More puppies....

We recently told you that one of our dog's, Stewey, was pregnant. Well, last night, at approximately 10PM she gave birth to 3 adorable puppies. They are black and white and have a strong resemblance to Scruffy (guess it wasn't the neighborhood dog). It was absolutely miraculous to see her motherly instincts at play. Mother and puppies are all doing well in their cardboard box behind the house. The count is now at 7 dogs, and 11 chickens. more to come.

Also, thanks to all those who have sent us any mail or packages. We really don't need or want anything, but if anyone would like to send us any mail, please do so by the end of December (as it takes 2-3 weeks to deliver).

Much love and Happy Hannukah!!

Update from the homestead

Our hens have begun to pull their weight around here. In the past week, our numbers on the farm have grown and we now have seven adorable, fuzzy, little, yellow chicks running around. In addition to the four full grown chickens, that will be 11 chickens in total. Did I mention that there are 12 more eggs in the chicken coop? Is it just me, or does that seem like a lot of chicken just to ‘have’?



The puppies, affectionately Bagel and Cream Cheese, are growing like weeds. As with all animals in Ethiopia, I see their tiny ribs too often, so I offer them whatever I can, usually peanuts, bread…they’re not choosy…they now follow me around like love-sick puppies.



In our previous account of “Life on the Compound,” we failed to mention that one of the dogs, Stewey ( I miss Family Guy), was in heat. I didn’t think it was worth mentioning. The whole ordeal was extremely annoying, because it drove every single dog in the neighborhood crazy, and we would often wake up in the middle of night to the sounds of vicious growling and snapping. That being said, 2 months later, we noticed her a little pudgier than usual, with significantly increased ‘laying around’ time. She’s knocked up, with potentially 5-6 more little jerks just like her, on the way. Now, I am a dog lover, really. But this dog has been known to regularly steal the breakfast right off our table, shred the garbage, and deliver blood-curdling howls at 2am. Forgive me if I’m not overjoyed and the thought of reproduction.



Also, no Pedigree-brand or Science-Diet dog food here. Said chicks and puppies enjoy injera as a main-stay in their diet as well.

A coffee lover’s paradise

If it’s a Venti Frappucino with whip that you crave, you have come to the wrong place, but if you want a small cup of fresh and strong coffee…welcome to Ethiopia. Although LeAnne and I are not fervent coffee drinkers, it’s hard to pass up the Ethiopian coffee ceremony. While coffee is a simple two-step process in most countries of the world, place cup, press button, enjoy coffee, if you want coffee in Ethiopia, you will have to do a little work. The coffee ceremony is an experience for all the senses. First, the coffee beans are bought in their raw green form and rinsed. Then they are roasted over a coal fire until dark brown and you can start to smell the coffee. The person roasting the beans walks around to all the guests so that they can take a whiff of the tantalizing aromas. Once they are cooled, the roasted coffee beans are placed in a large mortar and pestle and ground thoroughly. While this is going on, bark from a gum tree is placed in the coals to create smoky incense. A few teaspoons of the ground coffee are placed inside an intricately designed clay pitcher made especially for coffee that has boiled water. Once the coffee is ready, it is poured into small espresso cups and served with sugar. Most Ethiopians drink their coffee very sweet with multiple spoons of sugar. Sometimes, the coffee is served with popcorn to counterbalance the sweet flavors. Since the coffee is so strong and fresh, all you need is one small cup, but as the ceremony continues, a second and third round of coffee is served to each guest.

Ethiopian Hospitality

A couple of weekends ago, we had the pleasure of experiencing some
quality Ethiopian hospitality, live and in living color. As I
mentioned, I (LeAnne) teach grades 4-8. The 8th graders are
practically adults, and we mainly work on “spoken English.” If anyone
has any recollection of what it felt like to be the junior high age,
the proposition of delivering a speech, center stage, is pretty
daunting, especially if you’re a 8th grade girl. However, as long as
the entire class was collectively uncomfortable, we managed to work
past the shyness, fidgeting, and generally tendency of: low-talking.”
Through this, I became close with one of the girls in the class named
Hermela.

One day, Hermela boldly marched into our “office” (glorified hut) and
invited Danielle and I to her birthday party that weekend. We gladly
accepted, and had no idea what to expect.

When we arrived at her father’s house in Awassa, the party was much
smaller than most American parties, with mostly family and a couple
neighbors. Hermela’s family kept mentioning how honored they were to
have us in their home, and how much they had already heard about us.
We were incredibly flattered, at which point Hermela interjected
proudly with “I made doro-wat just for you!” We knew that ‘wat’ is
stew, so we thanked her with huge smiles. Only later did we discover
that ‘doro’ means chicken…we felt pretty terrible. It was one of those
cultural things that should be avoided at all costs, and we really
tried. Instead, her grandmother made us scrambled eggs, which was a
first at a birthday party., but they were delicious scrambled eggs.

After man cups of strong, black Ethiopian coffee, a detailed
conversation about the virtues of Orthodox Christianity, and her small
cousins performance of some MJ dance moves set to American hip-hop, we
headed out with a very warm invitation to come back anytime, and to
call if we needed anything. It was very good to be with a family,
something we miss a lot.

Life on the farm (we mean compound)

We have gotten quite used to life here on the compound, but lately, it
has felt much more like a farm, or a petting zoo. This is no
tract-home, we have a big chunk of land that Tadesse, our
guard/gardener, has been working diligently to make into a botanical
oasis, complete with a coffee tree orchard, stone-lined, manicured
flower gardens, and vegetable gardens. We still get water delivered
bi-weekly on the back of a donkey-cart, but this is serious progress.
Back to the farm aspect, in addition to the two dogs who were already
here, we have gotten two adorable puppies, one brown and one white,
and we have named them ‘Bagel’ and ‘Cream Cheese,’ respectively. By
the way, they cost a whopping 5 Birr, combined, which is less than a
cup of coffee here. As cute as they are, we can’t really play with
them because they haven’t had any vaccinations, so we can’t risk
anything.

At 5:30am sharp, daily, the alpha-male rooster (named Bob, of the
Shishka-type) crows directly outside our door, at which time D usually
shouts an obscenity or two. The other rooster,‘The General’ (General
Tso) is quiet, because he knows he’s second-string. Tigiste and
Tadesse decided we should have more chickens, so the hens have been
busy sitting on their eggs for the past week, 2 more weeks to go (21
days) until we’ll have little chicks running around. Believe it or
not, all of the animals coexist very peacefully, unless of course, a
monkey comes running through the yard, in which case everyone gets
riled up…Speaking of monkeys, we see lots of baboons, just hanging out
alongside the road regularly. Their novelty has worn off, and was
replaced with the zeal for hippo sightings. There are a few hippos who
like to come out around 5pm in the marshes by the lake. The first time
we saw their little ears, then their enormous bodies, we went nuts!
They were only about 15 feet away, right off the road.

It has been particularly rainy in the past week, so we collect the
rain water with huge barrels positioned at the edge of the roof to
catch the spill-off. We don’t drink the water, clearly, but it’s used
for other things around the house, like washing dishes, washing
clothes, “plumbing,” etc. We didn’t know how much frogs like the
rain, until several of them surfaced in the past week. In fact, they
surfaced right into our rooms on several occasions. Luckily, Tadesse
had just taught me the word for ‘frog’ in Amharic, so he came quickly
to escort the little guys back out into the garden. Of course, we
don’t shriek for Tadesse to come running as often as we did in the
past. We have become quite desensitized to most things creepy and
crawly. One real test was the rhinoceros-looking beetle, about the
size of a mouse, that found its way into our room. The only time I had
seen anything like that before, it was behind glass, at the Museum of
Natural History. After that incident, we fashioned some make-shift
weather stripping, out of duct tape, for the bottom of our door, in
order to curb any further unauthorized entrances.

We’re still showering with a bucket and ladle, but we have started to
boil the water, which makes the process much more bearable.

More to come soon! We miss everyone incredibly, and think of you all the time.
I was able to post some pictures on my Facebook account, but here’s
the link just in case:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2086665&id=9802992&l=0c91bbf089

If anyone would like to send us any mail, we would LOVE it!

For letters, and small packages, it take s about a week. For larger packages, a bit longer.

the address is:

LeAnne Shor and Danielle Benzaken
Ethio-American Friendship School
P.O. Box 1376
Awassa, Ethiopia
Africa

seriously, we live and die by correspondence
cheers,
L

School is in session

Last week was our first week of school. Without any formal introductions or orientation, LeAnne and I just walked into the classrooms and started teaching. Teaching, however, entails some kind of learning with a give-and-take exchange between teacher and student. We quickly learned that it would be a challenge. All the children come from very different backgrounds including socio-economical level, educational level, and school background. This meant that most of the students don’t understand a word of English, except for a few key phrases, ‘Miss’, ‘toilet’, and ‘write down?’ It wouldn’t be so hard if there were teachers at the school who understood English and could translate, but aside from the Principal, who speaks very minimal English, it is just us.



In addition, materials and supplies are extremely basic. Each child has a notebook for each subject and a pen and there is a blackboard and chalk for the teachers in each classroom. The students don’t have any kind of workbook or practice book to follow along. So LeAnne and I started with a few basic phrases that we have the children repeat over and over such us “Should I write this down?” And “May I go to the bathroom?”



The next problem we came across is comprehension. It is one thing to teach someone how to read the letters and the words and sound them out, but it’s something else to understand that the word cat is a four-legged animal that meows. Since these children have no exposure to English outside of our class period, comprehension is very low. Unlike an ESL (English Second Language) child in America who is in an English speaking environment and is exposed to English all over, these children have no practice reading or writing English any where.



We are still figuring out which teaching methods work best for each level. There are about 15-30 students in each grade from Nursery to Grade 8. There is a very vast and expansive library at the school which makes books very accessible to the children, but as we have noticed, the students mostly flip the pages and don’t actually read the words.