Note: As an amateur blogger, I had some trouble with sizing these photos. Some of them are on the small side here, but you can view them full screen if you click on them.
Today, June
6, 2013, marks exactly one year of living in Ethiopia. It’s been a year unlike
any other, full of seemingly insurmountable challenges, intense frustration,
boredom, loneliness, and occasionally frightening moments, but also chock full
of personal growth, new friendships, cultural exchange, and adventures & experiences that I suspect will be lifetime highlights.
In
anticipation of being able to say I’d been here for a year, I took some time to
reflect and to put together a collection of photos that represent the
highlights of each of the past twelve months:
June 2012
Left: Tenagne, my language instructor, preparing to play the role of shopkeeper so that we could practice using our new shopping vocabulary.
Middle: Me and the other three ladies in my first language class, back when we were learning Amharic, the national language.
Right: Not only did we study Amharic together, but we also vented to each other about the difficulties that come of living with an Ethiopian family when you don’t yet understand social cues or Ethiopian culture. They were a wonderful support system!
July 2012
Top Left: My first time seeing Fincha, my hometown. In the middle of our pre-service training, we were given a week to go out and visit our future hometowns, to see what it would be like and bring that knowledge back to improve the relevance of the second half of training.
Top Right: While on my site visit, I met Laura and Paul, the current Fincha and Shambu (the next town over) volunteers for the first time, and together with Adam, the Shambu equivalent of me, we went out on a hike to the waterfall outside Fincha, which was beautiful. I got pretty lucky with who I live near. They’re incredible people, earnest volunteers, and my family-away-from-family.
Bottom Left: Back at training, being sassy during a break.
Bottom Right: All the trainees of Huruta!
August 2012
Left: Me with my host family, at the end of our two months together. They had been through the process of hosting an American who’s brand new to Ethiopia once before, so they were very understanding when I needed some quiet time alone in my room or when I would only eat the dishes they made that weren’t super spicy, but they were also happy to show me how to crochet Ethiopia-style, how to cook some basic Ethiopian dishes, and how to prepare coffee. They were perfect, basically.
Middle: The day I became a real Peace Corps Volunteer!
Right: The harsh reality of transitioning from being a trainee to being a volunteer – my first home the way it looked when I arrived. Does it remind anyone else of a prison? This isn’t exactly a highlight, but it’s certainly a mark of how far I’ve come. I panicked that first day, and wondered what on earth had possessed me to join the Peace Corps. Don’t worry, I still wonder that sometimes, but most days I wouldn’t trade this experience for the world, no matter how much I miss chocolate chip cookies.
September 2012
Left: My first house, after some significant efforts to turn it from a dungeon into a home. Home-decorating and exploring the town are what occupied most of my time that first month, when school was still closed for the summer.
Middle: over at my counterpart’s house, trying to grind coffee while his wife cracks up at my efforts.
Right: Out on a hike with Laura to Lake Fincha, I stumbled into some quick-mud. As you can see, it was pretty deep!
October 2012
Left: Me and my first counterpart, Amente, enjoying the lovely post-rainy season weather.
Middle: School finally started, so I was able to start my Community Education Needs Assessment (CENA), which occupied my first three months, and consisted of spending lots of time on the school campus, observing and asking questions, and yielded a fairly good understanding of how things work in Fincha Elementary. Here, two teachers are working on their weekly lesson plans.
Right: When the next group of volunteers arrived in Ethiopia, Laura and I hosted a group of them on a demystification trip to Fincha. Here, we’re getting some traditionally-prepared coffee from our favorite coffee lady. Hosting the newcomers shed light on the progress I’d made in just 3 ½ months, in language acquisition, overall adjustment, and confidence.
November 2012
Left: During the last weeks of my CENA research, I snapped this picture of the librarian and one of the PE teachers, being silly.
Middle: Lake Wenchi, one of two crater lakes in Africa. I went with most of the volunteers in my group, while we were at our first In-Service Training, a landmark in a PCV’s progress, signaling the end of our initial 3-month period of adjustment and research and the beginning of the expectation that we would be doing work in our communities.
Right: Leaping over a swamp/stream on our hike around Lake Wenchi. What an adventure! (I made it, in case you were wondering.)
December 2012
Top Left: A visitor! My friend, Ben, is living in Kenya and working for a micro-finance rating organization, and he was sent to Addis on a work trip. I took my first solo trip down to Addis to meet up with him, and took him around the city to see the sights. What a fun opportunity to meet up so far from home!
Top Middle: Christmas stockings! They’re the fruition of a collaboration between me and the tailor. Laura and I filled them with knickknacks, and voila – one of my favorite parts of Christmas, possible in Fincha!
Top Right: Christmas dinner! Laura hosted, we had the Shambu guys over, and we ate homemade mashed potatoes and bullion-cube gravy, boxed stuffing, canned cranberry sauce, and glazed carrots. Perfection.
Bottom Left: The first and most consistent/long-lasting thing I accomplished this year was starting an English club with Laura, for underprivileged 4th and 5th graders. Here are the kids at the Christmas lesson, where I showed them a mini Christmas tree and a stocking, explained American Christmas traditions, and then gave each of them a mini-candy cane as a present.
Bottom Right: Oh, glorious day – the day that I finally moved out of my first house and escaped the creep who lived next door and the jerk who lived on the other side of me, both of whom took advantage of our thin walls to have conversations over me. Here, my things are being transported up the hill by horse cart, which is of course totally normal.
January 2013
The most significant thing that was photo-worthy in January was turning my second house into a home. I hired a painter and together we repainted the walls, and this is how it turned out:
Left: My bedroom. I painted the blue myself!
Middle: The study area of my main room.
Right: The kitchen area of my main room. When I first saw the way the yellow wall turned out, I hated it. I’ve always had a thing against yellow, but lo and behold, six months later and not only have gotten used to it, I actually like it! A true example of how the Peace Corps will change you to your core.
It's a lot more decorated now, though, and I've added an upholstered chair.
February 2013
Top Left: My counterpart, Dereje, and me, at our Oromia Regional In-Service Training, at which we went through a 2-day Project Design and Management training, during which Dereje and I laid plans for getting me a model classroom and starting a teacher mentorship program. Both of these things have happened! I’d call the training a success.
Top Right: Continuing my training in how to prepare coffee the traditional Ethiopia way. This time I was allowed to do it all with supervision. Here, I’m roasting the beans while my teacher, Hurji, watches closely to make sure I don’t burn them.
Bottom Left: Hurji’s three brothers, happily occupied with my computer while I learn to make coffee. They’ve all had a small amount of computer training at school, but have had no opportunity to practice. Since they were very careful with the machine the first time I let them use it, it’s turned into a routine.
Bottom Right: The girls from our English club, with their acrostic poems of positive adjectives that correspond with their names and how they see themselves. What a rewarding activity!
March 2013
Top Left: Laura, giving a training on gender with female workers from the Fincha Sugar Factory. I went with her and helped out, and it was a great training, despite the lack of men in the audience.
Top Right: My new classroom! This was the first meeting of our club in my brand new (to me) classroom. It’s been such a blessing to be able to count on having a space every single Monday for us to meet.
Bottom Left: Me and Laura with Faati, the best coffee-maker in Fincha, with the poster she allowed us to put on her wall for International Women’s Day. It says in Afan Oromo that just as you cannot clap with one hand, you cannot develop without women. Bordering it are contributions from high school students, who wrote ways that women are strong.
Bottom Right: Me, striking out on my own, making Ethiopian coffee completely independently. It wasn’t half bad, either!
April 2013
Left: Not the greatest photo, but it shows the dormitory of the new Nekemte School for the Deaf, where our Camp GLOW will be held in July. The camp will be a one-week female leadership-focused camp for 9th grade girls from eight different towns in our region, and we spent three days in April together in Nekemte, planning everything out for it. As director of the camp this year, I planned and ran the meeting, and I’m happy to report that it was a very fruitful weekend.
Middle: Warming up with the Grassroots Soccer (GRS) kids. GRS is a program developed in South Africa that combines soccer drills with HIV/AIDS education. Laura ran it, and I helped her out. It was a great program!
Right: Me at my favorite family’s house on the Wednesday before Ethiopian Easter, eating mushy corn as part of their traditions.
May 2013
Top Left: Me with wonderful PCV friends, on a boat on Lake Hawassa, on our way to see hippos!
Bottom Left: Me and Alicia, about to start the 7K race in Hawassa.
Top Right: When I arrived home from my trip to Hawassa, I found that preparations were in full swing for my landlord’s daughter’s wedding! Here from left to right are Takalu, my landlady, Gadaffa, my landlord, his daughter the bride, his new son-in-law the groom, and two of her bridesmaids.
Bottom Right: Me and the Grassroots Soccer participants at their formal completion celebration. I think they were sad to see it come to an end.
June 2013
 |
| There are tuna cans pictures here, but I quickly replaced them with rocks when they started to stink and turn brown. Whoever said tuna cans were a viable option lied. |
Above: Already this
month I’ve finally gotten around to purchasing the necessary pots and finding
good stones to create a make-shift, stove-top oven, and have successfully made
banana bread and something similar to biscuits that tasted good when eaten with
gravy!
With roughly 14 months left in my service, I sometimes feel like I'm counting down the days until I get to see my family and friends again, but I equally as often feel the urge to make the most of what remains of my time here in Ethiopia. So here's to year two: may it bring fewer heartaches, more opportunities to reach out and be of help, and more everyday moments that I'll cherish for years to come.
