13 Months?!?

Thanks for all the birthday wishes!! It was a great day, starting off with some special treats from the U.S. (i.e. People magazine all about the Royal Wedding!). I ate yummy food, visited the day spa for a haircut, massage and pedicure and met friends for a great dinner. A fantastic way to ring in a new decade! But, in reality, I am only 22 because in Ethiopia, the year is 2003. So I am quite young here. Let me try to explain - Ethiopia follows the Coptic calendar (as does Egypt) and uses an era that is seven years and eight months behind the Western Gregorian calendar. So on September 12, 2007, Ethiopia celebrated the new millennium (what the most of you did on January 1, 2000). The extra five days tagged onto the 12 30-day months of the Coptic calendar creates a 13th month. All government, official documents use this calendar here but people will use the Western calendar when working with Westerners. I still don’t quite understand this one but will tell everyone I am 22 until told otherwise. J

Another time difference is the clock. Now this one I like. The Ethiopian day starts at 6 a.m. Western time (i.e. when the sun breaks). For example, 9 a.m. our time is 3 a.m. for them. Noon is 6 a.m. (i.e. the sun has been up for six hours) and the 12-hour clock starts again at sunset (6 p.m.). The start of the new day makes more sense to me than in the middle of the night. So it is Thursday until the sun comes up on Friday, which is 6 a.m. Western time. Sounds confusing but I’ve adapted quickly. But, just as with the calendar, Ethiopians will use the Western or European clock when dealing with ferenji.

In other news, the honeymoon stage of my cultural transition is wearing off which, I am told, is typical after two months. No longer am I tickled by random holidays that seem to disrupt traffic by hours with no explanation or the constant attention from people on the street. I still don’t mind the occasional child who is excited just to say hi to me (and who does not ask for money which is even rarer). From what people tell me, the next stage of cultural transition is frustration for a few months and then I just enter the “understanding” stage. Knowing me, I doubt I will stay in this stage for too long!
I started language school on Monday! It’s going very well and I am meeting great people. This school uses the Growing Participant Approach so, in a good way, they treat us like children and for the first few weeks, we are only supposed to listen and to start to hear and recognize the different sounds and words, just like children do their first few years. However, three hours of intense Amharic class in the morning makes me exhausted so I pray for energy as the summer curriculum programs come to life in the next few weeks. Yesterday, they gave us some cultural training and even referenced my very favorite cultural iceberg theory! Yeah for Dr. Weaver! J

Something that I hope you will join me in prayer is we are working through a very delicate family situation with one of the young girls at the Entoto ministries. We need a trained therapist or counselor but there are none here so we are praying for a strong Christian woman in the church to talk with her on a regular basis to help her deal with some of her thoughts and feelings regarding what she has been through. It’s been emotionally exhausting hearing her story and trying to figure out what is the best thing to do but I believe we are taking the right steps.
Thanks again for all the birthday love! And for reading. :)
Love,
Lisa