Midway reflection
Hi all,
I haven’t written any blogs in a long time. Part of that was
because I was approaching them in a different way, trying to tell everything
that had happened and exhausting myself in the process.
In summary, I’ve completed the last of my in-service
trainings and have now branched out into my second year. I have about 9-10
months left in my service. I’ve been told that the second year of service is
far more active than the first. This in part is because the first year is
dedicated to learning your environment, the people, language and culture, as
well as how things get done. Also because the people get to know you, what
you’re capable of, and the way we work.
In a country where aid work is high, often people don’t
believe that you will stay. Many organizations come for a short time do what
they set out for (build a well, distribute food etc.) than leave. Peace corps
is not like that, in part because we take the time to get to know who we are
serving, and in part because we don’t come simply to give them something. We
come instead to teach them when they are willing, how to do it themselves.
So far I have found truth in more work being available in
the second year. I have in recent month finished a GRS training (teaching girls
about gender, HIV, sex, and self-esteem through soccer program), a perma garden
training with students, and have painted a world map on the side of the library
(with an accompanying geography and brief history lesson at the school about America).
These are things I’m very proud of and hope that I am able to continue in such
work.
At the beginning of May we celebrated Ethiopian orthodox
Easter (called Fasika). This
particular holiday was special to me, because last year it was the first holiday
I experienced in my town. It was a day full of family, music, and meat. It gave
me a sense of “full circle”, to come back to the beginning and see how much
I’ve changed.
I remember my first day in country being inwardly nervous to
so much as walk outside. I hated the food and didn’t understand even the most
basic greeting. The people who then were strangers are now my family, things
that at first shocked me like how many bodies they fit on transportation, or
having guns just casually carried around is now not odd at all. Things that
were hard, like eating a vegan diet 90% of the time, no longer bothers me. I
don’t mind dancing for strangers and being stared at anymore, I go shopping on
my own, travel to new places alone and feel comfortable wandering the streets.
To be sure I still struggle at times with harassment, feel the need for company
of Americans, miss the foods of home, daily conveniences, and above all - hot
showers! But, at the same time… I’m comfortable here.
I still struggle with language and somethings still scare
me, but this place has also become beautiful to me. I enjoy the awkward jerking
the shoulders they call dancing, and recognize their music sometimes, even
singing along to words I don’t always know the meanings, and when I travel I see
sprawling farm land and breathtaking mountains. I see a people working to find
a place in the world of giants, and yet fiercely proud of the lives they have.
They are a people who take a minimum of an hour a day just for coffee and
community. People who will call you out for not enjoying yourself and talking.
And if you’re not eating enough they are likely to feed you with their own
hands. These people who are hospitable and don’t take “no, thank you” as an
answer. A people who will call you off the side of the street to drink some tea
and ask why they haven’t seen you for a few days. The children run after me on
the street just to shake my hand and always ask to carry whatever is in my
hands. And if I start talking about any topic of interest to one person, I soon
have a crowd listening in.
I miss my home, I miss my family, I miss the food… I miss a
lot. But faster than I think, this last year will be gone, and I’ll have all
that back and this time now will be like a dream. So for now I live the dream,
the rise and falls of an emotional roller-coaster of success, failure, and
confusion, of utter boredom and mad rush, of sudden sickness and days in bed
reading, of washing my clothes by hand, of cooking the same 5 foods over and
over, of coffee right before bed and waking up to the sounds of roosters and
baying bulls… and in the end, I’ll miss it all.
Here is to the year ahead and all it will bring.
Spring programs:
GRS
I had a week long training with my counterpart Turuwerk
Wodage back in early December. She was a new counterpart due to my need of a
female for this particular training. The GRS program is normally focused around
a combination of soccer and HIV training for youth, this particular training I
attended was also about gender equality and female health.
In the following months me and my female counterpart we able
to teach 20 young girls in the 6th and 7th grade. They
named themselves the Walia group after a mountain Ibex well known in this
country. Though we were defiantly not the best soccer players we had a lot of
fun and at the end we all got tested for HIV and passed. I hope the things I
taught will help them stay clear.
Permagarden
My original plans to do a large permagarden training in the
school failed utterly. Long story short I decided instead to do a small group
training with my English teaching friend Brehanu Chekola. I went to his class
and got 13 children interested.
We meet once a week on Wednesdays and though we had many
delays and hiccups 7 children stuck through to the end. The learned about
nutrition, water management, soil amendments and intercropping.
English workshop
I also helped Brehanu as a guest speaker in his after school
extra English classes. I was a guest speaker 3 times and taught a few nursery songs,
common greetings, and family trees.
Murals
People in Ethiopia sometimes ask me where I’m from, I answer
“im American” to which they then ask “north or south?”… Now though I can
understand where the confusion comes from I thought it a good opportunity to
teach a bit. I spent a day in the school going room to room teaching briefly
about where the USA is and how it was settled, emphasizing the fact that white
man was actually a foreigner, and that people lived in America prior to
settlement. The day was a resounding success and I was asked if I could provide
world maps as teaching aid. As a counter proposal I offered to paint a mural
instead.
The school offered to provide the supplies if I did the
work. We chose a spot on the outside wall of the library and used fresh cement
to smooth the stuccoed surface. Two close buy PCVs Alben and Elain came to help
make the map. It was a fun 3 days and I have been asked to do a follow-up map
of Ethiopia specifically in the next few weeks.
Touring Amhara
I was blesses to be able to take to in country vacations
this last spring, one was a tour of historical sites in Amhara with two other
volunteers Sadiya and Natanya who are based in Tigray. They first visited my
site and I showed them a local hike and introduced them to my compound dog Charlie
J
then we went to Bahir Dar for a day to see other volunteers. We then made a
trip to Gondar which I had not seen before and did a day hike to see some wild
life and saw the castle where the emperors once lived. Finally we traveled up
to Lalibela, and though I’ve been to the town before this was my first time
seeing all 12 churches carved from stone.
Recently I took a trip to the simian mountain for a rigorous
three day hike. I accompanied nearly 30 other volunteers as we hiked through staggeringly
beautiful mountains and witnessed wild life rarely seen elsewhere in the
country. The trip finalized in the second highest peak in Ethiopia over 14500ft.
it was a great trip thought the hike down was miserable due to exhaustion, rain
and hail. Good story though lol J
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