The View From Here

(Our Meskel Bonfire) A brief History (According to the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, with some grammatical corrections by MCH) Meskel has been celebrated for a millennium in Ethiopia. There are two occasions on Meskel. The first is “Demera” which is celebrated on the eve (September 25), bonfires are built topped by a cross to which Meskel daisy flowers are tied, The Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church orchestrates in a ceremony to light the bonfire at Meskel Square which is the heart of Addis Ababa. Smaller “Demeras” are built at individual houses or villages, next day of “Demera” there will be Meskel festivity. In the morning of Meskel, believers use the ashes from the Demera to mark their foreheads with the sign of the Cross.  The ceremony is accompanied by spiritual songs and dancing (Mezmurs).   The Jews who lived in those days became envious of the cross, so they buried the cross and turned the place into dumping ground garbage. Over time the garbage piled up...

  (The Sunrise View From My Window Facing Northeast) Wow! What a great first week of school. We now have three classes spanning 9th-11th grades. And, what a terrific group of students! They are inventive, engaged, and determined to further their education. The 11th graders were already pressing their teachers to cover units that were missed last year due to the evacuation in the fall.  After three days of orientation, the 41 new 9th graders have received their iPads, and have been warmly welcomed into their Gojos, classes, and advisories. And, if the leadership they have already shown continues through the year, the whole school will be lifted to a new level. Faculty are getting into their routines and their classes are showing how they can cover the essentials of the Ethiopian curriculum while expanding their student's knowledge in greater depth. Our goal is to become a model school demonstrating that students can become more fully engaged and demonstrate higher thinkin g ski...

 For the past month we have been worried about students and parents navigating the mud soaked 2km road to the school. Every time we thought we had an opportunity to bring contractors in to repair it, the skies would open and buckets of rain would fall. So, you can imagine our relief when, three days before school was to start, the skies cleared and we moved quickly forward dumping over 120 truck loads of rock and gravel to fill the muddy pools of water on the road. It was all hands on deck as our grounds crew supervised the work from early morning to let in the evening. The grueling work was completed just before the 10:00am arrival time on Sunday, allowing our students and families to drive to the school. We met in the HMA at 8:30 Sunday morning and Maya went over the schedule for the day. Everyone had worked so hard in preparation for welcoming and teaching the students. While we were well prepared, we were all a bit nervous in meeting the kids for the first time It turned out to...

Happy New Year! The Ethiopian calendar divides the year into 13 months, with the last month of the year lasting 5-6 days, depending on whether or not it's leap year. This allows each of the 12 months to have 30 days. So, the last month is a 5 day catch up month for the year. New Year's day for Ethiopia (Enkutatash) falls on last day of the month of Pagume, which is September 11 on the Gregorian calendar. It is celebrated similarly to the way we celebrate in the U.S., only with more of a family and stay at home feel.  Here are two faculty children, Merherbert and Ebabe wearing traditional clothing, which is dominated by the color white. They bring a New Year's welcoming to your door on New Year's day and you're expected to give them a gift of money, which they can keep or donate to a favorite charity. On campus. We celebrated New Year's Eve at the home of one of our Ethiopian teacher's and her family. We drank Tej, which is a local drink, and ate tibs, a cook...

Sunset at HMA after packed week of learning It’s been a busy second week at HMA! In addition to daily lessons in Amharic for the international teachers, we took a good amount of time to discuss Simon Sinek’s belief in the importance of starting our planning by asking the “Why” of our work before we get to the “How” or “What” with our students. We also covered Holidays and how we celebrate them at HMA. Most include some form of fasting, which had gotten a little out of hand with some of the students last year. We reviewed our newly revised Student Handbook, took time to develop our pre-assessment strategies, understand the role of Service Learning, how we deal with religion at a secular school in a very religiously divided country, and learn about Ethiopian traditions. Maya Posey, our Director of Community Life, provided us an overview of how our Gojo, Crew, and Advisory groups would work this year. We wrapped up the week with in depth discussions on the Curriculum Design for each ar...