Ethiopia Day 1 Addis Ababa

I stepped out of the airport to receive a high five from Matt Finnerman, the manager of the Cherokee House, who had gotten a private cab driver, named Habtamu, to take me from the airport. We rode across Bole road as Matt explained to me some of the details of what I can expect in Addis Ababa, inclulding the fact that he and I are not only roommates, but also the only two guys in the house, living with 12 girls. The girls in the house were more than accomodating, and I instantly felt like I had 12 Moms... not the kind of Moms who nag, but the kind that bake you banana bread and chicken pot pie (both of which were given to me upon entry). The house is nice, and I was surprised but pleased to find out that a mere nine hours after my arrival, I would begin teaching at a primary school called Destiny. The school was run by a couple who left very high paying jobs in Northern Ethiopia to start a school which, despite its very high standard for curriculum, is barely surviving its high city rent with its low tuition rate. After meeting my new housemates, and having a few laughs, I went to bed, only to wake up at 3 AM until 5 AM. I used the weird jet-lagged awake time to study Amharic so that I could surprise everyone with horribly mispronounced "Good morning. How are you?"s and "goodbye"s. I went back asleep at five and was awakened at 6:20.I was awakened again at 6:30 and was packed up and eating cereal by 6:35. Jessica, a 24 year old campaign manager for some Republican party guy and an English teacher (and my teacher) at Destiny walked with me to a street called Tor Harloche where we caught a taxi (what I would call a combi) to Mexico. Here are a couple of side notes. First, the taxis here are the same model car as the combis in South America, some Toyota made, toaster shaped, cross between a hummer and a minivan that any Westerner would find repulsive, but a denizen of the "third world" would find very useful. 12 people pack into these things and are driven around the city for .65-1.2 birr (8-14 cents). Second, there are actually no street names in Addis Ababa. You might find one sign labeling the street every 10 blocks. Instead, everyone knows of the general areas as certain seemingly random names... which is why I can say that I went to Mexico. From Mexico we caught a taxi/combi through Karas and into Gofa, where Destiny is located. The school has about 7 rooms, and a library the size of my dorm room with about as many books. Flies buzz around in the classrooms, and you barely feel inside when the doors and windows are shut. There is a tiny play area between the classrooms and even a little swing and slide that looks like it could have been purchased at your local Wal-Mart. Around the school are concrete walls with the broken glass of coke bottles lined across the top, providing a McGuiveresque barbed wire barrier to keep out any criminal who would want to steal the 150 outdated books and 2 PCs that don't have enough speed to run The Oregon Trail. Despite the economic depravity of the school, the helper sweeps every speck of dust from the floors, the two teachers file every book away in its exact place, and the children listen with a raptured awe and politeness that might just give Kitty a run for her money in a good behavior contest. Such pride is taken in this glimmer of hope, existing in the capital of the world's third poorest country because, quite frankly, this school is a huge step up from a lot of the city.Since no curriculum had been made up I just had to pick up books about science (which I will be teaching to the kids) and start reading to them with an assistant, and aspiring teacher, Benjamin, to translate the areas of text that the children weren't able to pick up, which ended up being about 80 percent of what I said in the first period. I nervously read/explained to my first class about space shuttles and landing on the moon, and my second class heard me yammer on about dinosaurs. Despite the fact that I could see tons of fallacies in the books, I really feel like they children learned everything that Benjamin translated. They listened without ever saying a word or taking their eyes off of the speaker. The kids in Ethiopia seem to crave knowledge as much as the kids in America crave all 150 poke'mon. Finally, in my last two classes I really started feeling like a teacher, when I asked Benjamin to pick out a book for the class. He chose weather and we taught the kids things I had forgotten that I had known, Troposphere, Stratosphere, Mesosphere, Thermosphere, the sun's absorption into the Earth and it's reflecting off the stratosphere's ozone... and at the end we asked them questions until half the class could answer them perfectly (minus pronounciation... it is never going to sound normal to hear an Ethiopian say space shuttle, molecule, and ozone layer). The highlight of class was teaching the fourth graders, who are only a class of 4, but they are the brightest students I had the opportunity to meet. They not only could remember the things Benji and I told them about wind, responding in English, but they could also deduce the flow of wind from areas of high to low pressure just by knowing the flow of wind from cold to hot areas after the heat rises.After my four classes, Benjamin, with the same diligence of the students, wrote lesson plans with me for tomorrow's classes, taking a break to meet Hareg, Matt, Jessica, Diane, and Jessica for lunch. We ate at a restaurant whose name I can't remember (Amharic is hard to remember because the sounds are so foreign, plus it uses an alphabet that looks more like Elvish). Anyway, we were served jaraar, which is bread on one big plate put in the middle of the table alongside beef, cheese, and bean sauces which is mixed onto the middle of the bread. Along the outside are also pieces of Kocho, bread made with banana-ish leaves roasted onto the sides. All the people at the table rip off pieces of the bread and dip it into the middle, then take it straight to the face. No plates, just one big pile of food. Ridonk. Hareg warned me not to eat the spicy beef because the oil could make me feel sick, but Benjamin teased me for "being afraid of a little spices" so I ate a few huge mouthfuls, then I felt sick. Benjamin and I stayed until 5 PM working on our lesson plans, then Jessica and I went shopping for supplies with Hareg, and I returned to Cherokee House, with Jessica, around 5:45 and sat down for my favorite Ethiopian dish, pizza... made by our incredible cook, Asni. Dinner's conversation was fantastic, and I really feel blessed to be with such a selfless and interesting group of people. Over dinner we discussed weekend plans, and laughed over a love letter, heartfully written, that our housemate, Molly, had received from an Ethiopian.The people here are some of the strongest people I have ever met, and in just a couple seconds you can feel true love for any one of them, and you know they feel the same way about you. All the nine year olds I met seemed to have more wisdom than my grandparents, and the men carry the aura of Buddhist monks, who have somehow achieved Nirvana. There is some ancient anomoly in this cradle of the human race where a society of Muslims and Christians are inadvertently practicing Daoism, or something that I read about in passages of the Baghavadgita. Their actions never seem to exist for the end result, but simply for the action. Nobody sweeps for subsistence, but for perfection. It's as if everyone here knows the elusive truth that all philosophers, starting with DeCartes, have seached for: the first principle of our humanity. I really hope to help my students as much as they are helping me.Zewbitu, the woman sitting next to me on the plane, who tirelessly answered my idiotic questions for hours, seemed to embody the spirit I have encountered in Ethiopia. There is a timeless quality here, where everybody is struggling, but self-reliant, and each person will stop in his tracks to solve the problems of another. Wow... I've been here for 24 hours, and there is so much that I still want to write. However, I assume at this point there is little more that you want to read, so... deuhna seunbetu.