My Bubble

I’ve realized something about time over the past couple years, as much as you want it to speed up or slow down, it’s always a constant. It’s true that an hour chatting with close friend seems to go by a lot faster than an hour of running, perhaps, but I’m starting to see less of a difference. Time barely changes for me now. I’ve spent a lot of time here in Ethiopia biding my time, waiting for the next adventure, but at some point I realized the adventure is here and I am living it every day. Pretty soon it will be my turn to pack up and leave Ethiopia, and until then I want to enjoy every moment I have left here.

It took me so long to find work at all in Dangila, and now I come up with new ideas for projects almost every day and wish I had time to start them, but I don’t. I wish I had more time to hang out with friends and neighbors, to smell the roasting coffee and eat freshly baked injera. I wish I could go back and focus on tutoring certain students who I now see are falling behind in reading and writing. I wish I could help more people. That’s the thing about Peace Corps, you never finish the work, but eventually it’s your time to go home. There is always more that could be done, but I also know that I cannot stay. 

My student, Ehetemarium, hand-feeding me a bite of injera -- a cultural sign of respect.

There have been times in this country that I’ve been flat out unhappy, and I’ll be the first to admit the number of times I’ve cried over stupid things (it’s a lot), but I love it here in Dangila. Recently I’ve been spending a lot of time on buses and I can only repeat “No, I cannot take you to America!” so many times to strangers who so impolitely ask to be my fake husband. But then I come back to Dangila and feel so at home.   I love the people so much. They are absolutely the most wonderful, giving people I’ve ever met. And I fear losing these friendships when I leave, especially since most of my favorite friendships are completely in Amharic and they don’t have access to even a post office box.

A few of the orphan boys, whom I love dearly, hanging out by the internet cafe.

A friend recently described it as a “bubble,” and when I leave I have to let it pop, even though I don’t want to. I’ve created this little world of mine over here, but it’s only a moment in time. When I come back in years to come it won’t be the same, and I won’t be the same. I’ll never likely be as “grassroots” as I am right now, never speak the language as well or know the people as well. It’s just like leaving high school or college—it’s fun to reminisce about the good ol’ college days, but you can’t actually go back, the people are gone and the place has changed. You can only really enjoy the memories (or try desperately hard to recreate it, which would only likely result in a hangover).

Needless to say, the ending is bitter sweet already. It has taken me two years to create this bubble and I only have three weeks in town left to appreciate it (since I’m traveling some around Christmas). I’m greeted by name all over town, treated as a local, and loved by many as their own daughter. One dear friend even told me that if I stayed he would build me a chicken house so I could have fresh eggs every day! I am ready to go, although it’s more a readiness for the next step, not readiness to say goodbye to this life I’ve created. But with my one-way ticket to Frankfurt purchased, ready or not, I’m leaving.

Going To War for the Orphans

I’m an eternal optimist, always hoping for the best and expecting success. I think positive thoughts and have hope things will work out, and sometimes they do, others they do not.  When it came to my Internet Café Project receiving this container from the town, I was downright pessimistic.  I had many a tiny hope and prayer that it would work out but I was already thinking of plans for when they completely rejected the project idea.

4pm last Thursday was the set time, the mayor finally having arranged the meeting for HAPCO, the Iddir, himself, and me. My heart raced with nervousness as my supervisor and I walked to the meeting.  Having been reading a book about war I couldn’t help but think how our situation was analogous to going to battle.  We strode into the meeting with peace agreement in hand but weapons in our back pockets in case it got nasty.

I sat in a daze as Amharic filled the room, trying my best to keep up with the conversation.  The Iddir chairman having forgotten his peace agreement instead went straight for his pistol; I expected nothing more.  His words were slurred, and as usual I could not comprehend his speech other than to know that it was nothing short of bombastic.  I watched the Mayor’s response and he remained unshaken, giving me my first ounce of hope.

The day had turned into night and we finished the meeting mainly because the room in which we were sitting had no electricity.  As we dispersed into the chilly street I turned to my supervisor to verify what all was said in the meeting. No shots had been fired and although it got off to a rocky start, filled with complaints and disagreements, it ended with handshakes and smiles. My suspensions were confirmed: the container was to be used for the internet café! I doubted and doubted only to be surprised by a positive outcome.

This is the container we will use for the internet cafe!

Apparently the other Iddir members were more willing to negotiate, less interested in hearing themselves talk, thankfully.  We have had another meeting this week to write up an agreement between my project and the Iddir, knowing the community group would still be very actively involved in my project.  Community participation is the key to success for Peace Corps projects so I was in favor of a joint project.  What I wasn’t quite prepared for was the appointment of the Iddir chairman as the new chairman of the internet café project committee.  Seriously?

I’ve turned a new leaf, creating hope and optimism where one might have thought it wasn’t possible.  Maybe this new faith in the chairman is more of a begging prayer.  I still hardly understand his Amharic, am annoyed by his arrogant arm-crossing behavior when other people are finally permitted to speak, and believe he doesn’t listen to anyone besides himself, but I also think he actually wants to help the orphans.  Well, I pray he does anyway.

Next step is a meeting with all the new committee members, whom we’ve selected from various government offices including Labor & Social Affairs, Women’s Affairs, Youth & Sports, and HAPCO.  These representatives will govern the internet café after I leave, insuring that the café remains open, the project is profitable, and the orphans receive the lion’s share.  For now I’m just so very thankful there is a chance I’ll get to see this project through myself.

Bonfires & Rockets

Rockets were ignited; the sound deafening and chaos erupted in the streets of Dangila. There was a sigh of relief when I finally made it safely inside the gates of my compound as darkness fell around me.  I stared for a moment at my red-stained hands and reflected on the pandemonium the day held.

I went to bed last night after double-locking my door and comforting my dog who was scared as small explosions popped loudly near my front door.  Around 3am I awoke to silence and was thankful for the peace it brought me, but at 5am the noise was once again inescapable.  I peered out my window and saw that fires were raging in the street and smoke filled the air. Time to join the celebration, I finally conceded!

Today was my first Meskel holiday spent in Dangila and it quickly had turned into my favorite.  Ethiopia has a lot of obscure holidays, but most are celebrated in the same fashion: coffee ceremony, killing a sheep, eating injera.  But Meskel proved to be a unique and wonderful reprieve from the monotony of holidays here.

Although the holiday is officially today, Monday, September 27, 2010 (Gregorian calendar, because let’s not forget we just rang in the year 2003 in Ethiopia), Meskel celebrations began yesterday.  All over town cone-shaped bonfires were built and children anxiously ran amuck in the streets wanting to set fire to them.  But their parents' warnings halted their pyro-instincts.

I visited neighbors’ houses all day yesterday, which officially started the holiday and the process of being over-fed.  At one house, “the house of 5 girls” as I’ve labeled them, I came in just as the henna mixture was ready for application.  I accepted the fact that my hand was going to get the same treatment as theirs without a word and enjoyed my girl-time with this wonderful family.  As I sat there letting the henna dye my skin I thought about how majestic the henna dye looks on habesha hands, blending the natural golden brown skin on the back of the hand into a deep red palm.  Then I looked at my pale hand and realized I’d inevitably look like a kid who stuck their hand in Georgia clay or Kool-Aid, but what could I do about it now?

Hands stuffed in my jacket pockets, I continued to visit neighbors and enjoy the atmosphere.  I stopped to hangout with some children on my street for a while and they showed me their clever invention made from an old metal pipe and a nail all strung together with wire.  If you scrape off the head of a match and put it in the pocket formed by pipe and nail, and slam it against a rock, it creates a loud POP sound.  Some kids buy fifty sentim “rockets” which create a much louder effect, but using matches proved cheaper, so most kids opted for this method of being annoying.

The kids and I watched as parents built the bonfire tower out of wood and wrapped it in fresh evergreen branches which by the end resembled a Christmas tree by both sight and smell.  They told me the bonfire would be lit at nine o’clock, which would normally translate immediately in my head (there is a six-hour difference), except for some reason 3am seemed an unfathomable meeting time and instead 9pm stuck.  It wasn’t until 8pm, after I returned home from watching the Addis Ababa bonfire igniting on ETV and reminisced in my head about my Meskel spend there last year, that it clicked with me that the kids meant 3am!  I immediately wanted to double-check because I wasn’t going to be the fool who wakes up in the middle of the night for nothing, but at this point I was home, in my pajamas, and safe from the raucous in the street.  My final walk home just 30 minutes before was filled with dodging little boys running up with their fire-cracker invention and popping it at my feet; no way I was going back out.

I went to sleep cursing the children who kept throwing the rockets over my compound fence which would then explode in noise on my porch.  At 3am I awoke without an alarm from a loud but comforting noise, rain pounding on my roof.  The street itself was quiet though and I easily put my head back down to keep sleeping.

Around 5am was the next time I woke as children screamed with joy and rockets once again began their popping.  I threw on a jacket and hurried outside, unsure what to expect.  My neighbors happily greeted me and handed me a small bundle of sticks.  The streets where pitch black except for bonfires ablaze on each block.  My neighborhood’s bonfire was just about to be ignited and I joined in carrying the flame from an already burning fire to ours.  We chanted yohey, yohey, yoho, yoho lead by an elder and danced in a circle around the Christmas tree-like structure, then we lit it with our bundles of sticks.  The bonfire went up in a blaze and smoke from the green branches filled the air.

Bonfires eventually turned into ashes and darkness turned into a beautiful sunrise.  Corn was roasted on the remains of the fire and neighbors began their holiday celebration together in the street.  The rest of today has been spent bouncing back and forth between neighbors to accommodate all the bunna invitations; there have been quite a few coffee ceremonies.  Despite the number of cups of coffee I’ve had to drink today, the caffeine couldn’t overpower my four hours of sleep last night.  What a wonderful holiday; it will end the only way a good Ethiopian celebration can end: with a deep sleep!

My Internet Café Project

I realized recently that while I’ve mentioned my internet café project a bunch, I’ve never told the story in its entirety.  The ten orphan boys I grew to love last fall needed something sustainable to get them off the street, or at least put food in their mouths.  This past spring, while talking with my counterpart at HAPCO about helping these boys, we thought of the idea of opening an internet café whose profits will help support these orphans, and others too.  The internet café project we decided would employ one manager, one guard, and several part-time teenage orphans when they weren’t in school.  Every month a percentage of the profits would be divided amongst the orphans we wanted to help.

It was a flawless plan, we figured.  Since Ethiopians are just discovering the glory of the world wide web and Dangila isn’t yet connected (except for my house!), we thought this was a perfect business plan, bound to be a success.

I applied for Peace Corps funding through a grant accessible to Peace Corps volunteers working with HIV, funded by PEPFAR.  My counterpart and I came up with a project proposal, submitted it and were soon approved for the $5,000.  A month or two later, in July, we received the money and began figuring out the logistics of getting the café up and running.  I purchased two computers, a photocopy machine, and a printer in Addis and hauled them up to Dangila.  The next step was securing a location – if you haven’t read my blog entry “Not Knowing Everything” (and why would you have not?) you should now, to understand the rest of this story.  And yet here I am, two and a half months later, without a container for the café.

There is no such thing as a free lunch, or container apparently.  There is a catch with this supposed “empty container for orphans.”  An Iddir (community group) was put in charge of organizing the container to benefit orphans from kebele 05 (which is like a small county or neighborhood- - there are five in Dangila).  The container was actually purchased with HAPCO funding over a year ago and since then, not a single birr has been given to the orphans it was suppose to support.  Yet the Iddir won’t relinquish control of the container.

The Iddir chairman’s reasons for not giving the container to this internet café project are flawed and ridiculous.  He says the container is suppose to help only kebele 05 kids, while our project has six orphans from kebeles 01-04.  Twelve of eighteen are from kebele 05 though and we increased the number of orphans early in the project to include all children which were supposed to be supported by the failed container projects.

It came to me one day that I should write him a sincere letter asking if we could please work together to achieve the mutual goal of helping orphans.  It was translated with the help of my friend and presented it to him in his office.  He hardly looked at the letter and definitely wouldn’t look me in the eye.  All he said was, “Aychelem” – it’s not possible.

Next step? Well, HAPCO has a signed contract with the Iddir since the funding originally came from them.  The Iddir promised to help set up a business to help the orphans, and a year later since they have not yet supported the orphans, HAPCO has the ability to take the container back, to give it to my project.  The mayor, who is in full support of my internet café project, wants to first give the Iddir time to “do the right thing” and simply hand over the container. Not likely. Hence the two and a half months of waiting.  And I fear if HAPCO actually tries to enforce the contract and take the container back things could get really ugly.

In the meantime we conducted a basic computer and basic business training for the eighteen orphans we want to help.  The internet café is not simply giving these orphans a portion of its profits, but the project also aims to keep the children involved in the café, and make them active internet users (which they will be able to access free-of-charge for a certain number of hours per month).

With the training completed and the waiting game with the Iddir still counting days, I am starting to worry.  There are only three and a half months left until I leave Dangila and finish Peace Corps, so I am starting to fear this project won’t finish.  I have literally put blood, sweat, and tears into this project (albeit blood by paper cut).  Six months have passed since brainstorming this idea and at the moment I’m feeling disheartened.  I don’t know where to go from here and simply waiting is becoming an impossibility.

Tears and frustration. Sometimes you can give all you have and it still might not be enough.  But I’m not giving up. No ma’am.

Sharing Dangila

For over a year and a half I’ve survived, even thrived, on being the only foreigner in Dangila.  Being the only ferengi in a town here certainly has its ups and downs. It almost seems like the easy way, having another person to always talk English to and share hardships with, but since most of us came to Ethiopia not knowing a soul, we want our own experiences.  Many volunteers prefer to have their towns to themselves, not having that constant comparison, not having children call them by the wrong name, and not feeling as if you each have your territory in town.

So two months ago, when a jica (Japanese international corporation association, aka Japanese Peace Corps) car rolled up outside my compound, I met the site development team with eagerness and skepticism.  Dangila is my town, just listen to the kids yelling my name, or ask the mayor, he’ll tell you.  But I’ve known jica for a while, enjoying getting to know the volunteers in neighboring towns, and I have always wondered why Dangila didn’t ever receive a volunteer.  In August, the staff members told me, we’d be receiving two!

Decision made for me, not that I ever thought the decision would be mine.  I had a month to ponder my new ferengi neighbors and decided that I would give them a chance, after all, I had had Dangila to myself for a long time.  Their week-long site visit finally came at the end of July, and after running into one of them on the street I invited the two volunteers and their counterparts to dinner at my house.  Funny story: I didn’t intend to invite four strangers to my house but somehow through broken communication it happened, so I did what any gracious hostess would do, bought a kilo of pasta and started planning my first dinner party.

When the dinner came, only the volunteer I met on the street, Taish, and his counterpart, were able to attend, so it was a good thing that I didn’t start preparing the food until they arrived! This is very Ethiopian I realize, to invite people over and then expect them to wait, and very Peace Corps to expect them to help with preparation, but I really like the idea now.  I made pasta and tomato sauce, as basic as it gets, but to my Japanese and Ethiopian guests it was foreign, and they agreed, delicious!  One interesting development that came from this dinner was that Taish was looking for a house, and it came up that there was a vacancy in my compound (my former house), so I suggested he ask the landlord for details.

Then there was a month of waiting for the jica members to return after training and officially move in.  It was set that Taish would move into my former house, which I was slightly uneasy about, but realized I should accept the new situation and stop being selfish.  And my reasons were just that, selfish; Taish is a perfectly nice person, and I really looked forward to having a new friend in town, but him living in my neighborhood, and in my compound, means that inevitably I will be replaced.  I am the ferengi in my part of town, and more than that, “Jennifer” even means ferengi to many people.  Will I be giving that up when Taish moves in? I thought.  Most volunteers have a difficult time thinking about the next volunteer coming to their town after they leave, and an almost painful feeling about that person just replacing his/her life and slipping into their role with his/her friends and neighbors.

Taish moved in, I finally met Moto, the second volunteer who is still searching for a house, and life hasn’t changed all that much.  I have really embraced the idea of having them in town, and I like getting to know Taish around the compound.  Just last night I had Taish over for dinner (which will likely happen a lot more considering he has no stove and eats mainly bread) and it’s great to talk to him about all the frustrations of life here. We talk in broken English, but through simple words and pantomimes we vented about children, food and funny cultural differences.  We each come from such different cultures ourselves, but we still find the same things odd here in Ethiopia, which is comforting to know!

Nostalgia is kicking in already as I savor each round of coffee and plate of injera.  I already know the next four months will fly by, and thinking about leaving and having a replacement already is sad.  It is nice to know Taish though and have someone here that will be easy to communicate with for the next couple years.  For now he is having to put up with all the comparisons about our Amharic and integration levels, but I have reassured him that in a couple years they’ll have forgotten me and be complimenting his excellence.  It’s a perpetual cycle, but something you deal with as a volunteer here, something I’ve come to terms with, but for the next four months it’s still my turf and I’m going to live it up.

Choosing My Campers

This past spring Peace Corps informed all the volunteers in country that there is funding for us to host summer camps in each region!  We all teamed up in our respective regions and began throwing around ideas for fun and creative summer camps.  Fast forward a few months later… the camp is next week!  While most people were on top of their camper recruitment, I was not so organized.  Each volunteer is able to bring two campers, which we decided could be either one girl and one boy, or two girls.  The camp is about gender equality and leadership (among other things) so we wanted to ensure at least an equal-gender ratio, if not slightly skewed toward girls.

With school final exams taking up most of June, the Dangila school directors asked if I could host my essay competition to choose my campers on June 26 after exams had finished.  That left just one week between the essay competition and the day we leave for camp! Time crunch! Last Saturday I arrived an hour early for the essay competition, which 140 students had signed up for (from grades 9 and 11), and was pleasantly surprised to find a group of eager students had already arrived.  The vice-director of the high school was kind enough to help me organize the 100 students that showed up into four classrooms, each with a teacher to proctor the exam.

One hour later I had a stack of essays to grade.  The exam had gone surprisingly smoothly and I really enjoyed the students’ enthusiasm about this opportunity.  I had given each student a half-sheet of paper to write on to limit the over-achievers and they were told to choose between the following four topics:
1.    Who is your role model? Why? What have they taught you?
2.    What will you do to change Ethiopia for the better?
3.    Are condoms a good choice to protect against HIV? Why or why not?
4.    How have you shown leadership skills? How can a leader combat gender inequality?

The camp is going to be in English mainly, so one of the major things I was looking for was their confidence in writing and comprehension.  Thanks to a PC neighbor who helped me narrow down the field of competition, we were able to choose the top seven essays within a couple hours.  Four boys and three girls all seemed to rank equally well, so I decided to call them back for an interview to decide who my campers would be.

Tuesday I had three girls and two boys show up for the interview, and after a short five-minute discussion with each, I chose my campers! What a relief to have the selection process finished!  I did run into the other two boys later on the street confused about where the interview was held, but seeing as I’d already announced the winners and everyone else didn’t seem to have a problem finding my office, I took it as a sign they weren’t suppose to be the chosen ones. I will also add that I was very happy to find out that all three girl finalists were my students from the English Girls’ Club I teach at the high school and prep school.  And just to ensure you that I am not biased, I’ll admit that I’m so bad with names that I didn’t know who any of them were before they arrived for the interview.  Can’t claim causation with that one, but it was nice to see familiar faces!

Read the soon-to-be-posted blog “Meet My Campers” to read their winning essays!

This afternoon I arranged a meeting with my two campers and their parents.  I had permission slips from Peace Corps for them to sign, I informed them of the basic camp logistics, and we arranged a meeting time to leave on Saturday.  And then it hit me: These parents are sending their teenagers away with me for a week.  Who am I to answer their pressing questions about safety?  Who I am to claim responsibility for their children? It feels like just yesterday that I was on the opposite side of those parent permission slips.  It was like I could hear those exact same worrisome questions coming out of my own father’s mouth.  I assured them with confidence that we would watch over their children for the week.  Strong words coming from this white girl they just met, especially when she still feels like a child herself most days.

It made me realize that I am responsible here, and I am a grown-up.  I have a real job and I am respected in the community.  Moreover, I will do everything in my power to keep those kids safe next week, and to have one hell of a good time!

World Cup Fever

June in Ethiopia is pretty slow, at least in the life of a Peace Corps volunteer.  I remember it being slow last year, but this year the days just seem to drag by.  I mentioned in a previous blog that June has turned into a waiting game.  Students are having exams, which means I can’t teach my English class, and I’m not permitted to be on campus most days, even to arrange future programs.  The money for my internet café project has yet to come in, so that is at a stand still at the moment.  This leaves a lot of time for drinking coffee, eating injera, and watching the World Cup!

Not the world’s biggest soccer… er… football fan, but I’ve come to really appreciate the camaraderie of watching the matches with energized strangers.  Cafes and restaurants with television begin to fill, together we watch the players take the field and arbitrarily we each choose the team we want to root for during the next two hours.  Later you return home and look on your map to figure out where that country you yelled so hard for is located.  Who doesn’t love it?

Ethiopians really love football.  They don’t have a team in the World Cup but they sure do care about each and every match! It’s become something to do each afternoon, and evening for that matter, and I really do love the atmosphere.  One fateful afternoon the local television cut out with just 30 minutes until America played!  When power goes off in the neighboring town it cuts our television. Bad timing! I quickly got in a bajaj taxi and asked the driver, who is one of my friends, if there was any place in town that has the games by satellite.

Success came at a price—the only place with sports satellite is the hotel I’ve successfully boycotted for the past nine months, ever since they were the only place in town to refuse to donate to my HIV testing lottery program last October.  I bit the bullet and found a cozy spot (not really, the chairs are plastic) next to some loud truckers and local sports fanatics.  The crowd continued to grow since it was the only place in a town of over 30,000 people showing the match.  Look at that, the World Cup bringing people back together—sorry HaHu Hotel for boycotting you for so long… (this is the part where they admit to being lame for not donating).

My favorite part (read: most awkward part) of that match was that with every exciting play (goal, yellow card, bad call, etc) everyone would turn around to catch my reaction.  Needless to say I haven’t returned for another game there, although I am grateful there is a place in town with the sports satellite.  Most games I watch either at my landlord’s house, a nearby restaurant that I go to all the time anyway, or recently in my compound with neighbor Yedelfree who just bought a TV!

I hope America is just as excited about the World Cup as Dangila is, even though I doubt that’s possible.  Maybe in four years I can bring some football hype your way!

A Few Life Changes

Life around Dangila has changed a lot in the past month.  All of the change was spurred by my landlord and his family moving across town.  Following that, I moved into their old house on my same compound, and a lot of my daily routines have now changed.  Living on my compound now is a woman about my age, whose younger sister (maybe 18 years old) is currently living with her.  Additionally, there is a guard my landlord hired, who is pretty old and whose mumbled Amharic I can barely recognize as the language I’ve been learning for 18 months.

My landlord built this shack in the front yard for the old guard... way to make me feel worse about my big house!

As one of the nearby missionaries said when first seeing him, “wow, he won’t be stopping any thieves quickly,” but he does help with the children who are up to no good.  There is also another worker hired by my landlord to take care of the mama and baby cows on the compound.  He now lives here too, although he is gone all day taking the mama cow somewhere (18 months later I and still don’t know where they go all day).

The guy who takes cares of the cow; Here he is helping me build a fence around my garden.

Word on the street is that 2 Japanese volunteers from the organization “jica” are moving into the compound late in the summer.  I’ll keep you updated about that—could be fun to have new foreign faces around to sympathize with me!

Having the big house is life changing, really.  Let’s start with the fact that the walls are cement! The amount of dust collecting on every little thing is now minimal as compared with my former mud house.  I have BIG windows! The house is so bright and partnered with the yellow walls and shiny white tile floors, it just makes me happy.  I have space for all that “stuff” I have collected.  It’s so nice not having to cram things under my bed.  Plus the extra space allows for fun activities, like yoga or cartwheels, right in my living room!

The tile floors are my favorite part though.  I can walk around barefoot.  I can sit down on the floor and play with Arbay.  I forgot how nice those things can be.  Life is all about the simple pleasures!  But while I love my floor, it isn’t always “shiny” as I described above, especially during muddy season (the rains have begun!).  Which leads me to my other favorite addition to this life of luxury I’m leading: Aragach.

Aragach is one of my students in my English Club.  She is 20 years old, grade 9 student, doesn’t have a father, and her mother has recently hurt her leg and cannot work to support them anymore.  At the beginning of May I started paying her to come once a week to wash my clothes, a chore I never looked forward to, but something I did find therapeutic.  It was also something I took pride in doing, but sometimes you have to take one for the team, so in order to help Aragach (without just giving her money) I decided to overpay her to help me.

Since I moved to the big house, every Saturday she also mops my floor to clean up all those muddy dog prints!  Aragach and I also moved all of my stuff to my new house by ourselves (sans one big piece of furniture we pulled two random guys off the street to help with).  I love having her around, and as much as I haven’t adapted fully to the cultural norm here of just dropping by and lingering uninvited in people’s houses, I really enjoy when she comes by.  She’s becoming like a sister, and she’s such a sweet motivated young woman.

Another big change in life is that when I go out of town, the landlord’s kids take care of Arbay allowing her to stay in their new compound.  It’s kinda fun, like dropping her off at Doggy Day Care!  Since Arbay loves roaming the neighborhood and going off on adventures, just about every day when I’m in town she will walk herself over to the landlord’s new house to hangout.  Once in their compound they don’t let her out (I think they’re afraid she’d get lost or something) so I go by to pick her up.  It works out that most afternoons now she’ll go over there, meaning I still get to see the kids every day.  I usually stay for a little while to play with the kids, which has led to way too many afternoon photo shoots.  

I am feeling more independent in my own compound now which I really like.  I also love having the kids to visit—I think we appreciate each other a lot more now.  I’m sure there will be more changes to come in the next 7 months; for now, I’m happy and adjusted.

St. Mary’s: The Ethiopian Block Party

Time is flying by and already I find myself celebrating St. Mary’s holiday without knowing it, again.  Last year you’ll recall I drank coffee with my landlord’s family and neighbors on their front porch, only later to find out this is how they celebrate St. Mary’s holiday.  This year I knew it as soon as I saw it, but still didn’t realize the holiday was approaching until the rest of town was well into their celebration.

Unfortunate scheduling had me rushing to an appointment across town yesterday afternoon to tutor a couple of the orphan boys I met last fall.  I hadn’t done much in the physical movement department on my lazy Sunday so I decided to walk, taking the shortcut through back streets instead of the paved main road.  What I didn’t know from my celebration of the holiday last year was that those without front porches instead celebrate with neighbors out in front of their houses or in the yard within their compounds.

It didn’t take me long to realize the holiday was being celebrated, neighbors from every single celebration calling me to join their party.  I kept repeating my excuse, “I have an appointment, but thank you for inviting me! Happy holiday!” while taking a obligatory scoop of nefro in my hand as I walked away.  Nefro is the holiday specialty treat, a mixture of boiled beans, corn, chick peas and barley eaten by the handful.  A few more persistent neighbors wouldn’t accept my excuse and insisted that I at least sit down for a minute to celebrate with them.

After a few blocks of walking it was comical, literally every celebration bringing me a plate of nefro for me to take a handful from.  At any single point of my journey I had nefro in hand, barely finishing one household’s snack before politely taking some from the next.  It figures that about half way to my appointment my landlord’s family calls me, beckoning me to come drink coffee, and, of course, eat nefro.  I knew I had to go; I already missed their big Easter celebration with neighbors and felt horrible.  I debated turning around, retracing my steps back to my house right then, but thought the path of least resistance (without having to explain my sudden return to every celebration along the way) was to continue to where I was going, which was on the main road, and from there I could get a bajaj taxi back to my house.

The second half of my walk turned out to be the same pace as the first half.  Five steps forward, two steps back, one scoop of nefro, repeat.  I was impressed by how many of the celebrations had at least one person who knew my name, meaning there were hardly any “ferengi” calls.  I finally made it to the main road and waved down a bajaj, never making it to my appointment.  Luckily appointments here are easily rescheduled, and hardly ever obligatory.  And I didn’t disappoint my landlord’s family, whom I’ve come to think of as my own family.  I managed to turn a simple walk across town into a joint-celebration with more families than I can count, on a holiday I didn’t know was going on!

Busier Than Ever

 I need to meet with Tilahun in the morning, and we must get the final prices from garages for construction material, oh, and I told Yebeletal I’d meet him at 10am, AND I said I would have lunch with him and his wife! Oh Jennifer, you still haven’t asked Peace Corps for a sample project proposal, and you should also send an email to potential donors too…

I continue to toss and turn, not being able to fall asleep or calm my mind from all that is running through it.

About a year ago I think on any average day my mind had to race to think of just something to do, and now the work is abundant.  I no longer title my lists, “To Do” but, “Must Do!”  I’m not sure when this change occurred, which is usually a sign that it happened gradually, but in this case I feel like my workload quadrupled overnight.  I’m teaching the class of girls still, but we’ve combined the classes so it is just twice a week.  Thankfully, it is no longer four evenings a week because I now have time to tutor a few primary school boys one day a week.  I’m working with HAPCO to start an internet café/photocopy center to benefit 15 orphans.  I am trying to help the Anti-Malaria Association with creating an association for the commercial sex workers in town, which I will eventually help write a grant proposal to assist them with changing their work.  Finally, I’ve been starting to talk to Health Extension Workers and Traditional Birthing Assistants about having an official training so they can work together in the future.

No wonder my mind is running non-stop.

I am a good bit into “Year 2” now and I finally understand why Peace Corps is a 2-year commitment (27 months to be exact).  I remember reading that stipulation and thinking, “wow, that is quite a long time!”  Daunting, in fact.  The thought of committing to 2 years of anything right out of college is a little much, yet alone saying, “yes, I want to spend the next 2 years in a developing country of your choice, Peace Corps.” And with the roll of a dice, here I am, in Ethiopia.

But I understand now.  It could be that I now see each month as a number; the end is in sight and I feel like I have so much left to do, so my jog has turned into a sprint.  Except I don’t think that is why I have so much to do right now.  I think it truly takes a year to finally settle into your community, to even begin to understand some of the problems here, and finally start to realize how I can help.  It takes a year to find counterparts that understand what you’re here to do and who are willing to help you with projects.  It takes a year for even a portion of the 36,000 people in urban Dangila to even know that I live here. And apparently it takes a year to finally receive a semi-accurate sounding population statistic for your town!

Arbay is happy here too!

I get it.  It’s the Year 2 thing.  Twelve months ago I wouldn’t have considered extending my contract here.  I didn’t understand how someone could consider extending, just because I missed home so much that it was painful.  It would be like starting a marathon and in the first mile saying, “why don’t I make it an even 30 miles today?”  But once you get towards the end you can consider maintaining that pace a bit longer.  That being said, I’m not going to extend my service.  However, I would consider it, and even that is a huge change in my frame-of-mind from a year ago.

There are so many differences in Year 1 and Year 2.  I don’t think I ever realized there would be before right now.  I started thinking of Dangila as home a long time ago, so I never considered it could be more than that.  I recently finished the book The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner and in the book he ponders the quote from his friend, “I mean, in the end, you come home because this is where you live.”  Last year I called Dangila home because it was where I lived.  Now I call it home because there are countless families who consider me part of their family, restaurants remember I don’t like sugar in my tea, the kids know my name… but definitely not just because it is where I live.

Fasika, Take Two

‘This is wonderful duro wat!’ I complimented my landlord’s wife, as is cultural here in Ethiopia.

‘If it is wonderful duro wat that means it will be a wonderful Easter!’ she replied.

A great omen I thought for the day ahead.  Good thing too, since it was bound to be a long one—that first helping of duro wat was served to me at 6am this morning.

As I prepared my new group 3 neighbors for the biggest Ethiopian holiday celebration, I had one piece of advice for them: don’t over-commit yourself!  I have been anticipating Easter for a month now, and knew that while I was going to thoroughly enjoy the holiday here in Dangila, this year would be different; I wasn’t going to tell more than two families I would come to their houses on Easter.  Somehow, that plan went awry.

Last year I think I accepted any invitation that came my way, an "I’ll-take-what-I-can-get" kind of attitude.  As you can read from my blog last April, I had far too many commitments for one day, and had no idea what I’d gotten myself into.  This year it was a completely different situation; I have so many wonderful and close friends that I simply couldn’t refuse people’s offer for me to spend the holiday with them and their families.  And I knew exactly what I was getting myself into, but I just couldn’t say ‘no.’  Moreover, because I have such close friends it was less an invitation and more a statement of what time I was going to be at their houses on Easter Sunday.  Three such invitations presented themselves throughout the past week and I obliged them all with a grateful acceptance, but I will admit the fourth invitation was not exactly unsolicited.

Knowing Easter was approaching, I couldn’t have imaged not spending part of my day with Tizita’s family, who I spent Easter morning with last year.  Something about having a constant between the two celebrations was appealing, so I planned on having lunch at Tizita’s family’s café on Thursday before Easter, hoping to secure an invitation.  Worked like a charm; I hadn’t even placed my order for lunch before Tizita’s mom asked if I was going to be in Dangila for Easter.

So with all the invitations in place I anticipated a long day with way too much food, but I was looking forward to the festivities as if it were Christmas day! Easter is such a huge holiday here that I suppose I really did get wrapped up in all the preparations and I was also looking forward to finally breaking the fast!  I woke up at 6am and hopped right out of bed, knowing my compound family would already be awake and enjoying the first course of meat for the day.  As soon as they realized I was awake they summoned me inside for a tasty platter of duro wat (chicken stew—the holiday specialty).  For all you injera-lovers out there, well, anyone who actually knows good Ethiopian food, it was more than just good wat, but tequs injera, freshly made within the hour—yum! 

And so the day had begun, the fast had been broken, and my only obligation for the day was to eat! I brought the children some Easter candy and unwrapped a few myself before I witnessed the first sheep slaughtering of the day by my landlord.  Then I was off to Tizita’s family around 9am (I received 3 different times from 3 different family members about what time I should arrive, so I decided on a 9am average).  I was promptly served another platter of duro wat—a whole tequs injera all to myself. As the day began I savored every bit, eating to fill my stomach with the delicious food.  Next came a coffee ceremony with a snack (as is required for the ceremony) followed with a platter of homemade “cheese” (old milk), and I began to realize that fasting has its perks in Ethiopia.  In fact, I realized all of my favorite Ethiopian foods are fasting foods, but I politely ate my fair share of all the holiday goodies.  I knew Tizita and her family would never let me leave before having some of the first platter of tebs from the second sheep of the day I just witnessed slaughtered.  So I waited for the food and finally left after tebs right around noon. 

I loved being invited back to Tizita’s family’s celebration.  It was such a treat for me to be in a familiar place with familiar people and to have an idea of what to expect.  Year 1 here I may have been comfortable with the people, but the traditions surrounding each holiday were still a mystery—moreover, it is like Christmas in America, where every family celebrates in a different way, so it isn’t something you can simply be taught.  Those three hours spent at my favorite little café, with a family who loves me and knows me was relaxed and easy.  And although it had differences from the year before, the major constant, which I expected, was that for those three hours I continually had a plate of food in front of me, and was continually told, “Be!” eat!

I should have known that appointment would have lasted until noon, but I guess I was optimistic about the amount of time it takes to slaughter a sheep, so now I found myself with my third invitation starting at noon and had just received a phone call from the fourth telling me to come now!  I swung by number four, ate a quick plate of duro wat, ran home to grab some candy for the kids at the next house, and luckily caught a bajaj to the other side of town for invitation number three: Yebeletal and his family.  He is my co-teacher for the English Club and a wonderful friend; his house had recently become a place I have frequented, especially since his wife just had a baby girl whom I adore!

Arriving 30 minutes late for the appointment, I was surprised to see that I was the last to arrive—surprised because Ethiopians are never on time.  However, I was greeted with warm smiles, holiday wishes, and not a mention of my lack of punctuality.  I was served several cups of coffee right away, we had a blessing from the elder in the house (Yebeletal’s father-in-law), and my third sheep slaughtering of the day commenced.  There came a point in the day where the meals became less of a treat and more of an obligation, and the instruction, “Be!” was less a friendly reminder and more a dreaded command.  I really enjoyed socializing with Yebeletal and his family for the two hours I was at his house, and one of my favorite things about him is his great English.  And we often chat about cultural differences, so he knows that I don’t like certain Ethiopian foods, namely, qeybay, butter with spices.  So while I was absolutely full, I really did look forward to the tebs made exactly the way I like them.  And you really can’t complain about meat that fresh, so I slowly but surely ate the food placed in front of me.

At 2:30pm I bid farewell to Yebeletal and family, waddled out to catch a bajaj wishing my skirt had a button to unfasten, and made my way home thinking I had until 4pm to rest up.  I let the kids come inside and watch a DVD on my laptop (Enchanted was the pick of the day) and I happily lounged on the sofa for about 30 minutes until my landlord’s wife called me in for “coffee”… but it’s never just coffee.  I sat around with my landlord, his wife, and one remaining guest while they fed me dulet and a beer and told me how I’d disappeared for their coffee ceremony—oops!  I actually preferred the calmness of just being with them though instead of the chaos of the ceremony where all the neighbors cycle in and out, despite their disappointment (in my defense they never told me what time their coffee ceremony would be).  I then watched a bit more of the movie with the kids and at 4pm went back to the house of invitation four, with whom I’d only briefly eaten duro wat before.

For now, I’m going to leave you waiting—I’ve decided to write about the rest of the day tomorrow.  The story about my “fourth invitation” family is extended, so I’ll make this a two-part entry.

to-be-continued…

Hitting the Ground Running

I arrived back in Dangila just one week ago and have already logged more hours in the classroom than in the entire prior year.  Before I left for Mid-Service Conference my counterpart from the Anti-Malaria Association, Yebeletal, and I decided we wanted to co-teach a group of girls grade 9-12.  We decided upon a basic curriculum, English and Life skills, and approached the high school and preparatory school in town about our “English Club” idea.  They were immediately receptive, but I still doubted the amount of work that would be done to arrange the classes while I was out of town.

To my surprise when I visited Yebeletal’s office the day after arriving back in Dangila he said we had class that night, and two classes the next day! Moreover, one session of the class had already been conducted without me!  I immediately jumped onboard and began preparing my Life skills (empowerment tools) lessons.  Now I am teaching a two-hour class four days a week! The schools were instructed to choose 15 female students from each grade that wanted to attend an extracurricular class, and we divided them into two groups to keep the classes under 30 students each.

In addition to teaching, HAPCO (my counterpart organization) has finally received funding for their normal activities such as VCT (Voluntary Counseling and Testing, for HIV).  These events I have mentioned in the past, where the health workers go out into the community and set up a testing station for a few days at a time to allow residents to get tested without having to go to the health center.  This week I’ve attended two all-day VCT events at the high school, where my job includes running around trying to recruit the 9th and 10th graders to get tested, along with trying to speed up the line of people waiting by taking student’s age and distributing identification numbers.  In just two days 600 students were tested!  I feel like the past week has been a complete whirlwind of events and work; In fact, I haven’t even had time to unpack my backpack from the trip.

I’ve been talking to my HAPCO supervisor about starting a project with those 10 orphaned boys I helped out late last year, and I have a couple other big project ideas swirling around in my head that should keep me just as busy for the next six months.  The craziest part of all this chaos is that the months I have left here definitely feel numbered. I’m down to less than 10 months until my group can begin to COS (close service).  As exhausted as I am from this week filled with long workdays, I would love to spend the next 10 months doing just that.  I really want to make the most of every day I have left here, because I know it will all be over with before I know it.

Once again, I want to thank everyone for supporting me in this journey of mine.  I am truly having the time of my life and slowly but surely discovering what I want to do in this world. Thank you.

My Disappearing Act

Arriving back from site after over 3 weeks away I wasn’t really sure what to expect.  I know I was ready to come back home to Dangila, and it was way before the 3-week mark that I felt that urge to return.  But just because I wanted to go back didn’t mean that nothing would have changed while I was away, and as I rode the 10-hour bus back to Dangila from Addis I contemplated all the possible scenarios.  I recently discovered another transport option to get back to site: The Postal Bus.  I have known there is a postal bus that makes a trip from Addis to Bahir Dar every morning that also carries passengers, not just mail, so I decided to check it out.  With the help of an Ethiopian friend I secured a ticket and began a new journey back to Dangila!  While the trip wasn’t as exciting as alone in the truck full of mail covered to my shoulders with letters to sort through (ok, maybe that’s just a fantasy only Peace Corps volunteers have) it was still a new experience, and one I will definitely repeat for future Addis trips.  

Crossing the gorge on the way back to Dangila.

One of my favorite parts of taking the postal bus was when we stopped in Dangila my good friend, and postal worker Fanta was there awaiting me! Ok, she was awaiting the mail, but I still had someone to walk back towards my house with as I nervously entered town for the first time in such a long time.  I was nervous-- guilty I suppose for being gone so long, like a child creeping back into her house after running away.  One of the most commonly said phrase here is “Tafash,” literally meaning, “You disappeared!” as a way of telling you they haven’t seen you in a while.  Sometimes the phrase is alluding to the fact that they haven’t seen you since breakfast that same day, but others it is justified, and this time I knew it would be the latter case.

To my surprise I didn’t get bombarded with “Tafash” as much as I suspected, but rather a big warm greeting by the society as a whole.  Normally the neighborhood kids near where I live greet me as I walk by, but this time even the mothers stepped out of the house to smile and give me a cheerful greeting.  And I must say, after a few days in site, it seems as if the community had an intervention—as if someone went around with a loud speaker yelling, “The foreigner, her name is not ferengi nor you, you, you.  She is Jennifer!”  Everyone knows my name.  I was on a street I’ve never been on before just yesterday and they knew my name! I suppose the effects of living here for a year are finally starting to kick in, and I love it.

Finding Stillness

The key to living here is recognizing and enjoying life’s simple pleasures.  Letting that adorable child hold your hand on the way to town; taking time to read a book you’ve always wanted to read; saying a prayer of thankfulness when the water and electricity is working; finding a spot of stillness and peace.  When I was preparing for this Peace Corps experience I never thought I’d be reveling in any of these simple joys, but there are a lot of things about life here that I wasn’t necessarily prepared for.

Just the other day I had one of those moments of calmness in the midst of what seemed like a stressful, er, typical day in Dangila.  I decided to go for an afternoon walk through a new part of town—an activity which is asking for harassment on some level.  I realized that I had never ventured very far down my street to the left of my compound and decided spontaneously to explore.

Just a few blocks away from my house is a Mosque, which reliably wakes me with its “call to prayer” each morning, and whose minaret I consider an irreplaceable part of the Dangila skyline, but I’ve never walked past it before.  I headed in that direction and after passing the Mosque, as children began following behind me, I decided to make an ‘S’ shape, weaving through the blocks without a clear direction where I was heading.  Confused, and I assume bored of following the crazy ferengi, the children dispersed and I found myself staring down a donkey cart path that led away from town through a covering of acacia and eucalyptus trees.  I quickly took cover in the foliage of the forest, avoiding being spotted by nearby boys herding their sheep.  That path diverged into a narrow walking path, which Arbay (my dog) and I followed single-file.  I suddenly found myself surrounded on all sides by a forest; I was outdoors and completely alone (besides Arbay), for the first time in Dangila.

The only sound I could hear was the leaves on the trees rustling as the wind blew.  A sense peace and stillness came over me, and I was content to stay there the rest of the afternoon.  It was a calmness so rarely found as a foreigner here that I won’t soon forget.  I was with an antsy dog though, so our journey continued through to the other side of the forest where a field of young eucalyptus trees were growing, not yet knee-high.  I

followed on the edge of the tall forest, alongside the field, until I reached an open field where a group of boys were playing soccer.  I took a deep breath, knowing my serenity was going to be interrupted, but to my surprise a boy yelled out to me in English, “watch football!” and so I did.  I watched from the edge of the field as the boys kicked around the ball, and eventually they came over to talk to me.  I was impressed with their attitude towards me as a potential friend instead of a foreigner to gawk at inappropriately.  We talked in half English, half Amharic, and they were thoroughly entertained by my dog that shakes hands at the command of “selam.”

At the end, as I said I should go home, they made me promise to return the next day to play with them again.  A forest in Dangila that led me to a field of polite, eager young boys? I think I must have been dreaming.  I think I will explore new areas of Dangila on afternoon walks more often!

Struggles & Successes

Recently some of my friends in group 3, who just moved to site a month ago, asked me why no one ever told them how hard the first few weeks at site were going to be.  Looking back on that first year, especially that first month, I know how hard it is… beyond hard actually.  It is a personal battle of trying to find yourself in this foreign town, and trying to find your purpose for being here, a purpose to justify the struggle.  It is a challenge so much tougher than anyone warns you about or you ever imagined while filling out those Peace Corps applications in the comfort of your American home, as wanderlust occupies your thoughts.  I’m not sure if my blog properly reflected the struggles I endured, but my mom does call me her little optimist, and I always try to look on the bright side of things.  And while those first days at site were filled with personal battles, they were also filled with personal successes.  To invest yourself, your life, in your community is the only way you become a part of that community.  It is uncomfortable and tiring, but enduring those tough times is how you eventually find yourself.  Only then can you make changes here, and only then can you grow as a person.  That is how I viewed the beginning of my Peace Corps journey.

Peace Corps lunch in Dangila.

One month away from those everyday struggles and I’ve once again found myself in this battle of finding my purpose.  It took a week for me to realize I’d forgotten to downshift back to Ethiopian time and slow down my pace of life again.  And knowing I’ll be finishing my Peace Corps experience in one year brings both excitement and anxiety.  The endless possibilities for life after Ethiopia keep my mind busy, but my current lack of work makes me feel lost in Dangila once again.  I don’t just want to survive here for another year; I want to make the difference I came here to make.

After a week of feeling unsettled back in town I finally feel like I have my African shoes back on the right feet.  I still get the “ferengi” beckon when I walk through unfamiliar parts of town, and I haven’t figured out my purpose for coming to Dangila, but I do feel like I’m ready for my second year of service.  I know who my Ethiopian counterparts are in town that will help me to make changes in this community.  In addition, I have several potential projects that I hope to see come to fruition this next year.  I’ve been through the toughest part of my service, and I am certain this next year will simply fly by, so I am excited to see what 2010 has in store for me here in Dangila.

Welcome To Dangila

This past month I had the privilege of hosting my mom, dad and brother in Dangila for three days.  When I was planning our Ethiopia-section of their time in Africa, I thought about all the historical places I wanted them to see- Lalibela, Gondar, Bahir Dar.  But when it really came down to booking how many days I wanted to spend in each place, I immediately knew I wanted them to spend the most time in Dangila.  Not only did I want them to experience my home, and way-of-life, but I wanted them to meet all my friends and drink more coffee than they could handle, just as I did when I first arrived!

Our time spent in Lalibela, Gondar, and Bahir Dar was fabulous.  The sites in Ethiopia are spectacular and one-of-a-kind, but my favorite part of having them here was the hospitality received in Dangila.  I knew I had some wonderful friends here, but the warm welcome they gave my family was so special and unrivaled.  The first night in Dangila, we were invited over to Ali and Billie’s house.

They used to live in my compound, but moved out a few months ago into a bigger house nearby.  We all sat in their living room and spoke in broken English, while I translated the rest of the details back and forth.  They served us a plateful of injera and wat; some of the best I’ve had in Ethiopia!  I was a little nervous about having my family taste Ethiopian food in a restaurant the first time, but at least there, you can openly say something doesn’t taste great.  At a friend’s home, it is a bit harder to reject the food!  Luckily, the food was well received by my family.  Thanks for being troopers family.   Then, as we were putting our plates down, satisfied by the delicious food, another round of plates came out!  That’s right, another plateful, but this time it was western food! Spaghetti, tomato sauce (with burbere spices of course) and bread; we all looked at each other with wide eyes.  We graciously accepted the second dinner and followed it by a coffee ceremony, although there was quite a bit of food left over.

The next night we had yet another two-course meal, featuring almost all the same foods! It was amazingly thoughtful how all my Ethiopian friends catered to our needs and welcomed us into their homes.  My favorite part of coming to my town was the night we first arrived, after the first marathon meal, my friends Tigist and Tewelde awaited us back near my house.  They were so excited about meeting my family, and they came bearing gifts.

They had an “Ethiopian” beaded bracelet for each of them, freshly made local bread, local-made potato chips, and Christmas cards for us!  It was the nicest thing.  Then they escorted my family back to their hotel on the main road.

It truly brought tears to my eyes.  The hospitality here and love I receive from all my Ethiopian friends is truly the reason I am still here.  They teach me something new every day about selflessness and generosity.