Friday, 13 February 2009

Since Anbessu invited us to join the FAYYAA staff for devotions at 8:15 any Monday or Wednesday or Friday, we intended to do that this morning, but traffic kept us from it. We’ll try again next week. On Fridays, the workday is different. Instead of the usual one-hour lunchtime at 12:30, there is a two-hour lunchtime beginning at 11:30. It was explained to us that it’s a courtesy to allow Muslim workers to attend their midday prayer time on this day.

This morning, Dan said he had to leave for a while to help the secretary, Hana, run an errand... but it was a surprise; she was helping him buy a dozen red Ethiopian roses for his Valentine sweetheart.  Wow!

Many of the Peachtree payroll issues have been worked through, so new concerns about reporting are being presented. There will be much detailed work next week. Also, the website, it has been decided, will be rebuilt from scratch.  Dan will be working on it with the help of some consultants that are already involved in upgrading the FAYYAA office network.

Anbessu is in a meeting in late afternoon, so we were asked again to pick up the boys at their school around 5:00 p.m. (sounds like a long day at school!). It’s a nice-looking 3-story building with a high wall around it. (Someone rides with us, as the school does not know us for the release of the boys.) When we arrived home, we talked with Sani about dinner and Saturday morning breakfast.  She asked if I would make burgers again for dinner; I’m glad to help and I offered to make French toast for breakfast since no one would be hurrying off to work on Saturday morning.  She needs groceries and so do we, for lunches at the office, so Dan drives us to a store for groceries.  The small markets have a wide variety of interesting items; we make note of a few things that we’ll just have to bring back to share with our friends!

The burgers turned out well and were augmented with some spicy rice and two different vegetable combinations. We often have potatoes with carrots and beets and it’s really delicious!  We are seeing injerra at every meal now as they seem to understand that we do not need ‘western’ food.  At the museum, a couple of days ago Janet learned that this native food is more than just a bread; it is high in iron and a good balance for the vegetables.