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.