While on holiday in the UK someone asked me if it rains in Addis. It does - look:

(To get maximum enjoyment from these 36 seconds, and for us to get maximum sympathy points, view it full screen and change the quality to 1080p so you can see the individual hailstones)

One of the first things we did in the UK was go to the dentist, where I freaked out the hygienist who couldn't get all the African crud out of my teeth in the allotted 30 minutes. Poor thing went into a tail spin. Following her advice I now have a teeth cleaning routine that involves brushing electrically for two minutes, flossing (until I run out), and then using those funny little interdental brushes. It takes forever, but hopefully when I go to see her at Christmas she'll find me less clogged up. "It's just mouth chemistry" said the dentist wistfully when I asked him why he'd told Chris, who's dental maintenance routine is not as extensive as mine, that she had teeth in great shape whereas mine were in such a state I'd destabilised the hygienist.

So I returned to Addis armed with a bag full of dental hygiene equipment, which made it safely through customs. Yesterday morning as I was in the bathroom after breakfast indulging this new habit something extremely exciting happened - the toilet cistern started to fill. You're probably feeling sorry for me now, that such an event could ever be described as exciting. But when you've had no running water for a day or so, when you've just doused your head in cold water from a barrel full of rather stale water, and when you've not been able to flush the loo for a while, believe me a running cistern is exciting. It went off again for much of the rest of the day, but not before I'd had time to top up all the buckets and the barrel ready for the possibility of several days with no running water. It's ironic that outside the front door it is likely to be raining stair rods. "Why does the water go off so much?" I hear you ask. My only answer is that in this city "why?" is always a rhetorical question.

The Friday before last I was in my consulting room (consulting, obviously) and it slowly became apparent that around lunch time something was going on outside. I overlook a big tee junction and this was filling up with slow-moving traffic with fairly frequent police cars, sirens blaring, cutting their way through. As is always the way with traffic congestion here, it descended into mayhem. Cars all over the place, people wandering around, gridlock in all directions, horns blaring (apparently this is illegal, according to a website Chris found today about Addis traffic law). Some patients couldn't get to me, so the afternoon was quiet in the clinic. By the time Haile came to get me things had settled and we managed to drive home without too much bother. A short drive from the clinic and right on the most direct route home to Bingham in "Merkato" - a huge bustling and slightly unnerving market where, if you have the courage and the right Ethiopian as a guide, you can buy almost anything. (The "Lonely Planet" guide says you can get anything "from a camel to a Kalashnikov". So far I've bought neither, although the camel is quite tempting...) Next to Merkato and right on the road Haile often drives me along is the "grand mosque". Reliable details are hard to obtain but as far as I understand it a protest was taking place near the mosque related to several people who have been imprisoned under Ethiopian terrorism law and things became ugly with the involvement of riot police. We know of one person closely linked with our church who was in the area by chance and ended up in hospital with a broken arm. I've not been able to verify a rumour that two police were killed. There are some photos on this website - scroll down the page and you will see pictures of the road that only the day before I was driven home along. On this day Haile took me in a big loop south, west then north to avoid the area. We often do this on the way home anyway, as on the north side of Merkato just past the mosque is the new railway under construction, and the traffic is usually in a state of pandemonium even without violent protests.

Christians and Muslims have co-existed here peacefully for many generations and we want that to continue. It's an atmosphere in which the Gospel has flourished. Ethiopia is surrounded by unrest (Eritrea, Somalia, Kenya, South Sudan) where killings, suicide bombings and attempted terrorist attacks are frequent. According to the government the security forces here have thwarted several attempts at terrorist attacks in the city in recent months. Please pray for our safety, the peace of Addis Ababa, and the country in general.