Kechene

The school is located in one of the poorest sections of Addis Ababa and the kids are all either orphans living with relatives in the community, from destitute families, or from families whose parents are HIV/AIDS positive. The kids are all in either K1, K2, or Grade 1, although some of the kids are a little young or a little old for the classes. They are still allowed to come because otherwise they wouldn’t have anywhere to go.

The kids are given two meals a day- breakfast of a banana and a roll, and then lunch of either injera and dorro wat, or rice with potatoes, carrots, and onion in it.

All the students' uniforms are ripped and torn and falling apart, but thankfully a former volunteer gave money for new uniforms. The school now has these new uniforms, but they are waiting until after the rainy season ( July-September ) to give them out.

The kids' school supplies are very skimpy. They all seem to have some tattered semblance of a notebook and then some form of writing utensil. Their writing utensil might be a stub of a pencil that is less than an inch long, or the inside of a pen- the part that actually holds the ink. They are very good at sharing erasers and pencil sharpeners with each other, which is good because otherwise there wouldn’t be enough. I brought a bunch of packages of pens and pencils with me for the school, and I am slowly seeing the kids and teachers start to use them. They will use a stub until you can’t possibly use it anymore, but then it is replaced with one of the brand new pencils I brought. That makes me glad and thankful that I brought these things.

Most of the time, the school does not have power, but even if it does, it is only used in the office for the computer and printer. There are never any lights on in the 3 classrooms, meaning they rely completely on natural light coming through the windows and doorways to see. This can make it extremely dark inside. The floors are dirt, the desks are little metal frames with wood seats, the chalk boards are old and chipped and broken in places making it difficult to write on them. The teaching style is to write information on the board and have the students copy it.

There is no running water inside the buildings. There are a few spigots outside where they get their drinking water and the kids wash their hands, but because of the lack of rain lately, they have been drying out. One day, the school had to bring water in from somewhere else, so that they could cook and so that the students wouldn’t go thirsty. The problem was the only method they have for carrying water is in old plastic oil jugs. This meant the water given to the kids to drink was tainted with oil.

But even though they have next to nothing, you’ve never seen such joyful, fun loving kids! They love to play and learn and their faces light up with joy when they see you. Their favorite games are futbol and susie (which is a long circle of rope the girls play with where 2 girls hold the rope tight and another jumps in and out of it doing tricks and such) and they all love being called on in class. You see kids fighting all the time , but if one kid is actually crying and hurt, the other kids try to take care of him, comforting him or getting a teacher to help. These children have some of the biggest smiles I have ever seen. And they all crave affection. They all want to give you a hug or a kiss (or multiple kisses), or to shake your hand. They love to come just sit next to you and pull your arm around them. Like all children everywhere, they just love to be loved and to give love.

Day 25: Summer school

June 25, 2009

Thursday

The kids got their grades back for their finals today. It kind of gave me a reality check for some of the kids. When I sat in their classes it always seemed like everyone was learning the material and understood, but so many of the kids failed their test, especially their English one. It surprised me. One of the teachers told me they would probably do tutorials with the weaker students during the summer. Even though classes are over, the kids will still come for a half day everyday so that they can still get fed breakfast and lunch and play and have some sort of class/tutorial.

Day 24: Stickers and Ziplocs

June 24, 2009

Wednesday

“We live by faith, not by sight.”

2 Corinthians 5:7

“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

2 Corinthians 5:21

Last day of exams at Kechene. I helped hand out the Art exam for Grade 1, which was a list of about 5 things they had learned to draw and they had to draw each one. The format is different than what you would think of for an Art exam back home. The items are bulleted like normal exam questions, all on one sheet of paper, so the kids have to use either their pen or pencil and draw each item in the little blank space given.

I also handed out stickers to the Grade 1 class, which almost turned into chaos, but I had Johannas tell the kids they had to sit down and wait for me to come to them. Plus, lunch was starting to be served so they didn’t have a choice but to sit. I let them each pick out the sticker they wanted and most of them put it on their forehead.

The ziplock bag I use to hold my PB&J (which is what I eat everyday now) has become a hot commodity in the Grade 1 class. Monday, one of the boys asked for the bag, so I gave it to him and he put his pencils and pens in it. Yesterday, Henock, another one of the boys, asked for the bag and I gave it to him too. I also had an extra one in my bag from the previous day, and since I was eating lunch with Mekdas, one of the girls, I gave her the extra one. Well, then everyone wanted one! I had purposely not given the bags out in front of everyone, but Henock went and made a big scene over it in front of everybody so they all came running to me. Once I got across that I didn’t have anymore, half the kids started telling me “tomorrow” and indicating that the bag from my lunch the next day should go to them. I tried to tell them no, that I could not promise who would or would not get the bag, but none of them really listened to me.

After school I sat in the Pink Café again, except they didn’t have power, so I had a Pepsi instead of a macchiato. Then when I go home, Blair and Allison and I headed over to the Uma Hotel to try and use their wireless (the hotel is within walking distance of the house), but their power was out so we sat there for a while and I read and then we headed back to the house. On the way back we found a little jewelry store that had a sign saying that all the jewelry was made by women trying to support their families. There was some really cool stuff there and I bought some bracelets and a keychain from them.

Day 23: More Exams

June 23, 2009

Tuesday

Exams were happening again today so I took pictures of the kids (which got a little frustrating because some of the kids are very pushy and grabby) and sat in on the KG1 science exam. The whole exam was written in Amharic and all the instructions were in Amharic too, so even though I was the “helper” for the class, I really didn’t help much. I kind of just sat there and helped pass out and collect the exams. The exam was very hard for the kids. For some reason a lot of them couldn't grasp the concept of multiple choice, so Azarat had to keep explaining it to them over and over again.

After lunch at Kechene, I headed back to Tor Highluch and went to the Pink Café down the street from the house and sat in there for a while drinking a macchiato and writing letters.

Day 22: Final Exams

June 22, 2009

Monday

“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”

2 Corinthians 4:8-9

“Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. For he who is least among you all- he is the greatest.”

Luke 9:48

Exams started today at Kechene, so it’s still half days. Each class has 2 finals a day for 3 days. I helped with the Grade 1 math exam, meaning I helped pass out the exams and collect them again at the end. After lunch, when everyone had left, I headed over to Asco again to hang out with Blair and Allison. All the kids there were resting in their dorms though, so we just sat around reading until it was time to go.

Day 21 : Sunday

June 21, 2009

Sunday

“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is , there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the spirit.”

2 Corinthians 3:17-18

The worship at church (International Evangelical Church) this morning was fabulous. I love being able to sing as loud as I want with fellow believers and the songs were really good. The sermon was very basic and simplistic and I didn’t get much from it, but maybe that is the kind of teaching someone else in the church need to hear that morning .

After church we went to this restaurant called The Melting Pot (not at all like the US Melting Pot). It gets its name because it serves Ethiopian, Mexican, Chinese, American, and Italian food. I ordered a cheeseburger and fries and even though it wasn’t as good as an American cheeseburger, it was still pretty good. The rest of the day was spent chilling around the house.

Day 19: Visit Kolfe Orphanage

June 20, 2009

Saturday

Third day in a row with power! Whoot whoot!

This morning JT went with me to visit Kolfe Orphanage. This is the older boys orphanage that my friends, the Mestases, visited when they were here last year, and where Solomon and Haptomu, their "unofficially adopted sons", live. You can read their description here and here, and see a slide show of Kolfe here. When we got there, we met Haptomu and he told us he had been playing foosball, so we joined him and a bunch of the other boys in playing. Then Haptomu showed us around a little bit. I had my camera out and got asked multiple times by Haptomu and the other boys to take their picture. They are a whole lot less pushy about it than the kids at Kechene, but they wanted their picture taken just as much as the little kids do. I was more than happy to oblige. Solomon was not there when I was visiting because the boys said he was at college classes still. So I’m coming back on Friday afternoon to hang out and the boys said Solomon should be there then. One of the best things that Haptomu showed me was from his own personal trunk. In it was a mailing envelope addressed to him from Mom and Pop Mestas. He very proudly showed it to me and you can tell it meant a lot to him.

Once JT and I got back to the house, I left with all the girls to go shopping. We went to Bole, to one of Brianna’s friend’s jewelry store called Salem’s. It had a bunch of gorgeous, cool things in it so I bought a lot of gifts for people back home. Brianna also asked me to take some picture of the merchandise because she is helping Salem with a business plan and wants some images to use for display and advertising.

For dinner we acted like true Americans. We asked our friend, the taxi driver Haptomu, who drives for Cherokee, if he would be willing to drive to a restaurant called Island Breeze, order pizza for us, wait for it to cook, and then deliver it to us at Cherokee House. Delivery pizza. Haptomu graciously granted our request, which in NOT his job at all, and we were very thankful towards him.

Day 19: Sport Final

June 19, 2009

Friday

A normal day. At Kechene this morning I taught Ethics to the Grade 1 class again and told the stories of David and Goliath and of Josh and the Big Wall ( Veggie Tales is great inspiration for telling Bible stories to kids ). They had “sport final” today as well, so all of the Grade 1 and KG2 kids were outside and they had to stand up and do a series of exercises one at a time - standing at attention, trying to do a split, running in place, doing somersaults. It was pretty cute to watch and I also took my camera out to snap a few pictures.

I spent the afternoon at Cherokee House checking up on email and such and talking to Brianna, and then in the evening just hanging out with everyone in the house.

Day 18: Corn Rows and Salsa

June 18, 2009

Thursday

“Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong. Do everything in love.”

1 Corinthians 16: 13-14

Another half day at Kechene. I taught KG2 English then Grade 1 Ethics where I talked about the Good Samaritan and the 10 Lepers. The kids gave me back the math problem worksheets I had made them so I graded them and put a sticker on each one and gave them back. The kids were thrilled. I ended up making another batch of worksheets and handing them out to almost the entire Grade 1 class.

When I left there I caught a bus from Piazza over to Asco, to the Mother Theresa Orphanage where Blair and Allison work. I hung out with them and we visited the 4^th grade class at the orphanage during art class. Some of the girls asked me if they could do my hair like theirs (meaning cornrows) and I told them they were more than welcome to try. So now I have cornrows on the top of my head and everyone says they look good, especially the Ethiopians I know such as Asni and Hanna. I think they’re fun so I’ll keep them in for a while. It hurt a little when they were actually braiding my hair, but now they don’t hurt at all.

This evening we went salsa dancing again and it was so much fun! It was our group (minus Kate and the younger girls) plus the Gladney girls, plus some of the girls from Destiny where Brittany works, and then some Young Life people Rachel, Allison, and Blair had met when they visited a Young Life meeting earlier this week. I danced these two line dances they have, one which is very similar to the Electric Slide, a few dances with JT, and then a bunch of dances with other girls in our group. Most of the time when us girls were dancing together I’m pretty sure we were not doing anything remotely close to what actual salsa dancing looks like, but we had fun with it. Near the end of the night, they played one song that sounded more like a hip-hop song than a salsa song, and since most of the other dancers had already left and it was just our group, a bunch of us jumped on the dance floor and started dancing "American style". At one point we made a circle on the floor (because we were the only ones on it) and people would step out into the middle to “show off”. It was all very silly and extremely fun.

Ethiopian Facts That You May or May Not Know

1. More than 80 languages are spoken by different people groups in Ethiopia
2. Ethiopia has the second biggest population for an African country
3. One of the ways Ethiopians say “yes” is to gasp in air
4. One of the ways Ethiopians say “hello” is by raising their eyebrows at you.
5. The capital city of Addis Ababa is split into smaller sub cities (like Cherokee House is in Tor Highluch and I walk to Abenet in the morning and take a bus to Piazza and then to Kechene)
6. Because of the half a** job done when building the dams, the reservoirs have more silt in them than water, causing the government to ration power. Power goes out about every other day depending on where you live in the city.
7. Butcher shops associate with either Christians or Muslims by painting either a red cross or a red moon cresent on the outside of their store and only those of that respective religion will buy meat there
8. To say “thank you” in Amarhic, say I’m-a-suck-an-olive very fast.
9. The more money you have (or the more money you are perceived to have) the more money you are expected to give away and be generous with
10. Seeing white people is rare and special here so everyone wants to talk to you and try their English out on you and to shake your hand
11. Ethiopia is one of the only African countries that was never colonized by whites (hence the lack of white people here)
12. EVERYONE in Ethiopia loves Obama
13. Mini-bus operators overall will not try to rip you off and overcharge you just because you are white. Contract buses and private taxis are another matter though.
14. There are no traffic laws here (at least there doesn’t seem to be)
15. It is the year 2001 here right now
16. There are 13 months in the Ethiopian calendar. No month has more than 30 days. Those few extra days are put together to make a very short extra month.
17. Time is kept differently here. 1pm+7. I’m sure there is an explanation for this, but I just don’t know what it is.