Long Over Due

Emily has not been able to send posts for many weeks. So...she has been saving them and finally was able to get them to me. There are 17 different posts. Scroll down to #1 and start reading up. Enjoy! Ann

#17 She Said What!

Tonight at dinner- I'm not sure how this came about really- the women were talking about female circumcision. Tow of them were circumcised when they were 7 days old...it is part of the Orthodox religion. I asked them why and their reply confirmed what I had thought. They said.."If you aren't circumcised then you are wild and you won't be a good wife or mother". I had learned that in one of my classes that in Egypt the Orthodox religion does it as well as a way to control women. I tried to explain through Hiwot that the part they cut off is only for sex...so that women enjoy sex as much as men. This then got inot a 10 min. explanation of what I was talking about. Do you know how hard it it to explain that? Very hard.

#16 Family Ties

A couple of days ago at lunch I asked Buze if she still talks to Lily's father....I then got the whole story. When she was 13 she went with her friend to a clinic because her friend has hurt her arm. She met this doctor and they have been together for the last six years. Since doctors don't get paid more than any businessman here her parents gave her to a merchant. What? Hold on....wait a minute. You are married??? She was only married for a couple of months before she got pregnant with Lily. Her boyfrined told her to run away and that he would come and get her but she was three months pregnant by the time she actually left her husband- who doesn't know about Lily. In this culture you never accept the children of another man as your own. This said he didn't want Lily. Buze was fine with this at first she didn't want Lily who wasn't the child of the man she loves. I think being here away from both men has allowed her to look at Lily as her child and not either of the men and she loves her- oh how she loves her. It is going to break her heart when she leaves. Anyways, back to the story. I asked her if in the Orthodix religion if she can divorce her husnband...then it took 5 mins. to explain what divorce was to Tesfanesh so she could translate properly. I received a very surprising answer...yes. it's not a big deal in their religion. I was secretly happy for her. I do not think that divorce is right but she didn't have a choice in whom she married and she is in love with someone else. I wouldn't want to be in that situation at all. So, when she leaves the house she is going to go back to her boyfriend and marry him. She chose a man (who could possible leave her) over her child but I know this is what is best for Lily.

#15 Delta Airlines

We had a crazy man come around near the house. It was right around lunch time when he made it over to our side of the little field in front of our house. He looked up inot the window and saw six women (some holding babies) watching him. He motioned ro me that he was hungry. I told Meseret that we should give him lunch...she ran downstairs to make him a plate. He then sat on the fence right outside the house and pulled down his pants. I quickly turned away and so did the others and we all burst out laughing. We had two men working on the laundry line so we weren't completly without protection if we needed it. I sent Buze (Lily's mom) to go and get sodas for everyone. When she came back I realized that the two men working and the crazy man probably wanted one too. So she went back out to get three more. He really liked his injera but not the soda so much. We gave it to hime in a little plastic kiddie cup so he wouldn't hurt himself or anyone else with the glass. He drank some but threw the rest towards Tefanesh...luckily he missed. He was our lunch entertainment I hate to say. There were three girls working on the other side of the field doing construction and he kept bothering them until the grouter came back from lunch and told him to go away. He then climbed the fence and waundered in the small field some time. Buze went out and asked him for the plate back and he threw small peices of injera at her...I'm not sure if it hit her or not. When it was getting cold (around 4 pm) we noticed he was putting on more cloths. I had this brilliant idea all I had to do was to find them. I found them after a little searching...two delta airline blankets! Perfect. Ayana's parents gave them to us in their two huge bags of donations. I told Buze to follow me and to go give then to him while I stood by the gate and watched...because the men had gone home by then. He said..."thank you and God bless you". to us. He was so sad because he couldn't have been much older than 25 and he was not right in his mind. I saw him pick up his possessions in a small plasitc bag and then all of the sudden he was gone. Hopefully, he has left for good because the kids really wanted to go to the meadow today but I said that they couldn't because this man was outside. This is the small field outside the front gate.

#14 Homemade Pizza

Today at lunch I told Tesfanesh that we should have homemade pizza for dinner tonight. she asked what we needed and I told her all the ingredients that we had and all the things that we needed to buy. After coming back from the meadow at 5:30 Mastewal and I started in on the dough while Meseret, Alemu and Dinkenesh went to the store for meat, cheese and pineapples. The oven is too small to do a large pizza so we made around 20 individual sized pizzas with seasoned gound beef (I used taco seasoning) pineapple and cheese. They turned out really good and the nannies and I got to eat at 7:30 rather than 9:00 like most nights.

#13 Pad thai

I took one family to the US Embassy on tuesday for their appointment to get a visa for their little girl that they had just picked up. They invited me to have dinner with them at the Sheraton Hotel that night ( that is a super super nice hotel). I had Pad Thai (it had been two and a half months since I had had Asian cuisine and it was so good). I miss variety.

#12 There Was A Fire Fight

OK so it wasn't a "fire" fight per say but it was a water fight. The weekend before my birthday Phillipa had the boys and I over to spend the afternoon and night at her house. After lunch Aaron changed into his swimming suit and climbed into a bucket of water that had been sitting out in the sun for a couple of days. This took Phillipa and I by surprise and soon Daniel and Hannah changed their cloths to. The bucket was only big enough to fit one person at a time and only Daniel really fit. We then convinced Alemu to change his cloths but we couldn't talk Israel into it. Alemu climbed into the bucket but he didn't fit at all and only got up to his waist wet. Hannah then brought out plastic cups for everyone to have a water fight with it. It took Alemu a second to get the hang of it but he was dominating everyone within minutes. He wouldn't let Hannah get any water out of the bucket without getting her soaked so she grabbed a smaller buvket and filled it with freezing cold tap water and totally drenched him! When all the water in the big bucket was finished Alemu and Aaron grabbed smaller buckets and attacked Hannah- she was the typical 12 yr. old girl and screamed super loud in a really high pitched voice. I enjoyed seeing him have so much fun.