A Little Work and A Little Play

As it turns out, my trip to Addis last week was less exciting than I thought.  It was very Ethiopian, in the sense that nothing much was planned ahead of time, so much of the trip was spent showing up to meet with organizations without appointments.  I think it was a learning experience for my two colleagues and me.  I am very glad I decided to go despite the lack of organization; one more adventure that has made me step outside my comfort-zone.

I arrived back in Dangila just in time for a two-week meeting to start for all government employees.  While I was invited to attend this 14-day Amharic-language meeting, I reasoned my time would be better spent around town.  This past week has made me realize how much I depend on my HAPCO counterparts for translating and preparing projects around town.  Without co-workers to socialize with or an office to sit in, I have spent a lot of time exploring Dangila, like I use to when I first arrived.  I found myself walking out of my house one day with a To-Do List that read: Return movies to video shop, Buy bread, Stop by post office.  I thought to myself, if I close my eyes for a minute I might be able to convince myself that I am about to hop in my car and drive to Blockbuster, Kroger and the post office.

One of my days of exploration included finally renting a VCD from this video shop I often frequent to buy blank CDs.  For only two Birr ($.20) I was able to slip the new movie into my bag and continue my day around town.  Later, as I sat down to watch the video; I realize it is dubbed over in Amharic.  Now, if it was that simple I might have even watched it to learn a word or two, but dubbed is probably too professional of a word to use.  The normal audio was still present, only muffled a bit, and overtop was one man’s voice for all the characters, in rushed and awkward Amharic.  Needless to say, I will just consider that two Birr the cost of learning never to rent a VCD again.

Since a couple projects I’m starting require the assistance of my HAPCO co-workers, I’ve taken this break to spend some quality time focusing on the cultural exchange goals of the Peace Corps.  I have been accepting most invitations to drink coffee, and after a trip to the market Saturday, my friend Tizda is teaching me how to cook a bunch of Ethiopian food!  The better part of one afternoon was also spent trapping a mouse in my house. I'm still not sure why my dog, who loves killing chickens, couldn’t help me with this task. Only three workers are remaining at the health center during this two-week meeting, and lucky for me they are the ART nurses who are my good friends.  I have been visiting the health center just about every day to hangout with them and have them tell me how good my Amharic is getting.  Haha.  Those women are so fun, and quite the ego boost!  I’m very excited about tomorrow afternoon, when we are going to prepare a coffee ceremony at the health center together.

 

I have visited a new café, found a new shortcut to the main road, been to the home of a new neighbor, and met a couple great new friends.  It has been such a fun week in Dangila, and it is now “home” to me more than ever before, especially after arriving back from an exhausting trip to Addis.  While I was skeptical about the amount of work I would accomplish without HAPCO for two weeks, I have realized my ability to get around on my own and love my friends in town dearly.

Getting There Is Half the Battle

This week I have found myself on a four day “business trip” in the capital, Addis Ababa.  Well, I use that term very roughly.  I was invited by the Awi Development Association (Awi is my zone, which is the equivalent of an American county), with whom I’ve been meeting with over the past couple months, to join them on a trip to Addis to meet with potential partner NGOs.  I was starting to think about all the things I could write about this trip I’m on, and decided to first make sure I paint a picture of transportation in Ethiopia before I begin talking about the details of this current adventure.

To travel the 500km from Bahir Dar to Addis Ababa you have about five choices of transportation.  The first is flying.  It takes maybe 45 minutes and Ethiopian Airlines serves the most delicious muffins I’ve tasted in this country, but unless Peace Corps is flying me for a meeting, it is way out of my price range.  The second option is a private car, which is just as impractical as flying considering I don’t know a single person who owns a car.  This leaves us with the only three real options for traveling: a coach bus, a mini-bus, and the big local bus.

A recent arrival in Ethiopia, Selam Bus offers comfortable and roomy seats and even serves you a drink and piece of bread.  In America, these coach buses would still be considered less than ideal, but here they are my number one choice for traveling.  Next is the mini-bus, which is a 12-seater van that often seats up to 24 grown adults.  Typically on the long trips, such as the journey from Bahir Dar to Addis Ababa, they limit it to 14 though.  These mini-buses travel a lot faster than the big buses, which means you could make the trip in just about eight or nine hours.  The mini-bus is just slightly cheaper in price than the Selam Bus, and considering you are putting your life in the hands of driver, swerving around every bend, it is worth the upgrade to Selam.  Then there is the big ‘ol local bus.  Each asymmetrical row seats three on one side of the aisle and two on the other.  The benches are less than comfortable and even sitting with the skinniest Ethiopians you find yourself fighting for ample wiggle-room.  These buses cost about half the price of the Selam Bus though, and therefore still the most popular option for the average Ethiopian.  Although it can take over 12 hours, the slow speed makes it a bit safer, plus you get the added bonus of a priceless adventure, guaranteed.

Considering I was traveling with colleagues, and the association was fronting the costs, of course we took the big slow bus.  It was my first experience traveling local style for the entire 500 kilometers, but there is a first time for everything!  We woke up at 5:00AM making sure we would arrive at the bus station by 5:30AM, and the bus was already filling up quickly.  The three of us grabbed a bench towards the back and settled in for a long trip.  We started puttering down the road by 6:00AM, and the sun started to light up the sky outside my window on the left side.  I managed to get about 30-minutes of sleep but spent a majority of the ride staring at the green landscape and listening to music on my iPod.

We were making great timing, arriving at the Blue Nile Gorge just after 11AM, over halfway to Addis!  There was rumor of a landslide at the gorge, so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I kept my eyes out for something unusual along the way.  We twisted our way down into the valley, crossed the Blue Nile River and climbed most of the way back up the opposite side.  I started thinking to myself that they must have cleaned up the landslide, and wondered what it had looked like.  Just as that thought was swirling around in my mind we turned the corner to a long line of trucks.  Time ticked past as we waited to move inch by inch further.  It seemed like every time I would get out of the bus to stretch, the line would move a hundred meters forward.  Every now and then four or five trucks or buses would pass us going in the opposite direction on the narrow two-lane road.  All we could see was the face of a cliff on one side of the road and a foggy abyss on the other. After a while of waiting, a couple buses from behind us passed us on the left lane, and not wanting to lose our ground, our bus followed.

An hour after we arrived at the backup we were still stopped, but now both lanes were filled with traffic heading south and I could only imagine what kind of gridlock we were creating.  Finally we found ourselves at the scene of the accident, the landslide itself.  A section of the road, about 100 meters long, on the side of a mountain, had slid about a meter and a half down and over from its original location.  Ramps made out of piles of dirt and gravel were constructed at both ends where the pavement split.  One direction at a time, cars would slowly cross this unstable stretch of road.  It didn’t seem like the section would slide any further, but it was kind of scary to think that could happen in the first place.

One of the craziest parts was there was no official directing traffic.  This landslide happened about a week before, and every day there is utter chaos to cross this section.  Could you imagine in America what would happen if part of a cliff-side road that connected two major cities had a collapse like this?  And what if one side of the traffic decided to fill both lanes of the narrow road?  And no on was at the site instructing the traffic to take turns at even intervals…? It was just one more reminder that I am still in a developing country.

Overall we arrived in Addis Ababa about 12 hours exactly after leaving, not bad considering we were stopped at the landslide for almost two hours.  It was a great experience on the public bus I feel; not nearly as horrible as it could have been.  I will update soon with the happenings of this trip here in Addis.

The Epic Bike Ride

Last week two of my American friends from Ethiopia began a bike ride from here down to South Africa.  They are planning to bike for about eight months, and while I could never finish that journey; I did decide to join them for a day of riding, which was more than enough for me.  I took the bus to Bahir Dar one evening and the next morning we set out on the 50-mile ride back to Dangila.  It seemed like there were more literal and figurative “ups and down” during that six-hour bike ride than in all of my Peace Corps experiences so far!

We woke at 6 AM, ate some bananas with peanut butter, and we were cycling out of Bahir Dar by 7:30 AM.  With Nicole and Josh’s bikes weighed down with stuff, they would fly downhill, but drag uphill, so we just decided to go at our own pace and we would break about every ten miles to catch up and rest.  Well, it didn’t take me long to realize I was out of shape.  Meaning I was quite a bit behind them, but it was fun just doing my own thing and catching up with them at our rest stops.  About every ten miles, there is a town, so we would tend to stop right outside a town, on the far side, trying to avoid large crowds of people.

I was doing fine for the first 10-mile leg, which took just over one hour. The second leg was about 13 miles, bringing us almost to the halfway mark in another hour.  In the beginning, near Bahir Dar, the kids were ridiculous.  Every time you passed kids they’d yell, asking for money.  If you were going slowly uphill they would run beside you asking for money.  By the first break I thought kids simply yelling “you you you!” were polite as opposed to the “money money money!” or running along side yelling “Birr sichine” (“Give me Birr”).

At the halfway point, I was feeling good.  It did start to set in how crazy I was for doing a 50-mile ride when I haven’t ridden a bike more than a few miles in years.  Still, I was feeling good.  Well, in the third leg there were a lot more “ups” than “downs” – lots of gradual slopes that I thought would never end.  One town was slightly down hill and as I passed by rather speedily some man ran up to the road, screaming something and insisted on handing me a piece of fruit, which made me laugh.  It either was a very large lemon or very yellow orange.  Every instance like that would make up for the rude kids yelling and throwing things.  You’d get past the most annoying group of kids and before long you would greet a cute little kid with “Selam” and they would just have this huge adorable smile and greet you in return, making up for the troublemakers.  You never knew what was around the next corner!

There is about 250 meters in elevation change between BD and Dangila, but with lots of down hills too, we climbed quite a bit.  Right at the end of the third leg (our longest at about 14 miles), as I approached the edge of a town and crested a small uphill, I spotted a large hill and I knew I was in trouble.  I was exhausted; it must have been right around mile 37, and I would have given anything to just give up.  I was dehydrated, sun-drained, exhausted, my legs were shaking; I was on the edge of tears.  I finally got off my bike right in the middle of the big hill after watching a car pass me and crest the hill, making me realize how much farther up I had to go.  I’m sure that it isn’t that big of a hill, but in my memory it will always be massive!  I got off the bike, while rural people walking past stared and gossiped in Ahmaric. I refilled my empty bottle, threw in a Gatorade packet, and started walking for about ten minutes.  Finally, I decided to ride the rest of the hill and luckily right over the crest, beneath the only tree in sight, Nicole and Josh were waiting for me.

I guess I didn’t look as exhausted as I felt because they weren’t concerned about me or my disappearance, in fact they agreed that was a really hard section.  I downed another half-liter with another Gatorade packet, finished the trail mix I’d brought and knew I was going to finish this thing.  Approaching that pit stop, I wasn’t so sure, but Nicole and Josh were so motivating that I got a second wind.  I also knew I’d just passed through Derebete – the town before Dangila, so with just ten miles left, so close to home, I couldn’t give up and flag down a minibus – I had to finish.  We started again and I just told myself to take it slow, “Kes be Kes” (slowly by slowly).  Before too long, after conquering another couple of hills, I recognized the landscape and I knew I was on the edge of town.  I’d made it!!!  People started yelling “Jennifer” instead of “ferengi” and I’d never been so happy to be in Dangila.

I knew I was looking good too because along the way sometime the “Birr Sichines” turned into “Birr Sitines” – the masculine form of “Give me money.”  I got a few “ayzoshs” along the way too, meaning “be brave” and surely enough I got the masculine form of that too sometime along the way, “ayezoh.”  Nevertheless, at the end of the day, I was so proud of what I accomplished.

Almost exactly six hours later, around 1:30 PM, we arrived at my house.  Phew!!  I realized my absolute love-hate relationship with both Ethiopia and exercise.  Kids yelled, screamed, threw dirt, threw rocks!  One teenager even threw a rock (he should know better)!  A little naked child grabbed one of Nicole’s bags and pulled right in the middle of the final big hill!  But I also got to see the beauty of the Ethiopian countryside, and there were some great people along the way (like my orange/lemon guy)!  There were children with huge smiles that didn’t yell for money, who would just warm your heart.  Overall, it was a great journey.  Would I do it a second time?  Probably not, but I’m so glad I did it that once.  Kind of like I feel about the Peace Corps experience in general.  Some days are filled with little naked children who throw rocks at you, but you never know if the next truck that passes is filled with camels and just makes you smile.  Along the way, I will need breaks to get away, and at some point I might feel like giving up, but I want to make it to the end.  I’m so glad, so thankful, for this journey.

Never Being Dirty

It occurred to me recently how easy it is to live in America and never actually be dirty.  You may shower every day, maybe every third day if you’re a rebel.  And I can’t blame you, if I had endless hot water at the turn of a knob, I too would bathe on a regular basis.  But really, how dirty do you get going from your house to your car to your office and back? You may workout and get sweaty in your sterilized gym and freshly laundered clothes.  You may play in the dirt a bit on a hot summer day, working in the garden and even mowing your own lawn- but still, it’s pretty easy to go through life never being dirty.

Think about it, all ground is covered by cement, or grass, or at the least pine straw or mulch.  You’re probably now racking your brain for a patch of dirt around your neighborhood.  A single spot that has unfortunately been worn free of the grass that used to cover it—that is what covers a majority of my town.  Even in the rainy season, as the brown fields turn bright green with grass, the roads are dirt, or more than likely, mud.  On a dry morning you are bound to run into a big gust of wind that throws a wall of dirt on you.  On a rainy morning you are bound to come across a section of the road flooded with water up to your ankles, which you hop across using stones sticking out or the muck.

My dirty tennis shoes.

No matter what you do here, you get dirty.

That is a dirt line, not a tan line. Don't judge me.

I’ve been told once by an Ethiopian that my feet were dirty.  I was sitting at a café reading a book and he felt it was necessary, without introduction, to question the cleanliness of my feet.  Being suggested to bathe by an Ethiopian— not my proudest moment.

Another time, one of my PCV friends and I were commenting on how tan our arms were from being in the sun so much.  This was followed by the realization that at least one shade of our “tan” was actually dirt.

I also had to explain to people that my freckles were not specks of dirt and, also not the first stage of me becoming African, despite how much sense that would make.

One more example of the dirty life I’m leading is demonstrated by the rain jacket I brought to Ethiopia, which is mostly yellow and partly white.  Ok, not the smartest choice of colors for Africa, but I was living in glorious America when I bought it, in denial of how dirty life could be.  Since it rains everyday during the summer, I find myself wearing that rain jacket everyday, without a break from the rain to wash and dry it.  After my co-worker mentioned my dirty sleeves (she was polite not to point out the dirty sides and back also) I finally decided to brave the rain for a day without my jacket.  I’m happy to report the jacket now looks brand new—for the time being!

It doesn’t help either that I am living with a dog that comes home in the evenings often covered in mud… or sometimes what I believe is excrement of some type.  When asking the kids in Amharic what Arbay had gotten into, they all giggled and finally said it was poop.  Needless to say, she has earned herself several impromptu baths!

The Jennifer Show

Do you ever get that feeling that someone’s staring at you? Their eyes burning a hole in the back of your head? Yep, I’ve had that feeling for eight months now.  It’s kind of like I’m on The Truman Show, well, The Jennifer Show, and everyone knows where I am or what I’m doing at all times.  Trying to get out of town without everyone knowing is like climbing over a pile of pots and pans without waking the dog sleeping beside them.

This past week HAPCO hosted a “Community Conversation” training for 42 townspeople, which means I sat through a lot of lectures in Amharic.  I’m there to support HAPCO though and I’ve enjoyed being a part of the trainings.  My supervisor, Tilahun, who is running the training, is nice enough to help me translate a session on possible ways they could help with HIV in Dangila, and ways I could help too.  For one session though, trainees were told to record for one hour their surroundings using just one sense- sight, sound or touch.  A few then presented later what they recorded, and let’s just say a lot of people mentioned me in their report.  Luckily I didn’t make an appearance in the “touch” reports.

One person focusing on sight noted that “during the tea break everyone was watching Jennifer.”  One sound observer mentioned that “people were often talking about the ferengi.”  I’m pretty famous.  Six months in Dangila and I’m still the talk of the town.  Luckily for the most part, people yell my name instead of “Ferengi” and I have regular shops and restaurants that know exactly what I will order, and how I like it served!  It is a lot more of a home for me than six months ago, but I haven’t been here long enough to lessen curiosity.  I’m not sure I’m willing to stay until the day no one is curious about me anymore. I think that would take a long, long while.

Dangila Market.

Speaking of me stirring up curiosity, I never draw a bigger crowd than when I make a trip to the market.  Today I went for the first time in about a month, because while I enjoy the challenge of the hectic market scene, I only convince myself to go after the memory of the previous trip wears off quite a bit.  I wish I had an aerial view of the market when I arrive; surely, you could see the crowds of people shift to follow me wherever I turn.  I’m always at the eye of the storm of people at the market.  Luckily, I know the prices for most of the produce I want to buy, so I am rarely ripped off, but everything about the trip is a hassle. Today especially since there was rain all during the night the entire marketplace, which appears three days a week in a big field, was a mud pit. More about the circus of the marketplace later; now I have to return to a HAPCO training, yes, on a Saturday!

New Sites, Old Friends

Another month has passed in what seems like seconds.  It feels like just last week I was contemplating my birthday celebration and already it is time to turn the calendar once again.  It is hard to believe I have been here now for eight months.  I try to capture those eight months in my mind to comprehend all that has happened, all that has changed, but I cannot; it is like trying to hold water in my cupped hands.  This is my life now, and it is equally hard to imagine life back in America.  Costcos and Targets, public drinking fountains and air conditioning seem like a fairyland, not a reality I will return to one day.

I am part of Group 2 here in Ethiopia since Peace Corps returned in 2007, and as my group begins our eighth-month, Group 1 enters their 22nd.  Some of my good friends in Ethiopia are from the first group and it is fun to daydream with them about their upcoming integration back into American life.  I realize as I read this that, what to me is “daydreaming,” to my friends is their upcoming reality.  It is easy to get caught up in future plans and joke about common amenities we do not even think about anymore.  It is hard to realize that these dear friends of mine will soon be leaving and my time here in perspective has only just begun.  Months now can be talked about as if they were weeks, or days. Saying out loud that I will be here for about 18 more months is no longer an amount of time that scares me. But knowing Group 1 will be leaving in four months; that amount of time does not seem like enough.

Dear friends.

As part of the ever-rotating Peace Corps cycle, one group’s departure means a new group’s arrival.  Two months from now, in October, Group 3 arrives for their 10 weeks of training.  And while I don’t like to think about my friends leaving, knowing new people are coming takes my mind away from that a bit.  This past week I was able to join Peace Corps staff on “Site Development, Round 1” as they prepare for Group 3.  In order for PC to place the new volunteers, they do three rounds of site development in towns around the country to find places for volunteers to live after their training.  There are several towns around my part of the country (including two in my zone, which is like a county) that are being considered.  If any Group 3 people are reading this, some of you could be my future neighbors!  I enjoyed getting out of Dangila with PC staff to visit surrounding towns and help with the preparation process.

There are going to be a lot of changes with the training and counterpart selection that are new and exciting to all of us.  I’m sure I will be writing about these upcoming changes in my life here a lot in the next few months, but for now it is fun to be a part of something new, even though I’m not looking forward to seeing friends leave.