It appears the rainy season here took my evaluation (for those who don't remember, the evaluation was essentially "overrated") personally. It actually has rained a little harder the last week or so. Not only that, but on the night of Thursday, August 22, it rained enough to flood and close the ATA office that Friday. When it rains even with medium intensity, the street in front of ATA becomes a lake.
Exhibits A and B:
Apparently, this got bad enough on Thursday night (no pictures, sorry), that the "street lake" flooded into the basement of the ATA building, causing the power to go out and the backup generator (which is probably used at least 2-3 times a day) to be unusable. Friday thus became a go-to-meetings-at-the-Ministry-of-Agriculture/work-from-home day. Monday, the elevators were still out, and I'm going to blame my heavy breathing by the time I reached the 7th floor (American 9th floor) on the elevation (this is the stereotypical excuse anytime a foreigner feels out of shape here). I missed the actually flooding because I chose to walk home in the middle of the storm. With my rain boots and umbrella, I figured I'd be fine. Turns out rain boots are actually detrimental when the water gets over the top of them because then it can't drain out.
This is where a normal person would apologize to the rainy season (maybe normal isn't the right description for someone who talks to weather phenomenons), but not me. I say, "Bring it on rainy season. Is that all you got?"
This past weekend, I escaped Addis once again (really very necessary for your sanity here) and went with some friends from work to Lake Langano. Where is that and what's there, you ask. Here you go: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Lake+Langano. Helpful, huh? It's supposed to be the only lake in Ethiopia that's safe to swim in.
Two notes on the car we took down.
1. The car was insured by the "National Insurance Co. of Ethiopia (S.C.)" or "NICE." How awesome is that?
2. The van had a sticker on the back that said "My Toyota is fantastic." I swear I got a picture of this, but it's not on my phone. One of us is defective phone! I'm not sure if it's you or me, but one of us has a problem here!
Clearly the 4ish hour drive down was thrilling.
The house we stayed in there was pretty cool (literally on the beach). We fit 7 of us and could have squeezed 2 more if necessary.
View from the house:
Some might say the water looks like a chocolaty drink. I say it looks like Galveston :)
Speaking of the picture above. The place had kayaks (though even with my limited kayaking experience I can tell you they were not high quality and the paddles were pretty awful), and I decided to kayak across the lake (to what you see in the picture above). Turns out that it's farther than it looks, and me and my wooden paddle were not best of friends by the end. Having said that, it was by far the highlight of the trip, and on the other side, there's a peninsula on which I saw some monkeys. The other side was less deforested and seemed more untouched than the side the resort was on. Apparently, the guy who oversees the kayaks was less than pleased with my 4 hour departure, he told my friends there was no way I could come back that same day, and they all thought I died by the time I reappeared. Standard weekend on a lake stuff.
Sushant and Ravi chatting on the deck:
Ravi, Vickram, Anna, and Alli hanging out.
Vickram chilling on the beach.
Including this picture again because I can't find a better one that includes Noah (the 7th member of our crew). He's in the middle (between Ravi and Sushant) in the Y tank top. Bonus points if you can tell me where that shirt comes from (hint: not BYU).
More Lake Langano photos (none from my kayaking adventure as I figured bringing my phone out on the lake with me was a bad idea).
Pictures from the trip back.
Last thing this week is that I must say a sad farewell to Eric Couper. Eric is the 8th SPA to leave during my time here. He had been here about 18 months, was working in Tanzania beforehand, and is a development ICT (information and communications technology) guru. Eric was living here with his fiancee Rachel until she went back to the US in June. They are getting married in two weeks and will be living in DC working in development. Eric and Rachel are two of the nicest people you ever met (even letting me crash with them for 3 weeks when I first got here), and here's wishing them lasting happiness and joy!
my guess is Yale...
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