Last Night in Bekoji

I realize I have not updated my blog in quite some time, though not for lack of things to say.  I have been doing many things here during my ten weeks of training and they have kept me remarkably busy.  I know that many of you have been waiting for my next update, even asking me on Facebook and in emails, so, well, here it is: my last night in my training site of Bekoji, Oromia, Ethiopia.

Over the past ten weeks, I have learned a lot, and grown even more as a person.  I know that sounds cliché, but it’s remarkably true.  I have bonded with my host mother, whom I watched milk a cow.  She promised to show me sometime and let me milk her, though unfortunately I was busy doing other remarkable things.  Scott and Jessi, a wonderful couple moving up to Tigre whom I will miss terribly, invited us over for pizza and games on two occasions, once to celebrate a birthday.  Their host mother, Tigist, is one of the sweetest people, and is also around our age, so acts more as a host sister to the couple.  In fact, all of the host families that I have met here have proven that Ethiopians are nothing if not hospitable.  Most of all, my own family has welcomed me into their home, shared their food, and accepted our religious and cultural differences.

I have celebrated Ramadan in Bekoji with my family.  And even though they were fasting, they still prepared misa for me – lunch – every day.  I broke fast with my family every night after sundown by eating shorba, a barley soup, and k’olo, hard grains you eat like popcorn.  I watched the Olympics with my family, and cheered for Ethiopia in running.  I watched the grin on my host father’s face when he proudly announced that Ethiopia won the second most medals in Africa, behind, of course, the much wealthier South Africa.  I felt the family bond as he excitedly announced that the United States was in tight competition with China to win the most medals in the whole competition, and how he was rooting for my home country.  Together, we watched Ethiopia and the United States bring honor to our respective countries, and beamed with pride when either country achieved something great.  I watched my host family take honey from their beehive, and ate raw honey right out of the comb as they went through the process of collecting it.  I have had some great times with my host family that I am not likely to soon forget.

But my host family isn’t the only thing about Bekoji that I am going to miss.  My language and cultural facilitators – Ethiopians hired by the Peace Corps to teach us language and culture – also have a special place in my heart.  Their English is impeccable, and their congeniality is even more incredible.  They worked hard to make sure we were not only able to pass our Language Proficiency Interview (which I did today – with a rank of intermediate low in Amharic), but also to help us build our cultural awareness and develop useful language skills that will help us at site.  I had honey lemonade at our LCF Yussef’s house, and went out to shay/buna with Biniem and Meseret, and Aberra lives right next door to me and would come over for shorba all the time.

And, of course, there are my fellow trainees, soon to be volunteers alongside me, serving all over this beautiful and diverse country with me for two years.  How could I ever forget my Bekoji Bosses, and all the good times we’ve shared in this mountain town.  Pizza at Scott and Jessi’s, lesson planning with Rachel, singing musicals with Christine, watching movies with Shauntea, trading sarcastic barbs with Chandler, playing Amharic games with Nzingha and Linda, and planning murders with Nathan and Rachel.  Yes, I said planning murders – because Rachel and I wanted to host a murder mystery dinner, but never quite got the motivation until Nathan jumped in and said, “Let’s do this.”  The result was a fabulous afternoon at “the cottage,” on 10 Bekoji Bosses Way (aka the local hotel/café hangout) with six scripted characters, and three unscripted characters.  I’ve never met a pair of more interesting detectives than Lockhart and Ryan (Rachel and Nathan) or a more persistent Janet Peach (Linda).  As for the others, they portrayed their characters as if each one was specifically for each of them.  Everyone fell into a role, loving and exploiting the stereotypes, and really having fun with the dirty little secrets, the scandals and the mystery.  When we weren’t solving murder mysteries, we were playing soccer with the local kids or just hanging out at the hotel and having fun.

A few weeks ago, we visited Sodere, an Ethiopian resort located near hot springs, which not only allowed me to mingle with the other PCTs, but also provided the opportunity for a warm shower, which is always welcome.  Monkeys more or less own Sodere, taking food from human hands whenever it suited them.  They seemed to really like the bananas.  Way to embody the stereotype, monkeys!  One stole food from Rachel twice!

As many of you know, my permanent site placement is Hossana in the Southern Nations region of Ethiopia, about four or five hours south of Addis Ababa.  I got to visit this nifty town in early July and meet my new awesome site mates, as well as my counterpart, who is equally awesome.  I’ll tell more about Hossana when I actually get there, but suffice it to say that I feel pretty lucky as far as what I’ve gotten so far.  A wonderful PST site – beautiful Bekoji, with wonderful site mates and a wonderful host family.  And now, it looks like I have a wonderful permanent site with two more wonderful site mates, and a counterpart that really wants to work with me to help the teacher training college I’m at.

All in all, it’s been a fantastic first ten weeks in Ethiopia.  Though I miss many things, and people, from the United States on a daily basis, I’m happy to be here.  I think it’s going to be a good two years.

The Sights, Sounds and Smells of Bekoji

Bekoji is a beautiful small rural town in the Ethiopian highlands, about an hour's bus ride outside of Assela.  It has many of the same characteristics as other small Ethiopian towns, like Kemise, which I visited a few weeks ago.  Because my experience with Ethiopian small towns is limited to Kemise and Bekoji, I am going to compare the two, and add in some things about what I've been told about living as a Peace Corps Volunteer/Trainee in Small Town Ethiopia.

Climate

Bekoji's climate, as I have mentioned previously, is cold.  Right now, it's the rainy season, so we get a lot of that, too.  But just like Seattle, we have our sun breaks, and it makes the dew on the grass really sparkle and paints the landscape in a golden green haze of awesome.  Unlike Seattle, when it rains here, it quite literally pours.  Although, like Seattle, it can be sunny and warm in the morning and raining in the afternoon.  But it's pretty decisive about it.  Unlike Seattle's "Maybe I'll just spit on people today... or breathe on them with my moist foggy breath" attitude.

Bekoji is very much unlike Kemise in this aspect.  I visited Kemise after being in the country for only three days, and spent four days in the small, dusty, hot town.  Though the people, community, and PCVs there were nothing but warm-hearted and inspiring, I was miserable for the first day or so.  My body has issues adjusting to heat and it made me slightly ill.  However, after four days, I did get somewhat used to it, and the nights in Kemise were pretty mild.  It was just the hot, hot days that made me want to pass out by noon.  Additionally, it was not the rainy season in Kemise when I visited.  However, other than the climate, Kemise was pretty awesome.  I posted photos on my Facebook account - some of you saw - but in case you're not of the privileged few with access to those photos, here's a really awesome tree that grows outside of the market in Kemise.  People trade and hold important meetings under this tree.



I told you it was awesome.  Reminds me of something out of a Disney movie or something.  Right?  But this photo doesn’t quite capture the heat of Kemise.  I wish I had something that did.  However, look how dusty and dry the ground is, and how pale it looks.  That’s a good thing to contrast with Bekoji, which has a deep red clay-like soil and lots of green grass.

Which just goes to show that Ethiopia is just as diverse geographically and climatologically as, say, the United States.  Maybe not as diverse, but it does come close.  It has the hottest place on Earth (which, by the way, Peace Corps isn’t allowed to go for other reasons – I’m not complaining!) and it has places with year-round sweater-wearing weather.  And this is just in one country.  Not all of Africa is savannah and desert and The Lion King, you know.

People

The people in the small towns here in Ethiopia are, as expected, different than they are in the city.  Go figure.  Just like in Small Town America, people are surprised and curious when a stranger comes to town.  And that curiosity can lead to great hospitality, but it can also cause friction sometimes.  In Ethiopia, that friction mostly comes from misconceptions about ferengi or foreigners.  I told Chelsea on the last post that we get called “China!” a lot, whether we appear Asian or not.  Although, admittedly, the Asian American volunteers get it a heck of a lot more often.  The most common offenders are a gaggle of children, whose intense curiosity and misinformation about ferengi can border on harassment.  You’ll get a lot of “China! China!” of course, but also “Ferengi!” and “Money! Money!” and “Whatisyourname?” (all one word) and “Hellomynameis!” (with no name given).  Sometimes, you’ll get some smart alec kid who wants to make a rude gesture at you because he thinks you don’t know what it means.  You just gotta yell at him and threaten to go to his father.  That scares them off... mostly because they know they’ll get their ears boxed.  And I do mean that literally.

But as irritating as they can sometimes be, the curiosity of the children here is also somewhat sweet.  Like I said, even the most annoying of comments and actions from the children mostly stem from (mostly) innocent curiosity, and who can blame them for that?  We’re new, we’re weird, and we look kind of like the people they’ve seen on TV.  Many times, you’ll have kids come up and want to shake your hand, fist bump you, or high-five you, and that’s all they wanted from you.  Many grin when you speak to them, in English or Amharic, and are delighted to chat with you in either language.  One sweet girl followed us all around Kemise, and at one point slipped her hand into mine and became my buddy.  She was only too happy to pose for a portrait for me.  Isn’t she beautiful?


As for the adults, I haven’t encountered one who I have spoken to that has been anything but warm and friendly.  Some will stare at you with blank expressions as you go by, but if you greet them, they’ll smile.  They’re just not used to ferengi is all.  After almost two weeks here now, I still get some stares, but I think people are getting used to our presence here.

Home Life

As I have mentioned before, I live with an incredibly generous host family here in a small compound in Bekoji.  A compound consists of a few separate houses around a communal courtyard which generally has animals wandering about.  We have a cow, a calf and a goat populating ours.  We have electricity, although it goes out on a fairly regular basis (about every other day) for about thirty minutes at a time.  Electricity is especially rare if there’s heavy rain.  And, of course, there’s not a single wireless signal or Ethernet port anywhere in town, which is why I had to get a portable internet device to even post this update.  There is no running water in the compound, but there is a spigot where we can get water when we need it.  As a result, I’m bathing about once a week now on Sundays.  It’s Friday and I feel really gross.  But that’s Peace Corps I guess.

My host mother cooks in a room that they refer to as a kitchen, though it’s not what Americans might think of when they think “kitchen.”  The furniture in the room consists of a cabinet, a few benches, a table and some other storage space where she keeps bins and basins for washing dishes and fruits and veggies.  She has two stoves – one that burns coals and one that burns propane.  They are small things that she uses on the floor as she crouches.  When I help peel vegetables, she is shocked that I actually sit on the floor, but it’s more comfortable for me.  I can’t crouch for hours like she can.  However, in this kitchen, my host mother brews her own shai and buna, and makes tagabino for injera, and whips up a pretty mean scrambled egg.  She also makes me pasta relatively frequently, cooked vegetables, potatoes, and this really tasty meat dish that I have no idea what it is.  But I put it on dabo and eat it like a sloppy joe.  That’s the closest I can relate it too.  It’s kind of like a bolognaise sauce, I guess.  She makes a lot of magic happen in that kitchen.  Check out the awesome meal she made me on my first night here!  There’s buna in the kettle, which goes with the popcorn, and injera next to the bread.  I think there was tagabino in the pot.  Very tasty!



We usually eat in the living room, on cushions on the floor.  Sometimes, my host mother will bring out the coal stove to make the buna for our after dinner drink.  The television is on about 90% of the time we use that room, even during dinner.  Often, it’s tuned to Amharic news, once or twice I’ve seen it on BBC, and my host brother likes to watch American movies a lot, so I’ve also seen those with Arabic subtitles.  But most interesting to me is when the channel is tuned to a WWE wrestling match.  How they love their wrestling here in Bekoji and, from what I hear, in other rural towns around the country.  One PCT in another town told me that a little boy introduced himself to him as John Cena.  Another PCT claims that a boy asked him if wrestling was real.  Yeah, out of all the crazy American media exports, Ethiopians love wrestling.  Go figure.

The Details

I remember Kemise having the smell of dust in the air.  Bekoji doesn’t smell anything like that.  It’s crisp, because of all the cool rain, and there’s also the smell of soil and animal droppings hanging in the air.  There is not a wisp of exhaust to be inhaled anywhere in town, although there are a few cars passing fairly consistently along the main road.  It smells like the mountains.  In my house, it always smells like food.  Popcorn, bread, or the smoky charcoal of the stove, to be more specific, which always brings my mind right back to BBQ.

When it rains, the red soil turns to mud and becomes more clay-like than ever.  Literal rivers of rainwater form in the ditches next to the roads, and sometimes even on the roads themselves.  I’ve had to hop across a few rainwater rivers on my way home from language class a couple of times now.  On Thursday, I stood in the doorway to the courtyard and watched all the rain pound into the mud like bullets.  The sound of it was awesome.  But even when they sky is gray, it only seems to make the colors of the town stand out all the more.  The ground is redder, the grass is greener, the teeth of the shouting children are whiter.  I think this photo is a great example of what I mean.  Look at all the colors.



There are all sorts of animals roaming around Bekoji.  Cats and dogs, as well as goats, roosters, cows and horses are pretty much everywhere.  Which, of course, leads to a cacophony of barnyard sounds night and day.  Our cow will, once in a while, let out a roaring mooooo!  Just because.  As if she’s reminding us that she’s there, in case we forgot.  And you’ll definitely hear a rooster at four in the morning waking you up for the call to prayer at five.  And some other church somewhere makes noise at around that time, too, with choral responses filtering in through my window.  On my way to language class this morning, I heard frogs croaking somewhere, but I’ve yet to see one.  Additionally, there’s always music coming from somewhere.  Amharic, Arabic, even American music will add to the chorus of sounds.  Not to mention the delighted greetings people loudly exchange as they meet old friends (or even acquaintances) in the street, added to the “Whatisyourname?” of the children calling after you as you pass and the clop-clop-clop of a horse and cart rolling down the road in front of you.

Though all of those things make it sound like a noisy place, it really isn’t.  Not all of it happens all at once.  They weave together in a rhythm that makes the music of the town.  In fact, in many ways, it’s much quieter than the city.

Tomorrow, I will go to Assela for some training and I’ll find out where my permanent site placement is.  I’ll be sure to keep you posted.  You’ll probably notice, also, that I changed the title of this blog (though the URL is still the same – no need to change your bookmarks).  It’s now Ferengi No Habesha, and that comes from an old story I heard in Delphi, about the Oracle.  When an expectant mother asked about the sex of her child, the Oracle responded “Boy No Girl,” which could be taken “Boy – No, girl,” as in, she misspoke the first time, or “Boy.  No girl,” as if she was reiterating.  I wanted to do this with Ferngi and Habesha (foreigner versus local) because at times, it’s definitely “She’s a ferengi.  Not a Habesha.”  But sometimes, I feel it’s more “She’s a ferengi – No, wait, she’s a Habesha” on second glance.  Or at least, I’d like that to be, eventually.  We’ll see.

Until next time – Dahna hunu!

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

NOTE: I have not had internet for a week.  This entry is a week old.  I will probably write an update tomorrow.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

I have been having a great time here in Bekoji.  There is probably no better training site for me.  In the first place, it is cold here, which makes me very, very happy.  I love the cold.  I was sitting in my language class today and it just started pouring.  I loved the sound of it.  In addition to being cold, it’s very green and beautiful up here in the mountains.  And the decrease in insect population is always a plus.

As for the culture and my host family, I am thoroughly enjoying all of it.  My host family treats me exceptionally well.  Unfortunately, I have completely lost my appetite in this country.  Rumor has it, it’s the altitude.  At any rate, I force myself to eat a little bit at every meal – if only to be polite to my host family, who wants nothing more than to fatten me up like the children out of Hansel and Grettel.  They are very kind, and have nothing but high opinions of America and the Peace Corps, because of their experiences with them.  Which is kind of cool, to see the Peace Corps’ mission of “promoting a better understanding of Americans on behalf of peoples’ served” in action, as they hold such high esteem for us because of their experiences with past PCVs who lived with them.  They are taking good care of me.  I realize I had nothing to be afraid of, really, but it was uncertain and therefore scary.  But now that I’ve met my family, explored Bekoji a bit, and am slowly getting used to the very non-Western lifestyle (culture and conveniences), I realize it’s not as bad as I had made it out to be in my mind.  In fact, it’s kind of beautiful.

My host mother holds a “buna” ceremony every day for me after lunch, and sometimes after dinner.  Buna is Amharic for coffee.  I swear, sometimes, I think I traveled all the way to Ethiopia just for that cup of coffee.  My host mother roasts the beans herself – right in front of me, over a charcoal fire, and then she serves it with popcorn.  The shai – the tea – that’s also amazing here, too.  Sometimes, I can’t decide which one I like more.  And that’s not the only treats they favor me with.  When I was hanging out in the kitchen today, helping my host mother peel vegetables for dinner and waiting for my drinking water to boil, my host mother offered me some fresh honey and dabo, the local bread.  When I say “fresh honey,” I don’t mean off of a shelf.  I mean out in the yard, bees buzzing around a domesticated box hive fresh honey.  It was absolutely delicious.  To repay the generosity I have seen from my host mother over the past few days, I offered to make her and her mother-in-law “American shai”, which was basically Celestial Seasonings’ lemon zinger tea with some of her fresh honey.  When she tasted it, she said it was very good.  It was definitely different from Ethiopian shai.  I hope she really did like it, and wasn’t just being polite.

Kids on the street are eager to run up and shake your hand, high-five you, or even favor you with a fist bump.  Some will even hug you like a long-lost friend.  All of them are curious and smiling.  Some of them yell frustrating things, but for the most part they just want to know about you.  The adults in town sometimes stare, but always smile when you smile at them.  As part of our language program, we’re encouraged to greet the people about town as we catch their eye.  It’s a fairly friendly atmosphere, but you really do stick out like a sore thumb if you’re a “ferengi” (foreigner) in small-town Ethiopia, which is still somewhat off-putting.  Sometimes, it’s nice to just blend in with a crowd.  As an American teenager in Cairo, I was in the minority as well.  Nevertheless, the Egyptians were used to foreigners, and while I would sometimes get some minor unwanted attention, it was way different.

Language is coming along slowly.  A few choice phrases for you today.

T’ena yistilin – A general greeting, like “How do you do?”

Dahna neh/nesh/nawot/nachiu – “How are you?” for male/female/polite/plural (respectively)

Astamari – “Teacher”

Tamari – “Student”

Yih mindin naw? – “What is this?”

Algabanim – “I don’t understand”

Bak’an! – “Enough!”

Shintebet yet naw? – “Where is the toilet/shintebet?”

That’s your Amharic lesson for the day.  Class dismissed.

Vacation's Over - Or - Ten Things I've Learned in Ten Days

Tomorrow, we travel out to our Community Based Training (CBT) sites, also known as our Pre-Service Training (PST) sites.  Mine happens to be in a very cold town called Bekoji.  I'll be living with a host family there and doing training (language, safety, medical, technical) in the community.  One of my language and cultural facilitators actually lives in the same compound as me.

My location has no internet access for my laptop, although there is an internet cafe in the town.  So this may very well be my last blog update for a while.  But I promise, I'm still around.  My home at site also has no running water, so bucket baths and sintebets (latrines), yay!  However, all homes have electricity, so that's reassuring.

In the ten days I have been in Ethiopia, I have already faced several different challenges which have made me gulp, squirm, groan, and even ask myself what it is I've actually gotten myself into. :S  To think of living here for two years, in these rural communities, with only one other volunteer seems, now that I'm actually facing it, incredibly more daunting than it did when I was thinking about it a year ago.  In other words, all encouragement is greatly appreciated.

However, I also realize that despite all the challenges I'm already dealing with, that's going to be compounded by a lot when I go to my CBT site for ten weeks.  I am looking forward to being more fully immersed in the language, and even the host family, but I'm also a person who needs my "me time" and will need to figure out a culturally appropriate way of communicating that with my host family.  Also, there's the fact that I'll be living without running water for a long period of time for the first time ever in my life.  Really, these ten days at the hotel in Addis have been nothing.  I ain't seen nothing yet.

But nonetheless, with challenges are also lessons and room for personal growth.  So as promised in the headline of this post, here are ten things I have learned about Peace Corps and Ethiopia in ten days (in no particular order).

1. I am incredibly high maintenance when it comes to my plumbing and water demands, as well as other "first world problems" like internet.  Interestingly, I didn't mind so much when the electricity went out.
2. African houseflies bite.
3. Ethiopians don't say "please" or "thank you."  For them, "please" is what a beggar says, and "thank you" is for sincere gratitude (not just everyday).  I still say "amasiganalohu" anyway.
4. There really is such a thing as too much injera.
5. When an Ethiopian fails his tenth grade exam, he goes to the teacher's college or vocational college.  So teaching has the same regard here as it has in the States, and some really don't want to be there.
6. Skype is "illegal" in Ethiopia.
7. The "legal" age to marry in Ethiopia is 18, but girls are married off at 11 in rural areas.
8. Peace Corps will try their damned hardest to scare the hell out of you in your first ten days.
9. English is the national language of education in Ethiopia.  All schooling at the secondary and tertiary level is in English.
10. Lots of things are scary and you may freak out/break down/be miserable for a minute, but it does get better.  We're in the "mood swing" segment of the Peace Corps Volunteer life cycle, so expect swings between vulnerability and adjustment.

Thanks for reading all.  Hope things are great back in the States!

Domo-Kun's Travels in Ethiopia!

We have officially landed in Addis Ababa. Hooray! It hit me pretty hard that I wouldn't be back state-side for two years. Even when I was growing up, we always went to the States every summer, so if I really don't go back, this'll probably be the longest continuous period I've ever been out of the country. It's hard to wrap my brain around the two year time period in general. Nonetheless, I waved goodbye to that crazy place.

We've settled into a small and modest hotel where we will be staying for a few days. The next few weeks are packed, mostly with language training, but also with cross cultural, safety, job training, etc. I should know my permanent site by June 30th, but after the first week I'll be in Asella for training.

When he took me to the airport on Sunday, Marcus gave me his Domo that used to hang from the rear view mirror in his car. To thank him, and for some fun, I have decided to chronicle Domo-Kun's adventures here with me in Ethiopia.

See Domo saying goodbye to Dulles!



Once we arrived, Domo and I ate very, very well.



Internet here is available, but very weak. Still, it's better than no Internet at all. Day one in Ethiopia is coming to a close. Only 809 days to go. After all, the best way to start is by one day at a time.

If I were a list, this is what I would look like

Contact: [Ask in a comment]
DOB: 02/25 in the 1980s
College: Bachelor's Degrees in Creative Writing and Theater Arts, Masters in Teaching (Endorsements in Elementary Ed and English Language Learners).
Career Goal: Elementary School Teacher/Humanitarian
Core Beliefs: Learn everything you can, see the world from all angles, respect intelligent opinions.
Super Power of Choice: Teleportation and Time Manipulation
Favorite Animal: Chimpanzee
Favorite Fictional Animal: Phoenix
Dream Car: The DeLorian. Not a DeLorian. The DeLorian.
Countries Visited: England, Scotland, Kuwait, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Czech Republic, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Greece, Tunisia
Countries Inhabited: Philippines, United States, Portugal, Canada, Uzbekistan, Belgium, Egypt, Ethiopia [Currently]
Countries To Visit: Peru, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, China, Costa Rica, Australia, India, Botswana
States Visited: Arizona, California, Colorado, Washington DC, Florida, Idaho, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Vermont, Washington

Extraneous Facts

• I was raised to respect all beliefs, cultures and customs, and this probably forms the foundation of my morality.
• I love playing Nintendo games from Super Nintendo - Wii.
• Every February 25th, whenever she can, my mother makes me a dirt cake for my birthday since I was twelve.

What am I doing in Ethiopia?

• I have joined the Peace Corps.
• I have been selected to work in the field of English Education, dealing specifically with teacher training.
• I have a deep fascination with and respect for other cultures and ways of living, and I hope to learn as much, if not more, from my host country as I have to offer them.

What I'm taking with me:

• Clothes (casual and formal)
• More shoes than I normally wear
• Office supplies, including paper, pens, etc, to write with.
• Embroidery thread to make friendship bracelets
• Geeky boardgames
• Girl Scout Cookies
• Leatherman knife and duct tape
• A fluffy pillow

What I'm leaving behind:

• A job in an after school program at a private school with wonderful children (1st-5th grade)
• A comfortable home.
• A fuzzy guinea pig named Caboose
• Good friends and family
• My favorite sandwich shop
• A boyfriend