So let me get this down before I start forgetting
everything.
This last month or so has been hectic. I started off with
about two packed weeks of Garden Training. Due to the fact that the summer
season is the rainy season, people all over were trying to plant gardens. I
dedicated time to teaching intercropping mostly with my own seeds to anywhere
between 1-20 people, with 4 new gardens established and a lot of further
discussions over tea, next to my example garden, or simply by the side of the
road. As a benefit, my host brother Biennium was able to translate for me --
meaning the message was at least clear about WHY we were using this method.
This was great!
On the down side some of these gardens didn’t pull through.
The garden at my house is overrun with weeds and I’m not even sure if the seeds
have sprouted. My garden at the Farmers Training Center has half sprouted,
being eaten by bugs, and I have not kept on top of the weeds. (To be honest I’m
not that great of a gardener. When I pulled up my potatoes, which I thought
were doing great, the biggest of the plants had small potatoes not even fit for
this market; I could buy three or four times as many for 10 birr ($0.50). So my
supposed “improved garden techniques” are producing worse than the traditional
and I don’t want anyone to find out…)
On the plus side, I traveled to a large town nearby with fellow
PCV Elaine and visited their market. At this market I found a variety of plants
I hadn’t found before, including carrots, beets, sweet potatoes, and fresh
rosemary! I of course bought what I could and immediately planted the rosemary
in my garden berms. They aren’t dead yet so I’m hopeful that they will start
taking root soon.
The Farmers Trainer Center (FTC) in my town is successfully
growing beets, and since no one believes that beet greens are edible, I was
allowed to take as much leaves as I wanted. I have been on a constant
promotional campaign to anyone who will listen to me about how beet greens are
not poisonous, but in fact an extremely nutrient rich vegetable that is being
thrown away! I convinced my host family to cook it up one night and we chowed
down, but I think I’m a long way off of convincing people to eat these valuable
veggies continually.
Unfortunately my computer screen went faulty, and though my host
brother is an electronics tech, he mostly fixes phones. He told me I had to
travel to Bahir Dar (the capital city of the Amhara Region) to get it fixed.
Luckily, Elaine was also traveling to Bahir Dar that weekend so I had a
traveling companion! In order to catch the same bus on Saturday morning I first
traveled to her site on Friday night about an hour away. I was invited to
multiple Buna ceremonies and of course offered copious amounts of food per
standard Ethiopian hospitality. To top it off, we had a sort of sleep over/all-nighter,
and I was finally introduced to the movie Pitch Perfect. I now understand why
people talked about the movie so much back in college.
The next morning we caught a bus to Bahir Dar which is about
another 4 hours west from Elaine’s post. Bahir Dar is built next to the largest
lake in Ethiopia called Lake Tana. It boasts some of the best fish dishes in
the country along with resorts, palm trees, tourists, humidity and mosquitoes.
At times I felt like I was sitting by the San Diego Bay minus the lovely briny smell.
The first Bajaj (three wheeled taxi, left) we tried to take
insisted on charging 10 birr to the tourists while the price is normally 1.5
birr. We ended up walking a half hour to the Peace Corps Office. Though
weekends leave the office mostly empty of workers, other volunteers that are
close will commonly make a trip for internet printer, library, and to simply to
hang out with other PCV’s. Unfortunately I’m a bit far to make the trip often,
but other PCV’s that are only 1 hr away will come in to the city every other
week! So jealous!! They have access to all the resources, restaurants, stores,
and community. For me on the other hand this was a rare treat, almost
equivalent to a vacation.
I asked around but nobody around had any idea where to go to
get a computer fixed. They warned that you need to be careful because some
places will take your computer and sell the parts. So we made some calls to
people, who made some calls, following a chain I don’t know where, trying to
find out where to go. I was once suggested to go all the way to Addis simply
because they knew specific repair shops there, whereas in Bahir Dar they
existed, but no one knew where. Finally halfway through lunch we got a call about
a man who does governmental computer repairs for the government, schools, and
other agencies. We called him up but he was out of town till Sunday afternoon.
This gave me time to just sit back and enjoy the city.
The lovely Elain's! Elain P on left is a environment PCV whereas Elain M on right is health and located near my sight
Elaine M and I stayed in a hotel with a hot shower, flushable
toilets, and spring mattresses, with complementary bed nets. We even had Wi-Fi,
though you had to sit in the lobby to get proper access. The next day we headed
back to the PC office and hung with a few other PCV’s that I had never met before.
Many of them are close to their end of service departure. I also met a few foreigners
who weren’t part of Peace Corps but are in Ethiopia for different reasons. One
was part of an NGO, while the other was a British grad student conducting
research in Ethiopia.
Hanging out my firs night at the resort having a rare overpriced drink. the girl in the blue shirt on the left was not a PCV but rather a research student from England! and the girl in the green sweater was a PCV that found me a computer repair guy.
Hanging out with new friends and old lake side second night... to many new people to remember, most were going to close service this September. girl on far right helped me find a gas tank.
By the afternoon Elaine had to leave and get back to site,
whereas I had to stay to find the computer guy. By midafternoon I was finally
able to meet up with a very nice Nigerian man who fixed computers. Surprisingly
his office was right next to the Peace Corps Office too! We chatted a bit about
work while he took my computer apart. Luckily it was a quick fix. The only
issue was that the internal cable connected to my screen had come lose, so he
unplugged it then plugged it back it. Taped it down, good as new! Didn’t take
more than 10 minutes. He said since it was so simple and since I’m spending my
time here as a volunteer he wouldn’t charge me this time. Great guy!


As for the new kitten, she is a lovely calico named Kali (I
know I’m not all that original with names, but I like it). She is an energetic
ball of fur and claws. She took an instant liking to me but she does not like
having to stay in the house one bit. I have to pick her up and throw her on the
bed so I can quickly shut the door behind me just to keep her from getting out.
Recently I was standing outside of my room and saw her paw pushing through the
cracks in the door frame…. At the top of the door! She climbs the backside with
her claws trying to find a way out. While I’m in my room working she spends
time bouncing of the walls and then pouncing on me claws out, trying to bite my
hand or foot! Even writing this now I have to repel her playful attacks, my
arms can’t take all the scratches, so I finally clipped her nails. She’s a
hunter for sure, and I expect her to take care of the mice in the roof when
she’s a bit bigger.
I have somewhat started an unofficial English Movie Club. I
started showing some of my movies to my brother Biennium in his shop during the
afternoons. We've seen Iron Man 1 and 2, the Avengers, and Guardians of the Galaxy
(which are all the superhero movies I own). Then I found out he had never seen
Star Wars, so I showed him all of those. Now we are half way through the Harry Potter
movies. Since most of the time we watch them in the shop, we sometimes end up
with an audience, either for part of the movie or sometimes the full movie. It’s
not an official thing, but it gave me the idea of maybe doing an official
English Disney Movies Club in the school and showing a film once a week. Unfortunately my speakers aren’t
very loud and there’s no projector, so maybe it’s not possible.

This last weekend I was asked by one of the Health Center workers to help at typing up a research proposal for his college class (of course I did not realizing it was almost 17 pgs). Took me about 5 hours, along with rewriting a few poor paragraphs and informing him he needed to work on citations and redo the statistics. Never thought I’d be in the position of being dictated to and proof reading. In the past I was so slow I always had to ask my mom or a friend to type for me, but since I’m now a moderate speed typist I’m better than the locals. I’m also terrible at grammar and spelling, needing my mom to look over these posts before I publish. Even so I’m better than people who learned English as a second language, so suddenly I’m in demand. His research is going to be based on a survey to see what pregnant mothers are eating and how much they know about nutritional requirements during pregnancy. By doing so they will learn whether the knowledge is translating into action or not. I find this an excellent goal and look forward to seeing his findings.
In other news, I found out I have been accepted into a week-long QGIS (Geographic Information System) software training. This will take place mid-September in Bahir Dar. I have previously taken a class on ArcGIS software in college and though I kind of hated the class, I recognize its usefulness. QGIS is a free software online, whereas ArcGIS was a very expensive software. I don’t know if this GIS is any easier or harder to use yet, but I’m curious to find out. Since internet is so spotty I have not been able to download it yet, but I’ll let you know how it turns out next post!
No comments:
Post a Comment