Bingham Academy in a Nutshell:

Another picture post…



Bingham Academy stands on about 8 acres of land. This is the main building where the kitchen, teachers’ lounge, and computer labs are. I am here every morning for devotions and every afternoon for tea. The cooks always make us incredible juice smoothies for tea. In fact, it’s so good that I’m tempted to steal a jug next time they make it, freeze it, and bring it home. Right across from the main building, where I took this picture, is the Ricker field and the “forest”. The forest is just a ton of trees clumped together but, you know, it wouldn’t surprise me if they call it a forest because of the fact that it is likely the one area in all of Addis Ababa were you can see more than 10 trees standing side by side.

There are 4 big classroom buildings on compound and 6 apartment complexes. I live in apartment 18, which is just a small part of a large building that was once used for boarding. Bingham Academy no longer has a boarding home for students because there weren’t enough boarding parents to keep the houses afloat so now everyone has to commute to school. The students, even at the kindergarten level, ride in taxis the whole way here by themselves every morning! I was quite impressed with that, especially since I hardly understand the taxi system. –Taxis here are nothing like what they are back home. Maybe I’ll explain that system later…maybe not. But just know that it really is impressive that these kids know how to ride taxis to school every day.


In case you hadn’t figured it out already, I’m teaching first grade so this is where I spend my…life. Just behind that bush to the left of the door is our little first grade garden and “read-aloud” area. The kids have white blocks that they sit on and I read to them on Ms. Sink’s little bench swing. It’s really quite nice. I have 16 crazy students in my class…which naturally implies that the inside of our classroom is a disaster. Therefore, I decided to spare you from that visual. I’ll leave the inside of my classroom to your imagination…for now.


This is only half of the play area for the elementary kids. Honestly, this is a pretty pointless picture…but it gives me an excuse to share another funny story about that swing: just the other day Sophia was twirling in that swing and having a grand old time. That is…until she realized she had tangled her hair up in the swing as well. I heard her screaming from across the compound and came running to see what was wrong. After 5 minutes of trying to untangle her hair unsuccessfully, I contemplated cutting it off…but I knew her strict and proper Korean parents would hardly appreciate that. So an Ethiopian worker lifted her up in the air to loosen the ropes while I continued to work at the knots for 10 more minutes. All the while, Sophia never ceased screaming. The hair was finally rescued but, needless to say, Sophia will likely never swing again in her life. Too bad I didn’t have a camera in that moment. …oh the memories.


This is the prettiest area on compound, by far…and it just happens to be just outside of grade one. That bright purple tree is called a jacaranda tree and it is just gorgeous. We also have those little “tookles” (round, straw hang-out spots) all over the compound. They make me feel like I’m in Africa (not that I forgot or anything).

This is just one of the two giant tortoises that live at Bingham Academy. I like to call them “Speedy” and “Swift”. It takes about five strong men to lift one of these boogers and the elementary kids thoroughly enjoy riding on their backs. During field day, the tortoises always seemed to cross the track in the middle of races and it was quite the nuisance to remove them. But the athletic director concluded that, obviously, they just wanted to join in on the fun. So next year there will be a new field event: the elementary tortoise race. This will combine both the tortoises’ love for the field and the kids’ love for riding the tortoises.

Underneath the main building there’s a secret tunnel that leads outside the city. I went and explored it the other day and it was pretty sweet. It was pitch dark though so picture-taking was an issue. I guess the tunnel was put there initially as a potential escape route in case of an attack. Since we have so many rich embassy kids here at the Academy, there’s always the possibility that an attack could happen…even though it never has. Well, after the underground tunnel was built the board decided it was a lame idea because it finally clicked that it is rather unrealistic to get 500+ kids and adults through the tunnel unnoticed…so the tunnel was just abandoned and never ever used.

Within the next few years the tunnel will be gone entirely because the board of directors has a game plan to completely level Bingham Academy and build up a new and improved campus from scratch. We have actually been discussing ideas for a new “Bingham design” at staff meetings. At the next one…I may suggest something like this:



…I’m also visualizing a pool, spa, Jacuzzi, bowling alley, etc. Such renovations would certainly make it harder to be a missionary in Addis Ababa. Not that I’ll necessarily be here to see those renovations…but still. I’ve got to make sure my friends here are truly suffering for Jesus. ;)


-Nicole

Scariest Night Ever

After a whole day of being relatively studious, I decided that I deserved a late night movie. So I set up my lap top and put in “Pride and Prejudice” (my all time favorite). Christina ended up joining me mid-way through the film…only to end up falling asleep on the couch. Steph came home and went straight to bed as well so when the movie was done I decided to just leave Christina sleeping, brush my teeth, and go to bed.

As I was walking to my room I noticed that Steph had left the outside door open…but that’s no big deal. We always leave the door open. Always! I just shut it and went into my room to find that my light was not working again (Sorry Dave, but you didn’t fix it). My light has this thing where sometimes it works but sometimes it doesn’t. It’s not the bulb…it’s the fuse or something. I told the workers to fix it, but they always just put in a new bulb and say it’s fixed. They can’t comprehend the fact that the bulb is just fine and dandy. Oh well. Generally, when my light doesn’t work I just light a candle…but since I was already wearing comfortable sweat pants and it was close to midnight, I decided to just close my door and jump right into bed.

For some reason, I couldn’t fall asleep like I normally do. I was just dozing in and out and I never fell into a deep sleep. Eventually, I just got to the point where I refused to open my eyes thinking that would help my body fall asleep more quickly. But I think God was keeping me restless for a reason because at around 1:30-2:00am I felt something jump up on my bed and I could feel it crawling quickly up toward my face. I jumped up to see this hissing at me:



That is a black African mongoose. They are night animals and, as a rule of thumb, mongooses hate people. They will not come anywhere near people unless they are rabid…then they have a tendency to attack. It is likely that the mongoose that jumped on my bed was rabid. I usually sleep through absolutely anything too…so it really is a miracle that I couldn’t sleep well that night and that I woke up when I felt something creeping on my bed. It’s also a miracle that the mongoose started at my feet, not my head and it is a miracle that I didn’t scream (the biggest miracle of all) because had I screamed, the mongoose might have bitten or scratched me and I would currently be at the hospital getting rabies shots left and right. God was definitely protecting me and all of those little miracles together led the mongoose to leap off my bed and under it the moment it saw me jump.

I was so terrified, but I knew I had to get the mongoose outside…so I gathered up the courage to run off my bed, open my door, open the outside door, and run back on my bed (I did that all in about 2 seconds). Then I jumped up and down on my bed to scare the mongoose. It worked…and the mongoose left my room. I couldn’t tell whether it went outside or not, but I was so frightened and relieved that it was out of my room that I shut the doors and tried to go back to sleep. I couldn’t…

About 20-30 minutes later I thought I heard another noise….like a purring noise…under my head. I couldn’t decide whether it was a real noise or just my body trying to play tricks on me…so I jumped up and decided to turn on my light and look just to be safe. I felt like Junie B. Jones in the book I’m actually reading to my kids right now (no joke) about how she thinks she has a monster under her bed and she can’t sleep at night because of it. But anyways…I turned on my light (which worked this time…imagine that) and carefully peeked under the bed to find that the potentially rabid stray cat that has been roaming Bingham was sleeping under my bed! Again, I was terrified. One animal was enough…two animals made me tear up. I opened my door and the outside door quickly and decided to try the same “jump on the bed” technique that seemed to work with the mongoose. It didn’t work. Plan two: I got an umbrella and decided to hit it until it ran out. It worked.

At this point, I was so terrified of sleeping that I decided to try to calm myself down by inspecting my room and the house for animals. So I grabbed my handy dandy umbrella (just incase) and searched the house up and down. I found nothing…and that seemed to comfort me just barely enough to get a few hours of sleep (if that).

In the morning, I woke up to find Christina and Steph in the living room. I told them what happened and I was shocked to find that they had very similar stories (kind of…it might be more appropriate to say that our stories “meshed together”). Steph woke up around 2:30-3:00 am (right after my little animal endeavor) to go to the bathroom. While she was up she found the mongoose. Plan one didn’t work entirely after all, I guess. So Steph chased the mongoose around the house with a metal rod and eventually got it into the attic (not outside, but better than inside our house at least). While she was chasing the mongoose…she also found ANOTHER cat – not the one that was in my room. The cat that Steph found was the one-eyed stray cat. Steph chased the rabid cat outside after another lengthy chase with the metal rod.

Meanwhile, Christina was sleeping in her room and dreaming of a girl chasing rabid cats around the house with an umbrella (no joke).

So that was the scariest night of my life. God definitely protected me because things could have gone much differently. And needless to say, I am never ever going up into our attic again (Zenesh, our house worker, will have to get my laundry from the attic clothes lines for me) and I am never ever going to leave the apartment door (or my door) open again.

Lesson learned.
Life spared.

-Nicole

Camping at Lake Wenchi:

This is a picture post…


So, Lake Wenchi is a huge lake at the bottom of this gigantic crater. This picture doesn’t do justice to how enormous this crater really is, but it does give you a pretty good picture of how beautiful it was. In the middle of the lake you can see that giant, jagged peninsula. We hiked all the way from where that picture was taken (carrying tents, water, food, sleeping bags, clothes, a giant water tire, etc.) down to that peninsula. Then we hiked all the way across the peninsula and camped out on the shore (approx. 1 mile of walking in all).


We actually didn’t know that it would be such a hike down to the camping area. Had we known, we probably would have packed much differently. And we probably would have communicated with each other a little better prior to leaving to avoid bringing too much. But…since we didn’t…we had about 15 bulky blankets, 10 bags of food, sleeping mats for everyone, sleeping bags for everyone, pillows for everyone, clothes, 5 jugs of water, 1 box of firewood, etc. And we had to carry all of that stuff down this crooked path:


What you can’t see in this picture is what lies at the end of that stretch of trail. At the end, there was just a drop off…a wicked steep cliff…that we had to climb *fall down in order to get to the campsite. Just imagine carrying loads of stuff down a drop off! Luckily, we survived…


This is the group of us that went camping. My cooperating teacher, Cary, is the one in the green sweatshirt standing right beside me. My two roommates happen to be the two girls who are seated directly in front of us (Christina and Stephanie). When we posed for this picture, we decided to be serious (can’t you tell?).


This is where we slept for the night. The wind was INTENSE the night that we camped. So intense, in fact, that the tents collapsed about every 5 minutes and then popped back up again. I got stuck sleeping closest to the side of the big tent on the left, so every time the tent collapsed it would just cover me completely and then bounce back up again. Needless to say, I had a hard time sleeping.


This is the group of us starting our hike back up the mountain the next day. This picture cracks me up because Niall really did carry that tire (fully inflated) all the way up the mountain. It was pretty hysterical. Because the altitude is so high here (much different from home), it really takes a long time for your body to adjust to the new altitude. I thought I’d be just fine carrying my stuff up the mountain since I don’t struggle too much with hiking at home…but after walking for less than 2 minutes I could hardly breathe (I wasn’t the only one). The altitude alongside all the weight we were carrying just about killed us. So we all paid the Ethiopians to carry our stuff and we rented horses to carry us up the mountain. Here we go:


Riding the horses wasn’t too bad…except the Ethiopian guy who led my horse kept touching my butt. I guess several of the other girls had the same awkward experience. But the guys didn’t speak enough English for us to communicate the fact that they needed to back off…so we just let it go.

So that was our camping trip in a nutshell. It was pretty fun. Everything we saw was just so breathtaking. Well…except this:


We managed to take a picture of this kid without him noticing. Back home, you always see shirts that have foreign writing on them and I bet you think nothing of it. Now…doesn’t this picture make you wonder what those shirts really say? Haha. Remember this picture next time you go out to buy a foreign shirt.

-Nicole

I Survived Over Two Weeks Without Internet:

   Long story short: every single one of the computers on the Bingham Academy campus, and in the surrounding area, managed to acquire a nasty and extremely contagious computer virus. As a result, the computer maintenance crew had to shut down all of the computers and re-build the servers from bottom up (which turned out to be a much more complicated process than they anticipated). So with absolutely no forewarning whatsoever, all computer access was strictly off-limits. I know that you all were pretty worried…but there was nothing I could do. Let’s just pray that doesn’t happen again…

   On a brighter note, A LOT happened during my unanticipated and prolonged time with no Internet (hence this extremely long post. –But this will totally be worth the read, trust me). In addition to the unexpected Internet shortage, something else pretty unexpected and spontaneous happened: My fiancé came to visit! Dave wasn’t planning on coming to visit until February but a quick turn of events brought him here much sooner and an incredible answer to prayer got him a place to stay for free (even with such short notice). He is gone to the Democratic Republic of Congo now, but during his 10 days here we had quite the adventure. Amongst our many adventures we went to Timket, explored the many markets of Addis Ababa, got accustomed to the bus routes around Addis, got massive sunburns at the Sheraton pool, cooked scrumptious chocolate chip cookies, and went bowling.

   Timket, since I’m sure you don’t know, is a holiday that is probably better explained on Wikipedia…but it is essentially an Orthodox holiday that recognizes baptism and the Ark of the Covenant. In a sentence: thousands of people + butt naked beggars + religious men spraying the crowds with fire hoses (baptism) + guards with guns who wouldn’t let us touch the different Arks of the Covenant + a ton of parades. My pictures didn’t really come out that good since the guards forced us to stand miles (minor exaggeration) away from the excitement, so I’m not going to post any. Feel free to check out Wikipedia if you’re interested…but it’s not that exciting.

   Bowling, on the other hand, was exciting. Except…they forced Dave and I to go out back and help them set up the pins…
Just kidding. We actually volunteered to do that. This bowling alley was simply hysterical because there were actually men backstage whose job was to set up the pins and hand-roll the balls back to us after each persons turn. They were so friendly though, and they welcomed us backstage for the good photo opportunity. It was pretty fun. You can ignore the massive sunburn on my face though. Apparently, not wearing sunscreen at the Sheraton pool was a bad idea… (My back is much worse).

    Teaching here at Bingham Academy is going really good as well. I am teaching full time now and I really enjoy it. My cooperating teacher, alongside all of the staff here, has been incredibly supportive and encouraging. In fact, I was blown away by how supportive the staff here is. It’s definitely a very positive atmosphere and I am so happy to be here for my final semester of student teaching. This is preparing me well for the teaching profession. I may or may not share more about my responsibilities academically in future posts, but I know that writing about such things would probably bore you. This is why I try to write relatively humorous descriptions of my adventures abroad. Mind you, humor doesn’t necessarily take away from the accuracy of my adventures. For instance, let me share with you my favorite elementary moment during the past few weeks:

Dave came to visit my classroom during one of his first few days here in Ethiopia. I decided to let the kids wonder who he was initially (just for fun), so I simply began to teach my lesson. When I got to a good transition spot, I paused to commence the introductions. I pointed out the new figure in the classroom and started to explain who he was, but before I could say anything at all Naomi screeched, “IS THAT YOUR FATHER??!!!” I replied with a quick “no” and she responded just as quickly with a second screech: “IS IT YOUR HUSBAND??!!!” Needless to say, it took a while to explain the difference between a fiancé and a husband…but when all was said and done I permitted the students to ask a few questions. Naomi, yet again, was eager to verbalize her thoughts: “When you have a baby, could you bring him here and show us?” Naomi declared us married for the remainder of the week and she thoroughly enjoyed making awkward kissing noises in our general direction…
I love first graders. :)

   After Dave left I had yet another long and eventful weekend. Friday AND Saturday were full days of school…minus the class part. All of the kids came in for two whole days of field day fun and crazy competitions for “house points”. Everyone at Bingham Academy is on a house team and they compete all year round for points. It’s actually an intense competition and the field day races rack up A LOT of points for the teams so the kids are all viciously competitive. There were sack races, relay races, high jumps, shot put competitions, javelin throwing, beanbag races, wheelbarrow races, piggyback races, obstacle courses, etc. etc. etc. etc. So for two days straight I stood out in the 80 degree (haha) weather measuring shot put throws, timing races, and hanging out with the cutest kids. And speaking of cutest kids…I’m sure you all are dying to put a face with Naomi so here you go:


[left to right: Elshaddai, Naomi, me]

   Since field day lasted through all day Saturday, there was no school on Monday. So, a bunch of the staff decided to plan a short weekend camping trip to Ambo, a gorgeous area 6 hours or so outside of Addis Ababa. We camped out right beside a lake at the bottom of an enormous, breath-taking crater. It took us about 15 minutes to walk down the jagged path to our camping area carrying all of our clothes, tents, sleeping mats, food, water, etc. It was definitely not a fun walk…but it was worth it in the end. The next day, we decided to forgo the pain and agony of dragging our stuff back up the cliff so we hired the Ethiopian workers to carry our stuff for us and we paid to ride horses all the way back to the cars. That was my first time riding a horse since I was bucked off at Fair Haven…and I survived. Phew. I will post pictures of the camping trip in my next post since most of them were not taken with my camera and, therefore, haven’t made their way to my computer yet.

-Nicole