10/16/09
I haven't been able to blog since arriving in Ethiopia because the little town of Gonde does not yet have Internet. So I am posting this from Asela, the nearest city. Here is a short re-cap of my time so far in the Peace Corps.

Philadelphia: Staging was quite brief. We all got together in a hotel to go through paperwork, discuss aspirations/anxieties and get an overview of the Peace Corps. The next day we got the Yellow Fever vaccine and departed for the airport. Nothing too eventful.
Addis Ababa: Addis was a bit more interesting, but not really Africa.We had a couple days of safety/security training, food and water safety, typhoid, rabies, meningitis and hepatitis vaccines along with the start of the Malaria meds. The meds were the cause of only one interesting dream starring a talking rhino that threatened to kill me if I left my house. He also had a friend giraffe. In Addis I got to know the other volunteers a bit and got past the artificial conversation that you all remember from the first week of college. We went from hanging out in hoards to large groups. Finally on the last day in Addis we left the hotel and braved the streets. We had our first "fishbowl" experience being watched very carefully by everyone.It's a weird feeling being a celebrity of sorts. Everyone wants to shake your hand and listen to you try to say hello. This phenomenon becomes more apparent later.

Training Hub: We all boarded buses to Asela, and then our respective training sites. On the way there we came upon a car accident. Instead of waiting in traffic our bus detoured through the mud. And since the bus couldn't make it through the mud we had to get out of the bus to lessen the weight. Eventually the bus made it back to the main road- I feel like some kind of hitch had to happen. In Asela we had lunch and learned to dance. The Ethiopian dance is a lot of jumping from one foot to the other and controlled arm movements. Women also do this awesome shoulder shake that I have not yet mastered. We all gave it as hot though and a good time was had by all.

Satellite Site: My town for the next 3 months is the smallest of all the satellite sites...it just moved up from being classified a village two months ago. When we arrived it was down pouring and we got out of the bus with all of our bags sloshing through the mud. We took shelter in the pharmacy, which I would later discover is my host father's shop. I had a conversation with a few children while we waited for the rains to stop before walking home.
Two young men carried my bags for me (good thing too, at this point I was not good at walking in the slippery mud) and my host parents led the way through puddles, up a mud/rock road. On the way we passed donkeys, goats, sheep, dogs, horses, cows and tons of curious people watching the "ferenji". We stopped to knock on the metal gate of the compound. The gates open up and I am let into the house which smells like incense. Everyone lines up to meet me, and I am relieved to hear the words "Hello, welcome. My name is Sunnat". She speaks English! Sunny has since become quite close to me and a wonderful resource to be integrated in family chats. Dinner is being brought to the table and a girl brings over a watering can and a slotted bucket with a bar of soap. The family washes their hands and I sit down with mom and dad to eat a wide spread of food. Injera, wot, french fries, vegetables,bread, juice, water, and tea. This is the first time I am able to enjoy food since being in Ethiopia...not because it had made me sick before, but because it was too spicy for me to eat. I eat tons and love every second of the precious food. After dinner I sit on the couch with the family and look at a photo album while coffee beans are being roasted on a charcoal stove. The rest of the night we drink coffee, laugh and I watch them all interact. All my worries were washed away and I was happy to be surrounded by family.

Since then I have fallen in love with Africa. I go to bed every night in awe of how beautiful this country and the people are. I am able to say hello to every person that I meet (and everybody wants me to stop to say hello) and learn Amharic in the garden of one of my friend's compounds. Life is very simple and beautiful. I wake up early when the rooster calls, eat a homemade breakfast with my father and then get walked to school. During school we have 2 tea breaks where we walk through town to practice what we have learned in the community. We often sit at the chaibet with our LCF and make friends with the locals. After school I go home, hang out with the family, have dinner,and hang out some more. We have coffee at lunch and dinner. Then I go to bed around 9-10. Every night I go to bed thinking how lucky I am to have this opportunity. Life here is just so natural. The stars are even more brilliant than in New Zealand. I can't really explain what it is like, but I love it here.

I have so much that I can write about, so to make my blog more interested let me know what you want to hear about. Language?Training? Food? Peace Corps? My Family? Other volunteers? Visual descriptions?
Love you and miss you all.
Cheers,
Nikki