Happy Canada Day! Celebrating Canada Day in Ethiopia is a quiet affair, even more so on the road. It pretty low-key, more like reminding each other that July 1 is Canada Day. But we are in Ethiopia, in Bahir Dar and no one knows or cares here. But that’s OK. We know our friends are enjoying themselves in Canada with the typical outdoor grill and holiday fare with red and white bunting.
Bahir Dar is like an oasis in a journey. Something very different from our hotel experience in all the different places we were in northern Ethiopia. A place to relax and it feels good. The Ivys served up a normal breakfast of cereal, fruit and coffee. And it prepared us for the day.
Our day was to be an ‘MCC’ day. We met in the morning with Mengistu, the MCC IVEP’er who would be traveling to the U.S. to live and work in eastern PA for a year. We met his mother and a brother at a nearby hotel in town. The idea was to meet the family and answer any questions they had about the program and Mengistu’s role in IVEP. But there was not much to say. I think that Mengistu had let his parents know all the info we knew. So we conversed for an hour before saying our good-byes. Mekonnen had joined us early on and now we had an impromptu MCC meeting, discussing the agenda for the day as well as issues that were waiting for us in Addis. We moved to the Tana Hotel for lunch and once again expected, and received, the normal hotel fare and service that we had become used to over the 9 days on the road.
After lunch we went to the MKC local church office where once again we met with about a dozen people who were connected to the APO HIV/AIDS program in Bahir Dar. Although men have been present in past meetings in other places, the majority who meet with us are women and children and it was so once again (as in Gonder). Once again the stories were of hardship and of becoming saved through the ministry of individuals who doubled as evangelists and counselors. The church program is a life saver and even though their problems haven’t all gone away, they now have hope and joy and have received care. Our meeting lasted a couple of hours in a hot, semi-dark basement room and it was hard to stay focused and awake in the afternoon but I managed. Our girls managed to hang in there as well. Sophia wandered in and out of the meeting. Abby and Amani did too for a while but finally sat down with Wanda and I towards the end. A young boy sang a song for our group, for he is a singer in the MKC church. In response I thought we could sing a farewell song. So our family sang, ‘As I Went Down to the River’. It was fun to sing and it was something different than just talking all the time.
We dropped off Mekonnen at the hotel and found the Ivys on the way to their house. We came back and settled into the plastic lawn chairs on the porch and just chatted. Conversation about politics and religion and life in Ethiopia. I think what is so relaxing is that we can talk in NA English and we have much in common in our world views and lifestyle. Charlie and Dee come out of the Methodist church tradition but are Christian pacifists in the Gandhian tradition, which we resonate with.
We went out for supper that night in ‘bejudges,’ three-wheeled blue and white mini-taxis, which the girls loved. We went looking for pizza. The Ivys’ favorite pizza restaurant on the far side of town didn’t have electricity so no pizza. So in the twilight we went walking to their second choice, Millennium Pizza. It was a 10-minute walk through crowded streets where our skin color made us stick out. And we stuck out too in the Pizza shop, it sorta reminded me of those westerns where a stranger walks into a bar and everything stops as all heads turn and stare at the stranger. All eyes followed us as we chose two tables and moved them together. To be stared at continuously can be a bit unnerving. Every time I looked up or scanned the room I would meet other eyes that seemed to be in a locked mode. How to respond? Staring back? Looking down again?
Anyways the pizza was good and we found bejudges and headed back to the house in the dark. The sky was lit up with thunder clouds and constant flashes of lightning far away. No sound, just lightning in the clouds. We expected a thunderstorm over night but it never came. And we all slept well under our mosquito netting.
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