Mid way through PST

            So I’m just now about to hit the mid-way point of PST (Pre Service Training). It has been an interesting time thus far. Two weeks ago we went through Permagarden training which was a blast.

The garden we made was at a local school called Manchiko Millennium Secondary School and it had a campus that reminded me of a small summer camp. Beautiful tree canopy smelling of pine. Though upon entering you would notice thousands of bits of mostly burned paper littering the campus. They don’t have a local trash service nor dump or even recycling so burning is the most common way of dealing with it. Unfortunately all the homework likes to float on the hot air when burned and is scattered everywhere.

            We were all given a pole of wood and a hoe head and told to take them home, whittle and sand it down till the head was snug. I named mine Dilu (victory in Amharic) which happens to be the meaning of Nicole/Nikki, in either Roman or Greek. Can’t really remember which.

            The garden was only 3m² but it took 10 people about 5 hours 6 hr ( 1.5 hr a day) to make. We did a “double dug” style which implies digging a bed up, then digging down a second layer. First clearing the grass them digging four 1ft³ holes in each corner and made a small berm out lining the garden and connecting the holes in order to slow down water and get it to infiltrate the soil. As my teacher explain Ethiopians think they don’t get enough water when in reality they get more than twice as much water than England dose. The problem is it’s all at once and they can’t control it. The garden is designed to catch and store the natural rain instead of letting it hit the hard ground and run off. After that we made a garden bed double dug with space to walk around in order not to compact the soil. The soil was really hard! Even after wetting it down. We dug it down 20 cm which my teacher said saves 6m³ of water. Each time it rains. A garden like this only needs water once or twice a week. Finally we planted seeds, using perennial herbs for the berm and maize and carrots for the beds. Intercropped. The soil was all amended with egg shells coffee grounds, pot ash and coal dust locally found.

            During the week our work brought quite a few local on lookers and I felt that even though the training was for us maybe they could pick it up too!

            At the end of that week we all had a special trip to Lake Langano. A beautiful resort spot on the edge of a crystal brown lake! The lake is the only lake that doesn’t carry Schitsoma (not sure how to spell that) in it due to not being habitable to the snail vector. You might say “it’s so dirty it’s clean”.

            We spent the day relaxing by the lake, getting tan, drinking drinks three times the normal price, wishing we had hamburgers and playing tug of war, water Frisbee and water monkey (tota) in the middle even! An altogether good day, and likely the last time I’ll swim in the next two years.

            This last week we spent learning about tree nursery’s pruning, grafting and propagation. The pruning was especially fun, there’s nothing quite so stress relieving as going out and hacking off limbs! The grafting was a bit nerve wracking though. I was surprised they let up cut up 60 tree seedlings in hopes we did it right. Even a good grafting has a good chance of failing, and we were all new to it. But it’s a good thing to try your hand on, watching is not the same. Later we went to the gorge in kebele 1 to plant tree seeds in a nursery bed we made out of wood poles hay and poly pots (plastic tubes). Again we attracted a crowd this time mostly children. When it came time to planting seedlings they helped us dig the holes which we were very grateful for.

            The gorge itself is a beautiful place that many volunteers go hiking in, the river on the bottom attracts a lot of wild life as a result I saw a bunch of small monkeys (totaoch). This made my day as I had kept hearing about them but hadn’t seen them. I’ve now seen them a few times including my back yard, but they tend to be in the gorge which is a 40 min walk from my house. I intend to go hiking in the gorge eventually, but I’m a bit lazy I guess, I use my weekend for napping and reading.

            Friday was a supper interesting day as we were all sent out to farmer training centers and conducted a 4 hour training. The idea was to get them to do PACA tools, which are tools for assessing community needs. We were supposed to teach what they were than have the farmers do them, and by the end we would decide on a training we would conduct the next time we came in a month from now. I facilitated the yearly calendar (with aid of translator of course) and helped with daily schedule and priority ranking. After we returned to Butijira and was supposed to work of developing a 80 minute class of trees for children which we will also facilitate in a few weeks.

            This Saturday was a bit stressful as we had a mock LPI, which is a language assessment test. I get very nervous on assessments and forget many words that I would normally use easily. However I was surprised I had a 15 minute conversation! Admittedly it consisted of “I like pizza. I like Mexican food” And “I went to the hotel. After I went home. After I ate dinner”. But I was also able to introduce myself occupation age and marital status, followed by those of my family members. All in all I think it’s a good start. I’ll find out how I did later this week. By the end of PST I have to be at intermediate mid. I think I’m only novice high but I might be novice low, not sure.

            The next 2 weeks are highly anticipated. For one we will find out how we did in the LPI test, and will be reassigned language teachers in order to learn different accents and to adjust based on learning speeds. But more exciting is that we get to learn our final site placement on Wednesday! So far I have no idea if I’ll be in Amhara region or SNNPR (which is the Region Butijira is located. The regions are VER different from each other. SNNPR is like a rain forest in most places, has over 40 different dialects and has tribes that still attract national geographic due to their isolation. Amhara is very deforested and mountainous, is influenced more heavily from the western world though still largely rural and agricultural. So this place meant will decide a lot for me. And if learning the site isn’t exciting enough, the following week we will be visiting the sites! I will be there alone, with minimal skills for a week! Not sure I’m ready for this but I’ll have to go there eventually. I’m both excited and nervous.

           

Things I want:

            Mail, I want to hear from people back home.

            Pictures of family.

            Movies and music.

            Macaroni and cheese, hot chocolate packets, cookie mix, pancake mix, cake mix, stuff I just need to add water or milk too. A taste of home.

            A doll or game for my sister (8)

Well that’s all I can think of at the moment… don’t be a stranger!