JANUARY PREFACE: I managed to salvage this much from the wreckage of my hard drive of my original "Three Month" entry, which was drafted in October, when Jackie was visiting. For a more concise version of my first four months at site, please see this entry here. I am posting this for a more expanded view of August and September. I had written October as well, but lost that when I lost my computer.
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So I have learned a lot about myself in these first three months. Namely, that while I had absolutely no problem updating the world on every mundane detail of my teenage life, for some reason I seem incapable of updating a blog about moderately interesting things on a regular basis. But I felt in a big update mood today, so as I write this I am also uploading a couple hundred photos to Facebook, taking advantage of my free wireless. We'll see how many actually get posted.
I am going to reflect on my first three months here month by month:
August
I arrived in Hossana on August 17th, where I road down with several PCVs in my group, most notably Jackie, who is my nearest site neighbor (and bringing me pumpkin bread! But we'll get to that when I get to October). My goal was to take a week to relax and get some things in my house together before jumping in with both feet the following Monday and going to the college every day, if only so I could be seen every day by the folks at the college. My counterpart, Elfineh, advised me against this, because summer school was still going on. So he told me to wait until the next school year started up, and I took his advice. I spent the rest of the month ordering and obtaining furniture for my room. All the furniture I have now, I got in my first few weeks. And "all" the furniture includes a bed, complete with mattress, and a cabinet.
The first impression I had of my house was one of surprise and relief. On the way down to Hossana from Addis, we dropped off several PCVs along the way, and I got to see their living quarters. I'd also seen living quarters for PCVs when I visited Kemise, and the compound where I lived in Bekoji is also what a PCV can expect. In fact, there's a PCV from my group currently living on my compound, with my host family as his landlord family. Yeah, I'm kinda jealous, because I love them so much, but it's also nice to be here. Also why it's nice to be here? My house is beautiful. Most PCVs have one room, maybe two if they are lucky, unless they are married. They'll probably have a shared shintebet and a showerbet that's basically a concrete room to splash around in. I have three rooms, plus a private porch with a beautiful vegetable garden, and a private shintebet. I also have a showerbet with an actual shower in it, hooked up to the pipes. Of course, upon arrival, there was no water in the pipes at all, but hey, it was rainy season, and I was used to bucket bathing after living in Bekoji for two and a half months. I got by just fine.
There was one minor problem. There was a beehive on my front porch. Filled with honest-to-God bees. After typing about this story for a while, I've decided it warrants its own blog post. So I'll tell you the tale of the bees and what became of them (and me) in a follow-up to be posted very soon (I promise!)
September
In early September, I had my site mate Deanna help me hang my mosquito net over my bed. In reality, she did most of the hanging, and I did most of the delegating. When I went to sleep that night and tried to close the curtains over my windows/door, I realized a problem. Deanna and I had placed the nail holding my net up right in the path of the curtain, so I couldn't close it all the way. Never one to do anything by myself (even when I am perfectly capable) I had my landlord fix it with a hammer the next day by moving it to the center where the curtains met. And now, I'm protected from mosquitoes, and I can close my curtains. Happy day!
September 11th is Ethiopia's equivalent of January 1st. So I celebrated the New Year at my site mate, Christina's compound. Christina wasn't actually there, but Deanna and I spent time with her landlord family. Dorowat is the traditional meal of choice on Ethiopian New Year, so I ate a lot of that. It's basically chicken in a red sauce with berbere that you eat (like everything else) with injera. The next day, I went over to Deanna's house with my new egg boiler and made deviled eggs. It was my first taste of legitimate Americana in Ethiopia and it was delicious. She also made this peanut sauce that we had over rice - also delicious. The next day, Elfineh invited me over and I had more dorowat. He said he didn't invite me for the new year because he thought I was in Addis. I don't know why he was under that impression, but I didn't ask. We talked a lot about all sorts of things, particularly current events which, at the time, revolved around the attack on the American embassy in Libya and the protests and riots across Muslim countries. I've noticed Ethiopians like to talk international politics and news with ferenge, and they keep asking me when we'll know if Obama is president again.
Life moved on for the most part (excluding the bee situation, which you'll hear about later) until September 27th, which is the Ethiopian Orthodox Christian celebration of Meskel, particularly big where I am in the Southern Nations. Meskel is the celebration of the discovery of the True Cross by Queen Eleni. Legend has it that she was told how to find the cross in a dream, and that the smoke from a great fire would tell her. So they built this massive bonfire with frankincense and wood and stuff, and the smoke blew in the direction of where the cross was buried, and supposedly touched down right on top of it. Queen Eleni ordered her people to dig and discovered this holy artifact. To commemorate this moment, every year Ethiopians have massive bonfires and dance around them and eat a lot of food. Good times had by all.
Unless by "all" you mean Carlin, in which case, no, Meskel night was not a great celebration for me. I mean, I had an awesome time and all watching the ceremony and got some great photos that you can find on my Facebook. I'd like to share photos here, but they'll have to be edited in later. Interwebz is misbehaving. Anyway, the ceremony itself was fantastic, but I must not have drank a lot of water that day, or maybe my blood sugar was low, or maybe the temperature changes from hot day to cool evening to hot fire to cool night were just too much for my body to handle. I tried to revive myself in a cafe with a soda and water (to cover all my bases), but drinking these things just made me feel worse. Inevitably, I told Deanna I was going home. She was going to walk with me, so I stood up, turned around, and collapsed in the middle of the cafe. Apparently, I fell right on some Habesha man's lap and freaked him out before hitting the floor. I woke up a few seconds later, completely confused. I sat down and recovered while Deanna called her then-boyfriend to take me home in his car. After I got home, I felt much better, but that's the first time I've actually fainted in my life. I have almost fainted before, been on the verge of it and everything, but never actually done it. It was exciting times indeed, that Meskel.
October
[Missing...]
---
So I have learned a lot about myself in these first three months. Namely, that while I had absolutely no problem updating the world on every mundane detail of my teenage life, for some reason I seem incapable of updating a blog about moderately interesting things on a regular basis. But I felt in a big update mood today, so as I write this I am also uploading a couple hundred photos to Facebook, taking advantage of my free wireless. We'll see how many actually get posted.
I am going to reflect on my first three months here month by month:
August
I arrived in Hossana on August 17th, where I road down with several PCVs in my group, most notably Jackie, who is my nearest site neighbor (and bringing me pumpkin bread! But we'll get to that when I get to October). My goal was to take a week to relax and get some things in my house together before jumping in with both feet the following Monday and going to the college every day, if only so I could be seen every day by the folks at the college. My counterpart, Elfineh, advised me against this, because summer school was still going on. So he told me to wait until the next school year started up, and I took his advice. I spent the rest of the month ordering and obtaining furniture for my room. All the furniture I have now, I got in my first few weeks. And "all" the furniture includes a bed, complete with mattress, and a cabinet.
The first impression I had of my house was one of surprise and relief. On the way down to Hossana from Addis, we dropped off several PCVs along the way, and I got to see their living quarters. I'd also seen living quarters for PCVs when I visited Kemise, and the compound where I lived in Bekoji is also what a PCV can expect. In fact, there's a PCV from my group currently living on my compound, with my host family as his landlord family. Yeah, I'm kinda jealous, because I love them so much, but it's also nice to be here. Also why it's nice to be here? My house is beautiful. Most PCVs have one room, maybe two if they are lucky, unless they are married. They'll probably have a shared shintebet and a showerbet that's basically a concrete room to splash around in. I have three rooms, plus a private porch with a beautiful vegetable garden, and a private shintebet. I also have a showerbet with an actual shower in it, hooked up to the pipes. Of course, upon arrival, there was no water in the pipes at all, but hey, it was rainy season, and I was used to bucket bathing after living in Bekoji for two and a half months. I got by just fine.
There was one minor problem. There was a beehive on my front porch. Filled with honest-to-God bees. After typing about this story for a while, I've decided it warrants its own blog post. So I'll tell you the tale of the bees and what became of them (and me) in a follow-up to be posted very soon (I promise!)
September
In early September, I had my site mate Deanna help me hang my mosquito net over my bed. In reality, she did most of the hanging, and I did most of the delegating. When I went to sleep that night and tried to close the curtains over my windows/door, I realized a problem. Deanna and I had placed the nail holding my net up right in the path of the curtain, so I couldn't close it all the way. Never one to do anything by myself (even when I am perfectly capable) I had my landlord fix it with a hammer the next day by moving it to the center where the curtains met. And now, I'm protected from mosquitoes, and I can close my curtains. Happy day!
September 11th is Ethiopia's equivalent of January 1st. So I celebrated the New Year at my site mate, Christina's compound. Christina wasn't actually there, but Deanna and I spent time with her landlord family. Dorowat is the traditional meal of choice on Ethiopian New Year, so I ate a lot of that. It's basically chicken in a red sauce with berbere that you eat (like everything else) with injera. The next day, I went over to Deanna's house with my new egg boiler and made deviled eggs. It was my first taste of legitimate Americana in Ethiopia and it was delicious. She also made this peanut sauce that we had over rice - also delicious. The next day, Elfineh invited me over and I had more dorowat. He said he didn't invite me for the new year because he thought I was in Addis. I don't know why he was under that impression, but I didn't ask. We talked a lot about all sorts of things, particularly current events which, at the time, revolved around the attack on the American embassy in Libya and the protests and riots across Muslim countries. I've noticed Ethiopians like to talk international politics and news with ferenge, and they keep asking me when we'll know if Obama is president again.
Life moved on for the most part (excluding the bee situation, which you'll hear about later) until September 27th, which is the Ethiopian Orthodox Christian celebration of Meskel, particularly big where I am in the Southern Nations. Meskel is the celebration of the discovery of the True Cross by Queen Eleni. Legend has it that she was told how to find the cross in a dream, and that the smoke from a great fire would tell her. So they built this massive bonfire with frankincense and wood and stuff, and the smoke blew in the direction of where the cross was buried, and supposedly touched down right on top of it. Queen Eleni ordered her people to dig and discovered this holy artifact. To commemorate this moment, every year Ethiopians have massive bonfires and dance around them and eat a lot of food. Good times had by all.
Unless by "all" you mean Carlin, in which case, no, Meskel night was not a great celebration for me. I mean, I had an awesome time and all watching the ceremony and got some great photos that you can find on my Facebook. I'd like to share photos here, but they'll have to be edited in later. Interwebz is misbehaving. Anyway, the ceremony itself was fantastic, but I must not have drank a lot of water that day, or maybe my blood sugar was low, or maybe the temperature changes from hot day to cool evening to hot fire to cool night were just too much for my body to handle. I tried to revive myself in a cafe with a soda and water (to cover all my bases), but drinking these things just made me feel worse. Inevitably, I told Deanna I was going home. She was going to walk with me, so I stood up, turned around, and collapsed in the middle of the cafe. Apparently, I fell right on some Habesha man's lap and freaked him out before hitting the floor. I woke up a few seconds later, completely confused. I sat down and recovered while Deanna called her then-boyfriend to take me home in his car. After I got home, I felt much better, but that's the first time I've actually fainted in my life. I have almost fainted before, been on the verge of it and everything, but never actually done it. It was exciting times indeed, that Meskel.
October
[Missing...]
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