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.