Peace Corps Ethiopia Literacy Projects Nationwide

BOOKS!

That's what we're talking about today.  Books.  Why?  Because across Ethiopia, intrepid Peace Corps Volunteers have taken initiative and used their supportive friends and family back home to help provide these life-changing literacy supplies to their students.

If you follow Ferengi No Habesha, then you're probably familiar with my own Better World Books Project to help supply my Read-Aloud Program at a local school here with my director friend, Belay.  My goal is to obtain a modest amount of juicy picture books that are rich in content and can be used to model good reading practices.  I'm looking for books that I can use to help young students practice making predictions, making inferences, and make text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections.  Books that have repetition (good for predictions!), books that imply points through pictures and words (inferences!) and books that are relevant to my students lives (connections!) are what I'm primarily going for.

But I'm not the only one collecting solid picture books, and the idea is not new.  The first couple to start a book donation program was Daniel and Danielle up in Adwa back in December of last year.  They ended up with about 100 books, which they used "to jump-start a Reading Raffle once a month at three schools (like Book-It, but without the pizza)," according to Danielle.

Here's what their initial blog post says about their project:

"Adi-Mahleka, a school where I have English Club every Friday, has not a single children’s book in their library. Not in Tigrigna, not in Amharic, not in English. Zero. They’ve got textbooks galore, but what child is going to read those? Adua, another of my schools, has maybe 10 children’s books: a feat I nearly jumped and sang for.

Betterworldbooks.com is a website that works much like Toms shoes: you buy a book online (free worldwide shipping!) and they donate another to someone in need. We know firsthand that this donation process is legit; just two months ago, a handful of our volunteers received 500 boxes of books from this donation program (some of which were given to us for Adwa schools, when they had overflow). Daniel and I have created a wishlist for the schools in Adwa: which means, if you buy one book (average cost 5-7 dollars, again no shipping!), another is still being donated. That’s two books for children who have none, for the price of two Starbuck’s drinks.

In other words—pretty please?"

The idea was so simple, it was rapidly picked up by other volunteers.  Sarah and Aaron Arnold started their own book donation project in Bahir Dar in October of this year.  They mentioned the Books for Africa project that was done by the education group before us, G5.  Many of us were lucky to get some spill-over books from that project, but I found the books to be of lower quality (and therefore not as much use) as I was expecting.  Still, I'm always grateful for books, no matter what, and I've put them to good use.

According to their wish list they've received 65 books, although Sarah says it's around 70 now.

Inspired by the Arnolds, Emily S kicked off her own book drive and received "around 300".  The project really took off from there, with nine other PCVs including myself launching their own projects and appealing to the goodness of their friends and families hearts.  Here are the current book projects happening in Ethiopia and the numbers and success they have found so far, in no particular order:

PCV	Location	Purpose of Project	Date Started	Number of Books So Far
Daniel and Danielle	Adwa	To get books in the hands of students.	Dec 29, 2012	About 100
Sarah and Aaron	Bahir Dar	To expand a take-home library for primary OVCs.	Oct 4, 2013	About 70
Emily S	Dangila	To stock a library and foster a reading culture.	Oct 7, 2013	About 300
Emily C	Dilla	To help students improve their English in fun, creative ways.	Oct 23, 2013	6
Lacy	Yirgalem	To stock a library and foster a reading culture.	Dec 3, 2013	37
Jackie	Durame	To stock a library and foster a reading culture.	Oct 23, 2013	87
AJ	Chagni	To stock a library and foster a reading culture.	Nov 2, 2013	53
Erin	Adet	To stock a library and foster a reading culture.	Nov, 2, 2013	350
Ashley B	Hawassa	To supply a reading program with read-alouds and independent reading.	Nov 9, 2013	75
Julia	Wonago	To create a reading culture and increase literacy in her community.	Dec 8, 2013	136
Mellissa	Debark	To stock a library and foster a reading culture.	Nov 12, 2013	133+
OhnSoon	Leku	To build a mini library and foster a reading culture.	Dec 1, 2013	47
Alicia	Ambo	To stock a library and foster a reading culture.	Apr 3, 2013	120
Nicolette	Aleta Wondo	To stock a library and foster a reading culture.	Dec 4, 2013	34
Carlin	Hossana	To supply a read-aloud program for students and teachers.	Oct 23, 2013	40
Totals: 17 PCVs	15 Communities	9 libraries, 6 programs and literacy activities	12/29/12--12/8/13	≈1588 Books

For more about these projects, please click on a volunteer's name to visit their blog or document where they request books.  And because a picture's worth a thousand words, here's some photographic results of some of these projects (photos borrowed with implied consent):

From Ashley in Hawassa:

A quote celebrating reading at Adare Primary School in Hawassa

Students reading at Adare Primary School in Hawassa

From Emily in Dangila:

Before...

And After!  Look at those smiling faces!

From Lacy in Yirgalem:

The Ras Desta English Club in Yirgalem

From Jackie in Durame:

A student grins over a book in Durame

Students read in Durame

UPDATE Dec 15: A fancy map showing the locations of all these communities, and a pie chart showing each volunteer's contribution.

This post will be updated as new numbers come in and new projects start.  But I would like to thank everyone right now, volunteers and donors alike, for your hard work and generosity with all of these projects.  Together, we've managed to bring in 1,588 books and counting to this great nation.  Thanks so much, to everyone!

Thankful

This holiday, there are many things for which I'm thankful. I am thankful for good friends in Addis Ababa, who graciously invited me and two other Peace Corps Volunteers to join them and others in the mission and American expat community in Addis to celebrate Thanksgiving in style.  There were about twenty people from USAID and the international school bringing pies and side dishes and even a whole turkey.  Along with Jenny and myself, I invited my friend Kat, and two other G8 volunteers had been adopted by another USAID couple and brought to the meal.  The spread was pretty impressive, and way better than even the Hilton was last year.  Here's my plate:

On that plate you will see mashed potatoes with gravy, pureed carrots, cranberries, turkey, corn casserole, green beans, two kinds of stuffing (one that came with the bird, and a sausage one I helped to make) and burried under the corn casserole is actually some salad, too.

Before the big dinner, Jenny and I helped our hosts prepare some dishes to bring to the dinner.  The corn casserole, sausage stuffing, and cranberries were our hosts' contribution.  As mentioned, I helped with the stuffing, whereas Jenny helped with the corn casserole.  But we both helped to prepare the pies (not shown).  I brought up a pumpkin leftover from Halloween to gut and dice for pie myself.  Jenny and I prepared the pie crusts for all of the pies (two pecans and four pumpkins) and then made the filling for our special, from-scratch pumpkin pie.  We had so much extra filling that Kaaren let us use one of her pre-made crusts that she didn't want and we made a seventh pie, which we dropped a few chocolate chips into just for fun.  Here are our two pies made from a real pumpkin, depicted below:

In case it's not obvious, the one on the left was our homemade everything-from-scratch (pie crust and filling), whereas the one on the left is on the filling from scratch with a shortbread crust and chocolate chips.  They're a little green because pumpkins here are actually orange and green, and the one I made this one from was all green.  But it still tasted delicious.

After the huge dinner where I ate so much I gave myself a very happy stomach ache, we sat down and watched the Macy's Day Parade on AFN.  Here's Ronald McDonald:

I am so grateful that I was able to spend this holiday in a very American atmosphere with home-cooked American food and good friends.  But what I'm even more grateful for is the event that preceded this wonderful holiday, and that was the books I had received from the post office on Tuesday.  I got six packages of twenty-one books, two of which came with really sweet notes from Annie and Lori L.  Check out this spread:

I now have two copies of Yertle the Turtle, the Talking Eggs, and the Very Hungry Cattepiller (all seen) in addition to two copies of the Sneetches (one in English AND Mandarin, too, that was... interesting), the Z Was Zapped, the Giving Tree, and the Snail and the Whale.  And before you're all "Oh noes, she has two of the same!" it's actually a blessing, because this way I can give copies to the library, or to the college, or... I'll find uses for them, never you fear!

While I will get great use out of all of these books (I'm reading "Fish is Fish" next week), the treasures of my collection so far are A Perfect Orange (donated last time) and The Lion's Whiskers (illustrated version) because they are beautifully illustrated Ethiopian folktales that students can relate to.  Here are some of the really cool images in "The Lion's Whiskers":

 


How cool are those collages?  Beautiful!  I love all of these books and I know the kids will, too.  And I have some more photos from my Lorax read-aloud, which I will share with you all and take some more of fish is fish so you know that your books are being used.

Anyways, this Thanksgiving, I am so grateful for all of you and your support of my service, whether you donated books to my program, shared my program with friends on Facebook, follow my blog, comment on my blog/statuses/photos, or even just like my posts on Facebook, I am truly grateful for all of you back home and everything you do to support my work with students and teachers in Hossana.

Thank you all and happy holidays, whatever they may be.  Especially Hanukkah.  I heard Matt Lauer say that Hanukkah won't share a day with Thanksgiving for seventy-five thousand years, which I thought was weird because the first day of Hanukkah fell on Thanksgiving in 1888, so I was wondering why that was, but then The Huffington Post explained it pretty well.  It's a bit complicated, but it's kinda cool to know that this will more or less never happen again.

So yes, I am grateful for all of that, and the fact that my landlord installed a water heater on my shower.  That's a big one, too. ;)

A Poem for my Better World Books Donors!

Went to the post office and what did I see?
Seventeen books just waiting for me!
There wasn't just one or two or three -
There were SEVENTEEN books just waiting for me!

I found a note in my box, wondered "What could this be?"
It was all in Amharic, a mystery to me.
So I asked the post worker, "Does this mean there's a fee?"
And he laughed and said there was a package for me.

But not just one package, oh no siree!
There were three packages I could see!
He stacked them up and asked for the standard fee
Said, "Wait here," and vanished behind the box sea.

I fished out my ten bir, eager to see
What books I would find in these packages three.
I knew they had to be books because, well, you see,
I'd asked for donations from friends and family!

The post worker emerged from the box sea
Carrying FOUR more packages for me!
He sad, "Five times four means these cost twenty!"
So he gave me all seven and I gave him thirty.

If you're doing the math thinking "That can't be!"
"You got seven boxes each with a five bir fee!"
"You owed him thirty-five, unless-- could it be?"
Yes, you are right -- I got one light package free!

I shoved three packages in my bag and prepared to flee
Taking the other four in my arms to carry.
I couldn't wait to get home to look inside and see
What wonderful books were there waiting for me!

Safe at home, I sat under a tree
And tore them all open, as thrilled as can be
to see SEVENTEEN books from friends and family
That I'll use for read alouds to make students happy!

Thank you everyone for all the donations you've made to my Better World Books project.  Bad poetry aside, I hope you're as excited as I am to know that seventeen donated books arrived here safely.  They do come in batches from Addis you know, so I look forward to seeing the rest in the next mail call.  I will update the list right now so you can know if your donated book was one of the ones I received, but they're all visible in the photo below, too.  You all are great!  I plan on reading "Fish is Fish" after the Lorax, thanks to this shipment!  And I know my friend Belay will want to read the Fire on the Mountain and Lion's Whiskers whiskers cover to cover and share it with his students and staff as well.

On The Homefront

I recently just passed my one year anniversary mark here in country on June 6th.  I've been wanting to write a blog post, or more of a public thank you note, to all of the people who have been so supportive of me back home.  This support comes in many different forms, but it all matters.

Keep in mind that if I don't mention you by name, it's not because I don't value the support you give me.  I have a lot of friends and family that have expressed positive thoughts and well-wishes about my service, and I appreciate each and every source of encouragement.  However, the people I name here have gone above and beyond in their support, which is why I wanted to honor them specifically.

It's easy to forget that a friend or loved one is going through a hard time.  And regardless of everything else that the Peace Corps is, it is certainly a hard time.  I have more bad days in Ethiopia than I ever had in Seattle - but the thing is, I also have more awesome days, too.  High risk, high reward, as they say, but it's the high risk that causes trouble with morale sometimes.  And it's easy to forget that a friend is in a high stress environment for two years, because, I mean, hey, you have your own lives, your own problems, your own stresses.

This is why I think it's super important to recognize the people who go out of their way to tell me that they know what I'm doing, they know it's hard, and they appreciate it and they support me.  There are a few people on this list, like my parents, who are an obvious given.  But there are some people on this list that may surprise you.  I know that they surprised me.

So let's start with the obvious: My parents.

Both of my parents at one time worked for the State Department, and my mother still does.  As a result of that, I spent the first eighteen years of my life growing up in seven other countries, and none of them was the United States.  When I first started applying to Peace Corps, I thought this would help me adjust, but then my father wisely pointed out that it wouldn't.  He explained that when I was overseas, I got to live in my little embassy bubble.  I got to see the high poverty and development problems from behind the glass in my ivory four-runner.  And he was absolutely right.  I remember bringing this up with my Country Director when he interviewed me before swear-in to see if I was ready for service.  A former ambassador himself, he sympathized, saying that even administratively, Peace Corps was way different from the foreign service.

Since coming to country, my mother has been a typical mother, always wanting to know how I'm doing and what's going on and what's Ethiopia like and am I making friends and all that other stuff.  And she Skypes me all the time and they even sent me a care package in the summer.  My dad is often with her when we talk on Skype, asking his questions and stuff, and even if he's not, I'm sure she tells him.

I have never spent a Christmas away from my parents before, not in twenty-five years of life.  Not even the fact that my family members often live in different countries on different continents can keep me away from them at Christmas.  When my mother was posted in Tunisia, and my father was still wrapping things up in DC, and I was up in Seattle, he flew both me and him all the way to Tunis so we could spend Christmas with my Mom, and then the next year, he flew both of them out from Tunis and me from Seattle down to Los Angeles to spend Christmas with my brother.  I don't know if it's as big a deal to them as it is to me, but spending Christmas with my parents matters a lot to me at this point in my life, and I was really nervous that this might actually be the first Christmas I have to spend without them.  But from the very beginning, my parents just acted like they expected to come, and again they bought me a plane ticket from Ethiopia to go spend the holidays with them in Belgium.  Not only this, but they opened their door and their home to a fellow PCV who couldn't go home for Christmas, and I know that he is still grateful for their hospitality.  What's more, my parents are going a step further for Christmas 2013 by allowing me to bring not one, not two, but three other guest PCVs, who must have heard how great the vacation was for my other friend and want to see what it's like.  And they did it with open hearts and not a hint of hesitation.

And if that weren't enough, my father decided that the best birthday present he could give me this year was flying down to Addis Ababa to see where I live for himself, and of course he brought all sorts of delicious goodies with him, including all the ingredients required to make my traditional birthday cake since I was twelve years old - dirt cake.  Oreos, cream cheese, vanilla budding, and I don't even know all of what else, but it was delicious.  So I took him on a tour of this beautiful country in which I serve.  Hawassa, Arba Minch, up through Hossana, and then back to Addis Ababa.  Afterwards, he commented that he understood a lot better how I live now, and that he finally realized the need (as opposed to want) for an external hard drive.

So this is what I believe is "above and beyond" as far as support goes.  And maybe some people think, "Well, yeah, sure, but your parents are expected to be supportive."  Well, yeah.  But consider this - I am one of seventy volunteers in my group who have been here for a year now, and I am only one of a handful who have had anyone, let alone a parent come visit me.  And everyone's parents are supportive, but I think that says a lot.

Next on the list: Layne

Layne herself will probably be surprised to see her name on this list.  She was a friend of mine I met when I was in high school in Cairo, and while we don't see each other much anymore (on account of we lived in different states, and now different countries) we talk rather frequently, and I attended her wedding almost two years ago now.  Wow, has it really been almost two years?  Congrats to Layne and her husband, Chris, on that.  Still, since moving to Ethiopia, I have noticed a marked increase in my communication with Layne.  She messages me all the time, Skypes me a lot, likes almost all of the photos and posts I make on Facebook about Ethiopia, and she was really supportive in my first ten weeks in country, arguable the most difficult ten weeks of my service as I readjusted.  Layne hasn't done anything like fly out on a plane to visit me, or even send me a care package (although she says she's putting one together).  Her support is much simpler, and that is that she frequently takes time out of her day to check in with me.  It's simple, and it doesn't sound like much, but it can really go a long way, especially when you're out at site on your own and a friendly message from an old friend can really mean a lot.

And then, there's Laura.

Laura is probably the only person out of all of my friends in Seattle who seems actively interested in what I am doing and continuously supportive.  We have chats on Facebook, and she always seems genuinely curious about my life and how I'm doing.  Meanwhile, she had to go and get herself pregnant and now I don't get to see that stick figure of hers swell into a balloon shape, at least not until this July.  She's due in July, too, so I hope I can still recognize her!  I was so sad I had to miss this big event in her and her husband's life.  Still, I comfort myself with the knowledge that at least I'll get to meet the little squirt when I come back for good in 2014.  Sure, the kid will be a year old by then, but that's not too bad, when you think about it.  Still, she's pregnant, such a big life adventure, and yet she still finds time to be interested in me and my crazy life.  That's pretty awesome.  Laura is also one of the people who seems most excited about seeing me when I visit this summer.  She has also been a doll, agreeing to accept all packages of supplies that we need for our summer camp.  In fact, she just told me today that she was beginning to get shipments in, and how that made her excited because it meant that I would be in Seattle soon.  It's sweet comments like that, that, like Layne's simple support, can really go a long way to making a PCV smile.

And last but not least, I'd like to recognize Tod and Linda.

Tod and Linda are very old friends of my parents, being old college chums of my mother way back in the day.  They are rather like my aunt and uncle, regardless of blood relation.  Tod was the one who even taught me how to drive.  They, along with two other old friends of my parents in Seattle, served as surrogate parents for me when I was living in Washington and my folks were off gallivanting all over the world.  Since I've been here, Tod and Linda win the contest for sending me the most stuff through the mail.  I will never forget the day when I arrived at the post office in November and there was not just one care package there waiting for me, but two humongous boxes full of American goodies and all for me.  I was so excited I went home and photographed everything to mark the occasion.  And being as this was really the only time I received care packages other than one that my parents sent, that alone earns them a spot on this list.  It is expensive to send care packages, and I appreciate all the time and effort (and money!) that goes into putting them together.  It's one reason why they are so rare for me, I believe.  So thanks so much, to this wonderful couple, who put so much effort into bringing a little piece of America to Ethiopia for me.

I go on vacation in two and a half weeks to Seattle.  I look forward to seeing all of my old friends and family in the area while I'm there.  And I do want to give a general thank you to all of you for the support you do manage to give.  As I said, I know you have your own busy and interesting lives, but I really do appreciate it when you drop me a line.  It gets lonely out here in the rural highlands.

Much love and gratitude,
Carlin