Celebrating the Holidays in Ethiopia

December, 19, 2008

It’s been more than a week since I last wrote and I am thankful to say that this past week has gone by much faster than did the first. The first week in Ambo felt like two months, without exaggeration. I was feeling really discouraged last week because it felt like time was moving so slowly and, when thinking about a 27-month timeframe, it felt like an eternity. I am pleased that this week cruised by. Training is very difficult. The days are so long and there is so much important information being thrown at us. I’m getting a little nervous that this is all information I really need to know, but none of it seems to be sticking in my brain. I’m not the only one that is struggling with it, though, which helps.

Yesterday we went on our first of four village visits where we will be getting more “real life” training on HIV/AIDS by working with various organizations. It’s a little taste of what we will need to do once we get to our sites. There are three different focus areas from which we could choose: Home-based Care (HBC), Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC), and two prevention groups. I was torn between prevention and HBC (I knew I didn’t want to work with a bunch of dirty kids ;)) but signed up for HBC.

Ginche was the village we visited and I am so happy with my decision. My group is really great and Ginche seems like a really wonderful town. One of the PCTs will be placed there and everyone in my group is vying for it. I swear the satellite dish in the front yard of the future PCV’s house had nothing to do with it. So we went to the health center and met with the head of the HIV department and with the head of the PMTCT (Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission) department. Both were very nice and answered lots of questions for us. Then we were able to sit down and speak with some key members of the PLWHA (People Living With HIV/AIDS) Association and some Home-Based caregivers. Since arriving in Ethiopia, this was the first time I met (knowingly) with people living with HIV. It was really powerful and made me realize that I am here for a purpose and eventually the PowerPoint presentations will be over and I will be doing real work with real people. That helped my motivation a lot.

This PLWHA Association is really amazing. They have about 150 members and receive a little funding from an international NGO but most of their money comes from within. They meet every two weeks to discuss problems that they are having, ways to be healthy while living with the virus, and just to provide support for each other. Every meeting, the members contribute 4 birr and that money goes to providing financial assistance to members that are bedridden or to families of members who have passed away. The Home-based caregivers are basically volunteers, only getting reimbursed for transportation costs. They visit people’s homes to care for them, bathing them, cleaning their homes, bringing them food, etc. There are only 12 HBC-givers for 150 members and 10 of the 12 are women. This disease really does disproportionately affect women, in both direct and indirect ways.



It’s Christmas! – December 26, 2008

Well, I have officially spent my first Christmas away from home and it was a little sad. Luckily, we are still in PST so I was able to share the holiday with other Americans, and better yet Americans that have become my good friends. Even still, I missed all of you so much.
Christmas Eve, after class, a big group of us stayed in the technical school and set up the projector to watch a Christmas movie. We decided to watch “Love Actually”, a movie that I watch year round and that always makes me feel super happy but this time, it left us all depressed and homesick. After the movie finished, my friend Travis said, “If I go outside and we’re still in Africa I’m gonna kill myself.” Needless to say we were and he didn’t, but it pretty much summed up the general sentiments perfectly.

So that brings us to Christmas day. Peace Corps gave us the day off and brought us all to Lake Winchi, about a 2 or 3 hour drive from Ambo. Travis brought his guitar and we sang Christmas songs the whole ride there. The walk down to the lake was long but really beautiful. When we got to the lake, we just spread out sheets/towels, put on some music, and relaxed. Pretty low key but I think it was what we needed. Brad’s dad gave him two bottles of homemade araqe (local liquor that tastes like a combination of rotten vegetables and gasoline) so a few of us drank that but it was pretty gross.

When we got back to Ambo, I took my first shower since leaving Addis in the PCV of the week, Nicole’s hotel room. Although I have become quite fond of bucket baths (especially now that I take them alone), I must admit it felt nice to have a steady stream of hot water falling on me…and being able to stand up straight. Peace Corps provided dinner for us at Abebech Hotel and we did a White Elephant gift exchange (like Cathy’s game only the gifts were slightly under par from the gems she digs up from the Christmas Tree Shop). I gave two stamped envelopes to the States and received a pair of underwear that say “SexKiss” on them and a can of shoe polish (pretty random and weird combo). Overall, it was a strange but enjoyable Christmas.

New Year’s Eve 2008-09!

So New Years was a big improvement from Christmas. It was actually one of the best New Years I have had in recent memory. Peace Corps gave us permission to rent a hall at a local hotel and have an overnight celebration. We all got permission from our host families to spend the night out and hauled blankets and pillows over to the spot. The hotel owner made a huge bonfire for us and our Ethiopian teachers and training staff came too. We spent the night dancing and singing (both Ethiopian and American for both). I wish I had a record of all the songs we sang because they were all over the place, ranging from Frank Sinatra to Queen to songs from Disney movies.

So when we were planning this event (Gail and I were the organizers), I was determined to make a New Years ball to drop at midnight like they do in Times Square. Everyone was skeptical but as you all know, when I get my mind set on something, especially when it’s craft-related, I will make it happen. It took a while to figure out the best way to go about it with such limited (AKA without) supplies. The final product was a soccer ball wrapped in white paper and with a bunch of cut of water bottles taped all around it. I know it’s probably very difficult to picture, but it looked pretty cool and hopefully soon I’ll have a picture up here so you can all see my masterpiece. We got the ball rigged up to the ceiling of the room we rented (there was even a stage so it was perfect) and at midnight, I lowered the ball as everyone did the countdown. It truly was a memorable experience. After midnight we spent a few more hours dancing and then called it a night. Some people splurged (about 40 birr or $4) on hotel rooms to sleep in a bed but most of us just found spots on the floor and made do.

We had to be out of the room at 7am the following morning so not much sleep was had. In the morning after cleaning everything up, a couple of us went to have breakfast at the local Denny’s….I wish. At 8am, those of us from the east coast did another little countdown at our table in honor of all of you. So now you know, that wherever you were for the New Year, at midnight you had four Americans in Ethiopia doing the countdown with you!

Melkam Genna! Ethiopian Christmas – January 9, 2009

So not only does Ethiopia have its own year (2001), calendar (13 months in a year), and clock (6 hours ahead of the rest of the world’s clock) but they also have their own Christmas! They celebrate Christmas on January 7th. My family is Orthodox so they have been fasting for the entire time I have been living with them, leading up until Christmas, when they basically eat nothing but meat. Christmas morning, I came into the living room to find a heaping serving plate of enjera and doro wat (spicy chicken dish)…they don’t waste any time with the meat. It was a little strange eating something so spicy and meaty at 8am but I embraced it. Chicken is very expensive here so reserved for holidays and special events. It was also at this meal that I received my first “gorcho” – a gesture of love and respect when someone literally feeds you. My mom “gorchoed” me and it was a little strange but I jumped right in and gorchoed my aunt. There is a rule about gorcho that if you do it, you have to do it more than once to the same person.

After all the eating, my mom took me around to all of our neighbor’s houses and we had coffee and the locally made bread. I love that bread so much, it reminds me of Irish brown bread…although it’s never toasted and covered with sweet butter ! And it’s not baked by my Nanny. But it’s the closest thing I can find here in Ethiopia. At my house, they bake the bread in the same room where I bathe and I love taking my warm bucket bath in the mornings (every 2nd or 3rd morning, let’s be real) and smelling the bread baking in the oven. It’s delightful. Anyway, I digress. So basically the entire day is spent visiting neighbors and relatives and receiving guests as well.

For lunch, my family ate “teray siga” or raw meat. When I say raw, I mean they go to the butcher (most families slaughter the animals themselves for Genna but our sheep are pets I learned, so we bought the meat), then put the meat on a plate, and everyone gathers around with a knife and starts cutting off bites. They make this seasoned butter sauce for dipping but it’s pretty crazy to watch. People often get worms and other nasty parasites from it but it never stops them because they love it so much. They just drink it down with some araqe to kill the germs. Despite my desires to culturally assimilate, I did not partake in the raw meat eating and kindly asked for them to cook my portion.

That pretty much sums up Christmas in Ethiopia. There is no gift exchange, we did have a small Christmas tree but that is not traditional, it was brought in by westerners and some Ethiopians have embraced it. Nanny, I hung the ornament you gave me on the tree and my family loved it! Other than that, it was a pretty low key day, although rather exhausting from making all the visits to other houses. Don’t tell anyone here, but I much prefer our version of Christmas, commercialized though it may be.

My New Home! Dilla, Ethiopia – January 17, 2009

So big news everybody, I am now in the town where I will be living for the next two years: Dilla! When I first learned last week that I had been placed in Dilla, I was really happy and all the LCFs and other staff said that it is such a beautiful place. I am also close to many of the people that I have become closest friends with here. In my interview, I said I would like to be close to Jill, Marina, Travis, Kyle B., and John Lamon (there are two Kyles and two Johns). Well, Peace Corps really pulled through with four out of my five requests. Unfortunately, my bestie Jill, is all the way up in Tigray (the northernmost region of Ethiopia) and I am the southernmost volunteer, in SNNPR (Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Region). But I have to be grateful for what I got. Kyle is my closest neighbor in Aleta Wondo, John is in the capital city of SNNPR, Hawassa (along with Rich and Chris), Travis is just a half an hour or so north of Hawassa in Arsi Negele, and Marina is north from there in Butajera. She’s about 4-5 hours from Dilla I think. Other than her, I am surrounded by men. The people in my cluster are Kyle, John, Jordan, Rich, Travis, and Chris. Then not too far away are Brad and Jason. I don’t mind since 3 of them are my best friends and I get along well with guys, but I am still really going to miss girl time.

Ok, so now for the town itself. Everyone was right, it is so beautiful. The drive down from Addis was so pretty and it really felt like being in Africa. We even saw camels walking down the side of the road. Once we passed through Travis’s town, it really began to get green and the vegetation was so beautiful. Approaching Dilla was magnificent. Everywhere you looked there were eucalyptus trees, coffee trees, and pineapple groves. Dilla is known for its coffee and fruits. It’s pretty much the coffee capital of Ethiopia and where Starbucks buys its Ethiopian coffee from…fun fact. I love coffee and I love fruit so I am pretty jazzed about my location so far. In Ambo, the fruits and vegetables are pretty much limited to oranges (barely), bananas, spinach, cabbage, potatoes, and carrots. Today, I saw sweet potatoes! And at this one café, there are mango and avocado trees growing right in the sitting area providing shade. I felt it on the drive here and walking through Dilla only confirmed that feeling that this is the right place for me.
Peace Corps sets us up with a counterpart and supervisor in our towns to help us get settled and introduce us to key people in the town. It’s kind of a starting point to learn about HIV/AIDS in our communities and the work that is currently being done so that we can figure out where we fit in. My counterpart’s name is Girma and he is so nice and helpful. There is also a girl my age named Bethlehem, that works in the office and she has been helping me out a lot too. Girma is the coordinator for the town of Dilla’s HAPCO office, the Ethiopian governments HIV/AIDS program.

Today, after doing some shopping and errands with Beti (Bethlehem), we met up with Girma and took a bajaj (three-wheeled motor taxi) to the Rift Valley Resort and swimming pool just outside of town. It was a long walk down and a very rocky and dusty road but once we reached it, I was overcome with its beauty. The pool was smaller than the one in Ambo and it wasn’t as well groomed but its beauty felt more natural and authentic. Just down a path from the pool there is a waterfall. Right now is the dry season so the river is low but the waterfall was still impressive. I can’t wait to see it during rainy season.