Wow. I apologize for the lack of blogging over the last
week. It’s amazing how tired and busy (mostly tired) I am after a day at work.
Last week was really bad, because we would spend over an hour in the van
picking up other interns before arriving home. I found myself so tired from
commuting, that I would have a can of tuna for dinner and some chips, check my
email one last time, and go to bed at 9PM. The dogs…and hyenas…and calls to
prayer are slowly fading in the background and don’t disturb me as much
anymore. The rainy season has picked up
and my rain boots and raincoat certainly come in handy when walking to the
little boutique during the work day to grab a diet coke and a piece of
chocolate. Having a driver is certainly a huge benefit – door to door service, but
sometimes it’s nice to get out and walk around the compound.
Save the Children has a fairly large compound where I’m
located – I think USA, Canada, and Sweden are all located on the property.
We’re all in different buildings, so our experiences are quite different. Last
week one day we were without water, power and internet (obviously) for several
hours. Because we are working on desktops, the moment the power goes out, the
computer shuts down and all work that wasn’t saved is lost. The funny part
about it was that there was power on the 1st and 2nd
floor AND 4th floor…but not the 3rd floor (where I’m
sitting). It was really strange...how does electricity skip a floor? Regarding
the water situation, it gets icky (pun intended) when you don’t have water to
flush the toilet….if it was a latrine, it wouldn’t be so bad…but a regular toilet…people
pour water everywhere, so it’s like a swimming pool by the afternoon. And we’re
supposed to be public health folks!
I’ll try to write tonight (or tomorrow) about our weekend
adventure (see video below for a sneak preview), but I thought I would write
about my Sunday adventure (before writing about Saturday). I got up Sunday AM with the plan to go to
church (I’ve been attending the International Lutheran Church in Addis). I
called a taxi driver that a friend who lives in Addis recommended. The guy gave
us a reasonable rate, so he planned to pick us up at 10:30AM in order to get to
the 11AM service. He arrived on time, but on the way to church, we were in our first
accident in Addis. Nothing big. Just a little tap on the car in front of us.
What happened next amazed me...our driver got out…the other driver got out...looked
at the cars, said something in Amharic, and both drivers got back in their cars
and went on their way! Amazing! It was the shortest discussion over an accident
I had ever seen! In the US, there would
at least have been a 10 minute conversation…and someone would surely have been “injured”.
Fast forward to Sunday night…the night of the Euro 2012
Final. Spain vs. Italy. Given the Italian influence in Ethiopia, I knew I
wanted to watch the game with fellow Italians, Ethiopians, etc. Bethany and
Austin (2 interns in the house) and I decide to watch the game at the Italian
Club in Addis. So I called our new taxi driver and asked to be picked up at
8:45. As usual, he arrives on time and he gives us a good rate. We’re driving
around a roundabout….when all of a sudden; he realizes he’s gone too far, so he
starts backing up in the roundabout. Per
my previous posts, traffic is a MESS in Addis just by having the car in drive….stick
that thing in reverse and you’re playing a whole notha’ game! The ride isn’t
over yet, so don’t think that’s all…he passed the entrance to the Italian Club….and
I don’t mean by 50 feet…probably 1000 feet! So what did he do? You guessed it! The
other two interns didn’t turn around, but I had to look so I could prepare for
the worst….thankfully, we weren’t hit and made it to the Italian club to watch
the game. Fast forward a couple of hours and several goals later, when it
looked like Italy was not going to make a comeback, we decided to leave a few
mins early to avoid the crowd. Ignorantly, I called the same cab driver (3rd
time is supposed to be the charm, right?), and he called me 10 minutes later to
us know he had arrived.
We walked outside just in time to see the cab driver back
into a wall of rocks. The back of his car just went straight into those huge
rocks. I couldn’t see his bumper, but from the sound, I don’t think it looked
good in the AM. As I’m writing this post, I’m shaking my head as a recall what
happened next. Because he backed his car up so far against those rocks…his back
wheel was off the ground and was spinning. I was trying really hard to control
my laughter…and was not successful…My friends were just staring in disbelief at
what was going on. After revving the engine for what seems like 5 minutes while
the wheels were spinning, the driver got out of his car, put a rock under the
wheel, got back in the car, and was able to move the car from the rocks. We
continued to stand there in amazement. Just in awe. Well, besides my inappropriate
giggling over the situation. The driver got us back to the house in one piece,
but rest assured, it’ll be a while before I give him a call again for a pickup J
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