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. 

Exploding Expectations (Site Announcement and Visit)

7/12/12 

When a person enters the Peace Corps, there is very little that she actually knows. As a result, the training program sometimes feels like a series of veils are being lifted, one by one, from the view of the big picture. Two Saturdays ago, June 30, was one of those days: Site Announcement Day - the day that each of us 70 trainees found out which town would be our permanent site for the next two years.

The Peace Corps did a great job of making the day seem as important as it was. First, they gave us a 2 hour lecture on safety and security that no one wanted to hear at that particular time, which served perfectly in building up our impatience. Then we had a ½ hour coffee break, during which we were all able to talk about our impatience (very constructive conversation, as you can imagine). Finally, they began to announce our site placements…one by one by one. It was agonizing! They would call out the name of a town, show you where it was on the map, and then announce who would be sent there. I was about the 50^th out of 70 to be announced, so by the time they got to me, my stomach was in knots and I could barely sit still in my chair. Oh, the anticipation!

The result: my site is a town called Fincha (or Fincha’a), and it is in the region of Oromia, where Afan Oromo/Oromiffa is the regional language.

With my announcement, I was given an envelope with some basic information about Fincha. For instance, it is 1,200 meters above sea level, it was created after the construction of a hydroelectric dam on Lake Fincha in the 70s, and I will be paired with Fincha Primary School, which has about 1,600 students. The packet also said that the population of the town was 45,000 people as of 2005. Based on that information, I began to form certain expectations of my future life. I assumed that with that many people, I would have a hard time integrating and have to deal with more verbal harassment than I would in a small town. I also figured that meant certain helpful commodities would be available to me, such as fruit, good juice, and other food stuffs.

Well, this past Saturday, July 7, I traveled to FIncha for my official Site Visit, which is another of those landmark veil-liftings. The site visit is a 5 day trip to our future towns, so that we can meet important people and get a feel for what life will be like there. To get to Fincha from Addis, I took one large bus directly there, and I was accompanied by my counterpart and another trainee and his counterpart, who will be living just 50 kilometers away in Shambu.

(In the Peace Corps across the globe, a counterpart is a host country national who agrees to be paired with the Volunteer. The counterpart initially helps with introducing the Volunteer to key people in the town and helping him or her get around town, and later is a partner with the Volunteer’s projects.)

The trip took 8 hours, and when I arrived, I was surprised to see a town that sent out a vibe of calm and welcome. I asked, and was told that the town has a population of less than 10,000 people.

Less than 10,000 people. Thus, we arrive at the meaning behind the title of this entry. They say that one of the key characteristics of a successful volunteer is flexibility, and this was my first big dose of why that’s important. Essentially, the opposite of my first expectations are now my current expectations, after being in Fincha for 4 days: that it will be easier to integrate into and feel at home in this town, that the level of verbal (or otherwise) harassment I will have to handle will be low in comparison to what other volunteers deal with, and that certain food items and other commodities will not be readily available.

Guess what, though? I will happily take that trade-off! Living without a good fruit variety and without juice bets can be easily done, especially with the help of certain loving people who may or may not be sending me packages. Living in a small community where everyone knows me will come with its challenges, I’m sure, but it’s what I first envisioned when I joined Peace Corps. Already I feel welcomed and safe, and it’s only been four days! So, the lesson learned is to never to get too attached to my expectations, and to let them shift as needed.

As a conclusion to this entry, it turns out that some pretty delicious food can in fact be put together here in Fincha. One of the greatest upsides to this story is that I will have a site mate here in Fincha – she’s a health PCV, and she’s been an incredible help to me already. Last night for dinner she cooked a cabbage stir fry, flavored with onions, garlic, soy sauce, and peanut butter, and we ate it over rice. Everything in that dish, except the soy sauce, which was purchased in Addis, is available here in Fincha. It sounds terribly weird, I know, but it was scrumptious!

The upcoming month will consist of the remainder of my pre-service training, including Afan Oromo language training, teaching practicum, and more technical training. Bring it on, Peace Corps, I’m ready to go back to FIncha!

Celebrating

It happens once every year: time marches on, and I get to add another year to my age, and have a day of celebration. Usually I bake a chocolate cake with my family, we go out for a nice meal, and I get something small but meaningful for a birthday gift. Since I’m a summer baby, these celebrations are always with my family. All you summer babies out there can relate – you love your families and celebrating with them, but you also secretly wish you could celebrate with your friends…just once, please!

Well, this year was that once. It was the birthday to top all birthdays! It was my first in Ethiopia, and I was first in our group. My fellow trainees and I planned to meet up after language class finished for the day, and go out for juice for a small celebration. It’s what we usually do anyway, but I was happy with that, because the juice here is so dang delicious. We all met up at one of our houses, and then a birthday cake with a candle in it appeared, and suddenly they were all singing to me! They had secretly planned a surprise party for me, and I never guessed at all!

One of the trainees had baked me a cookie-cake herself, filled with crumbled bourbon cookies (they’re called that, but they’re actually chocolate), and covered in peanut butter frosting. It was delicious! Another trainee had told his host family about my birthday, and they made me the traditional Ethiopian birthday bread, flavored with orange soda (not sure if that part’s traditional…). It was good eatin’ all around. There were gifts, too! My cake-baking trainee also made me a friendship bracelet, out of my favorite colors, and my language teacher gave me a silver bracelet. After we finished our cake, we played one of my favorite games – bowls/three-round charades. It was pretty hilarious. I was totally surprised, and completely floored. It was my first surprise party, and it made me feel much loved.

Me and my delicious cake!

(Most of) our group of trainees, after my birthday celebration. They're the best!

The traditional Ethiopian birthday bread, and the empty plate where the cookie-cake used to be. Yum!

My two bracelet-gifts!

Outing

6/25/12 

Today after the end of our last language class for the day, our little group of 10 trainees went exploring, to find the nearby meeting of two rivers outside town. It turned out to be exactly what I needed. Once we left town, we were immediately surrounded by beautiful trees, striking yellow flowers, rocky cliffs, and a steep dropoff to the river below. We got there about an hour before sunset, so the light was soft and warm. Best of all, it was quiet. There was no TV, no blaring music, no one yelling at each other, no roosters, and no one shouting to get our attention. After a long day of trying to learn Amharic at a pace I’ve never before attempted, it was incredibly calming.

Pre-Service Training

6/24/12

My Pre-Service Training (PST) has officially begun, and the current volunteers weren’t kidding when they warned us it would be vigorous. Similar to being in high school, we have language or technical training sessions from 8-5 every weekday. Dissimilar to high school, literally everything we do is part of our education, and it doesn’t stop when we come home. So far I have learned how to use a squat latrine, take a bucket bath (a cold shower is available to me, but the water is much warmer at room temperature, so I opted for the bucket bath), brush my teeth in a bucket, filter my water, and do laundry by hand. I’ve learned that the 5 am call to prayer and the 5:30am rooster call will definitely wake me up, so I should go to sleep by 9 or 10pm, and that mosquito nets are fantastic (I’m working on loving all creatures…).

I’ve also (re)learned that love doesn’t need many (or any) words to communicate. My homestay family immediately embraced me when I arrived, and they’ve been so caring this whole week. I have a host mother and father, a 14 year old brother, an 11 year old sister, and an adorable 5 year old sister, plus an aunt and a grandmother. They’ve promised over the next few weeks to teach me how to make traditional Ethiopian food, and to teach me how to make one type of traditional basket (fingers crossed that both happen!). They feed me delicious injera and shiro wat for dinner, and they give me spaghetti for lunch, and bread with organic honey, straight from the bees, for breakfast, so I’m eating well. I also discovered the juice bet (house), which serves fresh-squeezed juices for 10 birr (about 60 cents). My favorite is half avocado, half mango.

Me and two of my fellow PCTs, at our coffee break

My favorite moment so far with the family was two days after I arrived. They typically hang out together in the living room before and after dinner, talking and watching TV. I brought out my cross-stitch project and showed them how it worked, and then in a few minutes, my host brother had brought out his sketch book, and shown me his work, and then my host sister brought out her sketchbook, and there we were, being creative together, instead of watching TV. Then on Saturday night, my host mother taught me the basics of crocheting! It’s wonderful to find a way to be creative while I’m here.

 I also love Huruta, my town. It’s smaller and more rural than most towns that volunteers will be placed in, but that is most of its charm. It is 14 kilometers off the main road, so there is barely any motorized traffic. Most of the traffic is horse carts and donkeys. The main road isn’t paved, but it has a median that is full of trees, which is beautiful. It’s in a valley, so in the distance there are hills, and my morning walk is absolutely gorgeous, with the mist in front of the hills and soft morning light on the red dirt road. 

There’s no internet in Huruta though, so I’m posting this in our hub town, Assella, which is about 45-60 minutes away. We come here two days a week for large group technical, safety, and health trainings, and we’re able to come to internet cafes during lunch. The next big event is Saturday, June 30, which is the day we find out where our permanent sites will be. I’m pretty excited.

Letters and emails will continue to be incredibly appreciated!

Much love to everyone back home.