I've decided to start blogging at a new location since I'm finally back home from the Blue Nile area!

Check out my new stories about life in America and future travel plans here: www.travelswithabackpack.blogspot.com .

There are so many more stories I wanted to tell, but alas I must write this to say goodbye. I asked myself for a long time now “How do you say goodbye to a place you love, a life you created?” In retrospect it was a lot harder to think about then to actually do. The reality was that I had to leave, whether packed up or not, house full or empty, my time had come to sign out of Peace Corps. So my last days were mainly filled with box packing and coffee ceremonies. Everything seemed sort of normal, and since I chose Ethiopian Christmas as my last half day in site, it was filled with celebration anyway, despite my leaving.

There was a lot to do my last week and that kept me busy. I sold furniture, had final coffee/tea breaks with friends, did some last-minute painting on the internet cafe, gave away almost everything I had to both Peace Corps volunteers and Ethiopians. I never cease to amaze myself with the amount of stuff I’m capable to collecting in a relatively short period of time. It took days to sort through and ended with the culmination of a bonfire on Ethiopian Christmas morning to get rid of things I didn’t want anyone digging out of my trash pit in years to come.

I guess it seemed like it wasn’t really happening, like I was just taking the steps but couldn’t process the leaving. Christmas morning I didn’t give myself a lot to do, only Aregach and the house of five girls were on the agenda; the two goodbyes I was dreading the most. Just as Dominik and I awoke Aregach was there with a crew of people to carry away my bed, and last remaining piece of furniture. An early lunch with the house of five girls included the holiday dish duro wat and an extra special coffee ceremony, because it was my last. It started to feel real as we were taking pictures in the middle of the coffee ceremony and the mom of the house, Fentanesh, started to cry. Me and Fentanesh

There are so many things I love about Fentanesh, my Ethiopian mom. It amazes me what little the whole family has and yet how happy everyone always seems. Fentanesh always wears dresses, always traditional, and has the traditional rural face tattoos. She comes from such a different generation and yet has four daughters, the oldest of which is about my age, all of which wear jeans and fashionable clothes. It’s such a uniquely Ethiopian contrast showing the changing times. The whole family loved Arbay, my dog, and yet at the same time were completely freaked out by her. They would pet her, but with any little movement would jump back. Fentanesh calls Arbay, “Baby” which always made me smile. And she would tell me to let Baby off her leash so that she could go play with her friends. During my last week Dominik and I went to their house to pour injera, traditionally a woman’s job. They all loved that Dominik was going to join in! After we made our injera Fentanesh sat us down inside to eat and a few minutes later she was calling my name from outside because she wanted her picture taken pouring injera too! It was the cutest thing.

So, now you see, that when Fentanesh started crying while pouring coffee on Christmas, I couldn’t stop crying either. It’s not cultural to cry in Ethiopia. If someone cries in public, which no one would be shameful enough to do besides a foreigner (and believe me, I have) people simply say to you, “stop that!” But this morning as we all sat around drinking rounds of coffee, we all wiped away tears and no one told anyone to stop. About an hour later the minibus arrived at my house and it was time to leave. Finally a hug and goodbye to Aregach, a quick stop at the house of five girls to drop off one last present which made us all cry again, and then we left, once and for all.

I signed up for two years of Peace Corps (27 months to be exact) but somewhere in the middle of that time you forget about months and years. You find yourself living in a country surrounded by new friends, cut off significantly from the outside world, out of touch with all things popular and new, and Ethiopia became my reality. And now that it’s time to leave Ethiopia it feels weird, almost wrong in a way to leave all that I learned to love. I’ve started thinking about all the things I’ve learned from my time here, and even after I have a chance to process more I’ll post the list, even though it won’t start to summarize my time.

For my final three weeks of Peace Corps, including Christmas and New Years, my boyfriend, Dominik, is visiting Ethiopia. In a sense it has been strange introducing him to this place I’m about to leave. I’m trying to let him find his footing while I’m trying to figure out how to gracefully tip toe away. It has been a wonderful opportunity for me to visit the places I know and love in order to say goodbye one last time. We were able to spend Christmas in Bahir Dar with other volunteers, visit Gondar, make a day trip to the Simean Mountains (my first time), and still have a week to spend in Dangila.

My favorite part of Christmas was our boat ride to see the hippos in Lake Tana and the source of the Blue Nile River. I invited my great Ethiopian friend Aregach to come up to Bahir Dar for the day to join our adventure. She has always told me she loves airplanes and boats, even though she’s never been in either, so I decided it was necessary that she try out at least one of the two. She has only been in Bahir Dar once before for a wedding, so I was very happy to help her see a bit more of her own country. We also invited a couple of the Bahir Dar high-schoolers Kyle knows to join our trip as well. We had such a fun time on the Christmas boat ride and saw at least five hippos, including one baby, who kept poking their heads out of the water for us to see.

For New Years we had a party at our friend Michelle’s house, a PhD student who we’ve known for a year and a half now. She was packing up her house to leave early in the new year also, so we had a big bonfire to burn her and Kyle’s trash. Some travelers and some new PCVs joined us and we had a grand time ringing in the new year. Now just a week left in site to wrap it all up before finishing Peace Corps. It’s all happening so fast, it almost doesn’t seem real.

My personal rule is that once Thanksgiving passes it’s fair game for Christmas music. So once we entered the holiday season my itunes has been blasting Christmas cheer to make it feel more like home. Considering that the weather is between 65-85 degrees most days, Ethiopian Christmas isn’t until January 7, and Ethiopian Christmas doesn’t typically involve trees, lights or decorations, I needed a lot of music to try to make up for the differences! A couple weeks ago while Kate, Emily and I were on our way to the pool in Bahir Dar and decided to play Christmas music on a speaker in the minibus for all to enjoy. Playing your personal music without earphones is quite normal, even expected, but I was surprised that no one turned to look at the foreigners as we sang our way to the pool. It helped us get a little more into the spirit of the season.

Last week the missionary family in Emily’s town invited us over for an early Christmas dinner at their house. Not sure what to expect for dinner, we were overjoyed by the smell of freshly baking bread and a very all-American meal laid out for us. Chicken, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, cranberry jelly and freshly baked cookies! We all reminisced about Christmas pasts and enjoyed each other’s company in their comfortable home. After a while we sat around as their friend Sheryl played the guitar and we all sang Christmas carols. We were even able to hear a few traditional Christmas carols sung in Japanese by the jica volunteers!

Saturday I headed south to Addis Ababa where I was anxiously awaiting my boyfriend’s arrival from Europe. After the mess of winter weather had the final word, canceling his flight and rescheduling for three days later, I was blessed to have an offer to stay with friends Jess and Brian in Addis. Moreover, their friend was having a Mexican Christmas dinner and they invited me to join the festivities! I was also very grateful that other volunteers were in town to hang out with during the past couple days in Addis, trying to take my mind off of snow delays in Europe. As sad as I was to not have my boyfriend, Dominik, in town yet, it was wonderful to have gracious friends around helping me pass the time until his arrival.

When I arrived in Ethiopia in December 2008 I spent Christmas with my training group on a day trip to a nearby lake. Then Christmas 2009 I was in Bahir Dar with my family on vacation, and several Peace Corps volunteers. Finally I’m wrapping up service with one more Christmas, and the plan is for Dominik and me to meet up with other Peace Corps volunteers in Bahir Dar to celebrate together. It’s amazing how fast things are finishing up here, but I am trying to enjoy every moment I have left.

Merry Christmas to all!!

The most-asked question from friends and family back home is “what is your average day like?” Well, average days don’t exist here. Every day is so unique, that trying to summarize what a day looks like is nearly an impossible task. Located in small towns in north western Ethiopia live three difference Peace Corps volunteers who are all fairly similar. Kate, Emily and I all happen to be mid-twenties, red-haired (to varying degrees) and recent college graduates from relatively similar backgrounds. We’ve started a Wednesday lunch get-together in our towns since we live so close together (furthest north to furthest south is only a one-hour bus) to help with sanity levels – necessary when none of us have people who really understand us around our towns. At one such lunch gathering we were discussing our troubles and frustrations, which always seem to be similar, and we decided to each write about one particular day to see if there were many similarities or differences. Not to say this particular day was “normal,” and not to say anything the three of us do is “normal” but nevertheless, here is a day in the lives of three Ethiopia PCVs:

Kate, Durbete

5:45am – The alarm goes off. It takes 10 minutes to wake up and prepare myself for my 40 minute am run.

6:30am – Home and sweaty. Stretch while the water heats for my shower.

7am – A quick breakfast of fruit and tea followed by a topical clean of the house- dusting away cricket carcasses and dirt accumulated in the previous 24 hours. Listen to itunes on random while I prepare for the day ahead.

9:00am – Go to the HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Office (HAPCO) via the post office where I work on my Amharic homework and participate in conversation and daily activity within the office.

12:00pm – Am given lunch from a very pregnant friend in town. We watch TV and discuss my upcoming travel plans to Addis Ababa and her very pregnant state.

1pm – Head back to my house. It is hot and I am in the middle of Steig Larson’s, The Girl Who Played with Fire.

2pm – Contemplate going back into town and visiting friends but my book and an episode of season five of The Wire hinders my motivation

4pm – Head to the Durbete High School where I discuss potential ways to obtain high school level books for the library aided by my teacher counterpart.

5pm – Amharic tutoring- learned how to describe my house and prepositions.

6:30pm – Peanut Butter Cabbage Stir Fry is what’s for dinner. Eat in front of the computer TV- THE WIRE.

7pm –Clean up after dinner and do some lunar flow pod cast yoga.

8pm – Coffee ceremony with the landlord’s family. Only one cup or else I can’t sleep!

9pm – Snuggle up in bed with my computer Watch and episode of BBC Planet Earth, Caves, and drift to bed.

Jennifer, Dangila

6am – After trying to avoid my dog’s whines I get out of bed and go for a run with the neighborhood kids.

7:15am – Leisurely make a pot of coffee, feed my dog, listen to music, read my current page-turner I Didn’t Do It For You, and get dressed for the day.

9am – Leave my house to go visit the Anti-Malaria Association (AMA). After hanging out with the girls who work there, I visit counterpart Yibeltal to discuss our project of forming an association for commercial sex workers in town.

10am – Walk to HAPCO to visit my PC-assigned counterpart. Discuss my internet café project to help orphans in town, and print a new project budget.

11:15am – On my walk back to my house I stop to check my mailbox and found a letter from my mom! Then, almost home, I get called into my neighbor’s house for coffee and injera.

12:30pm – Finally back home. I realize my dog escaped the compound, likely to go play with my landlord’s kids across town. I read my book for a while and check email.

3pm – Walk back to AMA to discuss future projects with Yibeltal. Then I ran into the Japanese volunteer organization (jica) staff in town searching for a new house for their volunteer. Since I know the town best, I offer to help them search for a bit.

5pm – Internet café project committee meeting. We establish a plan for the remaining budget.

6pm – Walk home from the meeting and stop by my landlord’s compound to get my dog and walk her home.

7pm – Cook up a fresh zucchini from my garden for dinner. Yum!

8pm – Clean up dishes and read my book some more. Get online and chat with friends in America who are at work. Gotta love PC.

10pm – Finally bedtime. I get in bed and read my book until I fall asleep.

Emily, Kosober/Injibara

5:30am – Morning run time. Keep pace with kids carrying sacks of charcoal on their head.

7am – Download news articles online. Drink too many cups of coffee.

9am – Go to the Orphan Shelter. Attempt to teach English and three-legged race. Take pictures and almost pee my pants laughing so hard.

11am – Make shiro (again) for lunch. Read a few chapters in a book. Contemplate the desire to leave my house again.

2pm – Go to post office. It’s closed. Again. During working hours. Rent a bike and go to high school for meeting about English Conversation Club.

2:30pm – While waiting for meeting to start, I talk to teachers about America (No, I can’t take you back with me) and how, of course, you want to perfect your English, yeah, we will get that arranged soon.

3pm – Teacher finally shows up. Talk in circles. Convince him that my way is the best way while making it seem like it is his idea. Genius.

4pm – Get back home. Landlord calls me into her house. Hands me her kids. Serves me injera with a tongue-burning, eye-watering sauce. Run to my house to drink three glasses of powdered milk and finish a jar of peanut butter I bought yesterday.

5:30pm – Amharic lesson. My teacher has enough patience to sound out every syllable. I would have upturned the table by now. Good guy.

6:30pm – Brush teeth. Wash face. Collect pension check for getting into bed before 7:30 PM. Read book.

8pm – Landlord knocks on my door, reminding me of our fir fir (basically injera with injera) cooking lesson. Now?! She is already setting up shop in my kitchen area. Pretend to take a bite. After she leaves, I put it back in the pot. Breakfast done.

9pm – Bed time was 30 minutes ago. Ear plugs in to block sounds of the zoo in my ceiling. Sweet dreams.

Kate’s blog:

Emily’s blog: Emily’s Ethiopian Experience http://etothethree.blogspot.com/

I don’t even know how to start this post, because I cannot remember exactly how the story began. I’ve known a few of the jica (Japanese volunteer organization) volunteers in neighboring towns since my first week at site when we ran into each other on the street one day. But knowing they existed in nearby towns meant that I could mention them by name, but I didn’t know anything about them. Then Peace Corps Group 3 arrived at sites, placed in neighboring towns with jica and sometime after that officially began the Peace Corps-jica friendship gatherings.It began as a cultural food exchange dinner. The first month the jica members prepared an impressive spread of Japanese food, and the next month it was our turn to show them some good ol’ American food. We’ve also climbed a nearby mountain together and continued organizing a monthly meal since the summer. We even branched out one month and met for a koica (Korean volunteer organization) member’s birthday in Bahir Dar and had over six nationalities represented!Somehow we’ve managed to never have our meeting in Dangila though, and since we now have two jica volunteers and I have a fancy new house to entertain in, we decided to have the December (and my final) gathering at my house! Our meetings have evolved into potluck lunches or dinners where we wind up with a wonderful mix of cultural food from America and Japan. Yesterday we met at my house around noon to eat lunch, and since Taishi, who lives in my compound, still doesn’t have a stove (he is going to buy mine) I offered for the jica guys to come cook at my house.There were four Peace Corps Volunteers, four jica members and Aregach, the Ethiopian representative. Cultural exchange with our Japanese neighbors doesn’t exactly fit into one of the Peace Corps goals, but it counts for something we figure. Nevertheless, I would never not invite Aregach to hangout when my friends come into town because she loves to try to understand our speedy English conversations, and observe our foreign antics. It never occurred to me during that lunch just how strange this situation was for Aregach, but the next day when I went to tell my former co-teacher, Yibeltal, about the lunch, he said Aregach had already told him. She reported the details of our party to Yibeltal first thing, surprised by how we each brought food and some even brought it to prepare at my house!

I suppose the idea of potluck or BYO… Food is normal to us, but it just doesn’t fit into the Ethiopian culture of hosting. To look at our gathering from an Ethiopian point-of-view it is bizarre that I, as host, not only expected others to bring food, but also that they, as guests, would think of coming to make food in my home! But as she sat there to take it all in, and taste the treats, Aregach didn’t mention a word about her amazement. It makes me laugh in hindsight to realize how strange our lunch was to her. Sharing this concept of potluck with Aregach certainly does fit Peace Corps goals! And Yibeltal suggested that next time she should bring Ethiopian food! I think it is wonderful that Aregach was able to experience our international food event, but also that jica and Peace Corps volunteers were once again able to enjoy each other’s culinary talents! I will certainly miss these get-togethers, and hope to one day taste that Japanese food on its home soil.

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.

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 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.

Life in Peace Corps is filled with acronyms, and this week was nothing less. Saturday I woke up bright and early to take the GRE at Addis Ababa University. Sunday I participated in the Great Ethiopian Run along with 35,000 other people. And finally the past few days have been spent at one of the finest resorts in Ethiopia at my group’s Close-of-Service conference. A weekend I anticipated and looked forward to as a test of both mind and body followed by a week of relaxing, and almost all went as expected, a rarity here!

This great weekend I had anticipated for several months turned into a weekend I was dreading last week because I felt unprepared. I had hardly studied for the exam and only ran twice since back at Ethiopian altitude. Test of mind and body? I feared failure at both. All I can say in hindsight is that I finished both, and I’m proud of it! The exam went well, although it will be a while to find out the results, as Ethiopia is one of the few testing centers in the world that still uses paper tests. The run was a bit rough, but I’m grateful for fellow PCV and neighbor Emily who stuck with me the whole time, and proud to say I didn’t walk a step. That’s a hard thing to accomplish in a crowd of 35,000 people! The run was unlike anything I could quite imagine; a sea of unattractive yellow and green tshirts all heading in the same direction. Being surrounded by a crowd of thousands of Ethiopian is a legitimate nightmare of mine, but thankfully this day the focus was not on me.

The feeling of accomplishment an hour and nineteen minutes later was unmatched. And the feeling of camaraderie with the fellow racers kept all of us smiling for the whole day as we passed each other in the streets. The scene was chaos, and yet it worked in a uniquely Ethiopian way. A hole in the road big enough to swallow a racer was simply blocked by some kid standing in front of it. The walkers, well, they walked in the middle of the road, of course, and you just had to find a side path to pass them. At one point kids chased after me yelling for me to give them my bottle of water (this happens all the time in Ethiopia, but come on, I am running!). An old lady dressed in traditional clothes decided to cross the road during the run, and no one stopped her. And one of my favorite things I overheard was an Ethiopian couple running and one said to the other, in Amharic, “There is no winner.” Exactly.

The day after the run the 28 volunteers remaining from my group were relaxing at Kuriftu, a fabulous resort an hour south of Addis. I had no complaints as I was having a manicure, pedicure and massage! We all had a wonderful last Peace Corps conference together, learning about how to adjust back to America after life in Ethiopia and spending time all together for the last time on PC’s dime! COSing (Closing Service) happens over a two or three month period, because we all will have medical exams and plenty of administrative paperwork, so only about five volunteers can leave in any given week. We all applied for COS dates and depending on availability were given the date we wanted, or something close to it. Two of my friends, Danielle and Kyle, and I will COS on January 13, 2010, officially two years, one month and eleven days after leaving home.

Volunteers start leaving in just about a week from now, so the goodbyes were definitely becoming reality. After our getaway to Kuriftu, we arrived back in Addis on Thanksgiving Day, and we had planned a special dinner together at the Sheraton buffet! I’m not sure why it took me so long to go eat at the Sheraton buffet, well, maybe because it costs about seven days salary to eat that one meal, but it was worth every dime. I’ve never had sushi at my Thanksgiving dinner before, but I could seriously get use to it. After we were all stuffed to the brim, we rolled ourselves out of the fancy hotel and back to our semi-regular hot shower hotel and said some heartfelt goodbyes. It’s hard to believe that I won’t see these people for a really long time, and it’s even harder to imagine trying to recognize all of them with access to hair straightens, real make up and maybe even exposed shoulders! Let the nostalgia begin…

The past month I’ve been out of Dangila on vacation and it’s been a whirlwind of activities. I’m now back “home” in Dangila, exhausted and a bit confused. I looked forward to this trip for so long that it’s hard to realize that it’s actually over. Now I only have two months left in Peace Corps. It’s amazing how time sneaks up on you like that.

Going back to America was a bit overwhelming but not quite like I expected. I think I expected reverse culture shock, change, and maybe a realization about how I’ve changed. Instead, what I found was home, almost exactly as I left it. My biggest fear in signing up for Peace Corps was that scary two-year commitment. I was signing up for two year away from everything I know and love, and signing away my first two years after university to something vastly different than I ever expected I’d be doing. Everyone dreams about the future, and for me I dreamed while in university that I would graduate, move to a new city, get a job, discover true independence, and grow up a bit. In theory, I did just that except where I am now is nothing like I dreamed. The main difference here is that I didn’t have my support system to lean on. Support came; I don’t deny that, but sometimes letters and emails once a month don’t compare to long phone conversations, warm hugs, and words of support from people that truly know what you’re going through.

As the day of my flight neared I began to worry that things would be different. I feared before I left two years ago that I would miss out on so many things back home, and that fear came back as I was returning. What if I missed too much? What if everything and everyone I know grew in different directions? What if the person I am today doesn’t fit so nicely back in that cozy little spot I left two years ago? But home was exactly as I remember it. Friends, family, neighbors and pets all greeted me with love. I’ve changed, although I’m still discovering how. And my friends also have changed, as I imagined. But we still all fit back together.

Two thoughts came into my mind quite often, and the friends that were with me know them, I’m sure, because I mentioned them often. First was, “Why are there so many choices?!” Choices come from freedom, I get that, but they are so overwhelming! Everywhere I went people were forcing me to make decisions and not easy ones. I think maybe if you have a routine you are used to making all your daily decisions and don’t need to think about them each day you make them, but for me it was all new again. Communion: wine, juice or community cup? Dog food: chicken, salmon, beef, or vegan (really?)? Movie theaters: 24 movie options?! And don’t even get me started on the bread aisle at the grocery store.

The other thought I couldn’t get out of my mind was, “How can this place even be on the same planet as Ethiopia?” It amazes me that in half a day on an airplane you can arrive in a place so vastly different than the place you’re in. And it doesn’t even take half a day in most cases. Earth seems so small sometimes, and yet problems on the other side seem so easy to ignore, until you’ve seen them and lived with them. You can’t un-live or un-see the type of things that I’ve seen here. After two years I almost became numb to the differences in lifestyles, but you cannot ignore those differences when you see both extremes on the same day. Traveling home after being in Ethiopia for this long allowed me to see both of these places, both of my homes, with new eyes. I’m so grateful for the things I know and the things I’ve learned. I pray that I don’t ever forget them, but I know already that I cannot.

It’s still too soon to process the transition to America, but for now I thought I’d list all my first impressions and things that I was surprised by/forgot existed.

• Eating with my left hand (in Ethiopia it isn’t culturally appropriate)

• Saying “ishee” (“ok” in Amharic)

• Having all menu items actually available

• Going barefoot

• Sprinklers

• Car washes

• Always saying “thank you” (not cultural in Ethiopia)

• Everything is normal- that’s weird

• Picking up dog poop

• Sleeping in. Having quietness.

• Being a face in the crowd

• Realizing how HARD life is in Ethiopia. Life here can be hard too, but a different kind of hard. Always being “on” in Ethiopia and knowing people are always watching is draining. It’s just so nice to be “off.” Peace Corps really is a 24-7 job.

• Indoor carpeting in public places

• Choices!

The samples lady at Costco was announcing, “Give it a try. Fully cooked, just heat it and eat it!” I thought, really? Are those qualities you want in your food? Frozen and processed? Hmmm. Guess I view food differently now that I’ve seen what “fresh” can really mean.

Another day, a little boy walked up to my friend and me eating ice cream outside Baskin Robbins with Arbay, my dog, tied up under the table. He asked, “May I pet her?” WHAT? My wild dog? You aren’t afraid of her? I love how Americans love dogs. I forgot dogs are treated so well here! It made my day (which is a big deal considering I was also eating ice cream for the first time)!

More thoughts to come…

The gawkers of Ethiopia sure got a treat today. If a ferengi alone attracts a lot of attention, and ferengi with a dog on a leash is laughable, imagine ferengi and dog in a public bus for ten hours! I have known for some time that I would take my dog to America one day, she’s family and there is no way I could ever leave her behind. But, taking my dog to America means actually taking her there myself, and all the misadventures that come with it, and that ten-hour bus ride to Addis was the one I was dreading the most.

Having my Ethiopian dog, Arbay, for the past year and a half in Ethiopia has been such a blessing. I got her after just one week in Dangila; picking her up off the street, bringing her to my town and starting to train her. I didn’t like the idea of living alone, and she was the perfect antidote. That one decision has shaped my entire Peace Corps experience. Hearing my landlord’s kids echo my commands throughout the day, even when Arb wasn’t around: “Sit!” “Stay!” “speak!” ; Running at 6am only because she woke up before my alarm and sat next to my bed crying, wanting me to get up and run with her; Pretending she wasn’t mine as she teased someone’s tied-up sheep enough that it broke its’ rope and ran down the street, my dog hot on its tail.

The kids that cheerfully yell “Jennifer! Jennifer!” as I pass each day also yell “Arbay! Arbay!” when I have her with me. I remember the first day I got her and how she threw up in the bus and wouldn’t walk with a leash; I should have known back then that she’d always have a mind of her own.My landlord’s children, who watch Arbay when I’m out of town, think of her as more than just a dog. Everyone I tell that I’m bringing Arb to America simply says, “wushash sechine,… give me your dog.” And that command alone assures me that I could not leave her. If they understood what a ‘pet’ truly is they would never suggest that I just give her away. They like her, they feed her, and they think she’s cute, but they don’t think of her as part of the family. If I left her with any of those people she would never sleep inside, they would never pet her, and she would never get a bath. They just don’t get it.

Having a dog has also taught me a lot of new Amharic. Without Arbay my third person female conjugations just wouldn’t be the same. “She does not bite,” “she will not eat you,” “she loves to run.” And occasionally, if a group of obnoxious kids asks, “she bites!” If I go to certain neighbors house without her they ask where she is, as if she is always suppose to be with me. They ask what she eats, where she sleeps, how she is so clean. It’s almost as if I were raising an alien, not an animal that is in abundance here.

In the days leading up to Arbay’s permanent departure we went around to visit all the homes that have shown her love and given her meat since she was a puppy. They patted her head and said “selam” one last time as she raised her paw to shake their hand. I spent a while at my landlord’s house having a photo shoot of Arbay and the kids. The day before we left my landlord’s kids, Eyerus and Yenebeb, and I went on a final run, out to Arbay’s favorite rural area where she trots with her crooked gait through the cattle and donkey carts, and gallops through puddles and fields of tef. That afternoon Eyerus and a friend came over to hangout one last time with Arbay. She is probably the person who had bonded with Arb the most and really gets it. We sat on my front porch to play with Arb for a while and say goodbye. I really started to get sad myself about Arbay leaving. I know I’m the one taking her, and it means I’ll get to have her with me for years to come, but I also will have to live in Dangila for two months without her, something I’ve never done before. I also began to realize how hard my own goodbyes with Dangila are going to be in the very near future. But this week is about Arbay, and I’m glad she had her proper farewell to the town she loves.I stood on my front porch at 5am this morning waiting for this arranged minibus to show up to take me, Arbay, and way too much luggage to Addis. My friend and I had arranged with one of the bus station workers a couple days before for a bus to pick Arbay and me up at my house, and deliver me to where I was going in Addis, all for a reasonable ferengi price. When the driver arrived and doubled the price I didn’t have much room to bargain, so I told them to load the bags. My very old guard mumbled how it would be a lot easier if I just left the dog with my landlord. He really doesn’t get it.

We bounced down the road south for a few hours as the sun was rising out our left window. We arrived in Debre Markos at 8am and the driver who kept calling me “my Jennifer” passed me along to a big bus, driven by, “my brother.” I was skeptical by the exchange but I heard him tell the new driver to get me to my house, so I didn’t question it. Arbay was a gem, sitting beside me on the seat the whole time, staring out her window, sticking her nose into the cracked window to feel the breeze, drawing attention every time the doors opened and only throwing up once.

Ten hours later we pulled into the bus station and they announced it was the final stop. “Excuse me,” I said in Amharic to the bus driver, “I paid to go to my house.”

“No you didn’t,” he replied.

I tried my best in broken Amharic to be pissed off and angry. I explained that I had a dog, huge suitcases, and I paid to go all the way to my house. Luckily one other passenger had been traveling with me since the beginning and knew exactly how much I paid (of course) and told them that I did in fact have a deal to be delivered to my house. We got the Dangila bus station guys on the phone who denied my claim, and I yelled between tear that I had no money and had no other way to get to my house, hoping he’d have pity on me. The crowd of bus station workers that had boarded the now empty bus I remained on was growing. They listened to my sob story and tried to talk to the Dangila folks themselves to no avail. At this point I was exhausted, fed up and not loving Ethiopia so I let the tears flow, not holding back the culturally inappropriate display of emotion.

Apparently when I heard the two drivers talking about getting me to my house I missed the verb “to see off,” a crucial mistake changing the meaning to, “You must see Jennifer off to a minibus to her house,” not, “You must get Jennifer a minibus to her house.” Everyone felt bad for me and they kept retelling my story to more and more people who joined the crowd. Just as I was cursing the bus station employees who ripped me off this morning, the Addis guys made up for all my negative thoughts. They pooled their money (an elderly lady walking by even pitched in 10 Birr) and paid for my taxi to where I needed to go. I was amazed by their generosity, and while I had money to cover the fare in my pocket, I’d told such a good story over the phone about not having money that I couldn’t pull out the money now. I graciously accepted their offer, allowing their kindness to redeem Ethiopia in my mind for the day.

A few more days until Arbay and I are on a plane to America! I couldn’t be more excited, and I’m glad I get to leave Ethiopia on a positive note.

Digging the beds of my garden over three months ago I will admit I was in a low point in my Peace Corps cycle. Not sure what I was accomplishing in town I felt like putting physical energy into something, anything, would be better than just sitting around, so I got out my pent up energy via shovel. Rains are dying down and I am really starting to see all my hard work turn into something tangible. It may be the only tangible thing I produce in Ethiopia so I am truly enjoying each bite.The first batch of edibles came in the form of corn, green beans and snow peas. While corn is abundant here, literally sold on every corner of my town, ferengi corn, which I have known my whole life, requiring just a one-minute boil, salt and butter, that corn is non-existent here. Luckily I have incredible family and friends who have sent me seeds for all these vegetables from America, so I was able to grow the corn I missed so much. It was delicious, and while I saved a couple ears for friends to share the goodness, I selfishly ate most myself! Sun flowers are blooming brightly outside my bedroom window, just as I imagined so many months ago, basil is flourishing and ready to pick and use fresh, some salad leaves are about ready to cut, and then there is my pride and joy: zucchini! My latest one weighed over five pounds! Green beans are starting to have batch two, and tomatoes are small and green but will soon be ready to eat. All this in a 2 x 3 meter plot of land; what a joy! My only real regret is not starting my garden last year so I could have enjoyed the produce for longer, but now I know I’ll take my new skills back to America and continue gardening there. I always knew my mom had a green thumb but I never realized it had been passed on to me. I am very grateful for this fruitful experience. There is something so quaint about walking out your front door to look over your garden and ponder what you should have for dinner. I thought the produce I buy in the market in Dangila would be the freshest food I’d ever eat, but now I’ve grown myself truly the freshest veggies I’ll ever have!

I’m an eternal optimist, always hoping for the best and expecting success. I think positive thoughts and have hope thinks 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.

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.

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 their 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 lea 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!

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.

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, Taishi, 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 Taishi 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 Taishi 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; Taishi 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 was the ferengi in my part of town, and more than that, “Jennifer” even meant ferengi to many people. Will I be giving that up when Taishi moved 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.

Taishi 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 Taishi around the compound. Just last night I had Taishi 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 Taishi though and have someone here that will be easy to communication 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.

Arriving in Nairobi I had very few expectations for Kenya, but soon found myself caught up in a comparative state-of-mind which is ever so popular in Ethiopia. I would see a street of vegetable stands and think to myself that’s just like Ethiopia. And then I would see the smooth unbroken sidewalk and think wow that’s something Ethiopia doesn’t have! But at the end of the day I realized how the two countries cannot be compared, mainly because ones reasons for visiting either Ethiopia or Kenya are vastly different. In Ethiopia you would find castles, monasteries and rock-hewn churches, while in Kenya you’d find lions and beaches. Each country offers unique opportunities that you’d be blessed to experience.

Day two in Kenya and we headed out on a safari ready to have one of those experiences Ethiopia doesn’t offer. Since I had already been on a safari with my family last December in Tanzania, I also had a bit of expectations in my mind for the safari, but tried my best to not compare the adventures. One main reason comparing would be unfair here is because while my family treated me to a luxury safari, Chris and I were doing it as budget as they come. So budget that we found ourselves in a car with five other tourists, one of which had lost a bet; That’s right, our safari was someone else’s torture.

After dropping our bags off at the campsite we got back in the car for our first game drive. I cannot deny that I was a little under impressed when the first picture stop was made for wildebeests and zebras while everyone else snapped away, giddy as first-timers should be. I found myself having thoughts of a safari snob, wondering how soon we’d get to see some real safari animals. As we bounced our way along the dirt roads of the Masai Mara NR I began to remember my first day on safari last December, which was probably less than a hundred miles south across the Tanzania border. That first day, especially when you have a lucky game drive, is irreplaceable. Seeing that sparkle in everyone’s eyes as National Geographic scenes unfolded in real life made me smile; I remembered that feeling too.I opened my eyes anew as we pulled up to see eight lion cubs playing around in Mother Nature’s version of a playground. I’d never seen anything like that before, it was like watching a bunch of toddlers, or puppies all piling on top of each other and teasing one another. At that moment I was reassured that whether you pay for luxury or have to zip up your own tent at night, the animals are the same, and they are amazing (ask our bet-losing new friend and she will agree). The first two hours as we rushed to see all we could before sunset were about as great as any two hours could be. Four grown lions, eight cubs, eight elephants, two giraffes, buffalos, zebras, wildebeests galore; a lucky day indeed!

The safari continued for a couple more days, as did our van’s fun, but by the end of it we were satisfied with the animal sightings and very ready for smooth pavement. When the tires hit that first patch of asphalt our bodies didn’t even know how to react it was so serene. Second safari down, and I have a feeling there will be more in my future. The majestic atmosphere of watching nature’s beasts in the wild is too addicting to call that my last safari.

I’ve written before about Ethiopian hospitality, and how it’s unrivaled, but even after living here for so long it still knocks me off my feet sometimes. I’m a fairly hard person to surprise. I see things coming, read into foreshadowing, and pick up on subtle signs. But this incredible hospitality often gets past my radar and surprises me more that anything.The morning after my friend from home, Chris, arrived in Ethiopia I made him board a bus at 5am heading north to Dangila. This ride is something I’m used to enduring by now, although it never can end soon enough. Around 3pm we finally arrived in Dangila, exhausted from the journey. We loaded our luggage into a bajaj taxi and were taken straight to my house. As I opened the gate to my compound, waiting patiently inside was my student/friend Aregach. As we got all our belongings inside I realized she went back outside and was bringing in a pot and basket, filled with the special holiday food duro wat and injera.I later found out that Aregach, who had been fasting from meat for two weeks (as were all Orthodox Christians), postponed her holiday celebration by several days just so she would have duro wat (chicken stew) for our arrival. She also came over to my house over two hours before we arrived by bus and waited patiently for us to show up! My new friend/neighbor Taishi came over to join the celebration as well. The four of us ate the delicious food and hung out for a couple hours which was more than anything I could have asked for. Aregach is such a wonderful friend and she teaches me new things every day about loving and giving. It was a great welcome back to Dangila.During Chris’s week-long visit in Ethiopia we only stayed in Dangila for a couple days, meaning we had a LOT of coffee and food invitations to squeeze into a short amount of time. And Chris had only been in Ethiopia for less than 24 hours when we got to my town, meaning his experience with, and acquired taste for injera was minimal. He was a great sport to eat whatever happened to be put in front of him.

After we went to my final class of my summer English club, one of my students invited us over for coffee and lunch. We enjoyed listening to American music (from the CD I’d given my perfect attendance students as a prize), drinking the three rounds of delicious coffee, and stuffing ourselves with yet another meal of injera and wat. I think by this point Chris was finally getting the hang of what my life is like here!Then finally, on our last day in town, we stopped in my neighbor’s house to say “hi” and found ourselves leaving several hours later, stuffed to the brim. It was not altogether unexpected since I often spend hours at a time laughing and eating in their house, but it surely was nothing less than an adventure with Chris there. We sat for the longest time just drinking the rounds of coffee as I played translator between the family and Chris. We were all set to leave when the mother insisted on making something for us to eat (since she had promised me the week before that she’d make something special when my friend arrived), so we got comfortable knowing there is no turning down such a generous invite. Luckily we saw Taishi walk passed their house and called him in to eat with us, adding another stomach to divide the food between.Dangila is full of surprises and every time one of them hits me, it makes me want to stay until I discover them all. With the end of my time here in sight I really am trying to live every day to the fullest, and sometimes that is referring to the state of my stomach. The culture I’ve experienced here of entertaining neighbors and guests is something I hope to carry with me throughout life. It is beautiful, selfless and loving. I think we can all learn something from a culture like that. On that note, I’m here for five more months and very open to more visitors… any takers?

This week I’ve had the privilege of introducing one of my good friends from home, Chris, to Ethiopia. It’s been filled with adventures and bus rides, but one of my favorite things is hearing his impressions of life here, giving me a new perspective of seeing things. Being here for over a year and a half I have certainly become adjusted to life and I often don’t see the peculiar things anymore. I love the comfort this brings to my everyday life; seeing all these things as normal makes me feel more at home. But it is refreshing to hear about all the surprising parts of Ethiopia which once also stunned me. I’ve decided to make a list to share so that you can all start to understand the basic differences which I somehow find normal.

• Constant reminders from locals to “eat!”

• Affection between guy friends: holding hands, hugging, etc

• People feed you by hand as a sign of respect

• Coffee cups between the three rounds of coffee are often mixed up but we never question which we receive

• Showers are optional

• Time here is six hours off (noon = 6:00)

• It is 2002

• Ethiopians are deathly afraid of dogs/puppies

• Animal dodging while in minibuses

• People in the middle of nowhere – people are everywhere

• Injera for every meal is common

More updates to come about my travels!

Last spring I started teaching an extracurricular English Club for students in grades 9-12. This class was only for girls and we would use half the class time to talk about grammar and the other half to discuss gender issues. I loved getting to know my girls but having to turn away boys week after week I decided to switch it up for the summer. My co-teacher and I made the decision to take the first 40 students to sign up, both girls and boys, and we set a six week schedule. We meet every Monday and Wednesday from 10am-12pm, bringing our grand total of class time to 24 hours for the summer. My co-teacher told them the first day not to waste this “day of classes with Jennifer” since I’m such a good resource for them. Pressure on! I try to live up to this expectation by making a fool of myself in front of the class for four hours each week.

I’ve come to have a love-hate relationship with teaching. There was a point in my life in which I considered this as a career, but I long ago realized that I have other callings. Teaching English is something most of the Ethiopian PCVs find themselves doing at some point during their two year service. Some teach once or twice and call it quits; others have taken on an entire course load as a real teacher. I fit somewhere in between those two, but my reasons for starting the class last spring fits in with the reasons of most of the volunteers: it’s something to do.

The curriculum for our summer English Club was going to be all about communication, and on the first Wednesday of class I brought printed out copies of the lyrics to “Wavin’ Flag” in honor of the World Cup (also because I overheard far too many people mumbling along to the song in gibberish). We went through line-by-line and discussed what it means. They loved it! Ever since, I’ve taken song requests and each Wednesday attendance numbers sky-rocket as we learn the song of the week. And honestly, I love it too. I’ve never enjoyed teaching so much; the two-hour class simply flies by! In the words of a teaching Fellow who came to talk to my group of volunteers from the Embassy, “This isn’t even what I do and I’m good at it!”

The summer semester is winding down and we’ve covered songs from JoJo to Beyonce. Knowing there is only one song choice left for next week the students recently handed me a list of songs that filled a page. ‘Suggestions for next week’ they said. I realized I can’t stop teaching quite yet. This fall I have a bit of traveling and other work planned so I wasn’t going to continue the class but I think I’ll have to figure out a way to make it work. Maybe I do love teaching after all.

Having purchased burbere packaged in a bag in the past I knew the only way to get delicious homemade burbere was to make it at home, go figure. I’ve survived for a year and a half without my own ready supply of this delicious burbere but I decided it was time to put an end to that. My student/friend/clothes washer Aragach was on board and for about a week she researched how much of each spice we would need to make a batch of really good burbere. We decided on an amount to make (we’ll get to that later) and started buying ingredients.

Maybe I should tell you a bit about burbere. It’s a mixture of spices used in just about every Ethiopia dish to a little zing! At first I thought it was rather spicy, but now it is simply delicious and necessary to add to every meal. This essence of Ethiopian food is rumored to contain approximately 13 different spices, but since it is usually homemade, every house makes it slightly different, exchanging some subtle spices for others. I will promise that my recipe has 13 different spices but I’ll take the recipe to my grave! Ok, well, maybe I don’t know the names for all 13 but I think I could pick them out of a lineup!

Aragach and I decided to make 10 kilos of burbere. Why 10? Is it because I’m used to pounds? Was I confused? Was there any good reason I wanted a small child worth of spice? No. There is no good reason. I told Aragach I would give her half, and I figured five kilos for myself and friends would be just about right. I also thought that we weren’t accounting for the weight that gets lost while drying out many of the ingredients, but apparently it was thought over because we ended up with over 10!

The main ingredient in burbere is burbere. Confused yet? The dried out red pepper found in the market is called “burbere” and the final product of this ground up spice mixture is also called “burbere” (both pronounced bur-bur-e). Other key ingredients found in all recipes include garlic, red onion and ginger. The remaining nine are up for grabs, and I left that decision to Aragach and her mother’s advice. I believe some of the spices include cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, and nutmeg. The preparation lasted for over a week and involved drying, sorting, combining and roasting. And you better believe there is some blood, sweat and tears in there too! Not really, I swear, but I cannot deny that my dog did run across the drying mats a couple of times. I’m not really helping my argument for trying some of this spice when I get home, am I?

Alas the final morning had come. I agreed to meet Aragach at her house at 7am on a Tuesday morning and would we go together to the mill to have it all ground together. I arrived to find her and her mother roasting everything one last time to ensure that all the moisture was out. We then combined the 12 spices in one bag, kept the bag of burbere separate, and added an additional kilo of salt. Bundles in hand we walked across town to find a mill house with a burbere machine that was open. Mills are on every street in Dangila, they are the Starbucks of small-town Ethiopia, but hours of operation are not posted and machines are kept separate to ensure that there isn’t any mixing between your bread flour and your spicy burbere!

With a stroke of luck we arrived at a mill that had just opened and we would be the first customers of the day. I’ve been told that this is a very good thing because the amount of powder in the air is minimal and the machine is not yet hot which heats your product to untouchable temperatures. Being the first ones wasn’t my favorite part even, I was overjoyed that children hadn’t seen us turn in here; we were the only people in sight other than the workers! The moment of truth had arrived when it was time to pay for the grinding, 1 Birr per kilo, weigh-in time. Ten kilos of bubere, three of other spices and one of salt. 14 kilos! Then began the grinding, and I don’t think you can truly know burbere (or Ethiopia) until you inhale burbere and inevitably touch your eye with pepper residue on your hand. Breathing in that intense pepper is unlike anything else; it feels like your insides are on fire and no amount of coughing will suffice. But we survived.

A short while later, after taking plenty of pictures and befriending the mill employees, Aragach donned the basin of burbere on her head and we walked to my house proud of our product. We stirred all the spices together and tasted what our hard work had produced; its brilliant orange color is unlike any color I’ve seen in nature. I no longer worry about what I will do with 14 kilos (minus Aragach’s share) because this spice sells itself. I finally have that homemade burbere I’ve wanted and it smells (and tastes) so good that I don’t even mind that my entire house smells of it!

After living in Ethiopia for over a year and a half I’ve come to terms with not knowing a lot of things. I sit through casual conversations, coffee ceremonies, and even important meetings without knowing what is being said completely. My language skills are increasing but Amharic is not a language I will likely ever speak fluently. I’ve become accustomed to sitting through meetings understanding a bare minimum waiting patiently to get a rundown of the meeting from my counterpart after the fact. I am fortunate enough to have a counterpart willing to attend most meetings as my translator. But then there are countless get-togethers with neighbors of which I will never know the full extent of what was said. This is something I’ve come to terms with here. Coming from home where you understand every little eavesdropped conversation this took some time to get used to, but now I’m strangely fine with not knowing everything.

Sometimes this not-knowing finds me in awkward situations. Many times this is not so much from the lack of understanding the language, but more from the lack of direct communication. It is not the culture here to directly correct someone. I had a school teacher tell me recently that students learn to correct their mistakes here if you simply speak correctly, you do not need to tell them directly when they are incorrect. Not true. This is why person after person still yells “Where are you go?!” on the street when I pass. This applies for when I make mistakes also; they never get corrected.

A good example would be when I took those 10 orphan boys to get tested for HIV during my Testing Raffle event last fall. Several people knew this was happening, and the boys all agreed and wanted to go, but no one cared to mention that the boys were all 14, and you cannot get tested without a guardian until you are 15. That was an awkward arrival at the health center.

This not-knowing is something I’ve learned to deal with but not something that I find particularly fun, nor does it tend to end with a positive outcome… until this past week. After a meeting with my counterpart and the Dangila mayor about my internet café project I was told we needed to come up with possible vacant land options to submit to the mayor. Then the town would decide whether or not to approve our land proposal, and once a location is approved the grant would pay for a container to be built on that land for our internet café. My counterpart and I were sitting in our office discussing land options for a few hours when he mentions casually, ‘we could use the container across town that was built to help orphans.’

Excuse me?

There is a vacant container that was built with the intention of starting a business to help orphans? Why were we not planning on using this all along? We struggled to come up with that 25% “Community Contribution” necessary to receive the grant money. How did this never come up?

The next day we pitched the idea to the mayor of using that container for our project and he was elated with the idea! He mentioned that he is very excited to help us in creating a sustainable business to really help Dangila’s orphans for years to come!

Sometimes things just fall into place. And something you wonder how you can not-know something so obvious for such a long period of time. But usually I am out-of-the-loop, which I've come to accept as part of the ferengi role. I’m very ecstatic about the possibility of having this premade location for our internet café!

I walked towards the center of town to meet my two campers feeling the weight of my heavy backpack and the weight of responsibility on my shoulders. I assured the camper’s parents that everything would be alright one last time as we hopped aboard a mini bus headed for Bahir Dar. I realized the campers must be feeling nervous too so I talked to them in basic English for a short while but then we sat for the remainder of the ride in silence, although my head was buzzing with thoughts of things to come.We met the other campers in Bahir Dar and then loaded aboard our camp bus destined for Gondar where we would be staying for the next 6 nights. I felt a weight lifted as I met up with the other Peace Corps volunteers knowing we were all in this together; it wasn’t just me and the teenagers! But I watched around me as the campers sat quietly next to strangers knowing their nervousness still sat upon their shoulders.Five nights later I watched the same group of campers circle around to decide how to keep their friendships strong after they departed from camp and I watched tears roll down their faces as they hugged goodbye. I’m not sure if the 16 of us volunteers will ever fully grasp what kind of impact we had on those 29 students in five short days, but we won’t soon forget the experience.Logistically things went about as smoothly as we could have hoped for the first summer camp any of us had organized from scratch. The five full days of camp were divided by theme: Independence Day, Gender Day, Leadership Day, Health Day and Lifeskills Day. Labor was divided as well and we all jumped in to help where we could. Each morning started off with yoga at 7am which was a new type of exercise for the campers but they really loved it. Sessions throughout the day were split between classroom activities and more lively activities to keep them energized. Every night a few counselors (PCVs) were “on duty” until midnight to check for lights off (and make sure campers were in their own rooms!). Overall, the days were long and by the end we were all exhausted!I could write an entire blog entry for each day but I won’t bore you with the details. I will post a photo album to show you a piece of summer camp, which will tell you more than my blog ever could. I can only accurately account for that week with a cliché: it was life-changing. I know that 29 young Ethiopians never forget how to “peel the banana” (if you don’t know, don’t ask) or give out “firecrackers” or do mountain pose, but I pray they’ll never forget that they can be leaders, and that men and women are equal, and that they can never say “I can’t.” I’ll leave you with my favorite quote from camper evaluations: “I love you more than me the American Peace Court; I am sorry because you are leave me tomorrow; I am not forget until the end of my life.”

Ehetemarium Belestie, female, grade 11, age 18
Essay Topic Choice: Are condoms a good choice to protect against HIV? Why or why not?

Condoms are not a good choice to protect HIV. Because we have other good choices for protecting HIV. The first choice is 1 to 0. It means you haven’t ferand. This is a good choice for as a student because our country losses some thing about us and we have a responsible to pay something. The second choice is one to one. You looking for carfully and select your best choice. The last and theered choice is using condom. The is the dangerous method to protect ourselves. But it is the good choice for the person don’t use condome.
My best choice is the first choice is mine.
Poem
Please Cool down
you are a young person
you are a new for things and sences
don’t fast to know a new thing
you must be cool down
the time is hot
all things waight for you
don’t find HIV
HIV is do not find you
don’t walk for find HIV
Please cool down
all things are waight for you

My comments: Ehetemarium really impressed me with her appropriate explanation of condom usage and other ways of preventing against HIV. But most of all, I loved that she wrote down this poem! I’m not sure where she got the poem from—I assume it isn’t her original. I also assume this isn’t a word-for-word rendition, but I really liked her creative approach!


Yonas Zeleke, male, grade 9, age 16
Essay Topic Choice: Are condoms a good choice to protect against HIV? Why or why not?

First we have to know that condom is not the only method to protect HIV. As I know we have three main methods to protect against HIV. The 1st one is to be totally free from sex. But this method is not acceptable by many peoples b/c it is difficult to be free from sex. I am also accept it. Lets go to the 2nd method. This method is to be free from sex until having marriage. In my opinion this method is the best rather than the two. b/c when you get marriage you have to test whether you have within your blood or not. Then you can continue your life make protected.
Secondly people didn’t realize that condom is not 100% to protect against HIV. The main important thing is that How can protect our self from HIV? If we couldn't do the above two methods it is better to use condom properly otherwise we go to face our disaster. Generally condom is not 100% protect against HIV but it is successful. If we use properly. let me return to my aim. The better methods are the above two. I want to rise something “life is greater than one minit happyness.”
In general condom is helpful if we use properly but it is not a good choice. As I said earlier condom the last method but not the best. The reason it is better to be facefull for the cupple, (wife & husband). So condom is not the good choice rather than the two but it protects us from HIV if we use properly.

My comments: This was the very first essay I read and immediately knew he would be a finalist. While reading the rest of the essays I kept thinking none was quite as good as the first. His thoughts were well thought-out and he clearly expressed clever insights about condom usage and other HIV prevention methods. The highlight for me definitely has to be “life is greater than one minit happyness.” A close second was the quote, “If we couldn’t do the above two methods it is better to use condom properly otherwise we go to face our disaster.”

I think we could all learn a little something from these essays!

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!

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!

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. There is also 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. 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).

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!

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.

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything. Even now I’m at a lack of words, but while it seems I haven’t been doing much I know stories are abundant. For 10 days at the end of May all of the volunteers in Ethiopia had a training to consolidate us during the election period. It was the first time Group 2 and Group 3 volunteers had ever been all together (and also likely the last). Having about 70 Americans together for over a week was a nice break, although a little overwhelming too. It definitely could have been a social experiment—seclude 70 Americans in small Ethiopian towns for a year and then bring them all together for a week to see what happens! We’re all so used to being alone or being the only foreigner, that by the end I was definitely ready to go back to Dangila.

We had the training in a small town south of Hawassa called Yirgalem (where my good friend Jordan lived before he left at Christmas time). For the most part, we spent all of our time (sleeping, eating, training) on this compound, not going into town much. One of the final days, a few of us decided to go on a hike where we were quickly bombarded with hoards of children. Wow- reality hit! We were still in Ethiopia! I had been in that compound surrounded by Americans for so long that I almost let myself forget where I was. Going for a walk in my town, by myself, in familiar territory, is a lot different from a walk in a new town with 4 foreigners!

By the end of the training I was happy to leave but also very aware that life outside that Americanized compound isn’t easy. It amazed me how fast I forgot that! I’ve been back in Dangila for a couple weeks now and I’m fully adjusted to life here. After all, I’m used to the small town life here. Being surrounded by 70 Americans is fun but it’s not why I’m here.

Speaking of reasons I’m here—one of the main principles of Peace Corps is for volunteers to live at a modest level. We make a modest salary, live a modest lifestyle, and reside in modest houses. Except that last one isn’t always true. For safety reasons a lot of volunteers live in houses bigger than necessary. While I’ve been living in a modest 18 square meters for a year and a half, an opportunity for improvement presented itself. Since my landlord moved out, the big house on my compound was vacated. I bargained a reasonable price for it, received permission from Peace Corps, and moved about 3 meters to the east, tripling my living space. Best. Decision. Ever.

It’s been fun nesting again, getting all my furniture in order and finally having more space for all the stuff I’ve collected. And the “stuff” is abundant—I think it’s an American thing because Ethiopians don’t have “stuff” like I do. It’s kind of ridiculous how it accumulates! It’s nice knowing that for the most part all of it will be staying here and given away a few months down the road.

All students have exams for the entire month of June, meaning I won’t be teaching my English class until their summer break begins at the end of the month. The grant I wrote, and which has been approved, is being processed, so I’m just waiting on that money to continue that project. Both of those things have turned June into a waiting game. I feel like I’m not being productive at all, but my patience has definitely grown over the past 18 months, so I’ll survive. In the meantime I’ve been spending quality time with neighbors, turning my front yard into a garden, and getting excited about the start of the World Cup! I figure watching the upcoming matches will be a great way to spend time in my community for the next month!

The day after my landlord’s family moved out I found myself completely alone in my compound for the first time. There were a couple weeks earlier this year when the family only had one girl helping around the house, and when she went to school I would be alone, but I was always expecting someone to show up any minute. This time I was alone. No one was coming or going. I locked the gate from the inside and wasn’t expecting any visitors.

What do you do with a whole compound to yourself? I wondered. I’ve had countless ideas throughout the past year and a half about things I would love to do if I were alone in my compound, but all of a sudden none of them were coming to mind. I realized that I wasn’t just alone, I was lonely.

I found myself strolling around my compound trying to think of something to fill my Sunday afternoon. That’s when I grabbed a shovel, headed to the front yard and started digging. I think I took my inspiration from Barbara Kingsolver, the author of two of my recent reads. My life fits in somewhere between The Poisonwood Bible and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle although far less extreme than either. The latter has been one of my favorite reads so far (highly recommended) and had me hoping for just a moment that my mother’s green thumb didn’t reach a genetic dead-end with me like I thought.

Several hours later, I’d tilled an L-shaped bed in the corner of my small yard, putting that permaculture training from last year to use for the first time. I felt so accomplished with myself, as if I’d truly been able to push loneliness out of my compound with a little gardening. I walked around the corner of the big house into view of the door of my house and realized that I’ll never truly be alone. No, I’m not being sappy, I mean I literally can never be alone because the landlord left his mama and baby cow to live on my compound (and a guy comes by to tend for them daily). My first lesson of living alone: never leave the door open and house unattended.

The baby cow stood in my doorway munching on my bag of tomatoes and I swear he was snickering at me. I entered my house to find a disaster area that must have taken the cow over an hour to meticulously destroy. In a nutshell, the majority of the mess came from him eating a bag of flour I had on my counter and then traipsing around my house leaving flour-drool all over the place. After quickly sweeping a pile of flour into my trashcan (the drool clean-up would take hours later on). Venturing into the backyard to empty my trash bucket, I was so livid that I swung the bucket to hit the cow and managed to crack my bucket. Oops.

In one afternoon I revisited every high and low of the Peace Corps emotional roller coaster. All in a day’s work, I figure. At the end of the day though, I have a garden growing and while my hatred for the baby cow is also growing, I am learning to live with the cattle. I also just found out that I will be allowed to move into the big house on my compound (which my landlord just vacated) as soon as we return from a “training” down south next week! Hooray for triple the living space!

Where to begin? Some weeks pass and it seems like there is nothing significant to report, while others come to an end and I’m not sure exactly how I’m suppose to convey all my happenings. This past week was the latter.

The week started out as normal: A little work, a lot of time to visit neighbors, but nothing out of the ordinary. Until Lindsay, my closest neighbor from my group of volunteers (about one hour south), called to say that she decided it was her time to go home. It is a personal decision we each have to make, every day, to stay or to go, and she finally felt it was time to say ‘goodbye.’ I of course made the day trip down to say my ‘goodbyes’ and help her with some errands around town.

The visit was sad, but necessary, and I was happy to spend some time with her in her town before she left. One of my favorite things I was able to help her with was giving away some of her extra clothes to her Ethiopian friends. The thing was, they didn’t know yet that she was leaving, they simply thought she was giving away some extra things. They were so grateful and happy; Each left with just a few new items that undoubtedly doubled their wardrobes. The excitement on each of their faces was priceless. What came later was a little less heart-warming…

She finally let the cat out of the bag, telling the people on her compound that she was leaving, and that cat truly was the catalyst for mayhem. People whom she loved dearly were all vying for everything she had left. It was, in a word, ugly. The families that you share a compound with are the people you interact with everyday, the people you love as your own family. To see those people treat you like the rich white person you’ve struggled for over a year to distance yourself from, especially during your final hours, is hard.

In theory, the other Peace Corps Volunteers are no better. We all came and took our turns looting through her extra stuff in order to empty her house. We did it before Group 1 volunteers left also, and I know Group 3 will do the same with my stuff. It’s the Peace Corps cycle. Nothing is wrong with that. So what is the problem when Ethiopians want the same thing? I’m not sure. Now maybe it will be less of a surprise when my turn comes in early 2011.

I returned home, a little shaken and heartbroken from the events in Lindsay’s town, only to encounter my own distressing trials. Friday evening when my landlord’s wife called me into her house for a coffee ceremony, I expected nothing unusual. I sat through the first two rounds as usual and only before cup three did my suspicions arise. A crew of workers came in, parking a big flatbed semi outside the compound. They participated in the final round of coffee and then, bam, started carrying out the sofas practically from beneath us. My landlord’s family was moving.

You may have seen pictures in my recent album of the celebration I attended about a month ago at my landlord’s new house and ask yourself, ‘didn’t she see this one coming?’ The answer: yes. But while I knew they were building a new house, and knew it was completed sans plumbing, they kept avoiding talking about their departure date when I would bring it up. Indirect communication is common here, doubled by the fact that I don’t understand everything people say in Amharic anyways (my landlord does not speak English, nor is he a sympathetic listener when I speak Amharic), meaning that I am often out of the loop. But this one hit me like a freight train.

And I couldn’t even tell you why, but as they loaded the last of their stuff into the truck, ready to haul it 5 blocks away (yes, their new house is just 10 minutes by foot from my house) I was holding back tears. You never really appreciate things until they are gone, right? And while I’ve adjusted to the culture and people here, change is still hard. I couldn’t help but feel a tad bit abandoned as they pulled away. I thought they were my family; how could they just leave me?

But as always, when necessary, we re-adapt, we create a new normal, and we figure out things slowly.

Most fruits don’t require instructions or advice. Most fruits don’t need technique and strategy. But the mango isn’t most fruits. Having never eaten a mango from its raw state before coming to Ethiopia, I know I will always associate mangos with this time in my life. I can picture it now, nostalgically strolling through the produce department at an oversized grocery store in America. Before Ethiopia I probably couldn’t have picked out a mango from a pile of fruit. But now I consider myself an expert.

Mango season has rolled into town once again; right after the small peaches and right before the big rainy season. Everything here is measured by produce and weather it seems. As soon as the mangos make their way from the southern parts of the country where they are grown in abundance, the price begins to drop and you can’t walk three steps without having to dodge a mango pit on the streets.

Eating a mango (unless it’s cut, cleaned, and awaiting you in a plastic container in America) is typically a messy process. It can range anywhere from a necessary hand-washing to necessary bath and a good ol’ flossing. This makes it an awkward fruit to simply hand to someone as a snack when they are sitting in your house. But in Ethiopia, it’s cultural to share what you have, and equally cultural to eat mangoes without cutlery.

The Ethiopian method comes in two forms: ripe and past ripe. When the mango is ripened, people simply bite off sections of the skin to peel it and then eat the rest like an apple, except messier. This requires a decent hand-washing and face-washing usually. If the mango is past ripe (squishy) they bite off an end and just squeeze the juice and innards into their mouth.

The problem with the mango is that there is no place to hold the mango. The first half is easy: peel and eat. But the second half is where true innovation comes into play. And by “innovation” I mean “messiness.” As you start to peel the second half, it becomes necessary to try to hold onto the slippery pit, which is where the mess begins.

I’ve come to enjoy the messiness, and I’ve embraced the necessary post-mango-eating clean-up, which is a small price to pay for sweet, fresh mango.

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!

I’m not a runner. Never have been. I stick to sports that require less than five minutes of intense exertion at any given time: 100m dash, competition cheerleading, diving, but never long-distances. Living in the home country of some of the world’s best marathon runners though has somehow inspired me to at least try the whole running thing. Each November Addis Ababa hosts The Great Ethiopian Run, a 10k featuring some of the best runners, and well, anyone willing to try their best. I decided last November that I would love to run in the 10k this year, giving myself a year to figure out how to run long distances. In February, during my group’s Mid-Service Conference, they announced a run in May being hosted by The Great Ethiopian Run, in collaboration with the NGO Save the Children to raise money to help with healthcare for pregnant women in Ethiopia. An opportunity to help and a motivation to continue my training? I was sold. This run was a 7k, and was going to be held in Hawassa, about 4 hours south of Addis. I had 2 months to become a runner. sunrise in the countryside Running to me has resulted in pretty bad outcomes so far in this country. The couple times I tried last year I wound up with kids chasing me and rocks thrown at me, bringing my confidence down a bit. This time I decided it would be necessary to sacrifice my habit of sleeping in until 8am and additionally I would find out, shed a bit of pride. 6am has slowly become one of my favorite times in the day. Not initially, but once I started getting the hang of jogging I found my sunrise jogs to be the most peaceful time of my day. Not to mention the fact that my dog, Arbay, loves the run more than anything. My regular route is a 4k, and sometimes I’ll increase it to almost 6k, but I’ve found my pace, which is admittedly slow, but I am happy to say I officially enjoy running. The first morning the kids who live at my turn-around point started running with me I wasn’t sure what to think. The last kids who ran with me threw rocks at my dog and me, but I started talking to them and now they’ve become a crucial part of my routine. The kids are 6-8th graders who live on this farm about 2k away from my house and each morning they run with me back to my house, books in hand for school and shoes-optional. It’s humbling having children without shoes run faster than you. But I also remind myself that I live at 7,000ft, which makes for a challenge, an altitude they’ve lived at their whole lives. May 1st, the day before the run, a bunch of volunteers arrived in Hawassa, ready to support Save the Children and run our best. My goal: run the whole race. The 7k was scheduled for 9:30am, not an ideal time considering how hot Hawassa gets, but the 21k run was appointed the early timeslot, understandably. The morning of the race was lots of fun, Peace Corps staff came to support us and even brought us Peace Corps hats to wear; swag, finally! We were all pumped up, and that was before famous Ethiopian runners Haile Gebre Selassie and Turunesh aired the horn to start the run. We were off! The first half being a run next to the lakeside, and although the path was narrow for such a large group, the scenery was unrivaled. The brochures had told us there would be bottled water along the route, which I kept hoping to find, but to no avail other than some locals splashing welcomed lake water from buckets. The 10am heat was beating down towards the end but I kept going and proudly finished without walking. It’s officially the longest I’d ever run. What a fun day! I am now looking forward to adding 3k by November for the run in Addis. Some of us Group 2 folks after the run

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!

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.

Every time I come back from being out of town I receive the warmest “welcome back!” from the society as a whole. Almost every day now I receive some sort of invitation for lunch or coffee at a friend or neighbor’s house. Ethiopians are truly the kindest people who embody the idea of a culture of hospitality. But there was one thing I didn’t experience until just now, how this culture treats you when you’re sick.

I have to say that I am very blessed not to have been really ill at all during the past 17 months, in fact this past weekend was the first time I’ve ever even had a fever. I felt achy enough to call in sick for the day, knowing I wouldn’t want to get anyone else sick in case it turned into something worse. The phone call went something like this:

“I know I mentioned I felt like I was getting sick, and today I feel worse, so I’m going to stay home today.”“Oh, Jennifer! I will come to visit.”

The notion that when you’re sick you’d rather be alone, sleeping, is completely foreign here (literally). Ethiopian culture is that when you get sick, everyone visits. I understand that sometimes it is nice to have a friend stop by to see if she could bring you something, but here it is cultural for everyone to stop by, just to make you feel better! I kindly refused most self-invitations, insisting that I would be fine to just sleep, but politely not mentioning that having my entire office and other co-workers come to my home while I’m under-the-weather wouldn’t exactly help. Imagine in America your boss showing up at your house 20 minutes after you’ve called in sick!

On top of my co-workers’ sympathy word of my sickness spread like wildfire around my compound and neighbors all stemming from the 8-year-old daughter of my landlord. She’s the only person I told I was sick when she knocked on my door wanting to play, and from then on every person on my compound (there are 8 others) needed to hear it for themselves. I also realized that I don’t know the Amharic vocabulary for things such as fever, tonsils, and congestion. Always an opportunity to learn!

Happy to report that 48-hours later I’m back to normal. Luckily it was just a minor bug because I think the neighbors would have gone crazy in anticipation of me feeling better! I do love this culture though; everyone is always looking out for you!

To continue my story of Fasika, Easter in Dangila, at 4pm I returned to the house of my fourth invitation of the day. Earlier in the day I was only able to drop in for a brief serving of duro wat, so of course I was expected to come back later to machewat, play. More than that, I wanted to go back; I find myself visiting their house just about every day now to hangout with this wonderful family.Invitation 4: my “house of 5 girls” I call them. I may have mentioned them before, but I adore this family. The littlest girl from the family is in my little “street gang” of children that chants my name as I walk to the post office. I should mention that by “gang” I mean group of toddlers, most of whom don’t wear pants or shoes, but play in the street around my house, and with whom I have a mutual adoration. One day a while back, I accepted a coffee invitation from this family (meaning they yelled from their house “drink coffee!” as I walked past) and have been an honorary family member ever since. The mother is very traditional and comes from the rural area while her four daughters are rather modern in comparison. The eldest of the four moved to Addis a few months back, but left her daughter to be cared for by the family, who is Meskerem, the little girl in my “gang.” The youngest of the four daughters is mentally handicapped and blind. The two middle daughters are around my age and know a decent vocabulary of English, so often, when composing sentences will throw in an English noun of two for me. The second oldest is exactly my age actually, and she will often offer to paint my nails while I’m sitting in their house, which I always kindly accept. The roughly painted coat of polish typically lasts 3 days and serves as a wonderful reminder of how much I am loved in Dangila for those few days. I doubt any manicurist in America will ever quite suffice.Most of all, I love and admire the mother of this family. How strong would you have to be to not only support four daughters by yourself (ok, husband is around, but let’s just say he doesn’t really do much for the family) but also take in your granddaughter, not to mention the fact that one daughter is handicapped. This whole family lives in a house the size of my house: a mere 20-square meters. Ethiopian mothers do everything, especially those not fortunate enough to have a helper like my landlord’s family has. You prepare injera and wat from scratch, clean the clothes by hand, and sweep the dirt floors until they are spotless. The work is never ending. Every time I come by, they insist on feeding me, finding it insulting when I refuse. On Easter, as a treat, I brought them a half-kilo of coffee beans (worth 30 Birr = $2.50) and the mother, Fantanesh, was beside herself, almost refusing to take it. I justified the gift by saying that I cannot perform coffee ceremonies, so this is simply all the coffee I drink at their house. She then wouldn’t let me leave until she prepared a special ceremony just for me.I always want to give them something; I want to give them everything. Yet they are so humble, not wanting anything. Some people don’t know anything about me other than the color of my skin yet boldly ask for money while the people who I know and love won’t even accept the smallest gifts. It’s hard.

More stories from the “house of 5 girls” to come. For now, I should end my Easter stories so I can finally digest all the food I ate.

Final Count:

Plates of duro wat eaten: 3

Plates of tebs eaten: 2

Cups of coffee drunken: 9

Number of times I had to remove a sheep’s head from Arbay’s mouth: 3

Piece of raw meat Arbay hid in the sofa cushions: 2

‘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…

There is one telltale sign of an approaching Ethiopian holiday: the loud cry of sheep being led down the road by their new owner. This week the sheep are in full force. You cannot walk down a single street these days without seeing at least two. My landlord has already purchased two and is keeping them in a small room in the back of the compound, which has been piquing my dog’s interest for the past week as she smells their scent from under the door and cries like a child being kept from her best friend. Well, Arbay just likes to make things run, doubtful that the sheep would consider that a friendship, but either way it is better she doesn’t get too attached (if you know what I mean).

Another sign of the beginning of a holiday here is a clothesline filled with neon-colored crocheted doilies. “What?” you ask. Well, amongst other house-cleaning routines Ethiopians wash these brightly colored doilies used to decorate the backs of the sofas. I doubt we’ll ever get to the bottom of how they became popular in Ethiopia! Note the decorations in this photo of Yenebeb taken by his sister in their house.

In my own preparation for Easter I have preemptively purchased half a dozen eggs and decided to store them in my landlord’s refrigerator for freshness. Knowing that eggs sell out around holidays (they are used in the fabulous holiday dish duro wat), and knowing that Easter is the end the fast, I wanted to make sure I could make myself a fabulous Easter breakfast. A whole new meaning of Easter eggs!

Easter here is the biggest holiday of the year, and I briefly forgot just how big it is until I was asked by several people in one day, “Are you going to your home for the holiday?” At first I thought it was a funny question—traveling halfway around the world for what I think of as a one-day celebration. But then I equated it to asking someone in America if they were going home for Christmas, and well, I would travel the globe to be home for that holiday season. And that is exactly what Easter becomes here, a season which lasts a lot longer than one Sunday. I would say the season begins with the purchasing of livestock for the Easter meal (and don’t forget washing those doilies!), and lasts for some time after Sunday also. I asked if Monday was a national holiday, like Good Friday is, and my co-workers shake their heads, “No, Jennifer, Monday is a work day, but we will not be here,” they replied. School technically is in session, and offices are supposed to be open, but everyone knows that work won’t get done. Most people travel to be with their family (sometimes hours off the beaten path into the rural areas) and they like to make a week out of being home.

I was told by a friend that the Easter holiday lasts until the meat is gone. So depending on how many sheep you buy, or how fast you eat the supply of meat your family has, the holiday just keeps going and going!

I also must add that the day after I wrote my last blog about “dirty season,” as if only to make me grateful for what I have, it started raining. Just a couple-day reminder of what summer season brings, namely, mud. Let’s just say I’ll be careful about cursing the dirt and dust again. Below you’ll find a picture of my neighbor preparing the Good Friday bread in the rain!

Ethiopian spring has sprung! The only big differences here are that pollen is replaced by dust, green grass is replaced with dirt, and colorful flowers are replaced by, well, the lack of anything colorful at all. Having moved to Dangila last February this was the first season I experienced here, and since then apparently I blocked that memory from my mind. I completely forgot how hot it can get here, and how dusty everything becomes. My supervisor even brought up my joke last spring about “which road is not dusty?” (see blogs from last spring) and we laughed about it in the office for a good hour this morning.

Even though the “air condition” right now is not exactly favorable (air condition here literally means the condition of the air, having nothing to do with machines that alter temperatures) I still find myself in one of the happiest states that I think I’ve been in since I arrived. Friends are always surrounding me (Ethiopian and foreign), work is good (meaning it is existent), and I am loving Dangila. Last fall I made a deal with myself to stay in site for an entire month without leaving, and let’s just say it didn’t happen. I always like spending weekends with friends and taking advantage of every opportunity that arises. But this month I’m just completely happy and content here is Dangila, and I will easily spend a month here without leaving.

The other day I was working the HIV testing event at the high school and happen to leave the compound to walk home for lunch at the shift change between 9th and 10th grade. The shift change is basically my worst nightmare; a sea of turquoise uniforms, 5,000 teenagers, all without somewhere to be for the next 15 minutes, and I found myself in the middle. A year ago, the event would have brought me to tears; I would have drowned in the sea of the harassment, feeling like an outsider. This year I swam through that sea with confidence. Not a single person yelled “ferengi,” but instead the students called my name, chatted with me as I walked, and greeted me with friendly handshakes. I’m finally starting to feel like I belong here, and I’m a part of this community.

I just finished week 4 of English/Life Skills classes with my two classes of high school girls, I have meetings set up to start a business project with those 10 boys I helped out with last fall, and there is less than a week until the big Easter celebration (and the end of fasting!). Yesterday I had a sudden urge to clean my house (a rarity) and found myself mopping my floors a few minutes later. Yenebeb (the 9-year-old son of my landlord) walked by my door and asked with a smile, “are you cleaning for the holiday?” A common Ethiopian habit is to clean everything before big holidays (I suppose Americans do this too) because they always host the neighbors and want their house to look nice. I smiled and said “yes” figuring it was easier than admitting I hadn’t mopped my house in probably 8 months. No time like the present for a little spring cleaning!

Time is starting to fly by during year 2 in Ethiopia. The countdown is at 9.5 months, which doesn’t seem like enough to finish all I want to do here. Before I know it dusty season will become muddy season, muddy season will fade, and my departure will be imminent.

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.

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.

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.

Since arriving in Addis Ababa in mid-February for my group’s Mid-Service Conference, I have yet to go back to Dangila. A week for the training, a week of traveling in the south (see previous entry) and then I had a few days to kill before some medical appointments and my visit to Group 3’s In-Service Training. This time spent mainly around Addis has been filled with fun times with friends and delicious food, but more than anything it has made me miss the comforts of my small town. Spending so much time in Addis though has afforded me the opportunity to know where I’m going, and walk like a local. I know where all the local minibuses around town are heading, I know the best ferengi restaurants, but I also know some Ethiopian dives to get good injera and wat for less than $1 (which for Addis is quite a claim). I don’t feel like I have a whole lot to talk about, especially concerning the “Peace Corps experience” since I’ve been attending trainings and traveling so much, but I did realize that I’ve had some fun adventures in Addis that are worth sharing, so here are a few short stories:

Ethiopian Dentist

Since we’ve now been at-site for over a year, everyone in my group is required to have a dental cleaning appointment. I’m not one to fret about going to the dentist, in fact, I usually look forward to the experience, so when I was waiting for my Peace Corps taxi to take me to my appointment, I hadn’t even thought about it all that much. When I finally arrived, I climbed the stairs to the third floor of a run-down building in the suburbs of Addis and told the front desk that I was there for a cleaning. After thirty minutes of sitting in a waiting room with Ethiopians who were intently staring at the television playing an Arab Sat soap opera in Arabic (which no one understood, clearly) I was called to come back to see the dentist.

An older Ethiopia man motioned for me to sit down in the dental chair and we chatted for a minute about the other Peace Corps volunteers he had met. He briefly poked around in my mouth and then said, “we used to be very proud of our teeth,” in a very beat-down voice; He blames the sugar and soda. He then ushered me to another room, which seemed identical to me, and powered up what appeared to be a metal pick. The assistant entered the room, handed me a few pieces of toilet paper and tied a dental bib around my neck. Before the dentist began the cleaning he looked at me questionably, motioned for me to remove my glasses and simply said, “for safety.” I chuckled to myself, followed his instructions, and he began to poke around with this metal water pick. Every time the pick touched my tooth it made the most horrible sound, and better yet, the pick must have had a leak because water sprayed all over my face. A-ha! That must be what the toilet paper is for, and the glasses removal! I sat there choking back my laughter as I realized this is by far the oddest dentist appointment I’ve had to date.

Amharic for Foreigners

My next story occurred on the taxi ride back from the dentist, while I was already in a laughing mood. The taxi driver, who is used to having Peace Corps volunteers in the car, happily had a conversation with me in half English, half Amharic. While stopped at one traffic light a man walked between the cars carrying three very random items in his hands which he attempted to sell to the passengers in each car. He got very excited when he saw me because one of the three items he had was a book titled Amharic for Foreigners. In English he told me that I must buy this book from him; In Amharic I told him I didn’t want it. Not fazed by my Amharic response, he continued with his case of trying to make a sale. I kept answering in Amharic and eventually said, while laughing, “I’m speaking Amharic, so I really don’t need the book!” The driver, also laughing at this point repeats my argument, “Dude! She’s telling you all of this in Amharic, she doesn’t need the book!” Ok, so there isn’t an Amharic word for “dude!” but I imagine that he would have said that if there was a word. Finally, the hawker said in Amharic, “You speak it completely?” I responded, “Yes, completely!” (a small fib) and he finally walked away.

In Other News

In a couple days now I have the privilege of returning to Sodere to help for one night with Group 3’s In-Service Training. I suspect it will be a fun visit, especially after spending today in Addis with Group 3 helping them learn their way around this city. I’m really fortunate to be surrounded by so many neighboring volunteers, and I’ve enjoyed getting to know their entire group since they arrived in October.

Fasting is still going well. I’ve only cheated once with an opportunity for some real ice cream, brought to our Mid-Service training. Otherwise, I’m handling the lack of animal products well. Recently too I’ve realized the true meaning of fasting, and enjoyed the benefits of sacrificing something physical (food) to move closer to God during this lent period.

February brought a big mile-marker for my training group: Mid-Service Conference! This means that we are half-way through our two years of service, and had a three day conference to catch up on all we are doing at site. Since we were already in Addis for the meeting, a few friends and I decided to take the next week to do one of my absolute favorite things, travel!

Now I do realize that I live abroad, and in some ways I have been “traveling” for 15 months now, but having the opportunity to get out of site and visit to a new part of the world always makes my heart beat with excitement! My wonderful friend Danielle and I decided we wanted to visit the Bale Mountains in southern Ethiopia, but of course plans kept changing until the day before we left, when it was finally decided that four of us would first spend a long weekend in Arba Minch. This city, in southern Ethiopia literally means “Forty Springs” and is most well-known for its national park, Nech Sar, White Grass.

After a day full of buses from Addis, our bus arrived in our destination city, which I can only begin to describe as something from a fairy tale. A smaller city surrounded by mountains on three sides, and two lakes on the other that just screamed adventure to us-- Exactly what we were looking for.

A quick bus transfer and we finally made it to a village in the surrounding mountains, Dorze, which boasted a cultural lodge, where you sleep in the local huts, for under $10 a night! A buffet of Ethiopian food, a personal gabi (local blanket/jacket) draped on each of our shoulders, a couple glasses of tej (local honey wine), and a night filled with traditional music and dancing; we couldn’t have asked for anything more!

The next few days we spent exploring the national park, stalking what appeared to be the last four zebras in Ethiopia, spotting a Peter Pan-sized crocodile and camping under a canopy of trees. I must add that there are more than four zebras (which, in Amharic, are called striped donkeys) but while we were in the park only four ever came into sight. We had so much fun, despite the fact that it seemed like every bus or tour guide we dealt with wanted to try to rip us off more than the last guy. I could write an entire book about the art of bargaining in Ethiopia, but at the end of the day we are still ferengi in their eyes, and therefore, rich. An emotional beating every time you get judged for the color of your skin, but I’m hoping it is making me a stronger person in the long run.Moving past that unplanned tangent, we then cut across to Hawassa meeting up with another volunteer and friend from home, who were joining us for the Bale Mountains portion of our trip! Traveling from Hawassa to the entrance of the Bale Mountains National Park proved to be another full day on buses. Hawassa to Shashemene to Dodola to Adaba and finally to Dinsho! Four legs later we were dropped off right outside the entrance gate where we happily accepted the “resident rate” and hiked in a couple km to our first campsite. We were only in the park a few minutes before seeing our first nyala and several dik diks.We camped in the park for three nights, each at a different campsite, hiking during the day to new areas. Since two horses and a guide were compulsory, it worked out well that Danielle and I could hike without our packs, while all the boys carried theirs, leveling out the playing field! It was such a relaxed environment; each new area was filled with places to explore: waterfalls, forests, cliffs. We would arrive in the afternoon, setup camp, and spend the rest of the day playing games and discovering the surroundings.I learned that the local guides are a lot better at building fires, and keeping them alive than we are. They are also able to endure long nights of cold rain without tents to keep them dry, only shallow caves to barely shelter them. We had so much fun hiking through the Bale Mountains and enjoying the beautiful region. Wart hogs and their babies scampered around the fields, mountain hyrax jumped from cliff to cliff, and six ferengi balancing on rocks to cross a river while carrying packs. We succeeded in finding an adventure; we always do.

This past Monday officially started the 55 days of fasting before Easter for all Orthodox Christians in Ethiopia! “Fasting” includes not eating until noon everyday, and never eating any animal products (milk, butter, eggs, meat, etc., aka a vegan diet). ‘Why 55 days?’ you ask. Well, I’ve been told many reasons, but the leading theory is because throughout the year every Wednesday and Friday is fasting, so they fast for the 40 days of Lent, plus the days they would have already been fasting.

Sunday night before fasting began was practically a holiday here as everyone binged on meat products! My supervisor in town invited me out to dinner for tebs, little pieces of cooked meat with injera. The restaurant was filled to capacity with people getting their last fix of meat.

Last year I watched in amazement at the dedication Ethiopians have with this fasting schedule. Orthodox butchers actually close shop for the fast! Last year one of the volunteers decided to follow the fast and I remember thinking how unrealistic that sounded, but here I am a year later, 4 days into the Fasika tsom (Easter fast)!

I have decided to see if I can stick to the diet until Easter, although I have been eating my breakfast still. I figure starving myself isn’t going to help anyone. Plus, they don’t even drink water before noontime, and since I try to run in the mornings that would be unhealthy to follow! Trust me, sorting through my food, avoiding anything egg or milk is hard enough! I rarely eat meat from a butcher here, but eggs are a regular part of my diet (scrambled eggs with injera is one of my favorite things to order when eating out), and any food I have from America seems to include something I’m not allowing myself to eat (especially that Valentines Day candy!). Luckily, during the fast most restaurants don’t even offer anything but fasting food which lessens temptations when I’m not at home.

The children on my compound were playing in my house the other day and asked for caramela (candy) and I told them that I was sorry, but all the candy I have right now isn’t fasting candy. This followed with the kids trying to convince me that Wednesday and Fridays during Easter fasting aren’t fasting days. Haha. I’m no fool. I don’t think my landlord’s family is too strict with fasting, but if I can’t eat the Reese’s than neither can they!

I think the hardest part of this challenge will be next week while in Addis for my group’s Mid-Service Conference, and the following week, which I’ll be traveling. My favorite thing about being in Addis is loading up on ferengi food, including cheese! I’ll keep my blog updated with my progress during the next 55 days. And I’ll be looking forward to packages around Easter time filled with milky delights!

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. I don’t think that when I was preparing for this Peace Corps experience that I thought I’d be reveling in any of those 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, well, 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, with Arbay (my dog) and I followed single-file. I suddenly found myself surrounded on all sides by a forest; outside and completely alone (besides Arbay), for the first time in Dangila.

The only sound I could hear were the leaves of 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!

The bus rumbled down a dirt road and Ethiopian music blared over the loud rumble. The scene was anything but calm, nevertheless I was able to find a piece of serenity as I put in my headphones and watched the countryside pass by my window. I was on my way to Mertolemarium to celebrate the biggest St. Mary’s Day of the year with fellow volunteers.

After a longer bus ride than I anticipated I was finally in Mertolemarium, where Group 3er Sher lives. She was kind enough to host the volunteers in the area in her spacious house for the weekend. There was going to be a parade through town, ending at the hilltop Monastery and the town’s namesake. Not entirely sure what to expect from a holiday we’d never celebrated before (somehow last January in Ambo we didn’t see a celebration); we set out in the afternoon to join up with the procession. Most Ethiopians were dressed in the traditional white clothing, and seeing everyone crowded in the streets carrying ornate parasols never fails to take my breath away.

Groups of men would chant to the beat of a drum and everyone would dance as they walked slowly through the hills of the town. We, the white people, were of course, just as entertaining to the Ethiopians as they were to us. One man in particular stood out as unique, as he was jogging down the middle of the crowded street chasing children with a whip! Behind him, were children clapping and dancing. Our Ethiopian friends kindly explained that this is a tradition mostly in the Omo region of Ethiopia, but this man lives in Mertolemarium and carries on the tradition here, to make the kids dance!

It seemed like as far in front of me and as far in back as I could see the street was filled with mobs of people. Part of the way through the parade we took a break to get a cold soda, get out of the sun, and lose the crowd of children we’d collected. When we joined back with the parade after our refreshments though, the street was just as crowded! Earlier in the day we had visited the Monastery, which was built in the 16th century, so once the parade packed into the Monastery compound, we decided to head home and not endure the crowd anymore. That afternoon was of course filled with plenty of injera and wat, as all of Sher’s neighbors invited us to eat! She politely asked if it was really ok if all 8 of us come over for a meal, as that seems like a lot of people to feed, but as I’ve learned, entertaining is something Ethiopians do best. In fact, as we sat in her neighbor’s house eating, the son of the woman feeding us, one of Sher’s good friends, watched two local guys come in to eat and he said, “See, I don’t even know who they are! But my mom will feed them!” It is basically an open-door policy. Anyone who comes in is fed. After we were stuffed with many delicious stews, we went back to Sher’s house to rest, and other neighbors were upset we didn’t come to their houses too. The fact that we’d just eaten more than enough didn’t seem like a good enough excuse.

While at Sher’s house two men came and dropped off a note for her, which invited her to a dinner the next night at the local Chinese camp, with road construction workers. Most of the road work here is done by a team of Chinese guys, and right outside Mertolemarium is a big construction project. Sher called one of her friends there and again said how many guests she had, and they still welcomed us with open arms! So the next night we took a car out to this Chinese camp, complete with hot water, air conditioning, and electricity by generator. We sat outside in the cool evening air and shared in the most bizarre cross-cultural exchange of my life. Half of the team was Ethiopian (mostly from Addis), our group of Americans, the team of Chinese men, along with an engineer from England, and one from Nepal! Although egg rolls weren’t on the menu, we happily ate the injera, enjoyed the bonfire, and danced around to Ethiopian music.

The next day included a 5:30am trip to the bus station as we all departed in our respective directions. Even though buses can’t leave until 6am, apparently they fill up fast, because they escorted our group to this bus in the back, as the rest were already full. After a while of waiting and watching the other buses leave, the girl I was sitting with tells me that there is a ranking of buses, and this one, since it is the oldest, has to leave last! That pretty much set the pace for the day. A painfully slow bus ride later I was finally back home in Dangila able to rest up after a wonderful weekend.

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 trying, 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.

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.

We arrived in Cairo at 5:00 on the morning of New Year’s Eve following a three-hour delay on our flight. After resting until noon, we made our way with a guide to the pyramids. That’s right; the pyramids that I’ve seen in pictures and movies my whole life were awaiting me on the other side of the city. As the highway approached them, our guide pointed out the grand structures, peering through the local buildings. I’ve been told that you shouldn’t get your hopes up, because they aren’t as big as you think they would be, so I’m not sure if I just had low expectations, but either way, I was impressed. We drove to a side street nearby and swapped out our tour guide’s car for an even better mode of transportation: camels!

Since the elephants in Tanzania were wild, this was the first chance we had to ride on an animal, so my brother and I were very excited. As we headed toward the pyramids, although awkwardly bouncing around on the back of a camel, I had a sense of complete serenity. Riding up to the pyramids on camel, with hardly any other people around, was like going back in time. If only you couldn’t see the distant tour buses near the base of the biggest pyramid you would think you were in a different era altogether.

We spent the next day exploring Cairo, eating delicious food (well, ok, it was Chili’s, but I haven’t had American food in a year! And it was on a boat on the Nile!), and outdoing ourselves at the Khan-el-Khalili market. I must thank my family for putting up with my cravings for every American chain restaurant I saw: Pizza Hut, Cinnabon, McDonalds!

The following day we visited the National Museum in Cairo, and that night headed on an overnight train to Luxor. The Valley of the Kings, Thebes, and several other tourist stops were on our agenda and they didn’t disappoint. That night we drove to the Red Sea town of Hurghada, the part of the vacation I’d been awaiting for over three weeks.

Since I came to Africa I knew one thing I couldn’t miss out on was diving in the Red Sea. After arriving in Hurghada, I spent a day looking around town deciding on a dive company, and spent the next two days in-and-out of the water on five dives. While I was sad to not be spending the last couple of days of vacation with my family (they aren’t divers), I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see one of the seven underwater wonders of the world. Each afternoon I would return to the hotel filled with stories of my scuba diving adventures.

The marine life is amazing, along with the different types of corals. When all you can hear is the sound of your exhaled bubbles and you look upward 30 meters to the surface of the water, it is like you are in another world. The ecosystem on a reef is mindboggling; the way the animals work together and live together. It feels like you are witnessing something that you weren’t meant to see.

I compared Tanzania to The Lion King, and I couldn’t help but thinking I was in the middle of Finding Nemo on the Red Sea. The things you get to see in nature around the world as just amazing, and I think Disney realized this a long time ago. The Ethiopia Disney movie has yet to be made, although I think they’re missing a goldmine of opportunities there! The three consecutive countries we visited each offered unique highlights, and I was so blessed to spend the month with my family. Thank you for that unrivaled opportunity!

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.

While I waited in the terminal for my 10AM flight to Tanzania to board, I had butterflies in my stomach. It wasn’t the flight I was anxious for, but three of its passengers that awaited me! Of course, nothing in Ethiopia goes as planned, and as I looked up from the book I was reading to scan the terminal for possible boarding information, I caught my brother’s eye. There was my family, going through security to join me in the terminal!

It was an epic reunion, filled with hugs and tears, and before I knew it time was flying by. Hours, which felt like days as time lead up to seeing them, turned into minutes. Before I knew it we were stepping into the humidity of Tanzania and our safari had begun. Lions, leopards, cheetahs, not to mention countless giraffes, elephants, zebras and wildebeests; It was like being thrown into The Lion King. While my brother will cringe as he reads about these Disney references (he also wasn’t my biggest fan when I sang “Hakuna Matata” while on safari), I can’t help but compare the safari to something unreal. Each day kept exceeding my wildest expectations.

We traveled from Kilimanjaro International airport to the Ngorongoro Crater, to Serengeti National Park, then retraced a bit to Tarangerie National Park, and finally wound up in West Kilimanjaro for a couple nights. On our first afternoon in the Serengeti, we drove right up beside two cheetahs. After a moment of watching them, the one other Range Rover in sight flashed their lights at our driver and just 100 yards away we saw a lion, and following his line-of-sight, there lay two more!

The next day in the Serengeti NP, we were driving along a side road when we spotted a group of at least 10 elephants on the horizon. We were the only car in sight, and decided to stop, turn off the engine and observe them for a bit. We watched in awe as they walked right towards us. Maybe twenty minutes later they crossed the road around our vehicle. Half were in front of us and half were behind us, and we were speechless. Later that day we pulled around this large rock formation and saw another car stopped, always a good sign that there is something to see. A leopard was perfectly perched on a branch overhanging the rock. That was a set straight from The Lion King. Moments after arriving, the beautiful animal stood up and wandered back off the branch to rest in privacy I suppose. Lunchtime was approaching, so we decided to park there and eat our boxed lunches while waiting to see another glimpse of the leopard. With binoculars you could see the unmistakable leopard print through the brush. Just before we gave up waiting, he decided to grace us with his presence again, going back to prone position on the branch.

One of the last days, when we were staying in private game reserve in West Kilimanjaro, in the nicest tent I’ve ever stepped foot in, we had a little scare. We piled into an open-air range rover and headed out for a morning game drive. The lack of walls between me and animals that could attack me didn’t faze me at first, I was anxious to see them up close! We spotted our first group of elephants outside a National Park and we approached with excitement. Our guide, used to NP animals instructed the more inexperienced driver to pull up close… the elephant swung his trunk, flopped his ears, and made a noise that made us wish were moving in the opposite direction (as I snapped pictures, obviously)… and the driver stalled the vehicle.

We all survived the weeklong safari in Tanzania, and had an adventure of a lifetime! It would have been a wonderful vacation all on its own, but as it was, it was just the beginning of ours!