so i know you're probably worried sick about me. Basically, the computers here picked up a really serious virus and, as a result, all of the computers at bingham academy and in the surrounding area have been infected. The virus is so bad that the computer experts here on campus have shut down the network entirely and they are working toward re-building the entire server. They anticipated making a lot of progress and having the computers back up and running again within a few days...but they have made no progress. We have had no internet or computer access for one week and the problem is still going strong. I'm not sure when we will have the internet back again...
Dave came spontaneously this week. Today is his last day here. He was here for 10 days and we had a lot of fun. But i'll fill you in on all that later. Since he will have internet access in Congo though...he was willing to send you guys a quick note on my behalf letting you know that i'm alright.
Anyways, I don't have a lot of time so i'll end this here. Just wanted to let you know that i'm ok. I'll get back in touch as soon as I can. Sorry I couldn't really warn you before all this happened. TIA...no internet, no computers. one week and counting.
love,
nicole
January 28, 2009
January 12, 2009
Merry Christmas and My First Days of School:
Merely to make you all jealous, I got to celebrate Christmas twice this year. :) Last Thursday (January 7th) was Ethiopian Christmas. While I didn’t exactly spend Christmas with an Ethiopian family, I did get to witness the biggest Ethiopian tradition: the slaughtering of the cows. (Ok, so maybe you wont be jealous that I got two Christmases this year). 
At noon on January 6th, the Ethiopian workers here at Bingham took two fat cows down to the forest and everyone walked down to watch the tradition take place, including myself. One cow at a time, the
Ethiopians knocked the cows over and slit their necks open.The cows were then left to bleed to death as they throbbed all over the place, seemingly trying to stand up again. Once they stopped throbbing and the reflexes were gone, the Ethiopians skinned them, cut up the meat, laid the meat on some tarps, and buried the heads and the feet in the ground. All the kids under 10 who were present were simply fascinated by this
“show” and wanted to keep the tail and the horns as a souvenir. They were granted that request…so now there are adorable, rambunctious kids walking around campus with cow tails and horns trying to gross out as many people as they can. While I did not get a picture of them, I did manage to get a picture of the cow.
The day after Christmas, school started up again. I have 18 kids in my class and they are all mini-geniuses…literally. Last semester, I had a group of first graders who didn’t know 2+2 or the sound that the letter A made…and they were very misbehaved. My first graders this semester are on the verge of learning multiplication and division, they can write five sentences easily with no grammatical errors, they are super obedient, and they read at least at a 6th grade level. Not only are they a bunch of geniuses, but they are also hysterical. Simply hysterical! Today they found a dead bird squished against our classroom window (on the inside) and they all wanted to wake it up and keep it as a class pet. :) 
In other news, the men in Addis Ababa allegedly like to have races around the city carrying large stacks of mattresses on their heads. I saw five of them the other day. You can only see half the stack of mattresses in this picture and it does not adequately portray the fact that this man was running… as fast as he could… strategically around the people on the sidewalks and miraculously dodging all the crazy cars.
More stories to come.
~Nicole
January 05, 2009
TIA-This is Africa:
So I have arrived at Bingham Academy’s gorgeous campus! I apologize for not updating this blog sooner to inform you all of this; however, you must understand something: TIA. I tried sending out e-mails last night at 10:00pm (1-2-09) when I arrived at Bingham…but by the time my e-mail finally loaded the computer lab was closing for the night so I could only manage to send out one (just barely). I slept in and tried again this afternoon after I got back from lunch and grocery shopping…but it took over an hour simply to load and read ONE of the five important e-mails in my inbox…and I could not reply because the connection was too poor. I couldn’t compose any messages what-so-ever.
Allegedly, a ship sailed out 2 days ago off the coast of Africa with its anchor still down and, as a result, the main internet line connecting Africa to the rest of the world was cut. So, even though the connection is always bad here, it is especially bad now. But I was told that the Internet connection here is normally only sufficient late at night or early in the morning anyways…so I gave up and figured I’d try again tonight. Well…TIA. While I was at supper the power cut and it’s been out for over 6 hours…and counting. We also have no water. So I’m typing this blog up on my lap top (that my wonderful brother so generously bestowed upon me) by candlelight. I intend to use my last bit of battery power to write out this and a few e-mails that I hope to post/send tomorrow.
Now, on toward an update: I ran into no trouble with my flights here. I was able to get my luggage put straight through from Portland to Ethiopia (an impossible feat, I thought), and all of my luggage arrived here just fine with nothing missing. Well, one of my perfume sprays opened up and leaked all over my luggage bag but, luckily, there were no clothes in that bag so nothing was ruined. One of the wheels also fell off my bigger luggage bag, which made it a pain to carry around, but what can you expect from $40 Wal-Mart luggage?
Cary, my cooperating teacher, met me at the airport and I got to experience driving in Addis Ababa for the first time. Driving in Addis Ababa is a story in and of itself. There are no traffic lanes here, no one uses their blinkers, and one-way streets tend to turn into two-way streets rather suddenly. Let’s just say…Cary honked her horn more than several times. In addition to all this, there are homeless people running dangerously across the streets seemingly trying to get hit and there are crippled beggars aligning the streets in every direction who don’t hesitate to stick their heads in the windows of those cars stuck in traffic to ask for money. It’s certainly a big change from Maine.
We finally arrived at the Bingham Academy gate and the guards let us in. The academy is completely surrounded by a wall and barbed wire, and guards patrol the campus 24/7. Only SIM personnel and SIM students are allowed to enter. The campus is beautiful inside—much different from the city. It is covered with flowers and trees and the campus is pretty large. I’ll try to post pictures if I can…but TIA. No promises with this darn Internet connection.
I live in an apartment with two other girls: Christina and Steph. I was amazed by how big the apartments are. I have my own room furnished with a laundry hamper, a dresser, a safe, a shelf, a closet, a bed, and a mirror. My roommates and I share a large living room, a dining room, a pantry, a bathroom, a walk-in storage closet, and a kitchen…all entirely furnished. We also have our own fireplace. It’s really nice. Again, I’ll post pictures if I can.
Today (1-3-09), the SIM single girls took me out for lunch at a small American family restaurant known for its infamous family juice (pineapple juice with frozen watermelon ice cubes=delicious). Actually, I have a tight schedule already. A bunch of single girls and couples signed up to host me for meals before I even got here so I’m covered for meals for the next two days. Everyone here is so nice and so generous. I know I’m going to enjoy spending my time here with them. But anyways—After lunch at the family restaurant we went grocery shopping so that my pantry would be adequately stocked. Grocery stores are so different here. Milk comes in a little plastic bag, similar in comparison to…nothing in the USA. Cereal costs an average of 9-15 American dollars (90-150 burr) Meat is also very different to buy…and the men don’t wash their hands before touching it. Any fresh fruits and vegetables have to be soaked in bleach water for 20 minutes and then rinsed with purified water before consumption. I just bought a few necessities knowing that we would be going back into town later this week. I’ll have a better idea of what I need for groceries then…especially now that I know we have our own worker! Bingham Academy hires one worker per an apartment. So we have a worker that comes in three days a week. She will wash our dishes, do our laundry, clean our house, and do anything else we ask her to do INCLUDING…. cooking! :) So I can pick out anything I feel like eating, buy the stuff, and my worker will cook it for me. TIA. Hehe
Well, this update is plenty long enough. I’ll keep the updates a little shorter from here on out…but I just couldn’t help myself with this one. It’s my initial update. If you fail to hear from me for any period of time, please don’t worry. Just remember: TIA. Power outages are fairly frequent here in Addis Ababa, so I’ve heard. And the Internet is bad as it is. There are also no Internet cafés close to this side of town…so I’ll just have to manage without. We’re really spoiled in America. I do have an address so I’ll leave you with that. Till next time…
Nicole Normandeau
Bingham Academy
Box 4937
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia -East Africa
**Don’t send packages larger than 10 kilos—however that translates into pounds—and anything over 2 kilos will be opened and searched before I get it
Allegedly, a ship sailed out 2 days ago off the coast of Africa with its anchor still down and, as a result, the main internet line connecting Africa to the rest of the world was cut. So, even though the connection is always bad here, it is especially bad now. But I was told that the Internet connection here is normally only sufficient late at night or early in the morning anyways…so I gave up and figured I’d try again tonight. Well…TIA. While I was at supper the power cut and it’s been out for over 6 hours…and counting. We also have no water. So I’m typing this blog up on my lap top (that my wonderful brother so generously bestowed upon me) by candlelight. I intend to use my last bit of battery power to write out this and a few e-mails that I hope to post/send tomorrow.
Now, on toward an update: I ran into no trouble with my flights here. I was able to get my luggage put straight through from Portland to Ethiopia (an impossible feat, I thought), and all of my luggage arrived here just fine with nothing missing. Well, one of my perfume sprays opened up and leaked all over my luggage bag but, luckily, there were no clothes in that bag so nothing was ruined. One of the wheels also fell off my bigger luggage bag, which made it a pain to carry around, but what can you expect from $40 Wal-Mart luggage?
Cary, my cooperating teacher, met me at the airport and I got to experience driving in Addis Ababa for the first time. Driving in Addis Ababa is a story in and of itself. There are no traffic lanes here, no one uses their blinkers, and one-way streets tend to turn into two-way streets rather suddenly. Let’s just say…Cary honked her horn more than several times. In addition to all this, there are homeless people running dangerously across the streets seemingly trying to get hit and there are crippled beggars aligning the streets in every direction who don’t hesitate to stick their heads in the windows of those cars stuck in traffic to ask for money. It’s certainly a big change from Maine.
We finally arrived at the Bingham Academy gate and the guards let us in. The academy is completely surrounded by a wall and barbed wire, and guards patrol the campus 24/7. Only SIM personnel and SIM students are allowed to enter. The campus is beautiful inside—much different from the city. It is covered with flowers and trees and the campus is pretty large. I’ll try to post pictures if I can…but TIA. No promises with this darn Internet connection.
I live in an apartment with two other girls: Christina and Steph. I was amazed by how big the apartments are. I have my own room furnished with a laundry hamper, a dresser, a safe, a shelf, a closet, a bed, and a mirror. My roommates and I share a large living room, a dining room, a pantry, a bathroom, a walk-in storage closet, and a kitchen…all entirely furnished. We also have our own fireplace. It’s really nice. Again, I’ll post pictures if I can.
Today (1-3-09), the SIM single girls took me out for lunch at a small American family restaurant known for its infamous family juice (pineapple juice with frozen watermelon ice cubes=delicious). Actually, I have a tight schedule already. A bunch of single girls and couples signed up to host me for meals before I even got here so I’m covered for meals for the next two days. Everyone here is so nice and so generous. I know I’m going to enjoy spending my time here with them. But anyways—After lunch at the family restaurant we went grocery shopping so that my pantry would be adequately stocked. Grocery stores are so different here. Milk comes in a little plastic bag, similar in comparison to…nothing in the USA. Cereal costs an average of 9-15 American dollars (90-150 burr) Meat is also very different to buy…and the men don’t wash their hands before touching it. Any fresh fruits and vegetables have to be soaked in bleach water for 20 minutes and then rinsed with purified water before consumption. I just bought a few necessities knowing that we would be going back into town later this week. I’ll have a better idea of what I need for groceries then…especially now that I know we have our own worker! Bingham Academy hires one worker per an apartment. So we have a worker that comes in three days a week. She will wash our dishes, do our laundry, clean our house, and do anything else we ask her to do INCLUDING…. cooking! :) So I can pick out anything I feel like eating, buy the stuff, and my worker will cook it for me. TIA. Hehe
Well, this update is plenty long enough. I’ll keep the updates a little shorter from here on out…but I just couldn’t help myself with this one. It’s my initial update. If you fail to hear from me for any period of time, please don’t worry. Just remember: TIA. Power outages are fairly frequent here in Addis Ababa, so I’ve heard. And the Internet is bad as it is. There are also no Internet cafés close to this side of town…so I’ll just have to manage without. We’re really spoiled in America. I do have an address so I’ll leave you with that. Till next time…
Nicole Normandeau
Bingham Academy
Box 4937
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia -East Africa
**Don’t send packages larger than 10 kilos—however that translates into pounds—and anything over 2 kilos will be opened and searched before I get it
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