Carving the Thanksgiving…Chicken

Today is the first BIG family holiday since our arrival last April. Although many of you are traveling to be with family, preparing massive feasts, and creating more holiday memories, we are starting to feel what it’s like to “celebrate” an American holiday outside of America. Now, there are a lot of Americans in our organization, so last Saturday, we had a large Thanksgiving feast which many of our colleagues attended. Americans, Dutch, South Africans, a Romanian and of course Germans were present. None of these other cultures has a Thanksgiving like ours, but when we asked why they came to celebrate with us, they gave the most obvious answer: the food is good. Duh!

The feast itself was true to American tradition – HUGE, to which we contributed two pumpkin pies (of course made from scratch!). Some of the organizers of the party had been asking visitors to bring special Thanksgiving foods/ingredients from the States for the last several months. In July, one short-term couple even brought a frozen turkey (on dry ice) all the way from the States. It arrived frozen solid, but then over the next several weeks began to thaw due to the every-other-day electrical outages this summer. So, it had to be cooked and then refrozen. Why bring a turkey in your luggage? You see, although we can buy turkey during this time of year, the price is REALLY high because they are all imported. I saw a sign in one grocery store that said “Turkey, imported from Italy,” just for fun I asked the price and was told 225 birr a kilogram (that’s over $8 a pound). I was talking with someone today and they said that their diehard American friends just had to have turkey and so splurged 1600 birr for one (that’s about $128). To some, that’s worth it for the Spirit of Thanksgiving. For us, chicken serves us just fine!

Last Saturday’s party was nice, but we and our American housemates (Grant and Melissa) didn’t want the actual Thanksgiving Day to pass us by unnoticed. Therefore, together we bought a chicken (only $8 for the 3 pound bird), made some more pumpkin pie, sweet potatoes (which have very little taste here), cranberry stuff (made out of some care package craisins), and Andrea is even trying to make Travis’ family favorite - Monkey Bread! So, despite being away from family and going to school as normal today, it is starting to feel and smell like Thanksgiving around our house (except there will be no Lions and Cowboy games after the meal). We have so very much to be thankful for. As is our tradition, every Thanksgiving, we make a list of 100 things that we are thankful for in the past year. This year, 100 things will not be nearly enough to exhaust our gratitude. For the Lord has, and continues to be good to us.

"The Butcher, the Baker and the Candlestick Maker"

In our first six months in Ethiopia, we have done our part to keep all three of the Rub-a-Dub Tub men in business. During the first four and a half months, we were having every-other-day electricity cuts from about 7am ‘till 10pm (government rationing). So candlelight dinners were all too frequent to retain their romantic aura. Although we found ourselves going to bed rather early on power-out days, we still used candles for several hours of studying, letter writing or game playing in the evenings. In addition to the candlestick maker, we’ve definitely kept the baker employed as we stop by the bread shop for fresh bread about 3 times a week. When you can get hot-out-of-the-oven loaves of bread (think sub-bun size but not as hearty) for only 1 birr (that’s about 8 cents), it’s hard to resist its habit-forming addiction. So the candlestick maker and the baker were easy to support; the butcher on the other hand, took us about three months to warm up to him.

On our ten minute walk to school, we pass by three butcher stores, each displaying identical scenes. There is a man wearing a white lab coat standing at the open window. Behind him is a large rack upon which is hung the beef. If we’d ever wondered what the cow looks like from the inside, we wonder no more. At first we were disgusted as the recently butchered cow hung in open air for the flies to get the first taste. But then, week after week of passing by these butchers, our disgust turned to curiosity. And finally, in late July, our curiosity mustered up the courage to give it a try!

Knowing that Friday is a Orthodox and Muslim fasting day (in which they do not eat any meat), I knew that it was likely that Saturday morning we’d find a fresh cow hung up for sale. So, around 10am I made my way to the particular butcher who had always seemed most friendly to us as we passed by. He greeted me as usual and I greeted him back (greeting is VERY important in Ethiopian culture). I asked the price and said that I wanted ½ kilo (it’s about $1.45 per pound, not bad!). So he took his sickle-like knife and started to slice off pieces from all over the cow. A slice here, a slice there…I noticed that he was picking what looked like the best parts: a deep red color, no fat. Then after 4-5 pieces he cut off two pieces that were fattier and asked how much fat I wanted. At this point I started butchering the Amharic language which caused some confusion, but in the end I was VERY happy with my first local meat purchase (we had bought ground beef in the “sanitized” supermarkets before).

Like a hunter returning from a successful outing, I proudly showed my kill to Andrea as soon as I arrived home.  Andrea then readied the pressure cooker in which we cooked the meat for a good long time (to soften it up as well as to kill any unknown “things” that might have come along as extra “bonuses”). Later that night, Andrea made a killer stew out of that meat, carrots, onion and potatoes. Then the waiting game began. Will we get sick? Will we get worms? Will we…you fill in the blank. After several days of feeling “normal,” the butcher had won our trust and so began a pleasant relationship that continues right up until this morning’s purchase.

Now when we walk by the butchers on the way to school, we stop to think “do we need any meat for dinner?” rather than trying to count the number of flies eating their breakfast. And so, all three Rub-a-Dub Tub members are pleased by our stay here in Addis Ababa thus far.

 

We Finally Finished

No we’re not done with the translation, nor even with Amharic language school, but we did finish all ten kilometers of The Great Ethiopian Run! And as we were told beforehand, it was a very good experience. Dressed in our bright green race shirts, we left our house at about 8:00am and hitched a ride with an Ethiopian friend from our church. All throughout the city there were people in the same obnoxiously green race shirts were streaming toward the city center (Meskel Square) where the Great Ethiopian Run would begin at 9:00. Arriving in plenty of time we made our way up toward the front of the 35,000+ people who were excitedly awaiting the start. It was us, our Ethiopian friend from church (named Ephraim, in picture below), and a short term German worker with our organization (named Andreas). Then after a few minutes of waiting, one of our friends came pushing through the crowd (Travis’ height and white skin acted like a beacon I guess). This teenager is a shoeshine boy on the corner that we pass by all the time. Although it is not his name, he goes by Boaz. Anyway, a few weeks earlier, Boaz had said that he wanted to run the race but that he didn’t have the $5 to pay for the entry fee/shirt. We then replied that if there were extra shirts when the registration people came to our school we would get him one. So that was what we did, and there he was, happy to be fitting in with the thousands of others dressed in their green T-shirts.

The feeling at the start was much like the beginning of the Chicago Marathon, except for two things. First, in Chicago, race entry is not determined by wearing the official shirt, but rather by the fancy electronic chip that everybody has planted in their shoe laces. Second, the Great Ethiopian Run participants were definitely more rowdy. There was no need to conserve energy in some groups as they were jumping, dancing, singing and leading people-trains through the crowd. It was definitely a fun atmosphere. The race began only 10 minutes late (which we thought was amazing!) and, as with other big races, the decibel level rose significantly as each wave of people passed under the start gates.

The race itself was a bit hilly at times and so, since we didn’t train at all, we joined the majority of the runners in walking up the hills. But for the most part, we kept a steady pace and finished strong. Boaz stayed with us throughout the whole race, while we got separated from Andreas and Ephraim after two kilometers or so. As with other races, there are interesting people to watch. We saw several people wearing some pretty gruesome Halloween masks; some with big hats or flags draped over their shoulders; and one guy was wearing a motorcycle helmet (I hoped that he didn’t know something that we didn’t!). Part of the race goes by some high government buildings and we happened to be caught in the opposition party’s pack at this time. So they were singing political songs of protest as they ran by. Not exactly the place we wanted to be, knowing that riots can break out over heated political issues. At another point, there was a short cut that many runners took the liberty of using. So both at the place where they left and at the place where they rejoined the group, there was a deafening chorus of “leba, leba, leba…” (“leba” is the Amharic word for thief). No, for the record, we did not take the short cut but we did join the chanting in protest!

Probably the neatest thing to see was on the long straight stretches. If you look ahead (which Travis has the height to do) the whole 4-6 lane road is painted with green shirts (can you see it in the picture above?). When you look behind you, the picture is the same. And basically the whole 10 kilometers was solid people, as it never really thinned out much. Although 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) is not very far, we were happy to see the finishing banner. Just across the finish line, police were stationed to yank out anybody who was not wearing a green shirt. Then we received our finishing medals and finally small bags of water. What was our time, you ask? Well, it was not respectable enough to share. We were in it for the experience, since running a normal pace was not very possible AND we are no longer in marathon shape (especially at an altitude much higher than Denver!). All in all, it was a great experience, although tomorrow morning our bodies may disagree!

A Taste of Car Shopping in Ethiopia - kinda sour, huh?

“A Taste of Car Shopping in Ethiopia - kinda sour, huh?”

 

Have you bought a used car lately? Then you may know that it’s dangerous to get your heart set on something that might fall through. Well, that happened a little bit with us this past week as we received some good and bad news concerning a 1988 Toyota Land Cruiser we had looked at. Let’s start by building your love for this vehicle as well. First of all, it is old (22 years to be exact!), but it only has 250,000 kilometers (which isn’t very much here) and 80% of that driving was in Germany (ie. paved roads!). Plus, before it was imported to Ethiopia 3 years ago, it had an engine overhaul (the fact that this was done in Germany and not Ethiopia is a HUGE plus!). I had two good mechanic guys look at it and they both agreed that the vehicle itself is in GREAT shape. The most important part is the frame. If it is or has ever been cracked and welded back together, that is a HUGE red flag as the welded spots break easily on Ethiopian roads. The frame looks very strong and the undercarriage shows that the vehicle has seen very little (if any) off-road usage. That’s a plus! Then there’s the engine. It needs a little bit of work as there is an oil leak, but that is fixable. It has a model L engine, which apparently is one of the best for Land Cruisers. Another plus! Finally, Toyota is by far the best brand to buy in Ethiopia since their parts are cheapest and easily accessible (Nissan’s are VERY expensive, and anything American would be a nightmare!).  So anyway, the only strike against this vehicle was its age and both of my mechanic friends agreed that if we can get this vehicle for under $20,000, it’s worth it!

 

Now, some of you know about import duty (tax) in this county. Since vehicles are only owned by the richest of society, an astronomical import duty is placed on vehicles, I guess, as a way to tax the rich. Every type of vehicle has a certain percentage of the original invoice price that must be paid upon entry. For example, a church in Germany surprised a co-worker here buying a brand new $40,000 Land Cruiser and shipping it to Ethiopia (how about that for a Christmas present?). Upon arrival, our friend got a surprise letter saying, “You can pick up your Land Cruiser after you pay us $100,000.” You see, at that time, the duty on a new Land Cruiser was 250% of the original invoice price so a $40,000, times 2.5, equals $100,000 on top of the forty grand that the German church already had paid (since this time, the duty percentage on Land Cruisers has risen to 330%, pretty fun huh?). Needless to say, our friend did not have the money, but he was able to “sell” the rights to the car to someone who had “duty free status” (a privilege given by the government to some organizations and projects – ours not included!).

 

Ok, so back to the 1988 Land Cruiser. If a car is brought into the country by a person who has “duty free status” and is then sold to someone without such privilege, the new buyer must pay the duty. BUT…every year that the car is in the country the duty goes down by 10% so that after 10 years, there is no duty left to pay. So ideally, we would like to find a 1999 car that was imported NEW, ten years ago. This 1988 vehicle has only been in the country 3 years, so it has 70% of the duty left to pay. However, without knowing the original duty owed, we couldn’t figure out how much remained. The seller was asking 6000 Euro which is about $9000, so we figured if the remaining duty was less than $11,000 we would jump at buying it! However, another complication was involved. The seller had promised someone else first dibs. If the first deal fell through, we were next in line.

 

SO…., after all that background, this week we received a text message that said that “the car has not been sold” at which our hearts skipped a beat! The next line however caused our hope to go into full cardiac arrest – “the duty owed is 195,000 birr,” which translates to $15,750! That won’t include the 2% sales tax and registration fees that will follow. So, just as quickly as our excitement rose, our disappointment hit, knowing that the car would end up being over $25,000, which it’s not really worth it (even here). It’s not that we can’t cover the extra (so don’t surprise us by raising the rest on our behalf!), it’s just that we would be paying too much for what we’d get.  So the search continues. As a general rule, vehicles over here are frustrating, but hey, that’s just life!  We share it not as a complaint, but rather to let you into our world with regard to something so similar yet totally foreign to the life we knew back at home. Next time you glance at the sticker prices in a used car lot, think of us and shoot up a prayer that the Lord will provide adequate transportation for HIS work to be done.