The Long Easter Weekend

For western Christians this was just another weekend. But for those of us who are living in Eastern Orthodox countries, this was the long Easter weekend. Offices closed on Thursday and won’t be opened up until Tuesday morning. When we celebrated Easter a month ago most Ethiopians were oblivious to the quiet celebrations of the western Christians among them. But the signs of Eastern Christians preparing to celebrate were quite obvious here. An influx of sheep, goats and cattle into the city of Addis meant that there was to be slaughter and much eating of fresh meat on the holiday. Last night as we went to bed with our bedroom window open, we could hear the chanting of the priests at the nearby Ethiopian Orthodox church. I fell asleep and woke up sometime around midnight to hear the chanting becoming more intense. Fortunately I drifted back to sleep until morning. But Wanda said she couldn’t go back to sleep and she guessed that the chanting went on until 4 a.m.

For us, the long weekend was not a getaway weekend. Many foreigners do take off and head out of the city to tourist destinations in Ethiopia. But we have been privileged to host Joyce Burkholder, a Ten Thousand Villages (TTV) buyer who has been here all week. TTV has wanted to buy in Ethiopia for some time but many factors have prevented them from doing so up until now; export duties, shipping costs, lack of artisan capacity and infrastructure have all been a hindrance. But this past week provided a glimmer of hope. As Wanda and Joyce visited various businesses some possibilities have emerged. It’s too early to say whether anything will come of the contacts this week, but Joyce has said the odds are better now than ever before.

So Wanda and Joyce spent Good Friday with a potential entrepreneur/ artisan community. Yesterday morning the same, and in the afternoon 4 women gathered to string beans together. Would a coffee bean necklace sell in TTV? Can something be attractive to the NA market and cost effective (given the fact that TTV has to mark up items 5 ½ times in order to stay in business)? So Wanda, Joyce, Tamara (our MCC Service worker who is currently volunteering with the one project we are looking at partnering with), and Naomi (a young woman who is here with her parents from the U.S.) were soaking beans and trying to string various bean combinations together to see what would look good. I ended up making a pizza for all those who were hungry. The twins had been at a birthday party at the Sheraton Hotel all afternoon and had eaten so much that they weren’t hungry for my pizza!

So today we are planning to go to church, but our western church service will be rather quiet compared to the Easter celebrations we’ve heard. Wanda isn’t feeling well at the moment, meaning we’ll do the minimum activity, whatever she can do. We’ll probably eat out like we do most every Sunday after church. Then we’ll come back to our house in the afternoon. Thanks to all the generous birthday gifts from family and friends, there are a lot of DVD’s we can watch.

Tomorrow, Easter Monday, the girls go back to school but the MCC offices will be closed. A free day! But I will be preparing to teach a class on Tuesday at Meserete Kristos College in Debre Zeit (about 19th century Christianity) and speak at the chapel as well. This coming week will be another busy one . . . and another short week as well. Ethiopia recognizes May 1 as a national holiday and the following Monday, May 5, is another national holiday. Another long weekend for the girls from school. Again, many folks will be retreating to various resorts but, alas, we didn’t get our reservations in on time and won’t be going to places we targeted to retreat to. Which means we’ll likely be around for another long weekend. Which means, I’ll probably be able to blog some more . . .