AN UNFORGETTABLE DAY

Brace yourselves for these stories. This all happened on Monday, January 18, 2010. First Emma went home, bye Emma. We left a little last for work as we waited to tell Emma good-bye. We were on the third and final taxi of the morning approaching a stop when our driver crashed with another taxi. You need to picture the inside of these taxis. They are vans that seat two people in addition to the driver in the front. There is a sliding door on the side and in the back there are three rows that seat two each (although they try to squeeze in three sometimes) and the back row seats three but always has four. I was in the back row and it seats more because it goes across the back of the van. I was on the seat with the aisle in front of me so you can imagine what happened when they crashed. I FLEW out of my seat to the front of the van landing on my left knee. It was quite sore but I am so happy I have arnica gel with me it works wonders (as do the angels that are prayed over me daily) The day was progressing along fine but we were to meet Projects Abroad at 2:00 to go to Timkut. This is the Epiphany celebration and it sounded fun. We all showed up on time only to find out it does not start until 3:30 so we went to a cafe for drinks. We then proceeded to see the parade. It was colorful and lots of singing and dancing. There were a lot of priests and we also saw the archbishop. The first half an hour was great. We then fell in line with everyone else, once the barricades were removed (a human chain) and headed to Jan Meda. This is where the tablets of the Ark were being carried. It was very hot and crowded and I had enough but we were with a group so I carried on. We finally came to fork in the road and I suggested we go the way the crowd was not I also said this is not fun. I was then told it is a religious event and not meant to be fun. I thought this was interesting since it was called a social event, oh well. We moved on and at many points were not moving. The priests that were at the front with very colorful umbrellas were so far away. I noticed it was raining up on Entoto mountain and asked what happens if it rains (Ethiopians do not like to be rained on) no real answer was given. Well we were trapped so I said, rather loudly, "chaf woraj ala" which is what you say on the taxi when you want off at the next junction. I got a huge laugh but was told "no chaf" to which I said "waraj ala" which is stop!!! As the rain came closer the crowd decided to turn and head back but there were still a lot of dedicated people heading to the field. We were trapped in the middle of this which was not funny at all. We were heading to the wall to gather as a group but I got pinned between a metal post and a lot of people afraid of rain. At one point I could not catch my breath so I just pushed as hard as I could to get out of this crazy crowd. It was not easy but since I am writing this you know I survived. Our group did not join the others in going out to dinner that night instead Louise and I went for pizza.