I feel like one of the luckiest people in the world because I had a FRIEND come a visit me. It’s hard to believe that just a week ago Melissa was here sharing in and experiencing my life. We visited friends, experienced the chaos of an Ethopian Orthodox holiday during our bus ride to Zeway and listened to the rain pound my tin roof. I feel so lucky because I am one of the few foreigners living here who actually got to host a friend- not a family member but a friend. I think one of the greatest gifts I could ever receive is the gift of a visit, because now I have one more person who can understand and visualize what I’m talking about when I talk about being emotionally exhausted walking from my house to my office or that I didn’t feel like going to the market because it is a lot of work. Thanks for the gift Melissa!!
January 5, 2009
Sherri and I overlooking the roofs of Stone Town
Sunrise….
So I think I’ve put enough pictures for the time being…. Zanzibar was fabulous. Really a great time to relax and get rejuvinated. Sorry, I don’t really have too many pictures of me… as I was mostly sleeping on the beach… but here are a few. My friend Sherri and I spent a 8 days at this lovely paradise. We stayed at two different beach hotels and one night in the old town of Stone Town. Stone town is lovely with narrow winding alleyways and what seems like a million mosques.
The beaches were white or full of old coral depending on the part of the island. we spent a day snorkeling off an island near Matwme Beach as well as a day on another remote sand bar island… with a lunch of lobster and fish! It was simply fabulous!
December 8, 2008
I went up north on Friday for the training on Saturday. The training with teachers volunteering as tutors with the child development program (up north) went well. Everything was based off of discussion and group work. Overall it was a great time with the teachers learning from each other and exploring various aspects of volunteering. For a visual example we used the top of an injera basket. They can come in many colors and are unique to Ethiopian culture. Before we even dug into the good stuff, we talked about the basket- how beautiful it is, how it is woven together, how the unity brings strength, how there are many colors, how there are many threads, etc. We were able to use this example to show how volunteers are one of the important threads that make up this project and the community. Without the unity, the work could not get done- in fact it could potentialy fall apart. The teachers participated and seemed to enjoy the training. My favorite part was when the teachers brought up concrete examples of the importance of volunteers in their community– since that is what it is all about!
I ended up being asked to teach a second training at one of our project sites 2 hours away. It was great because I was able to go back to Simada- which was a site I visited when I first came to ethiopia. I was able to see the the project and catch up with some of the staff that were there a few years ago. One great thing, is they couldn’t belive how much Amharic I know- as compared to before when I knew approximately 1 word. The second training went great and I ended up staying up north for about a week.
December 8, 2008
Teaching volunteers about their importance in the work through the example of a woven basket
the joys of group projects…
Posing with the teachers group in Lay Gayint
November 27, 2008
What are you going to do next???
As the time for departure from Ethiopia draws near increasingly people are asking me what my plans are for post Ethiopia. My contract ends in July 2008. At that time I will be returning to the US. Beyond that I’m not really sure. I will be applying for Grad School: Masters in Social Work, but also have a few international options available to me. Right now things are a little unclear, please pray with me that God will give me some guidance and wisdom as I draw nearer to the next adventure and season of my life.
November 25, 2008
I don’t know if I wrote about my past rat/mouse experiences. As you know I am no longer in the same house, thus no rat problems. I am however still feeling the ramifications of cohabitating with a furry creature. Many months ago the rat ate my mouth guard which is much needed every night as the stress of my daily life reaks havok on my teeth everynight. My dentist back in the US generously gave me a mouth gard back when I went to the US in 2007. I thought that I could survive without replacing it, but nope- my teeth are moving daily and in pain. Well I ordered a new mouth guard from a dentist in Ethiopia. It cost me an arm and a leg but I now have a snazzy new teeth protection and he even gave me the mold of my teeth. I’ve had many molds of my teeth taken in my life, but honestly have never been so excited about being able to call my mouth mold my own. I think this life is making me weird.
November 25, 2008
I’m in Addis Ababa once again and will be leaving sometime in the next few days for a trip up to the northern part of Ethiopia. I’ve been up there before for some vacations as well as a brief visit to the Simada site when I first arrived in the country. Now I’m going back but this time to Lagayint (a site near Simada), but to facilitate a training about volunteering as a tutor with our child development program. I’m still a little unclear about when I’m going, but mos tlikely I’ll fly up there on Friday— as far as when I return I don’t know. I love not knowing….
But personally exciting news is that I get to stay in Addis for Thanksgiving. I don’t know why I’m so excited about the holidays this year, but I am.
November 13, 2008
Saturday night my Peace Corps friend, Miranda, spent the night. We drifted off to sleep around 11PM and were awakened by chanting/singing coming from the nearby Ethiopian Orthodox Church. My mind told me that it was dark, but it must be morning time. I looked at my phone (which is also my clock) and discovered it was only 12:30 AM. I drifted off to sleep again and was awakened at 1:00 AM—by even more chanting. This is not normal here, during Ramadan the Mosque does the call to prayer many times a day & night, but normally the Orthodox Church is fairly predictable. Unfortunately because it was the middle of the night the sound carried perfectly into my house (it sounded like they were in bed with us). Well these lovely noises carried on all night until 7 or 8 AM. Needless to say…. We didn’t sleep much
When my house cleaner came in the morning, I asked her if she heard the church all night. She looked at me like I was crazy and said no. She lives on the opposite side of town. Then later, when I was on my way to church, I ran into one of my coworkers. I asked him if he heard the church all night. He looked at me like I was crazy too. I was beginning to feel that I heard the voices in my head and was really crazy. But then I remembered that Miranda was with me and could confirm that I was not crazy and that these noises really did exist. Later that evening, I asked my landlord about it and he and his family cracked up laughing, when I explained how loud the noise was and how it went all night and I didn’t sleep at all. Apparently it was St. John’s day (every day is named after a saint here) and for some reason the priests decided to pray all night. The crazy thing is that it all turned out to be in Geez- the ancient language which Amharic stems from, so on one except a priest or God could understand what they were saying all night.
October 23, 2008
After nearly 4 weeks of having Go Ed students in my life, I said goodbye to them an hour ago at the airport. It’s been a fun and exausting few weeks. I thought I’d share a few pictures from Rebecca & Hazel’s last night in Addis. They’re now on their way back to Uganda for a few days then they’re heading off for a month’s worth of classes in Rwanda.
Ethiopian Dancers at the restaruant
Me with Hazel and Rebecca
iMore dancing, this time representative of the north east
October 15, 2008
These past few weeks have been quite busy. Food for the Hungry has a program called Go Ed- where students spend a semester abroad study in multiple countries and gaining first had experience in community development work. For three weeks we have had 2 students here for their practicum experience. They’ve been leading groups for teen girls at 3 of our sites.
Hazel and Rebecca are Junior social work students, which is quite fun for me since my background is also social work. At these groups Hazel and Rebecca facilitate the girls learning about various topics such as family, change, health, relationships, etc. It has been an interesting process seeing these teenage girls progress in their groups, as this is the first time they have experienced group discussions in this manner. In reality it’s been a learning experience for all of us- the site social workers, the girls, the teenagers, and me as we have learned how groups work best here in this culture and community.
Last weekend we took a trip down to Lake Awassa and had a great relaxing time.
Personally, it was nice to get away from zeway for a little while, but it was also nice to take the girls to a new place. Unfortunately the hippos were at some distant place, but we did get in a nice rocky boat ride out to the middle of the lake while wearing these snazzy yellow life vests.
