Kyle and me.
Friday, July 10, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
I MADE THE 6 MONTH MARK!
June 15, 2009
About two weeks ago marked the 6-month anniversary of my arrival in Ethiopia and it comes as a sense of accomplishment and encouragement to keep it up, that I have been in the Peace Corps for half a year. As luck would have it, this 6-month marker came during the Peace Corps In-Service Training, so I was with all the other volunteers from my group (except the three that went home…yep, we lost another just a week before In-Service Training). Besides the loss of Gabe, which was sad news to get, it was absolutely wonderful being with all my friends again. It was interesting to see how far we have all come since those few months in Pre-Service Training when we were all just trying to figure out what was going on and how we could live in this country for two years. Of course, we are all still trying to figure that out but everyone seems to have adapted very well to being on his/her own and are doing great things so far. One highlight of the 10-day training was the North vs. South Kickball game we organized between all the volunteers. Everyone made uniforms (North-blue and South-green...yes I did choose my team’s color) and we found a park at the resort PC put us up in to play the game. It was a huge success, although unfortunately the Southside lost :(. I think our group is creating quite a reputation for itself as one of the most fun and creative PC groups in the history of Ethiopia, if not the whole world.
The training itself was rather boring, chock full of PowerPoint presentations by representatives from various organizations, but there were elements that were very helpful. We spent the first three days learning about permaculture (“permanent agriculture”) from a former PCV who now lives in Tanzania and is an expert on this. I now feel more confident not only to start my own garden (which I planted this past weekend, finally!) but also to teach the methods I learned to members of my community. We learned about how to control water so that planting can still be done during both the rainy and dry season common in this part of Africa. I am living in a region with some of the most fertile land in all of Ethiopia, yet almost all of the agriculture is for exports, like coffee. Food prices have increased exponentially in just the past year yet people are still not growing their own food. I really want to help spread this message of growing food through family gardens that will foster more self-sufficiency and improve the health in my community.
This training really motivated me to get back out into my community and get started on some of these ideas floating up in my head. There is so much I want to do that I don’t really know where to start and I am feeling a bit overwhelmed. I think I am just going to dive in head first and see what sticks. I’ll keep you posted.
Before returning to my town, I took my first vacation! Jill and Tina (who live in the northernmost region of Ethiopia) made a visit down south after training and we had a girls trip to Arba Minch. Nichole, my friend from Group 1, also came along and we had such a great time. We had to endure an 8-hour long bus ride on an unpaved road in a bus with no shocks to get there and back but it was definitely worth it. We took a boat across this huge lake, where we saw crocodiles, hippos, and pelicans. Then they brought us to the shore of the national park, where we hiked through and saw herds and herds of zebras. It was so beautiful and amazing; it actually felt like being in Africa. We all have a little joke that Ethiopia isn’t actually Africa but rather a continent of its own inside Africa. But it was a really great experience and I have some awesome pictures, which hopefully will make their way onto my blog soon.
Not much else to report. My sincere apologies for being so out of touch these past two months. Right before training I was consumed with finishing my Community Needs Assessment, which I had to present at training. Then, the training location was this little resort completely cut off from the rest of the world and I had no internet access. Now that I am back in my town, the power has been out all day for the past three days in a row. However, it just came back about 30 minutes ago so I am frantically writing this and heading off to the internet café to send it. I love and miss you all!
Also, VERY belated Happy Birthdays to:
KRISTINA!!! (May 25th)
AUNTY MARY!!! (June 1st)
Uncle Brendan (June 12)
I love you lots and lots and was thinking about you on your respective days :)
About two weeks ago marked the 6-month anniversary of my arrival in Ethiopia and it comes as a sense of accomplishment and encouragement to keep it up, that I have been in the Peace Corps for half a year. As luck would have it, this 6-month marker came during the Peace Corps In-Service Training, so I was with all the other volunteers from my group (except the three that went home…yep, we lost another just a week before In-Service Training). Besides the loss of Gabe, which was sad news to get, it was absolutely wonderful being with all my friends again. It was interesting to see how far we have all come since those few months in Pre-Service Training when we were all just trying to figure out what was going on and how we could live in this country for two years. Of course, we are all still trying to figure that out but everyone seems to have adapted very well to being on his/her own and are doing great things so far. One highlight of the 10-day training was the North vs. South Kickball game we organized between all the volunteers. Everyone made uniforms (North-blue and South-green...yes I did choose my team’s color) and we found a park at the resort PC put us up in to play the game. It was a huge success, although unfortunately the Southside lost :(. I think our group is creating quite a reputation for itself as one of the most fun and creative PC groups in the history of Ethiopia, if not the whole world.
The training itself was rather boring, chock full of PowerPoint presentations by representatives from various organizations, but there were elements that were very helpful. We spent the first three days learning about permaculture (“permanent agriculture”) from a former PCV who now lives in Tanzania and is an expert on this. I now feel more confident not only to start my own garden (which I planted this past weekend, finally!) but also to teach the methods I learned to members of my community. We learned about how to control water so that planting can still be done during both the rainy and dry season common in this part of Africa. I am living in a region with some of the most fertile land in all of Ethiopia, yet almost all of the agriculture is for exports, like coffee. Food prices have increased exponentially in just the past year yet people are still not growing their own food. I really want to help spread this message of growing food through family gardens that will foster more self-sufficiency and improve the health in my community.
This training really motivated me to get back out into my community and get started on some of these ideas floating up in my head. There is so much I want to do that I don’t really know where to start and I am feeling a bit overwhelmed. I think I am just going to dive in head first and see what sticks. I’ll keep you posted.
Before returning to my town, I took my first vacation! Jill and Tina (who live in the northernmost region of Ethiopia) made a visit down south after training and we had a girls trip to Arba Minch. Nichole, my friend from Group 1, also came along and we had such a great time. We had to endure an 8-hour long bus ride on an unpaved road in a bus with no shocks to get there and back but it was definitely worth it. We took a boat across this huge lake, where we saw crocodiles, hippos, and pelicans. Then they brought us to the shore of the national park, where we hiked through and saw herds and herds of zebras. It was so beautiful and amazing; it actually felt like being in Africa. We all have a little joke that Ethiopia isn’t actually Africa but rather a continent of its own inside Africa. But it was a really great experience and I have some awesome pictures, which hopefully will make their way onto my blog soon.
Not much else to report. My sincere apologies for being so out of touch these past two months. Right before training I was consumed with finishing my Community Needs Assessment, which I had to present at training. Then, the training location was this little resort completely cut off from the rest of the world and I had no internet access. Now that I am back in my town, the power has been out all day for the past three days in a row. However, it just came back about 30 minutes ago so I am frantically writing this and heading off to the internet café to send it. I love and miss you all!
Also, VERY belated Happy Birthdays to:
KRISTINA!!! (May 25th)
AUNTY MARY!!! (June 1st)
Uncle Brendan (June 12)
I love you lots and lots and was thinking about you on your respective days :)
Thursday, May 14, 2009
THERE'S NO HIDING ME OR THE GARBAGE!
April 29, 2009
Hey all!
So I am approaching the 5 month mark of being in Ethiopia which means, you guessed it, I am approximately 18% done with Peace Corps! I swear I’m not counting the days until it’s over, I just like doing percentages J Well, I will say that Peace Corps is so much harder than I ever could have imagined. It’s definitely not the lack of amenities that makes it hard (although I wouldn’t turn down a flushing toilet and hot shower). I think the most difficult part of Peace Corps, particularly being in Africa (besides having the assignment: help with the HIV/AIDS epidemic) is the lack of anonymity. It’s indescribable how exhausting it is to be seen constantly. Sure I stood out a bit all those years living in the Bronx but I was still in a big city and could be “invisible” whenever I wanted to be. I can’t be invisible here. No matter where I go or what I am doing, people are staring at me. I know what you’re thinking: it’s my own fault for being so good-looking and entertaining. However, I have tried being as boring as possible and a week without bathing usually takes care of the good-looking part, but still they stare! I just wish that once, I could go to the market without being stared at, yelled at, touched, etc.
As for the other difficult part of Peace Corps (HIV), I have made at least a small bit of headway. Yesterday, I gave a training to Dilla High School’s Anti-AIDS Club about HIV/AIDS. This training has been in the works for a while but kept getting put off because of Ethiopian Easter, which apparently is celebrated for approximately two weeks. There were about 30 students, mostly grades 10 and 11, and it went really well. I was very nervous because this was the first training that I facilitated by myself. As you may know, I have no real medical background and high school students can ask some pretty creative questions, particularly about HIV but I felt comfortable answering all of their questions. I started the training out with a Facts and Myths game about HIV, which went over really well. I prepared roughly 15 statements about HIV and then had student volunteers read the statements and determine if it was true or false – then I explained why. Next I did some very basic instruction on the difference between HIV and AIDS, four body fluids that can transmit HIV, and the main modes of transmission. I also prepared a large graph, which showed the progression of the disease after infection, comparing the viral load (amount of HIV in the body) to the number of antibodies (the body’s defense against the virus). It shows that right after a person is infected with HIV, their viral load spikes up so they are the most infectious (able to pass the disease to someone else) yet they show no symptoms and feel no different. Sorry if this is really boring and technical for you, but who says I have to limit my HIV education to kids in Africa. Has anyone learned anything they didn’t know? If so, you’re welcome.
So basically after my instruction, I opened it up for Q&A and general discussion. The kids were really active and asked so many questions. It really did seem like they learned something, even if just temporarily. At the end, I told them that it was up to them to take the information they had gained to educate their friends, classmates, families, etc. I really do hope that they decide to get more involved and active as a club. One thing that I think would be really great to do at the high school is to have a “HIV/AIDS Questions Box” where students can anonymously submit questions about HIV and maybe once a week or once a month, I would meet with the Anti-AIDS Club and together we would answer the questions submitted and post them. Eventually, once the club members are better informed and feel more comfortable with the topic, I would want them to give the answers to questions themselves and only call me for questions they didn’t know how to answer. This is a pretty ambitious goal and it will only work if the club members are really dedicated but it’s an idea and that is a success for me at this point.
Another idea I have as a possible long-term project is for a trash collection service in Dilla Town that would serve as an income generating activity for one of the PLWHA Associations (People Living With HIV/AIDS. Right now this is just an idea in my head and I have no details worked out, but sanitation is a really big problem in town. There is no trash collection or proper waste disposal areas in Dilla, so people just burn their garbage in the streets once or twice a week. Those days, they air is just filled with dirty smoke and the smell of burning plastic. It’s awful. I myself have not been able to bring myself to this, no matter how often I am told it is the way things are done, so I have an overflowing bag of garbage in my kitchen. I am composting my food scraps but the rest of it just sits there. It’s really becoming a problem. That’s kind of what sparked the idea. My thinking is that once a week, hired people will go around town with the big donkey carts, ringing a bell or something, and people will bring out their trash. This will generate jobs and then the profits would go to the PLWHA Association. Ideally, we could do proper waste disposal, burning was is burnable and composting food scraps. Then maybe selling composted soil or starting a farm?? Again, these are really big ideas and the biggest thing that Peace Corps teaches us is that it’s no good to just come up with an idea and implement it (that’s what NGOs do). You need community buy-in for the project to be successful and sustainable. So if I want to do this, I will need to convince the community that it’s important, why it’s important, etc. Then I will need a lot of money to get it started – but luckily I have experience and good genes in that department. Right, Mama?
So as tough as life is here, I am finally feeling like I might be able to make some impact here. It’s extremely daunting and these two big ideas that I have might not even work out, but it’s something. It’s a start and that’s all I need right now. So, friends and family, thank you for all your love and support. I can’t tell you how much it helps me. I will keep up with the blogs and try to keep them as balanced between positive and negative reflection as this one has been.
Also, I have one more request. For those with whom I have been exchanging letters, could you please save those letters? I have never been good at keeping journals and I don’t need to tell you that I have a notoriously bad memory, so for all I know a few months after returning to the U.S., I may have forgotten entirely that I lived in Ethiopia for two years. If that is the case, I will need those letters (and these blogs) as proof. If you wish to keep my letters for your own scrap books, then I just ask that you photocopy them and send them to my darling grandma, Betty Mohan (70 Bunker Hill Rd. Coventry, CT 06238) and she will save them until my return. Which reminds me, hey Nanny, do you mind if I have people send my letters to your house? Ok, I think that’s all for now.
Lots of love, I miss you all so much.
Bonnie
Hey all!
So I am approaching the 5 month mark of being in Ethiopia which means, you guessed it, I am approximately 18% done with Peace Corps! I swear I’m not counting the days until it’s over, I just like doing percentages J Well, I will say that Peace Corps is so much harder than I ever could have imagined. It’s definitely not the lack of amenities that makes it hard (although I wouldn’t turn down a flushing toilet and hot shower). I think the most difficult part of Peace Corps, particularly being in Africa (besides having the assignment: help with the HIV/AIDS epidemic) is the lack of anonymity. It’s indescribable how exhausting it is to be seen constantly. Sure I stood out a bit all those years living in the Bronx but I was still in a big city and could be “invisible” whenever I wanted to be. I can’t be invisible here. No matter where I go or what I am doing, people are staring at me. I know what you’re thinking: it’s my own fault for being so good-looking and entertaining. However, I have tried being as boring as possible and a week without bathing usually takes care of the good-looking part, but still they stare! I just wish that once, I could go to the market without being stared at, yelled at, touched, etc.
As for the other difficult part of Peace Corps (HIV), I have made at least a small bit of headway. Yesterday, I gave a training to Dilla High School’s Anti-AIDS Club about HIV/AIDS. This training has been in the works for a while but kept getting put off because of Ethiopian Easter, which apparently is celebrated for approximately two weeks. There were about 30 students, mostly grades 10 and 11, and it went really well. I was very nervous because this was the first training that I facilitated by myself. As you may know, I have no real medical background and high school students can ask some pretty creative questions, particularly about HIV but I felt comfortable answering all of their questions. I started the training out with a Facts and Myths game about HIV, which went over really well. I prepared roughly 15 statements about HIV and then had student volunteers read the statements and determine if it was true or false – then I explained why. Next I did some very basic instruction on the difference between HIV and AIDS, four body fluids that can transmit HIV, and the main modes of transmission. I also prepared a large graph, which showed the progression of the disease after infection, comparing the viral load (amount of HIV in the body) to the number of antibodies (the body’s defense against the virus). It shows that right after a person is infected with HIV, their viral load spikes up so they are the most infectious (able to pass the disease to someone else) yet they show no symptoms and feel no different. Sorry if this is really boring and technical for you, but who says I have to limit my HIV education to kids in Africa. Has anyone learned anything they didn’t know? If so, you’re welcome.
So basically after my instruction, I opened it up for Q&A and general discussion. The kids were really active and asked so many questions. It really did seem like they learned something, even if just temporarily. At the end, I told them that it was up to them to take the information they had gained to educate their friends, classmates, families, etc. I really do hope that they decide to get more involved and active as a club. One thing that I think would be really great to do at the high school is to have a “HIV/AIDS Questions Box” where students can anonymously submit questions about HIV and maybe once a week or once a month, I would meet with the Anti-AIDS Club and together we would answer the questions submitted and post them. Eventually, once the club members are better informed and feel more comfortable with the topic, I would want them to give the answers to questions themselves and only call me for questions they didn’t know how to answer. This is a pretty ambitious goal and it will only work if the club members are really dedicated but it’s an idea and that is a success for me at this point.
Another idea I have as a possible long-term project is for a trash collection service in Dilla Town that would serve as an income generating activity for one of the PLWHA Associations (People Living With HIV/AIDS. Right now this is just an idea in my head and I have no details worked out, but sanitation is a really big problem in town. There is no trash collection or proper waste disposal areas in Dilla, so people just burn their garbage in the streets once or twice a week. Those days, they air is just filled with dirty smoke and the smell of burning plastic. It’s awful. I myself have not been able to bring myself to this, no matter how often I am told it is the way things are done, so I have an overflowing bag of garbage in my kitchen. I am composting my food scraps but the rest of it just sits there. It’s really becoming a problem. That’s kind of what sparked the idea. My thinking is that once a week, hired people will go around town with the big donkey carts, ringing a bell or something, and people will bring out their trash. This will generate jobs and then the profits would go to the PLWHA Association. Ideally, we could do proper waste disposal, burning was is burnable and composting food scraps. Then maybe selling composted soil or starting a farm?? Again, these are really big ideas and the biggest thing that Peace Corps teaches us is that it’s no good to just come up with an idea and implement it (that’s what NGOs do). You need community buy-in for the project to be successful and sustainable. So if I want to do this, I will need to convince the community that it’s important, why it’s important, etc. Then I will need a lot of money to get it started – but luckily I have experience and good genes in that department. Right, Mama?
So as tough as life is here, I am finally feeling like I might be able to make some impact here. It’s extremely daunting and these two big ideas that I have might not even work out, but it’s something. It’s a start and that’s all I need right now. So, friends and family, thank you for all your love and support. I can’t tell you how much it helps me. I will keep up with the blogs and try to keep them as balanced between positive and negative reflection as this one has been.
Also, I have one more request. For those with whom I have been exchanging letters, could you please save those letters? I have never been good at keeping journals and I don’t need to tell you that I have a notoriously bad memory, so for all I know a few months after returning to the U.S., I may have forgotten entirely that I lived in Ethiopia for two years. If that is the case, I will need those letters (and these blogs) as proof. If you wish to keep my letters for your own scrap books, then I just ask that you photocopy them and send them to my darling grandma, Betty Mohan (70 Bunker Hill Rd. Coventry, CT 06238) and she will save them until my return. Which reminds me, hey Nanny, do you mind if I have people send my letters to your house? Ok, I think that’s all for now.
Lots of love, I miss you all so much.
Bonnie
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