A letter from Bruce and Lora Whearty in Ethiopia

January 23, 2008

Letter #8 from Ethiopia

Dear Friends and Family,

Thanks to the work of the Mission Connections Office at the PC(USA) national offices in Louisville, we now have a photo album on our Web page! Twenty-six photos with captions are set up as a slide show. You can move back and forth through the program using the numbers along the bottom, and captions pop up when you move the cursor just above the numbers. We are grateful for the chance to share some of the images that touched us upon our arrival here, and we hope that you find this new resource useful.

Ethiopian Christmas

The build-up toward Ethiopian Christmas, celebrated January 7, was exciting. Girls decorated their classrooms for parties by drawing Santas and candy canes on blackboards, by cutting out paper snowflakes to stick on windows, and by draping toilet paper in loops along the walls. They had no tape or glue, so they stuck up decorations by licking them, which doesn’t work too well with toilet paper! European motifs seem strange to us, but the Protestant church here uses them to carefully distinguish itself from the Orthodox tradition. Our picture of Jesus in the chapel, for instance, is the typical Scandinavian Jesus that we often see in the United States—the one with the long, wavy, light-brown hair. Nowhere on our campus will you see a Madonna and child with the big eyes of traditional Orthodox icons, or the smiling heads with wings that symbolize angels. 

Selam, a first grader, shows her Christmas coloring book. .

We had fun photocopying a coloring book, Wisemen Seek Jesus, from Manna Publications, and distributing it to the elementary classes during their parties. Then the girls went home for the five-day vacation, and the campus became very still. Christmas here is a time to spend with family and in worship. Next year we will be more assertive in asking for invitations or in making our own arrangements, but this year we felt abandoned, genuinely “strangers in a strange land.” We think of how celebrations can draw a tight little circle around loved ones, look inward, and exclude outsiders.

An Ethiopian wedding

Mekdes, the teacher who has been team-teaching English classes with Lora, was married in a large ceremony here on campus one Saturday. It was very Western, with a white bridal dress, matching bridesmaid gowns, and tuxes for the men. There were some differences, though. The bride and groom sat in ornate chairs in the center aisle of the chapel, the rings were blessed and then held up and displayed for all to see before they were exchanged, and the couple did not kiss in the chapel. After the bride and groom had fed each other bites of wedding cake, they each fed each member of the wedding party, too, and they toasted each other with 7-Up because the church forbids the use of alcohol. Afterwards there was lots of dancing, especially by the older women, to the rhythm of clapping hands.

More Ethiopian traditions

The following Monday morning, Lora answered a knock on our apartment door. “There is a problem. Your classes have no teacher.” It turns out that under Ethiopian law, newlyweds have a three-day leave, and Lora was expected to take over the classes alone! (It’s often the little things, the traditions that “everyone knows,” that people forget to explain.) So Lora helped the first, second, and third graders, who know only a bit of English, of course, review for their semester exams. When possible, the principal or an Ethiopian teacher on break came in to help translate and keep order, but it was mostly bedlam.

Lora was frustrated by the whole experience, and it was a difficult week. Lora has continued to take the main role in teaching conversation even now that Mekdes has returned, and this gives Lora a chance to display more engaging techniques than the typical write-on-the-board-and-lecture, which is so common here. The classes and Mekdes have responded well. A first grader gave Lora her first birthday present. She colored the non-shiny side of a gum wrapper purple and shyly gave it to Lora at the end of class. Now Lora cannot walk across the campus without getting hugged by little girls saying, “Good morning, Mrs. Wair-tee.”

We celebrated Lora’s birthday by going out to a small, nearby restaurant. The electricity was out so it became a surprise candle-lit dinner. Dorothy Hanson, a PC(USA) HIV/AIDS worker who lives on our compound, and Sharon Curry, a PC(USA) volunteer teacher in Dembi Dollo, brought a cake and we talked and laughed and opened all the cards that so many of you sent. It was a time blessed with friendship and peace.

Timkat, Orthodox festival of the Epiphany

January 19th was Timkat, the Orthodox festival that celebrates both Epiphany and the baptism of Jesus. Each Orthodox church carries its replica of the Ark of the Covenant down to the nearest water in the evening, stands vigil with it through the night, and then triumphantly carries it back to the church the next day. Lora and I watched this return parade. We climbed up a tree by the guard house (Yes, you just helped us celebrate Lora’s 50th birthday, but she doesn’t act her age!), gingerly tiptoed across the corrugated metal of the guard house roof, and leaned on the top of our compound wall. We had a grandstand view down onto the procession of tens of thousands of people. For over two hours we watched singers, dancers, gaudily decorated umbrellas, ritual fights with long sticks, and huge slow floats making their way through the crowds of people.

Obama's inauguration

Last night Lora made white sugar cookies with red and blue M&Ms, and we gathered in the teachers’ tea room to watch Barack Obama’s inauguration. Half a dozen teachers joined us. We fussed with the static and switched back and forth between BBC and Al-Jehzeera, but were able to see and hear most of the ceremony. We all drank orange soda, clapped and cheered, and got a little teary-eyed at this celebration of hope. We find that the song “America,” with the line “land where my fathers died,” takes on a deeper meaning when sung by an African-American and heard from Ethiopia. When the ceremonies were over, we shut off the scenes of bright daylight in Washington and walked out into the African night. Ayalu asked me what Obama might do for Africa. I answered that I hoped for a lot of things, but I knew of only two for sure, two gifts of example. “First,” I said, “he has already given you the example of a minority man being freely elected. And second, four or eight years from now, he will stand on that same platform we saw tonight and give you the example of his power passing peacefully to his successor.” 

Ayalu nodded and thoughtfully said, “Goodnight.” He took a couple of steps, turned, and added, “So now the work must start.”

Love and peace,

Bruce and Lora

The 2008 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 223