Nightlife in Ethiopia

Its a bird no its a plane no... it's a bunch of barking dogs and crowing roosters. The evening opens with a torential down pour that will soak you to the bone within 10 seconds of exposure. It's pounding pitter patter on the tin roof we are eventually able to tune out (though it takes some effort) This much rain at once is a little much to take but to the Ethiopians it is a blessing compared to a drought due to no rain. Rain is always their friend. Perhaps we should have more of that kind of optimism on the "Wet Coast" :) Or not...
Rain water cascading off the roof of the poor and marginalized enabels them to collect it with out walking 1.5 hours to get it...
Next we get the pounding bass of Ethipoian night club a mix of African and Arabic musical beats. This is followed by the low fly bys of Boeing 767's on thier way to the Bole Airport (We are right under the final approach flight path). The noise of people traffic and crickets is the base track all this others stuff gets added to. At 1am the barking dogs get started. I'm not really sure what they are doing but after about 10 minutes you hear a dog yelping and then a few minutes of rest before they all start up again. Afer the dogs stop some rooster starts belting out his way too early tune... (How did this same rooster from Cuernavaca, Mexicali get over here?) A mix of dog, cricket and rooster sounds eventually become background sounds till we hear the faint cry of a baby... we are so good at zoning out noise by this hour that we ignore this one also... Till we recognize why this baby cry is hard to ignore... It's Ezra wanting his 2am bottle. I jump out of bed and make a bottle that immediatly soothes his soft plaintive cry (seriously this boys cry is so soft and unconvincing... it's cute and pathetic at the same time) Poor boy has no idea why his life was suddenly turned upside down. Each time he wakes up it hits him that everything has changed. After the bottle Ezra gets back to sleep but because of Jet Lag Koen and I just get to stare at each other and hum along with the dogs, crickets and roosters. We eventually nod of to sleep only to be woken at 5am by the sounds of the most unusual bird song (absolutly beautiful) but no one to share it with cuz Koen is asleep. Should I wake him? Naaaa... Finally at 6:30 am an Orthodox priest sings out his morning prayer (much like an Islamic caller which incidently we also hear during the day). He sings out a prayer in the acient Geez language that very few people even understand anymore. To wich we wonder "why keep everyone awake???" At least God knows what he is saying even if very few others do.
His prayers close off the evening song and the rush of Addis greets us all...
It is a beautiful adventure God has allowed us to experience. Tomorrow we get to go to an Amharic (Ethiopian) evagelical Church...

Christine