Moving

My first home in Fincha

Home. For a PCV, it’s somewhere that’s thousands of miles away, that tugs at your heart and at times makes you wish you could by some miracle be there, just for a little while. However, it is also your new home, in your new town, and it’s your haven. PCVs are guaranteed their own room, with a door that locks, ensuring that at the end of the day, you can shut the door and retreat into your own space to recharge.

Or at least, that’s the idea. My home in Fincha was indeed a room with a door that locked, so I did have a space to call my own, where I could wear shorts, listen to American music, and cook American-style food. Unfortunately, there was one fatal problem: my ceiling was a tarp. Don’t worry, there was a corrugated metal roof above that, so I was dry. But think about the nature of sound for a second – the little waves travel right through that tarp, and hit a metal roof, bounce off, and oh, what do you know, they can come right back down through the tarp… into my room. Add to that the fact that my room was between two other rooms, both of which were being rented by young men who worked at the nearby bank. Add the fact that they were friends, and had figured out that they could talk to each other from their respective rooms if they shouted, and add a TV in one room and there you have it – a noise problem. Suddenly, instead of my home being the one place where I could retreat from the difficulties of life as a PCV, it was one of the difficulties itself.

Almost immediately, I determined that moving would be the only way to solve the problem, but as I’ve learned over the past 4 months, nothing is that easy here. I spent the first month convincing my counterpart and the education administration office (which pays my rent) that I really did need to move. I spent the second month searching for a new home, which on one wonderful day, was found with the help of 3 other PCVs by going door-to-door asking if there were any homes for rent. I spent the third month trying to reconcile the price of the new home and the available budget at the admin. office, which was solved by the gracious staff at the PC/Ethiopia office adding a housing supplement to my living allowance (bless them). And I spent the last month waiting for my new home to be finished (it was under construction when we found it) and for the money to run out on my first home.

At last, the day arrived! How did I move all my stuff, you ask? Why, by a horse cart, of course. Wait, that’s not normal in the U.S.? Oh. Maybe I really have been here for a while after all… Well, that’s how it’s done here – you find a horse and cart and man, and hire them by the trip. I also had the selfless and dedicated help of both my counterpart and one of the PCVs from the next town over. Together we were able to move all my stuff in just three trips, and it was much less stressful than I anticipated.

Trip #2, with my kitchen table/shelf, bookshelf, stools, mattress, and suitcases.
The poor horse had to lug it all uphill...

The day was not without its eye-opening moments, either (what day is?). My counterpart saw how much stuff I had (3 suitcases, 9 small boxes, 4 shopping bags, my water buckets, my stove/tank combo, and my furniture), and told me in multiple ways how much stuff I had, and that having as much as I have qualifies me as a very rich person, and that it usually takes years to accumulate this much stuff. Ouch. So, a lesson for us all – we Americans have too much stuff!

I’m writing this blog entry on my first night in my new home, and already I can tell it’s going to be better. I have one neighbor now, and he has a TV, but he watches it at a low volume, and when I go into the bedroom and close the door – wait for it – I can’t hear it AT ALL. Praise all that is holy!! 

The big room of my new home, day one

The bedroom of my new home, day one

American Christmas

The Christmas season is hands down my favorite month of the year. I mean, come on: the music, the tree, the decorations, the planning and the secrets, the cookies, (hopefully) the snow, and the final culmination, complete with family, friends, and even more delicious goodies. There’s just no end to the wonderfulness! Thus, I was determined to make this Christmas season – my first away from home – as festive as possible.

The day after Thanksgiving, I spent hours listening to Christmas music and cutting out paper snowflakes, to Christmas-ize my home. Strangely, that was all I did for a couple weeks, but it was enough to put me in the mood. Then my site mate and I began to prepare for our upcoming celebration with the 2 PCVs the next town over. We spent three whole afternoons making decorations, including fancy Christmas cards, more snowflakes, a TP-roll snowman, and TP-roll “Christmas lights.”

The snowflakes, TP-roll "lights", and even the TP-roll snowman!

The highlight of my preparations though was the stockings. I wanted to make stockings for the four of us, so I drew out a template and went to one of the tailors in town to see about buying fabric. He had some great shiny and stretchy burgundy fabric, so I was happy. But when I pulled out the template, he thought I was asking him to make them, so he took it, and that’s when the magic happened: he made me four wonderful stockings, in under 45 minutes. I kid you not, it was the fastest I’ve ever seen someone cut, sew, and iron fabric. And if that wasn’t enough, he wanted to know why I wanted such enormous socks made, so I happily explained to him in the local language about stockings. I told him that for American Christmas, when the children are sleeping, the parents put candy in these very big socks, and that when the children wake up and see the candy, they are very excited. Not a perfect explanation, but I was proud of myself for how close I got in Oromiffa. And the stockings were beautiful to boot!

The stockings!

 Our celebration took place two weekends early, and included many games, much laughter, small gift exchanges, and an out-of-this –world delicious meal. In other words, exactly what Christmas should be. It was enough for me, to satisfy my mission to be festive despite 7,500 miles from home, but it wasn’t the end.

On Christmas Eve, my sister’s care package arrived! She had deliberately set out to send me Rosen Christmas in a box, and boy did she succeed:

Yep, she sent me a lighted and decorated tree, a Christmas mug and hot chocolate, a stocking with my favorite Christmas chocolate, Christmas socks, Christmas pj pants, a real, physical book, snow, and a cat - everything I love about Christmas at home that would fit in a box! 

Since I now had a Christmas tree, mini candy canes, and a real Christmas stocking, I decided to make use of them in a Christmas lesson at my English club that afternoon. I had a blast with the kids, explaining to them the Christmas tree, the stockings, and the candy, and being able to show them real examples of all of it! We started out by comparing Ethiopian Christmas and American Christmas, and we determined that both involve special food, family and friends coming together, and church-going. We finished by opening the present I had wrapped for them and opening the stocking, both of which contained candy for them. Seeing their eyes light up at the sight of the candy, and watching their reactions to the taste of the candy canes was priceless, and will be a lifelong memory.

My kids, with the tree, stocking, and present. :)

 As my sister wrote to me, “We have so many years to celebrate Christmas together…you only get two in Ethiopia, so make them count!” She’s exactly right. So, how do you think I did?

In-Service Training

The stereotypical image of a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) is of a dirty hippie-American living in a remote village in a developing country with no other Americans in sight. This vision isn’t far off, but as I discovered once I’d arrived in Ethiopia, Peace Corps doesn’t actually drop you off and say “see you in two years,” and leave you to your own devices. Back in the early days, that’s exactly what happened, but there was a disturbingly large amount of PCVs who didn’t finish the two years, so a study was done, and it was discovered that PCVs overall feel depressed and want to go home at the 3 month mark, the midway mark, and just before the end of service. In response, Peace Corps created conferences and trainings to bring volunteers together at those periods in their service.

So for the last two weeks, that’s what I’ve been up to. This first one is called IST: in-service training, and they brought us all to a town called Ambo about two hours outside of Addis for the duration of the training. Despite the hotel’s poor building plan that placed the conference room at the top of a 7-story building (that’s 120 steps, folks, not that we’ve been counting or complaining), it’s been just what I imagine the original creators of these conferences imagined: encouraging, reassuring, and arming us with the tools we need to go forward more effectively. 

The view of Ambo from the top of our hotel

I have many highlights, three  of which will signal big changes to my life as a PCV when I return to Fincha:

1. New Counterpart: A key component to this training involves bringing an Ethiopian counterpart from our educational communities, and developing an action plan with him, detailing what projects and programs we want to start after my return. I changed my counterpart for this one, and brought the supervisor of Fincha’s cluster of 6 primary schools (a big wig, in other words, with lots of local power). It worked out great, because his position of power will allow him to make it much easier to get things off the ground. In addition, I was thrilled to observe over the two days he was here that he’s completely professional in his interactions with me, and seems excited about working together with me on a regular basis. We’re hoping to start both a monthly training series and an individual mentorship program for the English teachers, so stay tuned for how that goes…

2. Peer Support Network (PSN): Peace Corps Volunteers have created 5 committees to serve the PCVs’ collective needs during their service, one of which is the peer support network, designed to support PCVs’ mental and emotional needs. I was elected to serve on PSN, which means I’ll be responsible for checking in on 8 of my fellow Education PCVs and sending them letters and gifts. In addition, I’ll help facilitate some trainings for the next group that arrives, and lead a demystification trip like the one I went on just after arriving in country. Being on PSN means I’ll be traveling out of Fincha a lot more than I thought I would (about 5 times each year), but I’m very excited to help support my fellow PCVs in this way.

3. Housing: I’ve been unhappy with the noise pollution that is present in my current home since day one of arriving in Fincha, and bearing it as well as I could while seeking out an alternative place to live in town. I found that place about a month ago, but have been trying to work out funding for moving there ever since. Finally, Peace Corps has agreed to supplement my monthly allowance so that I can move when the new place is finished being constructed. This is a huge victory, and I’m so excited that I can’t even describe it in words. Again, stay tuned, but I’m hoping to be able to move by New Year’s. Yay!!

4. Fun times with New Friends: This one doesn’t necessarily affect my future, but it’s wonderful all the same. The two weeks of training also afforded the opportunity to bond with my fellow PCVs, and I had a fantastic time. Our leisure activities included word games, a paper football tournament, big-screen movie-watching using the projector, and swapping stories. It was great to compare our experiences and find out how similar they were, and to laugh about the aspects of life as a PCV in Ethiopia that may be slowly driving us bonkers…

Me and my opponent in the paper football tournament.
We PCVs are nothing if not innovative in finding ways to pass our time...

5. Hiking around Lake Wenchi: Along those veins, on the Sunday in the middle of IST, 38 of us went on a hike aaround Lake Wenchi, one of only two crater lakes in all of Africa, located about a 45 minute drive outside of Ambo. It was stunningly beautiful, and great fun to hike with so many friends. We hiked for about 7 hours in a circle around the lake, but we cut part of it off by taking the row boat ferry over to an island in the middle where there is an Ethiopian Orthodox church. Legend has it that when an attacker was traveling the country and burning Orthodox churches, the Lake Wenchi church was where the arks of the covenant were taken, to protect them. I may or may not have been the 38^th PCV to finish the hike, and I may or may not have been incredibly sore for a few days afterwards, but it was definitely worth it.

Lake Wenchi, at the beginning of our hike

One of the wonderful views as we hiked down to the lake

6. Thanksgiving: Our IST finished Thankgiving morning, and we were bused back to Addis midday, so we were able to split into smaller groups and find somewhere to celebrate. The Sheraton hotel offers a true Thanksgiving buffet for a whopping 800 birr (that’s 1/3 of my monthly allowance, and a primary school teacher’s entire monthly salary), so I skipped that and instead went with some wonderful people to a French restaurant, where I had cheese and spinach ravioli and a dessert that was called pumpkin pie but tasted not remotely like pumpkin (It’s the thought that counts, right??). The place was elegantly decorated, and we created gratitude hand turkeys and shared what we were grateful for while we waited, and it felt very much like Thanksgiving should.

Thanksgiving dinner!

 I just returned to Fincha today, and I’m pleased to say that I’m happy to be back. When the bus drove over the dam at the base of town, I felt a similar feeling that I feel when I go back to my family’s summer cabin – it’s a feeling of coming home, and it was a thrill to realize that I felt that way about Fincha. I’m going to count that as a victory of sorts, as I enter the next phase of my life as a PCV. 

Buna Danfissuu (To Prepare Coffee)

To my (probably imaginary) host of readers who have been wondering where I’ve disappeared to, my apologies for the lack of posts this month. To squeeze in a post in the month of October, I thought I’d give my first wholly cultural post:

Traditionally prepared Ethiopian coffee. It tastes unlike any coffee you've ever tasted in America, I guarantee it. My theory is that it's all about the jug they use to boil it in, but even if I'm wrong, my taste buds are still incredibly happy. 

 As in many countries around the world, there is one hot drink in particular that is central to Ethiopian culture and daily life. In India it is chai, in Britain it is tea (yes, I know, that’s technically the same thing, but you know they prepare it differently); In Ethiopia it is coffee.

As coffee connoisseurs already know, Ethiopia is the birthplace of the coffee bean, and is known for its delicious coffee. The best beans are sold to Starbucks and Trader Joe’s and other foreign companies for your enjoyment at home in the U.S. But regardless of the quality of the bean, you just can’t get coffee like it’s made here in Ethiopia, especially because it’s not just the drink – you don’t take a mug of coffee to go – it’s about the ceremony that goes with it. 

The coffee ceremony is central to daily Ethiopian culture. It’s a time when family, friends, and neighbors gather together to drink coffee and talk. I have almost no idea what they’re talking about, since my command of the language is not really that strong, but it seems that the topics vary by day and by family. They’re human, too – sometimes it’s about solving each others’ problems, sometimes it’s about how expensive food is, and sometimes it’s about the latest gossip. More often than not, if I’m there, it’s about me. Overall, it’s a time for relaxing and enjoying each other’s company.

The coffee ceremony itself is rooted in tradition. It’s always performed by a woman (at least, that’s what tradition dictates and what I’ve observed). She starts with unroasted coffee beans (they’re actually greenish in color – who knew?) and a charcoal fire, and she roasts the beans over the coals while you all sit and talk. When they’re ready, she may come around and have you smell the beans, using your hand to waft the smell toward you. Then she goes outside and grinds the beans by hand with a mortar and pestle, while the rest of you stay and continue to visit with each other. Then she comes back inside and combines the coffee grounds with water in an awesomely shaped clay pot called a jabana, and puts it over the coals to brew. When the coffee is ready, she pours it out into cinnis,  miniscule cups and saucers, and adds sugar (lots!) to each cup. Traditionally you’re expected to drink 3 rounds of coffee, but it seems that at large gatherings it’s acceptable to drink 2, so that the coffee stretches farther.

My host sister when I was in training, preparing coffee for the family.

The ceremony can easily take 2 hours, and some families do it 3 times a day. My host family during training only did it when there was a special occasion. My landlord’s family has coffee ceremony every afternoon, and my counterpart’s family has invited me over every weekend so far for theirs; They always have a ton of people at theirs. Instead of having couches they have benches lining three walls of their living room, so they can easily seat 20 people. My landlord has couches and easy chairs, but he also has benches lining two walls behind the couch arrangement. They’re definitely geared toward large gatherings here.

The ceremony tells you how much Ethiopians value gathering together. However, the advent of the TV has permanently altered the tone of the ceremony, in my opinion. I of course wasn’t here before it became common for families to have a TV, but at each house I’ve been to for coffee ceremony, the TV has been on during the gathering, with varying levels of zoning out and watching it. Regardless, the Ethiopians I’ve met and interacted with are conscious of the coffee ceremony being a unique, central aspect of their culture, and I’m SO grateful that I think their coffee is delicious! I might have had to pack up and come home if I didn’t like it… it’s that important.  

In addition to the ceremony, in my little town there are a number of buna bets (coffee houses) that offer cups of traditionally prepared coffee for the wonderful price of 2 birr (11 cents USD) each. These are often modest houses, made of little more than poles and tarps, but the coffee is delicious, and meets the need for coffee that bachelors and working people have, who don't have a woman at home to prepare it for them, or who don't have time for a whole coffee ceremony in the workday. 

Here are three photos from my favorite of said buna bets. On the far right you can see another example of the traditional setup. In the background is the coal stove and the jabana, and in the foreground are the little cups. 

 The next step of course is for me to learn how to prepare coffee. I’m on my way – I’ve bought the jabana and some coffee beans – so all that remains is that I gather my courage and start trying. That will be the next coffee-related post, when I’ve either triumphed and want you to share in my success, or have royally tanked and want you to enjoy laughing at me. Stay tuned for which one it will be! 

My very own (still unused) jabana

Getting a Bed

Last week, just over a month after arriving in Fincha, my bed frame was finally completed! It was a lesson in patience, and a perfect example of why patience and a sense of humor are so emphasized as necessary character traits for PCVs:

Two weeks after arriving, I showed my drawing of the bed frame I wanted to the carpenter, and we agreed that because the new year was coming up, he could take two weeks to get it made.  

Two weeks later, the day we’d agreed it’d be done, I went to pick it up and discovered that they hadn’t sawn a single board for it. After some heated arguments between the carpenter and my counterpart, they promised it would be finished by the next Thursday, five days later. So I went up there that Thursday, and it of course wasn’t finished, as I’d by now learned to expect. Thank goodness I went though, because the drawers I’d asked for were on the wrong side. We got that straightened out, and they said to come at 10am sharp the next day. So I dutifully went up at 10am the next day, and of course they weren’t finished, but they were getting close, so I sat on a bench and watched them finish for about an hour.

I enjoyed that thoroughly, watching them do their work. A guy was welding metal in front of me, so one of the guys came over and told me in Oromiffa + gestures not to look at it. His concern made me smile for sure. The best part was when they finished; they called me over to inspect it, and while I was looking it over, one of the under-carpenters asked me if the bed was for one or two. It’s the size of a small twin bed, so I of course answered that my bed was for one person. He said, “In Ethiopia, bed is for two.” (Lies, you slightly creepy man). I said, “But abba mana hinqabu.” (I don’t have a husband), and the whole crowd of them cracked up. He then asked, “Why not? Do you have a problem?” (Excuse me?!) I said that no, I don’t have a problem; I’m just too young to get married. Luckily, he thought that was legitimate. Score!

Finally we were ready to transport the bed. I live at the bottom of the hill, and the carpenter is at the top of the hill, so to get the bed home, the carpenter found two men, and they carried the bed on their shoulders/necks – one in front, and one in back - the whole way down the hill. Ouch! I felt for them. You should now be picturing a bed being walked down the main street of town, with me walking next to it, in which literally the entire town gets to see that I bought a bed, and exactly what it looks like. Proof that it didn’t go unnoticed? That afternoon I went to the baker on the side street to buy some bread, and he asked me, “sire bite?” (bed you bought?). He’s on the side street, so word had to have traveled to him for him to know that! I laughed out loud; I couldn’t help it.

Once they got the bed onto the compound, they tipped the bed on its side and tried to bring it straight in, saw that it was still too wide to fit in the doorway, and set it down, apparently at wits end.  So with enormous repeated gestures, terrible fragments of Amharic, and a little manhandling, I directed them to bring it in on a curve to get the headboard through the door. I was a little exasperated at that point – patience does eventually run out - but maybe they’ll remember that technique for next time. So I now have a bed frame, and a memory to last a lifetime, which I can pull out to retell the next time someone complains about moving in the U.S. …

As a side note, the other notable part of that day occurred early in the morning. I went out to dump my dish water, and my landlord’s wife asked me, “sire hinfinne?” (Your bed isn’t finished?) And I responded confidently, “sire nyaadhe” (I ate my bed).

Oops! The ladies on the compound were in stitches at that one, and it took a while before I got a straight answer about what I’d done: in Oromiffa, “sire” (pronounced sir-ay) means bed, and “cire” (pronounced cheer-ay) means breakfast. Once I was clued in on the joke, I definitely joined in!

The finished product

Walking ... and Sinking

On the one month marker of calling Fincha my home, Laura and I went on a walk out of town down to the lake that Fincha overlooks: Lake Fincha. We both wanted some time out of town, among the beautiful scenery we’re so lucky to live near, and away from the people we see all the time – a break, if you will.

We started out after a cup of coffee at our favorite coffee house,

and it was a beautiful day – blue skies, white puffy clouds, a slight breeze, and the green that we only get to enjoy after the rainy season has had its way with the area. It was lovely:

Of course, the rainy season also brings an increase in little runoff streams and mud, so that twice on our route we had to get a little creative and a little dirty with fording said runoff streams:

But that just added to the experience. When we got to the shore of the lake at the point where we can see off to another portion of the lake, we sat down and enjoyed a picnic snack of Fincha’s best bread and my first attempt at hummus (made by adding water to chickpea flour, and flavored with olive oil, garlic, salt, and citrus juice – it wasn’t bad!).

Lake Fincha, just before we came to our lunch view

That’s when the experience lost its golden shine. A group of rural boys gathered about 15 feet off, and literally just stared at us. And stared at us. It was kind of funny on one level – we were literally the exhibit in the wild animal park. But it kind of kills the mood of communing with nature when you have a persistent audience. Laura, amazing woman that she is, chased them off with a stick in her hand, but of course that just made them come back for more. So we headed back the way we came, and what do you know – the cheekiest one followed us and started throwing rocks at us. Not cool, kid. So, I’ve been inaugurated into the club of PCVs in Ethiopia who’ve had rocks thrown at them. It was bound to happen sooner or later. Luckily he had bad aim, and we escaped unscathed.

Breathing a sigh of relief, we came to our last runoff stream to ford. I crossed the stream with grace (in my opinion), and, smiling to myself, stepped forward –

And sank into the mud.

No really, I sank:

I’ve heard of quicksand, but quickmud?? Really?! Sigh. Of course, what can you do but laugh? I mean, do you see how far up that mud goes on my leg? That seems pretty deep, to me…

Walking back was a bit soggy, and I got a couple fun reactions from strangers. One of them gasped, and exclaimed, “wee, wee, wee,” in the sympathetic cooing voice used when children fall and scrape their knees. Another went off in Oromiffa beyond my comprehension, so I stared at her blankly, and then asked Laura to translate. She had asked, “you fell in the mud?” To which, after all of that, I replied, “yes.” (Obviously!)

Since they were my expensive camping pants from REI, when I got home I immediately started washing my pants, and partway through, my young friend came over, and he stayed the whole time, helping me pour out my bucketsful of muddy water and refilling, and he scrubbed my shoes for me. It made me feel better, to have someone get muddy helping me clean up after my spill. The pants are completely back to being gray now, after a good hour of working on them, and so I can continue to laugh about my experience freely. What a day, and it’s only 2pm!

MUD

Baga Waga Geessuu! (Happy New Year!)

One of the most overt ways it is made clear to me that Ethiopians and Americans view the world differently is that Ethiopia follows its own calendar. The calendar that America follows is called the Gregorian calendar, or G.C. for short. The Ethiopian calendar has been in place for thousands of years, and corresponds with the climate patterns and dominant religious beliefs of Ethiopia. The calendar is aligned with the birth of Jesus, as is the G.C., but due to a variation in calculating when he was born, they ended up between 7 and 8 years behind, such that the year in Ethiopia just became 2005.*

In the Ethiopian calendar, the year still consists of 365 days, 24 hours each, and a leap year every four years. However, they divide the year into 13 months, instead of our 12. The first 12 of those months have exactly 30 days each, and the 13^th month has the remaining 5 or 6 days. The year begins when the rainy season “ends” (in the same way that winter “begins” on December 21^st). The end of the rainy season marks the onset of sunny days, the beginning of crop harvests, and the ability to enjoy the newly greened landscape. It’s a time of fresh promise, and that’s the general feeling behind the celebration of the New Year, which took place yesterday, September 11, 2012, G.C.; aka Meskarem 1, 2005, E.C.*   

Note: The school year also begins after New Year’s, so the scholastic year and the calendar year match up perfectly. Does anyone else get the feeling that someone infinitely smarter than whoever Gregory was created the Ethiopian calendar?? Fuel for the fire on that one: Ethiopians also have a different system for keeping track of time. Like in America, the day has 24 hours, 60 minutes each, and the day has two cycles of 12 hours. However, since Ethiopia is near the equator and thus the length of days stays almost even with the length of nights year-round, they start the count not in the middle of the night, but with the sunrise. Thus, at 1am, the sun has been up for an hour; at 6, it is noon; and at 12, the sun has just set.* It’s hard to wrap your brain around at first, but incredibly logical in the end, right?

So yesterday, Meskarem 1, or Fulbana 1 in Oromiffa, was a day of celebration! New Year’s is pretty big here, and the preparations became noticeable last Thursday – about 5 days before the holiday. That day anyone in a position of authority working for the government, meaning at the county and town level, high tailed it out of there, and left the bare minimum of staff behind to keep things going. The mail transportation also stopped running last Thursday, to my immense dissatisfaction (I want my care packages!!). The number of strange men and people on the road in general increased dramatically, leading to an increase in heckling of the foreigner, which got old quickly. The hotel next door turned up its volume and pushed back its end time on the music blaring, making sleep an interesting endeavor.

But I’m getting caught up in the aspects of holiday time that I dislike. There were positive and fascinating aspects to the preparations as well. I saw an incredible amount of chickens being carried up and down the road, usually 2-4 per person carrying them, upside down by their feet, still alive. This along with a shortage of eggs to be found in the shops could only mean one thing: doro wat was coming. Doro wat is basically chicken stew. It’s made of oil, onion, garlic, hot green peppers, berbere (ground hot red pepper), cooked chopped chicken (some in large chunks still on the bone), and whole hard boiled eggs. It is eaten with injera, and is a dish for special occasions, because it’s really expensive to buy a chicken. My compound family went one step up, and instead of buying chickens, they bought a sheep.

On  my compound last week, the women washed literally everything that was a textile – clothing, rugs, curtains, crocheted decorations, bedding, and the sofa/easy chairs’ slipcovers. They also washed the walls and floor of their house, and all of that together really started to make sense when I learned that the new year begins with the end of the rainy season and a feeling of fresh beginnings and fresh promise. That’s how we tend to feel in America when we switch from Winter to Spring – Spring cleaning anyone? I know, it’s somehow still a hassle even though you have washing machines, dryers, running water, special high-tech mops and vacuum cleaners…

So after 5 days of noticeable buildup, the big day arrived! Late morning, I was called into the main house to join my landlord’s family in their celebrations. It was a full house, too. My landlord and his wife are retired-age, with grown children and grandchildren of varying ages, and they’d all come back for the holiday. Earlier in the morning most of them went to church, while my landlord’s wife and niece stayed back to prepare coffee (I’m going to write a post soon about coffee; I’m sorry that I haven’t explained it yet.). Once they returned, everyone gathered in the living room for buna (coffee) and habesha dabo (Ethiopian flat bread – it’s delicious, and I’m on a mission to learn how to make it!) covered with berbere + dhadha (Ethiopian butter); there was also fandisha (popcorn) and kolo (roasted barley grains – delicious!) in little bowls around the room for snacking on. In addition to buna they were serving farso (local beer), barley juice, and honey juice (I chose the honey). The neighbors also came over on a rolling basis for visits, coffee, and snacks, and we talked about how in Ethiopia it’s expected that you’ll have your neighbors over to celebrate with you, but in America, people barely know their neighbors’ names. Around 11:30, all the women cleared out of the room, and I purposely stayed behind with the husbands and watched TV with them, while the women killed and butchered the bug (sheep). When they carried a big platter of sheep meat through the living room to the kitchen, I went and sat with them while they chopped the meat.

Lunch was bug tibs – chopped and boneless sheep meat, cooked in oil in a pot, eaten with injera. It was pretty delicious, since tibs means there’s no berbere! We ate from two plates/big metal platters. The adults ate from one, and the kids from another; the adults sat on the sofa and easy chairs around a coffee table, and the kids ate on a bench on the side. It was basically the Ethiopian version of the dining room table for the adults and the card table for the kids. I was of course urged, “nyaadhu!” (“eat!”) about every 60 seconds, even when I was clearly chewing… but that’s life! They asked if I ever eat communal-style with my family in America, and I said sadly, no, but I wish we did. It brought us physically closer, and really did add to the feeling of group unity. After lunch we watched TV and digested, while the kids ran off to the back bedrooms to play.

The whole experience with my landlord’s family reminded me very much of the big family gatherings I used to have at my grandparents’ house on my mom’s side of the family when I was little. All the aunts and uncles and cousins would be gathered together (usually for Christmas or Thanksgiving), lounging around, eating special food, and enjoying each other’s company. The youngest cousin would steal the show; the women would work on preparing lunch while the men would sit in the living room and watch TV (or in our family’s case, rough-house with the kids, or play a game of something in the back yard). Being with my landlord’s family and experiencing almost the same exact family dynamic and vibe was so wonderful, and made me feel quite at home. It was one of those experiences that makes you see past the cultural differences to the common humanity that we all share.

Around midafternoon, I was invited up the hill to have coffee with Laura, my fellow Fincha PCV, and her counterpart at his place. I’m very glad I went, because it gave me a chance to see what the town vibe was like. Walking up the hill around 3, the main road was the quietest I’ve seen it yet. Every shop except one that I saw was closed up (there’s no such thing here as grocery stores staying open in case you run out of something!), and everyone was clearly busy inside with family and friends. When I came back down the hill around 4:30, the shops were still closed, but rowdy kids and guys were starting to repopulate the street. I got followed/surrounded by a group of boys who were running around, screaming, and trying to get me to talk to them. Luckily I was almost home, and didn’t have to endure it for very long. I made it home 60 seconds before the downpour started! I spent the rest of the evening recuperating in my home, pleased with myself for taking part in the festivities and glad to have enjoyed it!

*Unfortunately, the nature of my internet connection and my lack of history books on Ethiopia results in an inability to cite the information I just presented. As a result, it is entirely possible that I’ve made mistakes on some of the details. I sincerely apologize, and I welcome corrections and citations.  

Starting to Settle In

*Note: this is going to be a long one! My life has just begun, as a PCV, so I feel it’s justified to tell you all about the many aspects (read: all) of my life that have changed:

The day after our lovely swearing-in ceremony, the Peace Corps transported each of us brand-new volunteers and our rather impressive piles of luggage to our new home towns. We were treated to private vehicles with Peace Corps drivers, to help us transport said piles of luggage, without having to face the possibility of theft. This was a wonderful treat, and we’re all very grateful to Peace Corps for helping decrease the amount of stress involved in such a big transition day in our lives. Is this a shameless paragraph of brown-nosing? Why yes, yes it is. But I’m writing it all the same, because truth be told, I may have panicked that day when we arrived, faced with the enormity of the task of the next two years ahead of me, and having that Peace Corps vehicle drop me off at my door at least kept me functional. And don’t worry, I recovered from my panic by the next morning, and have since come to be grateful for a number of wonderful aspects of my new home.

Fincha is a town of less than 10,000 people, located in the region of Oromia, west of Addis via 3 hours on the paved main road and 5-7 hours north on a dirt road. I’ve posted a map on this blog so that you can see where I live; See the Maps page. The people’s mother tongue is Afan Oromo (also referred to as Oromiffa), and it is spoken in a hybrid form, mixed with Amharic, the national language. The town is on a hill above Lake Fincha, which is man-made via a hydro-electric dam and power station. Fincha is also home to a satellite sugar factory, about 40 km outside of town, and its main road is paved, all of which the residents of Fincha are extremely proud.

Fincha’s brother town is Shambu. Shambu is about an hour away, has a population of about 35,000 people, and is a mud hole. It’s in the middle of a long process of getting its roads paved, so it’s a big mess at the moment. Why am I telling you about Shambu? Because 1. There are two fellow PCVs living there, and they are my closest (read: only) neighbors (and thus friends) aside from my site mate, and 2. The residents of Fincha are prone to comparing the two towns, and telling me at frequent intervals how lucky I am to have been placed in Fincha.

My new home in Fincha is on a compound on the main road, near the bottom of the town, close to the school I’ll be working at. The compound has a main house in the front, where my landlord, his wife, and his niece live: 

The main house

They have all three been very welcoming and helpful. My landlord has been quick to help me with housing issues, and his wife and niece have invited me inside for coffee every afternoon so far. They persist in trying to speak to me in Oromiffa, which I’m grateful for. Already I’ve solidified the basics of what I learned in training, and I’ve added a few words to my repertoire, despite most of our conversations falling flat with me saying, “hingallee” – “I don’t understand,” and both of us laughing at me.

Behind the main house is a newly built second building that is divided into 3 one-room homes:

The rest of the compound, directly behind the main house.
The small building on the right is the latrine; The blue building is where we renters live. 

A closer view of our doors and shared porch

Mine is the middle one, and it measures 4 meters by 2.5 meters, or roughly 13 feet by 8 feet. It features cement walls and floor, a door with a frosted glass window for letting in natural light, and a window next to it that will open once we get the glass replaced. The building has a corrugated metal roof, but underneath it the ceiling is a tarp nailed to crossboards, laid over the top of the cement walls. When I moved in the floor was bare and the walls were yellow, but I’ve laid down plastic flooring on a roll that looks like gray and black tiles, and I’ve had the walls painted (can anybody guess??) bright blue, so it’s feeling more like home already:

My new little home, with the flooring and paint colors I chose,.
Next comes furniture!

The rooms on either side of me are being rented by bachelors who work at the bank up the street. One of them has a TV, but through negotiation the volume has been turned down to a tolerable level, and is off when he’s at work. Our shared tarp ceiling allows us to hear each other’s every single shuffle, snort, and word, but they’ve been respectful enough.

My amenities situation is quite good, and I have no complaints on that front. Our shared squat latrine has a porcelain cover and is kept remarkably clean in comparison to other latrines I’ve used here. Score! Our compound has a water spigot, and the water has worked continuously these first 10 days, which bodes well. Our electricity is supplied by that hydro-electic power station, and is quite steady. Our cell network was down for two days this week, but when it’s functioning, the service is very strong, which also means that my internet connection is strong. Internet is expensive though, which I’m grateful for, because it won’t allow me to afford video streaming, endless facebook stalking, or aimless internet surfing. Thus, I’m able to stay connected to you lovely people at home, without getting lost in cyber world and forgetting why I’m here.   

These first two weeks that I’m here, my site mate (in PC-speak, this means fellow PCV who also lives in Fincha) has been in Addis for her mid-service conference, so I’ve been “on my own” as I settle in. That’s in quotation marks because my counterpart (an English teacher here who received a small amount of money from PC to help me settle in) has been very attentive, and helped me find a mattress on the first day, and paint, a curtain, and a broom on subsequent days. He also went with me to the head of the Education Office and to the Mayor’s office to drop off my official letters of introduction. Another young man in town who is friends with my site mate went with me to the carpenter’s, and helped me order my first piece of furniture. I started with a kitchen counter, and it should be ready in a couple days! As a side note, the money that we receive from Peace Corps is an amount that makes it necessary for me to choose a piece of furniture per month (aside from that it meets all my needs); September is coming soon, which means I’ll be able to order my bed frame!

The rest of my shopping I’ve done by wandering into and out of little shops. In America, shops are organized by type – clothing stores, hardware stores, food stores – here in small-town Ethiopia, that also occurs to a certain extent – tailors and hardware stores pretty much stick to their category of merchandise – but then there are any number of family-owned little shops that sell whatever they can, and so it’s always a hunt to find what you want. I’ve found three shops so far with shopkeepers who automatically give me a fair price, speak slowly in Oromiffa, and seem genuinely happy to see me when I come in, which has been so nice. I’ll be frequenting those shops often, for sure. In addition to shops there’s the market, where farmers sell their produce. I haven’t braved that one yet – I’m working up to it.

So far I’ve spent the majority of my time working on making my room into a home, and on figuring out where I can buy what I need. There are two victories of which I am most proud, and they are:

1. Cooking: While in Addis I purchased a gas stove and a propane tank, having heard that after the initial expense and hassle of moving with the tank, it was the best way to cook. I now believe that is true, but for about 4 days, I ran into roadblock after roadblock while trying to get it to work, not the least of which being my terror that I was going to explode myself and my new compound family. Oh, and I had never learned how to consistently strike a match. However, Wednesday was my day of triumph. I lit two matches in a row on the first strike, the hose was finally snugly attached to the stove connector, and a crowd of 15 Ethiopian men had shown me how to light it. Thus, victory of victories, I successfully lit my stove without dying, and have since cooked pasta, lentils, potatoes, and rice. Woo!! 

2. Children on the street: This victory is the first in what I hope will be a continuous, step-by-step road to ultimate triumph. Children here have somehow learned that when a foreigner walks by, it is advisable to shout “ferenje!” (foreigner!) “you!” “China!” “money!” at you. They also sometimes come running up to you to shake your hand, which I find adorable. One particularly bold group of kids hangs out on the back road, on the way to two of the shops with the nice shopkeepers. I stopped one day and used my language skills to explain that my name is not “ferenje!” or “you!” – it is Kristen. I went on my merry way, hoping against hope that they would remember. Sure enough, two days later I strolled down the road, and was thrilled to hear behind me: “Kristen! Kristen!” It’s only about 5 children, but it’s a magnificent start!

School here begins after the New Year, which on our Gregorian calendar is September 11, so I have a couple more weeks of down time. Once school starts, I’ll be spending the first 2-3 months working on a Community Education Needs Assessment, which means I’ll be interviewing and observing teachers for the most part, and using the assessment to determine what projects and programs I will start. For now though, life is about the ‘soft’ goals – language acquisition, cultural exchange, integration, and home decorating.  

Swearing In

On August 17, 2012, I was officially sworn in as Peace Corps Volunteer. Huzzah!!!

You may be asking yourself, “wait, didn’t she join the Peace Corps and go to Africa in June? Hasn’t she been in the Peace Corps this whole time?”

Well, when I received my invitation, I too thought it meant I was in the Peace Corps and 100% accepted. It turns out that’s not quite the truth. Since June 4 my title has been Peace Corps Trainee, and that title came with a certain level of probationary status. For instance, we were not allowed into the Peace Corps office compound. More than that though, our lives were completely different from the life of a Peace Corps Volunteer. We were in pre-service training, which is a time set aside both to train us for the following two years of service and to let us decide if Peace Corps is right for us and to let Peace Corps decide if we’re truly right for it. The completion of our training was marked by an interview with the Country Director, to determine if we’re ready for service.

Thus, swearing in was in no way an arbitrary exercise – it marked the true beginning of our service, and as such was a BIG DEAL. What do I mean by a BIG DEAL? I mean that we got all dolled up and were taken on our one and only trip to the U.S. Embassy, to be sworn in by the U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia himself. Incidentally, since every U.S. Embassy is technically American soil, I returned to America for a few hours that day. Weird, right?  Anyway, the proceedings included a very nice speech from the Minister of Education for Ethiopia, from our Country Director for Peace Corps Ethiopia, from the Ambassador himself, and from three of my fellow volunteers. I’ve never felt more patriotic than when they played the national anthem and we swore to uphold and defend the constitution of the United States in our service as employees of the U.S. federal government, so help us God.

It gets better though – there was a reception! By better, I of course mean it got tastier. The food was clearly imported especially for the embassy – we had cucumbers, cheese, sushi, and even a chocolate brownie with chocolate frosting. My mouth is watering again just typing such delicious words. We collectively gorged ourselves, and then we were shooed out to return to the country we had signed up to serve. It was a lovely experience, and made us feel properly official and accomplished.  

The Ethiopian Minister of Education, U.S. Ambassador, Peace Corps Ethiopia Country Director,
and PC Education Program Manager

Me with my certificate of completion for Pre-Service Training,
and my program.

Me and my language teacher, Tenagne

Teaching

To teachers of foreign languages the world over, I would like to express a new found appreciation for the difficulty of your task. For the past two weeks, I’ve been engaged in the practicum portion of my pre-service training, and it’s been an eye-opening experience to say the least.

The practicum took place during our weekday afternoons at one of Huruta’s primary schools. Since it’s summer break and school is out, we taught classes of students who had volunteered (or been volun-told) to give up two weeks of their summers. We taught grades 2-5, and each class had between 35 and 50 students, depending on the class and the day. For the first week, we taught in pairs, although I taught in a trio, because we had an odd number. The second week we taught individually, one 45 minute class per day.  Each class was observed by a mix of our fellow trainees, current/veteran Education PCVs, and our own language teachers (we call them LCFs – Language and Culture Facilitators), and we would receive feedback from them after we finished.

The challenge is the same for any teacher of a foreign language, although perhaps compounded for us. The students are at varying stages of just beginning to learn English, because it is taught as a subject here in Ethiopia until the students get to 9^th grade (much as French, German, or Spanish is taught in the U.S.). At the second grade level, they don’t even know instruction words, such as “listen,” “write,” “read,” or “repeat.” Where the problem gets compounded is that we are at the beginning stages of learning their languages, and we don’t even know those words in Amharic or Oromiffa. Then there’s the problem of our accents. We pronounce things differently, so even if they know a word, they might not recognize it when we speak. How did we manage to teach a class? Yep, you guessed it – charades.

The wonderful aspect of the experience was the students themselves. They are incredibly eager. They raise their hands to be called on before I’ve even finished explaining (miming) the instructions, and they listen and watch intently, as long as it’s not too long into the lesson. They are children, after all. It was a joy to work with them, despite the obvious roadblocks. I taught “Prepositions of Location” the second week, which is a fancy term for words like near, far, in, out, on, under, behind, and in front of. I had a blast with the younger two grades, playing a form of Simon Says to get them to associate the word with a physical action: “Teacher says put your hands under the desk; Teacher says put your hand near your face; Teacher says put your hands on your shoulders.” Luckily, a fellow trainee had taught body parts the week before!

A side effect of the practicum is that now roughly 130 kids in Huruta know my name. It is such a nice improvement to walk through town and hear my name called by the kids, as they come running up to shake my hand, instead of hearing, “Ferenje! Ferenje!” (Foreigner! Foreigner!) I can take that knowledge with me to Fincha, to help with integrating.  

The best aspect of the practicum though is the self-confidence it gave me. I have had some experience with varying levels of teaching before, but never with teaching English on my own to more than 40 children. I had my doubts, about whether I could keep control of the classroom, develop lesson plans that actually taught the kids what I wanted them to learn, and whether I could stand in front of the classroom without simply panicking and freezing. But, lo and behold, I could do all of those things! I was even praised for my slow and clear instructions, for developing activities that both engaged and taught the students, and for my general composure (once I told them I was super nervous). Thus, even though those two weeks completely stressed me out and exhausted me, I’m very glad the Peace Corps added it to our training.

The next two weeks we’re back to the usual schedule. Monday through Wednesday of both weeks, we’ll be in Assella for big group training sessions on health, safety/security, and techniques and theories behind teaching English in Ethiopia. Then Thursday and Friday of both weeks will be 8-5 of Afan Oromo language class. After the next two weeks, we begin reviewing and studying for our big language exam, and that Wednesday we travel back to Addis to finish up training and make the transition to becoming real Volunteers. It’s hard to believe that I’ve both already and only been here for 7 weeks, and that we’re entering the final leg of training.