Ethiopian Culture

For the past couple of weeks Sue has been teaching English to the Bible School students from the KHC Church. Towards the end of the week she gave each student an English to Amharic and Amharic to English dictionary. They were delighted to receive the books, however, they had never seen a dictionary before and had no clue as to how to look up words. She had been teaching using both Amharic and English, but was unprepared that day to explain in Amharic, to people who didn't understand the order of the English alphabet, how to use an English-Amharic dictionary. She tried without success in explaining but they kept asking "what page number?". Eventually with the aid of an Ethiopian friend and great persistence they grasped the concept. It just goes to show you things you take for granted in the West are so foreign to Ethiopia.
My niece asked me to write her some stories on Ethiopian Culture (which reminds me that I haven't done that yet). Almost every week something different seems to hit you. You know you're in trouble when they have a different time (6 hrs different from the rest of the world), a different calendar (they have 13 months), and a different year (it is 1999). Every week you are stumbling on different cultural values. The other week I was asked to drive someone to their home area as they had a death in the family and there was no transport to get them there. I discovered that when someone dies they don't tell the family members who. All they tell them is there has been a death in the family and to come immediately. The anxiety for them is incredible as they don't know if it is spouse, parent, or child or other relative until they arrive. Once they arrive the wailing and the crying starts up and they still haven't a clue as to who has died until they get inside the house. I was a nervous wreck let alone the person I was taking. The many very unusual Orthodox traditions and practices I'll save for another day.
Work continues on the multi-purpose centre. We are hoping it will be finished in May.
My sister and some volunteers are coming at the end of March for a couple of weeks to help with a variety of project plannings including the Agro-Forestry project among the primitive Gumuz, HIV-AIDS program in Bahir Dar as well as Orphans and Street Kids. We will write more about that after their visit.
We have some volunteers coming out this summer for a variety of projects so Sue and the girls are going back to Canada in May and I will be joining them for June. We will be coming back the first part of July.