Tuesday, 10 March 2009

Sunday was a quiet day.  Saturday evening, I (Dan) managed to break my Gateway laptop screen so I have to borrow a spare monitor to use in order to continue working on the FIDA web site.  Janet is getting a lot of reading done.  Sunday’s service at Central Church (the Nazarene Field Office building) was a good one - the music is beautiful, even if we don’t understand the words. The enthusiasm makes the difference!  Another pastor friend translated for us, so we understood what was being preached.
Monday was another national holiday, the Muslim celebration of Mohammad’s birthday - office closed!  So we planned to go to the Field Office to use the Internet and work on the FIDA website.  On the way Sani asked us to take some of the family into town.  The destination was Merkado, a large shopping-flea market area.  This side trip took us to an area of Addis we were not familiar with, so finding our way back to the Field Office was a bit of an adventure but we made it, after a while... and spent hours on computers.

Today, the day started well with reasonably light traffic.  Then at 8:30, just as work is scheduled to start... the power went out again.  There’s an auditor from Helping Hands Africa here today, Sanalize from South Africa. Luckily, she has a good battery for her computer, since the lights didn’t come back on all day.  We understand that, in some countries, power outages are scheduled, but it’s not the case here.  Mid-afternoon, though, Anbessu told us to go back to his house to work - there was electricity there!  So we did. We enjoyed some coffee with Sani, then I worked almost straight through the afternoon and evening, finally coming to bed a little before midnight.  Janet was feeling feverish and tired with an uncertain stomach, so she spent all that time in our room, resting.  Didn’t sleep well, either, and she’s scheduled to lead devotions in the morning...