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.