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After 4 hours of sleep I woke up again to say goodbye to Asarat, who went to Fulassa to go there to school and to Abba Anthony who went to Addis Ababa to arrange some things. I only slept 4 hours because I went out again in the middle of the night, because the dogs were bagging and I wanted Abba Anthony to sleep because of the long journey. So I stayed half an hour with the dogs and during that time, I saw a wonderful bright and clear falling star on the nice starry sky.
After they went, I was all morning alone and did some work at the computer. In the afternoon, Abba Boniface and I went to Yabello, to do some things and after that we cooked together, because our cook Warqe is the mother of Asarat the boy and she went with him to bring him to her family.
The next day was Tuesday and I slept till 8 o'clock and stayed one more hour just in bed thinking. It was an ultimate record in staying in bed. After a extensive breakfast, we had lunch and in the afternoon I played cards with Roba, a boy from the kindergarten and two teenagers from church. In the late afternoon Boniface, Sr. Ancia and I went to an old woman to drink some tea, but because everything was with milk, I didn't drink some. She said in orominia, that she was ashamed that she didn't have anything for me, so we promised to go a second time.
Boniface explained us, that she used to make alcohol with her husband and that they sometimes had their house full of drunken people. Once at such an evening there came a stranger to them and got insulted by one of the local drunk man. So he went home to get his gun and started shooting. He shot the woman in his stomach and killed the baby she had on her back and he killed one of her sons and hurt or even killed some other people. He went straight to jail. As he was in front of the court, the husband of the woman went there too. After that, he was apparently so confused, that he didn't know the way home anymore. He went to the tarmac way and as a car came, he wasn't aware of it and hit by the car and died at the place of accident. Today, the woman doesn't sell any alcohol anymore, just butter and oil, but I'm not totally sure of that.
In the evening, the network was totally gone and didn't come to the afternoon of the following day. Happily I phoned with Abba Anthony in the morning, although there the network was really bad. I was standing in front of the church and it cut at least 10 times before I ran down behind the kindergarten, where normally the network is good but there as well it cut of a few times.
On Wednesday the 6th of February, I went to the field once again, this time with Sr. Shirley. In the village, the children were afraid of me because I look different. But I sat somewhere for quite a long time and they started coming closer and closer, some of them were even courage enough to touch me. This time, there were not many people at all because I think they went to collect some water somewhere quite far away. Sometimes they first finish all their work before they come to us to be treated. But we try to change that because we are coming in the morning and not in the afternoon.
In the afternoon we blessed the playground of the kindergarten, there came a lot of children and youth so first was the blessing and then the children were allowed to play. But sometimes it was kind of tricky because I had to watch that the children didn't get hurt, they are not used to such kind of playground. The youth was not allowed to play, but they also wanted.
That day, Warqe came back from Fulassa and she brought some traditional food, its called kocho (kojo), her daughter specially made for us. It is made out of bananas or something from banana plants and beans. It was kind of dry and had sort of a sour taste. But this time it was quite good in compare to other times as Boniface said and the smell wasn't good as well. But normally the smell is worse and also the taste, as I heard. But I ate quite much to do her a favor and also to support Boniface in eating it.
The next morning we went just after Breakfast to Yabello to do many different things. One thing was that we went to the prison and visited a boy, a student who is accused to have rapped a girl, although there are a lot of rumors that it's not true. But anyway he has to be there for another 6 years. He is there since about 6 months now. He was the best student in Dhadim I guess and is still one of the best in the prison, where there is a school. He also was very active in church and community work. He explained us that he has only a few t-shirts, as far as I know one pair of pants and one pair of shoes. Also he gets for breakfast always bread and for lunch and dinner always injera, if he wants to eat something else he has to buy it, but because his family is very poor he doesn't have much money. So we gave him a little bit. His Father died, but I don't know anymore why.
As we came into the prison, we first had to be checked if we didn't carry something dangerous. There were a lot of visitors, but more women than men and especially the women carried a lot of things with them, presents for the prisoners. They had to try the food to show that it isn't poisoned before they were allowed to take it in. Than we walked over a big place in the inside of the compound to a building and into a room with on the left and the right side two roes of bank each, one for the women and one for the men. As we came in, he self, his brother and a friend were already there, so we joined them and talked. Once in a while a policeman floated, which meant that some visitor times were over, but we didn't care and I didn't really understand it somehow.
After the prison visit, we went to a woman who was on one side paralyzed for a few years now. She has a daughter and a son and is taken care of by her sister. She has been a woman which worked a lot before she got sick around 5 years ago.
On our way back to Dhadim we found 9 Persons from Kenya and Great Britain and I think one was from America. They looked for a place to put up their tents, but there is no such place in Ethiopia. So we invited them to stay in front of our compound next to the church in their tents.
On the 8th of February I finally learned how to write Kukubkatebu, because I have been there with Sr. Ancia and Boniface for Baptism. There were about 13 Teenagers, Women and kids baptized by Abba Boniface. The church was quite small but there were so much people that it was full, especially the youth is very active. For me it wasn't that interesting because I didn't understand much.
After that they made coffee, tea and some Cornflower thing to eat.
The Catechist which is in charge there became some clothes because of the great job he did.
We only came back in the afternoon; it took us two hours to drive back. The road is so bad, actually, there is no real road, it is more following a path through the bush. We had to pass around 4 or 5 valleys and every time the people in the back had to go out and run in front. As they entered again, the smell was not so good anymore, so we opened as much as windows as possible.
So Boniface drove until the tarmac road and after wards I was allowed to drive. I like driving, but because they are working at the road between the tarmac road and Dhadim, they put a lot of sand hills on the way, so half of it is blocked and you have to manage to drive around them. I hope it's over soon.
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