Friday, July 23, 2010

Welcome

I have no idea if this entry was successfully posted the first time so I'm going to try again. I apologize if it's a repeat. On my last real post I had a comment from a friend of a new kid coming to Ethiopia in September. For any of you group 4 kids reading my blog please feel free to email me with any questions about Ethiopia, PC, packing etc... A few of you will probably be down in my area and I'm
wicked excited to meet you and finally have some neighbors! Shoot me an email at nltherrien@gmail.com I have dial up internet so I check my email about once a week. Enjoy your last few months at home, eat tons of delicious food, go to happy hour and spend all the time you can with friends and family! See you soon!

Friday, July 9, 2010

Birds of a Feather

Sorry for the lack of updates, blogspot has been blocked for about a month and Andrea has returned to the world of academics and has much better things to do than update her sister's blog. Since my last update it's been the usual amazing highs and depressing lows. I had a week long training on permaculture (sustainable gardening) which was a bit frustrating, but overall pretty useful. On Monday I am meeting with the HIV positive women in my town about starting a garden. It's going to start small for nutritional support, but if things go well we hope to expand the garden so it can be a source of income generation as well. It's a pretty easy project and will boost my feeling of productiveness. In terms of work, I've been quite busy lately with the youth center, seeing as though the grant proposal is due next month. When I came back from the training I was stood up for 3 meetings and was starting to feel like the grant would never get written and the project would be a bust. I was thrilled when this week one of my guys dropped a complete, detailed budget and part of the proposal in front of me. I couldn't believe it....this is actually going to be finished on time! Unfortunately, as I predicted, we are waaaay over budget. I'm working on cutting down the scale of the project while still making it worthwhile. I have a few ideas, but will have to see what my committees think before making any decisions. The last thing I have going on as far as work goes is the summer camp. Things are starting to shape up, next week I'm meeting with another volunteer to work out the budget.



Other than the increased productivity in my work, life has slowed down a bit due to the rainy season. I spend a lot of time at home hiding from the rain/mud reading, watching tv/movies (pathetic, i know) and grant writing. While I was at training someone broke into my kitchen and stole all my food that wasn't locked up so I've been pretty moody as well....probably better that I'm not being overly social.

I don't have a whole lot to report, so I'm going to tell you about my favorite birds in Ethiopia. Sounds really lame, but the birds are crazy here.... it's supposedly one of the most interesting places for bird watching because there are so many endemic species. The first worth mentioning is Toucan Saul (I don't know the real names of the species and no one understands what I'm asking when I try to find out). Toucan Saul is the name Alissa and I gave this giant black bird with a huge white beak (an evil toucan). During consolidation one came in our room and was mocking us.... it was terrifying. This bird is so big that when it flies over my house I can hear its wings flapping and when it lands on my roof it sounds like there's a fight above me. Another crazy species is the stork of Hawassa. These guys gather in large flocks in the trees (it's a gamble to walk underneath). When they stand they are over half my height and have a brigh orange crest and incredibly ugly features. They seriously look prehistoric. Gross, but awesome. The last bird that I'm a fan of is much less bad ass, but still unique. It's super tiny (about the size of a hummingbird) and bright blue. They remind me of neons in a fish tank full of much bigger, meaner fish.


June Hymn

It's been just about 6 months since I moved to Masha and it's finally feeling like home to me. Two weeks ago all the PCVs went to Yirg Alem for a week long training. Without boring you with details I'll just say that it was a great time with friends, old and new, complete with card games, Scrabble, a bonfire, a "beach" trip, volleyball and beer. The training part was alright, too. Two days were summer camp training from Hole in the Wall camps (PC is hosting regional summer camps in the next few months). It was a good example of a small world- the original Hole in the Wall camp is near where I'm from. The person giving the training knows my cousin who is affiliated with the camp, and is currently living in New Haven. I always get a kick out of talking about CT with strangers in Ethiopia. But anyway! Once the week was over I was very bummed to be going back to site...going from social overload to solitude is never easy. The warm welcome from Masha made it a bit easier. Coming home and seeing children and friends excited to see me was very touching. I'm not sure I'd get that in a bigger town, so even though I haven't had electricity since coming back, I am happy with where I live.

 

Upon returning to site I learned that no progress was made on the youth center... people were hesitant to work/make decisions without me. I learned that I need to take on a stronger role in the planning process and guide my chairpersons through it, which is fine. I've had meetings the past two days and made some real progress. The first meeting we decided what types of activities will be included in the center and then prioritized them (we won't have the funds to do everything...for example I don't think we'll be installing a swimming pool). The top three priorities are 1. media room (computers, internet, library, HIV/AIDS resources) 2. lounge (cafe, DSTV) and 3. meeting room (to hold regular HIV/AIDS prevention programs, VCT campaigns, dramas, social programming). Today I met with civil engineers who will make a blue print and tell me approximately how much this will cost. I'm sure we're over budget by a lot, but we needed to start somewhere. I'm always in a good mood after my youth center meetings. I was starting to think this project idea was over-ambitious (which it probably is), but when I meet with these people are they are so willing to do the work and are so optimistic I'm reminded that it's going to be worth the headache. There have been nothing but good signs, it has to work out, right?

On a completely unrelated note, but something I'm really excited about...I'M COMING HOME!! A while back I wrote a policy piece with my grad school mentor on medical care access to detained immigrants. My professor had submitted the absract to the American Public Health Assoc. annual conference a few months ago. Much to my surprise, I got an email the other day inviting us to give an oral presentation on our work! Peace Corps is letting me count the conference as work related (so I don't need to use all my vacation days going to Colorado) so I will be coming to America in early November. After the conference I'll be home for two weeks, however I wont have a phone, car or money, so if you would like to see me it's pretty much up to you. I have a lot going on until then so it may even come quickly!