Archived Blog
Rain has come...
So we found out the problems with our dodgy internet, Brian realised that he had forgotten to pay the phone bill, which then meant that they turned off our phone line. Bill paying in Ethiopia is a very different process to that in the west, there is no post delivered to houses so you do not receive a bill in the post. It is your responsibility to go to the appropriate office in the city, depending on which bill it is you want to pay; water, electricity, phone etc. Usually you are greeted with about 6 lines of people all leading to different windows. These windows are all for different purposes, and there are no signs or helpful people to tell you which one to join. Joining the wrong one means waiting until the window to be told you need to join the next one along.
Anyway, upon getting to the correct window, they produce a huge pile of bills and begin to sift through until they get yours. Unfortunately, the bills here are not produced at a predictable interval, so it is not uncommon to sit in line for 45 minutes, only to be told that your bill is not done yet and you’ll have to come back and repeat the process in a week or two. A helpful phone call to tell you that your bill is ready would be nice, but I guess that’s wishful thinking.
Our bill paid, we not wait for an unknown amount of time until our phone line becomes operational again. Hopefully we don’t have to wait too long.
It has started to rain here, which is a real answer to prayer, the lack of rain had started to cause problems, especially down country and there was danger of a famine. Please pray for continued rains especially in the lower parts of the country. Rains here add some more fun to the taxi ride in to school, as most of the cars here have tyres that are totally bald.
My football team is doing well, and have won another two matches, on Monday we won 3-0 and on Wednesday the other team forfeited the match due to not showing up. Anyway, we now have 3 wins and 1 loss, which isn’t a bad ratio!
On Monday my grade 10 students will sit their practical GCSE IT exam, which, obviously, is fully dependent on the power being on. We’re all praying hard here that it will be!
Brian has bought a new motorbike, because he had to return his old one due to problems with the papers. He’s bought a bright green Chinese scooter that speaks to you when you turn it on. He bought a yellow helmet with a chin strap just to complete the Lloyd Christmas from Dumb and Dumber look, and even has had an Ethiopian shout out “Jim Carrey” at him as he drove past! Very funny stuff.
On Friday night, the Bingham student council held a talent show for all the students and staff, though mostly for the students. Some of the talent was great, some not so great. I’ve put the winner up on Youtube; Sam Coronel from Grade 8 who did some insane break dancing. Check it out:
Some pictures of the other acts follow:
Take care,
Niall
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