It's been a week since I arrived at Bingham Academy in Addis Ababa and I think I have been settling in quite nicely. I arrived last Saturday morning and each day has flown by pretty quickly. I share a second floor apartment at Bingham with two teachers, LauraKay and Kippen. This is Kippen's first year here and LauraKay is approaching 2 years. They both actually taught through CCTECC like I am doing, so it is really nice to have people who were in my position not too long ago.
We are in the middle of the city and our property is surrounded by a wall and there are guards at the entrance to get in and out. The property is a lot bigger than I expected since there many apartments, as well as the school for Pre-K through 12th grade. There is a gym and sports fields and playgrounds as well as many pretty grassy areas on the property. The part of the country that I am in is not being effected by the drought and rainy season just ended, so the compound is really green.
The main building and front office
One flag for each nation represented at Bingham.
A lot of the teachers and families live on the campus and even more work there; I am continuing to meet new people each day. The school has devotions each morning and also provides lunch to the teachers so I am getting to know a lot of people during these times. I have been invited for dinner at a few homes and take each opportunity I can to do spend time with the people at Bingham. I could write an entire post (I probably will soon) about my student teaching experience so far. I am in KG1 (Pre-K equivalent) and my cooperating teacher, Chris, is from Britian and she has been teaching for over 30 years. She is fantastic and I am so excited about all that I am learning from her.
My first Ethiopian meal (although I was told it was the equivalent to school pizza haha)
I have not been out in to Addis too much and some of the teachers say it is easy to forget what it is like outside of the school if you aren't careful. Addis Ababa is the capitol of Ethiopia and is in the middle of the mountains so it is generally cooler than other parts of the country. Also because it is in the mountains the altitude is a lot different than I am use to, so sometimes I get a little bit dizzy and when I am walking uphill or running I get out of breath more quickly. I have had a few opportunities to get off of the campus and there are people everywhere. There are many little shops nearby and the driving is crazy..The roundabouts are the scariest for me because cars come at al directions and people often walk really close to the cars as you are driving! It is quite the experience.
The neighborhood view from my porch.
My first juice with LauraKay (Banana, Pineapple, Guava, and Mango).
The veggie stand where normally go to.
The first day I was here we had the middle school girls over to watch "Princess Diaries". We also did just dance and painted nails. I had the opportunity to visit a house church and had dinner with everyone; this week I am visiting an international church. On Wednesday I went to a bible study with some of the people on Campus. Getting juice and coffee is also really cheap so people often go out in the afternoons for that. I have spent the evening at a few people's houses and today I will visit the Bazaar for the first time and at some point this weekend we will get to carve pumpkins with some of the kids on campus.
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