with 2 expansions (Knight and Cities, AND Seafarers). It makes for an exciting and challenging evening, often going quite late if we can even finish in one evening. 

We continue to pray for stability in the country. There has been quite a bit of civil unrest, especially on the borders between Amhara and Oromia. We tend to fly when we have to travel out of Addis to avoid roads where there have been reports of attacks from rebel groups or bandits. It is hard that with the cessation of hostilities between the federal govt. and Tigray, the rest of the country is still in quite a bit of ethnic turmoil. The lack of foreign currency that has come with the bill for the conflict (War is expensive) has really hurt the economy as well and everyone, including us, are really feeling the 37%+ inflation. 

We do continue to develop community through our small group, our community choir, our church, our work colleagues, and our neighbors. We are thankful that David and Oren both have a good set of friends and that has helped when the situation here feels unsettling. 

In Memoriam:

Very sadly we lost a colleague last week. Olivia Okello, the MCC co-Representative for South Sudan passed away after a long illness.

She is survived by her husband Amos and two children. We were not able to attend the funeral in Uganda, but many from the region in MCC were.