An Orthodox Easter to remember

Ethiopian holidays are all about getting the ferengi tipsy by noon and drunk before dinner. Not that I’m complaining, it just always leads to pretty memorable days. This Easter, filled with tej, tella, and arake, was no exception.

The morning was actually pretty normal; I got to sleep in for the first time in over a week because the roosters were cooking instead of crowing. Then I got to work on making the guacamole and tortillas to share with my compound family. I love them and wanted to help out with the meal…but I also had an alternative motive. I hate injera, so I figured if I made the tortillas, I could use those instead : ) Didn’t quite work out.

I brought the food over and everyone dug into their meal. Most of the women seemed pretty hesitant about trying the guac, which my landlord was fine with, because he loved it and ate most of it himself. But the tortillas were passed around and eaten plain, so once again I had a meal full of injera. I guess I can’t complain, it only happens on holidays, and they’re always so sweet to make me a meat-free meal. Easter’s was eggs, cooked carrots & green beans, and misir wot.

We got to hang out and talk for a couple of hours and I spent a lot of the time playing with their baby granddaughter who was enamored with my skin colour. Then it came time to put her down for a nap and it was universally agreed upon that everyone was going to take advantage of nap time.

I went home and continued working on the teaching materials I had started the day before (for the English Open Week at the Teacher’s College). Suddenly, it started to pour. And we’re not talking simply a heavy rain, it was like a monsoon. I looked up and noticed a heavy stream of water entering my room in one corner and a few minutes later, half my room was flooded.

Thanks to some buckets and towels, the situation was subdued, and after finding three more leaks, my landlord called a guy to look at the roof the following day. What was the agreed upon solution to the problem? Clean the gutters haha but the good news is, my house hasn’t leaked since, so I guess I’ll take it.

And then things got crazy with the English Open Week, followed by the Hawassa race that weekend – imagine 100 Peace Corps Volunteers, plus tons of NGO workers flooding an Ethiopian town for 48 hours. Crazy. But it was a ton of fun and I’ll try to find time to blog about it in the next few days : ) Until then, stay classy. And congrats Minnesota, for becoming the 12^th state to legalize gay marriage. I’m proud of you!