Day 3 in Ethiopia

Today was probably my favorite day here, but I am so tired that I won't do it justice with this post. The day started with classes, and for the first time, I tried to teach a topic with very little success. The curriculum required that I teach third graders about the parts of a seed: the cotyledon, dicots, monocots, etc... this was stuff that I got a D on in biology. Anyway, at the beginning of the class these kids didn't even know that plants came from seeds. The feeling sucked. It feels awful to just see a concept bounce off a kid's head, over and over. Seriously, I had no idea how disappointing it can be to be a teacher. I was in a terrible mood until a second grader, named Jeratuan, absolutely dominated the distinction between man-mad and natural/living and non-living things. I passed out homework; to him first... when I was finished passing it out, he had completed his assignment, and he said "This is easy". I asked him if he would like to have extra assignments, and he said yes. Three other students asked if they could be included in the harder curriculum, so I am now going to try and educate four second graders at a fourth grade level, which I think may still be too easy for Jeratuan, but the other three students will find it challenging.We ate lunch today at Hareg's house, and her DVD player had been broken so we fixed it using tape. Not to brag, but I was VERY proud of myself for completing a couple of sentences during the meal (injara... of course). Her daughters, Ruth and Abigail, are very smart, and somebody said they can teach me Amharic, which led me to my first full sentence in their language. "Ehne yante tamarine". (I am your student). Then, somebody told me I was a good teacher, and I responded: "Ehne teroo astamarine machienatum tamarioche betam gobez nacho." (I am a good teacher because my students are very clever). I totally felt like a badass, even though each sentence took me 20 awkward seconds to say.Since the girls had a mouse in their room, I promised to buy a mousetrap; however, the only mousetrap (yite wutmeg) that they sold at the stores in Gofa and Kara were big enough to catch a monkey. Seriously... Paris Hilton's dog wouldn't set this trap off. If a person got caught in one, he would gnaw his foot off. So Benjamin took me to the markato, a 24 hour a day market that claims to be the biggest market in Africa... and I have absolutely no reason to doubt that claim. It was a total jungle. Benjamin held my wrist the whole time because straight friends here just do that kind of thing... either that or Ethiopia is the San Francisco of Africa. Everyone is touching and hugging up on everyone here. I bought a shirt for 3 bucks that says "Legend of the huge ocean: Pirate Crem" (Yes, Crem). I couldn't find a smaller mousetrap. Apparently one cattrap factory makes all the cattraps for the whole country. I ended up buying that glue that the mouse will get stuck in when he approaches the food. I said dehnahun to Benjamin and took a taxi (minibus/Toyota toaster) to Tor Harloche, feeling pretty confident about my Amharic... dare I say, cocky. I asked a man next to me, "Yih Tor Harloche no?" (This is Tor Harloche?). He said "I don't speak English". I responded "Ai Inglisya. Baraminya. Yih Tor Harloche no?" (Not English, in Amharic, is this Tor Harloche?) This time the guy next to him said "He no speak English." So... apparently I have the pronounciation skills of Helen Keller.To make a long story short, I got lost in Tor Harloche for 2 hours, without Jessica's fearless leadership. I also made conversations with a ton of kids, one of whom showed me some expert karate. At one point I got swarmed by the karate kid and his friends as they shoved their hands at me begging for money. I absolutely NEVER give to people I don't know personally (plus most of my money is my dad's so that is like embezzlement (sp?)). Anyway, I yelled "HIT! ZOORBELL!" (Go away! Turn back!) and they went scattering. The karate kid followed me for another half mile, and showed me more moves, after each move saying "money?" I said "Igzabier yistallen" (God will provide for you". He then did a Japanese karate bow and walked away. I bowed back and said "Amiseganallo sensei" (thank you sensei). The fun stopped when night time rolled around and I started to get very scared, even though almost everyone here is very nice. Suddenly a solution hit me: since I had facebooked a guy from UNC to give him Cherokee House's number, I could look it up online. All I needed was to find a place with internet! Easy, right?... not in this country. First of all, all the internet is dial up... a connection that gives you information only slilghtly faster than driving to the library and finding books with the Dewey Decimal system. In fact, the only reason I post on facebook is because the internet here does not let me connect to my blog sights. Secondly, nobody has a computer. I ended up having to ask tons of local shops if they had the internet, and if I could pay them to use it. Finally, I was able to look up the number then call somebody from the house to come get me. After my rescue party so graciously walked me back, we tricked the rest of the house by sending the four who had found me to tell the other people in the house (who were all in the common room) that I was nowhere to be found. During this time I snuck around to the kitchen behind the common room, and at the high point of worry and tension I opened the fridge and said "Where the heck is the banana bread?" As Borat, or almost any Ethiopian who is good at English would say "We make joke!"