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.