Ethiopia: The Soundtrack

Nothing horribly exciting has happened since my last post so today I will write about the sounds of Ethiopia. In the morning at about 5am we are all awoken by the Islamic call to prayer being broadcasted over a loudspeaker. This lasts for hours, and no matter how hard I look I cannot find this man singing anywhere. Along with the call to prayer,the African sunrise is also accompanied by the farm choir. The cows and ox form a thick bass line (some cows sing like I do though and just sound horrible), the tenor is the braying of the donkey that reminds you just how miserable his existence is. The alto voices are that of the sheep and goat that bleat like screaming children, and then on top, just in case you haven't woken up yet, is the rooster. Before I surrender to the din and get out of bed I hear Nate and Musse (my host nephews) outside my door either calling my name, shouting the alphabet(usually incorrectly), counting (...6, 7, X, Y, Zed), or fighting.After I finally get out of bed, get dressed, and [sometimes] wash up I leave for school. The moment I walk out my door the people begin to shout at me. "Faranj!!" "China!!" "Amerikawit!!" "What is your name!!!" "Nikki, Nikki, Nikki, Nikki" or "Selam!!!" even after I stop to say hello they continue to shout at me until I am no longer insight. Some days it is like the comforting sounds of the Putnam kids singing Queen or The D by a campfire , other days it is like Greg singing "Crawling" by Linkin Park. The shouting never ends. Every time I step outside I am surrounded, the kids are like the Ethiopian paparazzi. Once the sun goes down the sounds get a bit scarier. Dogs howl at each other like in 101 Dalmatians when the puppies get stolen."Dogs aren't that scary", you may think, but when you are taught that all dogs have rabies they are less cute than the Mandys and Peles of America. Then the "whoooop whoooop" of the hyenas start (I was very disappointed to learn they don't laugh). At that point I stay in my compound until the sun comes up...hyenas are bad news. As I go to bed I put in my headphones until I fall asleep. I never dare to try to sleep without them because then the fact that I have roommates with buck teeth and long tails becomes all too apparent. Sometimes the sounds of scurrying across my floor or in my ceiling wakes me up, but usually I just pretend it is a Mefloquin hallucination and go back to sleep unphased. Then, at 5am, the call to prayer starts and the day repeats itself.


The Concept of Time


Time in Ethiopia is quite the paradox. I feel like I have been here forever but at the same time training has flown by. In just 2 months I have learned enough language to have conversations, everyone in town knows my name, I have made friends and really feel at home. Putnam feels like so long ago and America so foreign it blows my mind. I can barely remember everyday life at home. Then other days it is like I just got here. I really can't believe training is almost over and I'm an actual Peace Corps Volunteer. Time has flown by, but then again I still have 25 months to go. Some days that is exciting, other days it is depressing.
On the topic of time, I want to explain the way the clock works in Ethiopia...and I thought military time was confusing!!! The Ethiopian day begins when the sun comes up, and since I am on the equator that is just about 6am. However, they call it 12am. Lunch is at noon, 6am.I get out of class just about as the sun sets, at 6pm. So to convert international time to local time you subtract 6 hours. So now that I have nearly converted to local time, determining what time it is in the US is significantly more difficult. I have to add the 6 hours to get international time, then subtract the 8 hour time difference. whew!Confused yet? It gets better. The Ethiopian calendar is different than the Gregorian calendar. It has 13 months rather than 12, and is 7years behind. So to find the date I need to subtract 7, 8, or 9 days(depending on the month) and then 7 years. I am still working on that.

One good thing about this country is that appointments and schedules are suggested times, not mandatory. So if I am late because I can't figure out what time it is, or make an error in scheduling the meeting it is okay. If I don't know what day it is and need to reschedule,it's okay. The downside is though that if I do want to get something done it is unlikely that everyone will be present. I'm not punctual enough for that to really bother me though. Sometimes there are things that are just more important than work.

Well, I don't want to use up all of my "life isn't exciting enough fora real post" blogs so I will sign out for now. Let me know if there is anything you want me to talk about in these posts, one of the goals of Peace Corps is to teach Americans about the host country's culture so here I am, ready to teach!

Miss you and love you

Cheers,
Nikki