Tuesday was a long day.

Lane and I had a late dinner in the Beer Garden before going back to the room to watch some TV. The Africa Action channel shows reruns of American crime dramas, there’s always soccer on somewhere (which he loves), and the English-language feed of Al Jazeera is much better, journalistically, than I would have expected.

We were trying to stay up late so that we would sleep through the night, and finish the adjustment to the eight-hour time difference. No such luck. At 2:30 in the morning I was wide awake with no going back. The door to the balcony was open so that we could get some fresh air, and I could hear packs of dogs running in the streets. You see them everywhere during the day, but mostly by themselves; at night the streets belong to them. Along with the fresh air, a few mosquitos got in. My doctor’s advice about slamming vitamin B-12 was apparently correct, because they never seem to bite me, but their humming near my ears was driving me crazy, so about 3:30, I turned on the light and hunted them down with a flip-flop.

Right at 4:30, I started hearing chanting. I hadn’t seen it, but I guess there’s a mosque somewhere nearby, and it was time for the first Call to Prayer. I went out and stood on the balcony to listen to the haunting tones of the chanting. He completed the call a little after 5:00 and I went back to bed to see if I could get a couple more hours’ sleep. We may pray to a different God, or to God by another name, but whatever one’s faith, it would be difficult to hear that sound echoing through the still, dark streets of the city without being moved.

At least the first time.

At 5:30, someone nudged the Imam again, and a second call to prayer began. I don’t know when this one ended. I do know he was still going strong at 6:15 when Lane woke up (and stopped talking.) I may have dozed off for a few minutes there, and for all I know the man stopped to catch his breath too, but he was singing at 6:45, and still going at 8:15 when the gathering construction noise finally drowned him out.

I gave up and got out of bed, and was suddenly and violently ill. It seems I had made a grave mistake the night before, by eating the two half-dollar sized slices of tomato that had come on my sandwich ("You ate the tomato?" Nazif later exclaimed. "Even I don’t eat the tomato!") Local produce, washed in local water, is like drinking the local water. I had screwed up, and boy, was I going to pay for it. I managed to get dressed and down to the lobby in time to leave, but Mike could see I wasn’t going to be worth much (which was true; I had gotten out of breath just putting my boots on.) He suggested I go back to bed and catch up with them in the afternoon, and I was happy to comply.

The rest of the group went back to the Sendafa villages we had visited the day before. Today’s work would be building fences and installing the pump heads on the wells. Not as many of the locals were there this time (although more of the women, who had been at a funeral on our first day.) They had not known we were coming back, and without that motivation, few had shown up. It didn’t really matter, as there were too few tools for more, and not really enough work for more to do, but it did demonstrate what Mike had said about our purpose: that we weren’t really there as labor (not that we’re worth much anyway at this high altitude) but more as inspiration. The fact that we are there helps the women shame the men into getting around to doing the job done. It also gives them (especially the children) a rare look at the outside world. Even Addis Abeba, only 20 miles or so away, is like the Emerald City to them; they can scarcely imagine America. Meredith said that they will talk for years about the day the ferinjis (foreigners) came to visit.

The group came back, and we met for lunch about 2:00. I was still in pretty bad shape, so I ordered the most innocuous thing I could find on the menu, a toasted cheese sandwich with tomato (I made it clear I wanted the tomato left OFF.) It finally came: a triple decker pile of toast, cheese, and about half a head of freshly-washed local lettuce. I picked at the bread that was least damp, and went back to my room to eat another of those horrible CLIF bars and another bottle of water.

The plan was to meet in the lobby at 4:00 to ride to the top of the mountain and see the palace of Emperor Menelik. Everyone was there on time except Lane. We waited a bit, and I went back up to make sure I hadn’t somehow locked him in the room (you need a key to get OUT as well as in) but he was nowhere to be found. Finally we asked the doorman, who remembered seeing him going down the street. Mike went to see if he could find him, and the rest of us began considering how we would go about telling Sandy that we had lost her son in Africa (the first thing I decided was that I would let MIKE tell her.) He was still out at 4:30 when Lane came strolling back up the drive. He had gone to a nearby photography shop to see about getting a cable for his camera, and had lost track of time after people started coming up to chat with him. Lane’s about six feet tall, with a shocking mop of curly blond hair, so he tends to stand out here. People wanted to have their picture taken with him, talk with him about America ("My cousin lives in Michigan, do you know him?") and to touch his amazing hair. No harm, except to our nerves.

With Lane properly chastised about wandering out on his own, we were ready to visit Menelik’s palace. Another harrowing ride through the street took us to the base of the mountain. From there it’s a steep climb of about five more miles before you top out at about 10,000 feet. Amazingly, there were many people WALKING up the road, to get to the Orthodox church at the summit (also some dare-devil boys riding down the steep hill on carts cobbled together from sticks and what looked like skateboard wheels.) We also saw may women carrying down HUGE bundles of twigs, four feet across and eight to ten feet long, of the eucalyptus trees that grow at the top.

The palace, which sits just behind the church, was built in the 1870’s. It consists of several separate buildings each made entirely of whitewashed mud and stone, with thatched roofs and floors of wide hand-hewn juniper boards. The throne room (about half the size of APLC’s sanctuary) had separate entrances for the ministers and other people, and adjoining rooms with hooks made of cow horns where meat would be hung. Amazingly, everything is still in good condition after all this time, even though the only real maintenance is an occasional re-painting and new thatch for the roof. Nazif explained that the juniper wood is very resistant to decay (and Mike, who builds decks for a living, said that those floors would cost tens of thousands in the U.S.)

With the sun going down, we rode back to the hotel. FINALLY starting to feel like myself, I choked down another CLIF bar and bottle of water (and even risked a Slim Jim) and turned in. Wednesday will be another day at the wells.

Dohna’hun, Larry

————

May 23rd update

My bad- I’ve been told that the call to prayer was not Muslim, but was actually from one of the many Orthodox churches in the area, which also occasionally do them. Although, thankfully, not this morning.

Tuesday was a long day.

Lane and I had a late dinner in the Beer Garden before going back to the room to watch some TV. The Africa Action channel shows reruns of American crime dramas, there’s always soccer on somewhere (which he loves), and the English-language feed of Al Jazeera is much better, journalistically, than I would have expected.

We were trying to stay up late so that we would sleep through the night, and finish the adjustment to the eight-hour time difference. No such luck. At 2:30 in the morning I was wide awake with no going back. The door to the balcony was open so that we could get some fresh air, and I could hear packs of dogs running in the streets. You see them everywhere during the day, but mostly by themselves; at night the streets belong to them. Along with the fresh air, a few mosquitos got in. My doctor’s advice about slamming vitamin B-12 was apparently correct, because they never seem to bite me, but their humming near my ears was driving me crazy, so about 3:30, I turned on the light and hunted them down with a flip-flop.

Right at 4:30, I started hearing chanting. I hadn’t seen it, but I guess there’s a mosque somewhere nearby, and it was time for the first Call to Prayer. I went out and stood on the balcony to listen to the haunting tones of the chanting. He completed the call a little after 5:00 and I went back to bed to see if I could get a couple more hours’ sleep. We may pray to a different God, or to God by another name, but whatever one’s faith, it would be difficult to hear that sound echoing through the still, dark streets of the city without being moved.

At least the first time.

At 5:30, someone nudged the Imam again, and a second call to prayer began. I don’t know when this one ended. I do know he was still going strong at 6:15 when Lane woke up (and stopped talking.) I may have dozed off for a few minutes there, and for all I know the man stopped to catch his breath too, but he was singing at 6:45, and still going at 8:15 when the gathering construction noise finally drowned him out.

I gave up and got out of bed, and was suddenly and violently ill. It seems I had made a grave mistake the night before, by eating the two half-dollar sized slices of tomato that had come on my sandwich ("You ate the tomato?" Nazif later exclaimed. "Even I don’t eat the tomato!") Local produce, washed in local water, is like drinking the local water. I had screwed up, and boy, was I going to pay for it. I managed to get dressed and down to the lobby in time to leave, but Mike could see I wasn’t going to be worth much (which was true; I had gotten out of breath just putting my boots on.) He suggested I go back to bed and catch up with them in the afternoon, and I was happy to comply.

The rest of the group went back to the Sendafa villages we had visited the day before. Today’s work would be building fences and installing the pump heads on the wells. Not as many of the locals were there this time (although more of the women, who had been at a funeral on our first day.) They had not known we were coming back, and without that motivation, few had shown up. It didn’t really matter, as there were too few tools for more, and not really enough work for more to do, but it did demonstrate what Mike had said about our purpose: that we weren’t really there as labor (not that we’re worth much anyway at this high altitude) but more as inspiration. The fact that we are there helps the women shame the men into getting around to doing the job done. It also gives them (especially the children) a rare look at the outside world. Even Addis Abeba, only 20 miles or so away, is like the Emerald City to them; they can scarcely imagine America. Meredith said that they will talk for years about the day the ferinjis (foreigners) came to visit.

The group came back, and we met for lunch about 2:00. I was still in pretty bad shape, so I ordered the most innocuous thing I could find on the menu, a toasted cheese sandwich with tomato (I made it clear I wanted the tomato left OFF.) It finally came: a triple decker pile of toast, cheese, and about half a head of freshly-washed local lettuce. I picked at the bread that was least damp, and went back to my room to eat another of those horrible CLIF bars and another bottle of water.

The plan was to meet in the lobby at 4:00 to ride to the top of the mountain and see the palace of Emperor Menelik. Everyone was there on time except Lane. We waited a bit, and I went back up to make sure I hadn’t somehow locked him in the room (you need a key to get OUT as well as in) but he was nowhere to be found. Finally we asked the doorman, who remembered seeing him going down the street. Mike went to see if he could find him, and the rest of us began considering how we would go about telling Sandy that we had lost her son in Africa (the first thing I decided was that I would let MIKE tell her.) He was still out at 4:30 when Lane came strolling back up the drive. He had gone to a nearby photography shop to see about getting a cable for his camera, and had lost track of time after people started coming up to chat with him. Lane’s about six feet tall, with a shocking mop of curly blond hair, so he tends to stand out here. People wanted to have their picture taken with him, talk with him about America ("My cousin lives in Michigan, do you know him?") and to touch his amazing hair. No harm, except to our nerves.

With Lane properly chastised about wandering out on his own, we were ready to visit Menelik’s palace. Another harrowing ride through the street took us to the base of the mountain. From there it’s a steep climb of about five more miles before you top out at about 10,000 feet. Amazingly, there were many people WALKING up the road, to get to the Orthodox church at the summit (also some dare-devil boys riding down the steep hill on carts cobbled together from sticks and what looked like skateboard wheels.) We also saw may women carrying down HUGE bundles of twigs, four feet across and eight to ten feet long, of the eucalyptus trees that grow at the top.

The palace, which sits just behind the church, was built in the 1870’s. It consists of several separate buildings each made entirely of whitewashed mud and stone, with thatched roofs and floors of wide hand-hewn juniper boards. The throne room (about half the size of APLC’s sanctuary) had separate entrances for the ministers and other people, and adjoining rooms with hooks made of cow horns where meat would be hung. Amazingly, everything is still in good condition after all this time, even though the only real maintenance is an occasional re-painting and new thatch for the roof. Nazif explained that the juniper wood is very resistant to decay (and Mike, who builds decks for a living, said that those floors would cost tens of thousands in the U.S.)

With the sun going down, we rode back to the hotel. FINALLY starting to feel like myself, I choked down another CLIF bar and bottle of water (and even risked a Slim Jim) and turned in. Wednesday will be another day at the wells.

Dohna’hun, Larry

————

May 23rd update

My bad- I’ve been told that the call to prayer was not Muslim, but was actually from one of the many Orthodox churches in the area, which also occasionally do them. Although, thankfully, not this morning.