Rules? Who needs them?

My friends, it's good to be with you again.  We were heartened to know that some of you read this blog occasionally, and we know who you are because you took last week's quiz. And some of you even got most of the questions right!  Well done!  Let's not forget that there might be many thousands who read the blog but chose not to take the quiz.  Good to be with you, too.  The scores are posted on facebook.  How did we score the quizzes?  Well, since we moved to Mekele, we have become more and more accustomed to the ways of this city.  That is to say, we didn't use any particular rules in scoring because in general, rules shouldn't apply.  And our readers agree, because many of them discarded the usual rules of quiz-taking.  So if you don't like your placement, think of yourself as heroic for occupying a no-rules zone.  (disclaimer, don't apply this thinking to your jobs, schooling, or any other serious endeavor).

Speaking of rules, take a look at this picture:

We took this picture on the night when Meskel was celebrated.  Meskel means cross, and is the celebration that commemorates the discovery of the true cross.  As a celebration, it is a hybrid of extremes; intensely solemn and unbelievably wild.  In Mekele, all the folks who are serious about Meskel climb up a little mountain called Chom'a Mountain.  When the sun sets, two rows of priests stand facing each other and sing songs of worship and praise.  A slow and steady drumbeat marks time.  Thousands of people bow their heads and sway, praying. 

The moment the priests have finished, a mound of hay topped with a straw cross is set alight.  The image is startling if you come from the States.  But those priests are barely out of sight before the band on the stage strikes up a celebratory song and the people of Mekele absolutely go bananas.  Some tips for you if you ever visit during this time: People have carried bundles of wood to the mountaintop, and they set these on fire.  And then they generously share this fire with all the people around them, and with your Columbia jacket, too, if you happen to be standing near them.  Then they place their torches on the ground to form bridges that you must jump over while covering your nose and mouth and trying not to black out from the smoke.  You should also find enough air in your lungs to chant "Hoya Hoye, Ho!" as you jump.  When you jump, you should also make sure that you don't worry about the dry clumps of grass that are smoldering all around you, the boulders you might land on, or your child who has gone missing among the masses. 

You might be tempted to feel relieved that the jumps are over.  Don't.  You got to the top of the mountain, you're going to have to get down, as well.  You'll share this journey with approximately one million torch-carrying, testosterone-fueled young men who want nothing more than to reach the bottom of the mountain with their torch still aflame.  This means that they will break the human chain you've formed, and they will leap over you, crawl under you, and try to go through you to achieve that goal.  I took a video as we were going down - Micah's worried face turned to face the camera a couple of times - but you can hear the men chanting all the way down the mountain as they ran down the rocky road, torches held high, not a care in the world.  One chant actually made me laugh.  It went like this, "Beep Beep!  Beep Beep!" Women with children and old people were shoved out of the way.  Dropped torches lay in the dry grass.  I hit Mark's shoulders a couple of times to put out embers.  It was pure insanity, and it was absolutely thrilling.

The fire marshal would not have permitted this at all.  Luckily, there was no such thing.  But not one old person was knocked to the ground, not one mother was separated from her kid, and the mountain did not burn to cinders.  How can this be when no one was following any rational safety rules whatsoever?  I don't know!  I just don't know!  I only pray and hope that those gentle priests at the top were spared the insanity and that they looked down at the winding trail of firelight as the masses descended and thought, "We men of God will wait it out." 

Not the Woodwards.  But the good news is that in that dark chaos, the firelight that illuminated our group's faces was always fleeting.  There was only one "ferenji" comment, and it was quite funny.  A guy behind me saw the boys and said in Amharic, "There's a white kind of thing in front of me."  And then he was gone, literally in a flash.

In keeping with the rules theme of this posting, I thought I'd just mention a couple of other Mekelitems (hey, I just coined that term.  Trademark!) observed over the course of the week.  The first concerns the very early morning when Mark woke up to the sound of what he thought was construction.  There was a steady banging beginning at about 4 am, and I thought it was road work or some other poorly timed construction project, as well.  Mark couldn't get back to sleep and when the sun rose, he went to the top floor of our house to discover that he'd been listening to the sound of an axe hacking away at bone. Evidently there might be some rules about where you can slaughter a whole cow, and it could be that our neighbor was skirting those rules by doing it in the dead of night.  But what a sight:

The men have loaded the truck.  They wait for one last piece from the guy with the axe (in the orange shirt)

By six am, the crew that was likely hired for the job had butchered the cow, placed it in the back of a truck and were preparing to drive it to a place that would turn it into delicious wat (stew) for a wedding meal. Did our awesome neighbors give us a little meat?  Of course.  Rules, who needs them?

And on the other side of our house, our other neighbor has almost finished the massive construction job on his house.  I've been amazed at how large buildings can be constructed using only the flimsiest scaffolding.  I've also been amazed at how sure-footed the workers are.  This man's approach to safety would not be acceptable by Montgomery County, Maryland standards.  I think there are more stringent rules one generally follows when painting the third story exterior of a house. He's none the worse for wear, and the building is now complete.  But man.

The last thing I want to talk briefly about is how well things are going at Operation Rescue.  Mark and I, assisted by the boys, have been asked to teach English classes.  During the meeting when the teaching schedule was being discussed, I heard the comments of the staff regarding the behavior of the children in class.  I'm telling you, their words could have been lifted from a transcript of any US public school staff meeting.  Students are the same everywhere, ya'll!  That is to say, they're not particularly fond of rules.  We're still trying to figure out how hard we're prepared to crack down in our classrooms.  In the first place, we are not teaching in a traditional school.  In the second, we're becoming Mekelites, man! You can't stop the Dude-ization of the Woodward crew!  Okay that's not true at all.  You can stop it easily.

But I guess there's always a time and place for rule-breaking.  Never, in a million years did I ever think I'd write such scandalous words.  But in all seriousness, this place has loosened us up.  It's made us appreciate that the world is not such a dangerous place, that the risks we used to think of as out of the question aren't always risks, but just a way of life.

Not that I want to stand on that sort of scaffolding.  No one should, let's face it.

P.S. 

Um, ok.  I know some of you will tune out here.  But can you believe that Hazal met a guy on facebook, rode off on a motorbike, shacked up with him and had to be rescued by her estranged grandfather who ended up killing the motorbike guy in order to get her away from him?  I'm sorry, but she could do with some rule-following.