I haven’t blogged in awhile because
I have been busy doing a bunch of random, wonderful things. Today, I climbed a
mountain! I went with three teachers from Kechene school and three of my
friends that I live with. The mountain we climbed was called Entoto, which is
the biggest mountain around Addis (and Addis is like 8,000 feet high anyway!).
Before we went, one of the teachers asked if we wanted to take the road or the
forest. We chose the forest.
I have never experienced such pain!
Ok not really, but it was ridiculously hard. We walked through a bunch of
neighborhoods first, and most of the people were laughing at me because I was
sweating and having trouble breathing. It was fun seeing a more village-like
part of Addis though. Then we got to the forest and basically climbed up rocks
for two hours. It was so hard. So hard. My hopes of one day climbing Mt.
Kilimanjaro might be out the window now haha. But it was so beautiful. At the
top of Entoto, we looked around and went to a church called St. Mary’s, which
was the first church in Addis Ababa (they slaughtered 5,392 cows to serve at
the church’s opening feast!). In the church compound, there was also a palace
where past Ethiopian emperors lived. It was almost literally a straw hut, and
we were a little confused. But it had a great view!
As we started our descent, it
started raining. And when it rains here, it pours. It was fairly miserable,
actually, because on top of the mountain it is so cold you can see your breath!
Luckily though, we took shelter in this random salon that was about 8 feet by 8
feet, and had at least twelve people in it. Then it started hailing. I shared a
bag of cookies with the barber, to thank him. He ate like 20 of them, haha.
After that it still took us at least three hours to get home, freezing and
soaking wet. I was thinking how lucky I was to have a warm place to go back to,
a warm shower, and a warm bed. A lot of the cold and wet people around me
didn’t have that luxury, especially the homeless people that sleep on mats on
the sidewalk. I wish I could help them.
Overall, climbing Entoto was so
awesome and definitely worth it! I also had another random adventure with my
roommate, Juyeon. The family she lives with in Washington DC has connections
with a lot of people in Ethiopia, and one day we went to meet a man who had
previously been in the army. We thought it would be fun and maybe he would have
connections to NGO’s that can help Kechene school. Little did we know that he
was actually the former chief of staff of the Ethiopian Armed Forces (his name
is General Tsadkan)! So basically, he is a huge deal. Anyway, he was so nice
and so open about his life. He was one of two rebel leaders of the EPDRF, which
fought against the communist government in the 1980’s. When the EPDRF finally
took the capital, the other rebel leader became the prime minister and General
Tsadkan became the chief of staff. But after awhile, the two disagreed about a
lot of things, so General Tsadkan could have either used the army to take over
the country or retired to be a civilian leader. He chose to retire (what if he
had chosen the other option?!?). I have never met someone who could have had
such an enormous impact on history. Now, General Tsadkan advises the government
of Southern Sudan on their defense policy. We had a long, interesting talk
about African politics and it was great! I had been feeling like I didn’t know
enough about Ethiopia. My favorite part, however, was talking to his son about
Bojangles. Yep, that’s right!! (They lived in the US for awhile). General
Tsadkan said he would see what he could do about helping our school!
I also met a new, half- Rastafarian
friend the other day (meaning his mom was Ethiopian and his dad was
Rastafarian). We were both stuck under an awning during a storm and we started
talking (I thought he was interesting because he had a plastic bag on his head
to protect his dreadlocks from the rain). He asked me if I believed in Karma,
and when I said yes, he told me I was rastafarian. Anyway, there are actually a
lot of rastafarian people here, whose family members moved to Ethiopia from
Jamaica. They have their own city in the southern part of the country, and they
worship Haile Selassie (former Emperor of Ethiopia). We talked for at least half
an hour, about everything! It was a great way to wait out a rainstorm.
I have a lot more to say,
especially about my wonderful students at school, but I will save it for next
timeJ.
-Colleen
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