jill in ethiopia

The Last Lap in Ethiopia

2010-12-07T11:18:00.006-06:00

My motivation since returning from South Africa has been waning. It’s nearly impossible to start a project of any great impact as my time is limited and let’s be serious, things go slowly here. So I’ve been trying to find little things to fill my days in order to convince myself I’m still being useful and as to not overdose on watching all the new TV shows Mike, the IT volunteer in Maychew, just hooked me up with.

Well one of those small tasks that popped up recently was training, provided by the Protestant church organization that works with orphans in Maychew. The project manager, who I am quite familiar with asked if I would mind stopping by the Income Generating Project training to introduce myself and offer some advice. I should be honest; it was really presented to me as come and say something to these people because they get excited when ferengi come to their events. I chose to give them the little advice from my experience helping with a cooperative IGA and thought as I walked out I was finished. It turns out the church was simultaneously running another training on how to start an anti-AIDS club. The project manager casually asked if I would like to give part of the training. I looked at him as if a bird had just landed on his head. Hadn’t the training already begun? How could he possible fit me into an already packed (and planned) training schedule? It turns out they had nothing for the participants to do for the first couple hours after lunch. PCV to the rescue!

We played an HIV fact/myth game and my counterpart and I led an activity to show how easily HIV can be spread through sexual contact. Halefom gracefully filled the remainder of the time talking about the ABCs of HIV prevention (a little above my language abilities) and answering the inevitable questions about sperm injected oranges and eating chickens who had eaten HIV covered condoms.

The wrap up celebration for the income generating project participants was a few days later. I walked into the back room of a local hotel to find the ten participants and about 30 other people I knew and several dozen I didn’t know. After a meal of six different preparations of sheep and an attempt at potato chips it was speech time. There was a TV in one corner of the room and as someone moved to turn it down we all were captivated by the joyous reunions of the Chilean miners and their families who had recently been rescued. As the clip came to a close he reached for the volume button and to my embarassment not quickly enough as the beginning of the next segment started with the line, (rough translation from Amharic) “And in other news, the latest in American cat fashion”. Chile got to show reunited miners families patriotically singing their national anthem while my country is represented by felines dressed as Cleopatra, Princess Di and just to disgrace me even further, Sarah Palin. 40 pairs of eyes shiftily glanced in my direction as if to say, “those terrorist attacks make a little more sense now...”

Ethiopians use butter both for food and as a scalp/hair moisturizer. Every time I have my hair braided or wear my traditional dress they try to convince me to slather my head in butter as to further immerse myself in the culture. As of late it has come up about once a week when I have dinner with a friend and his family. His mother often turns to me, pats my head and says “Tesmi, tesmi, tesmi konjo” which basically means butter would be beautiful on your big white scalp! I broke down. I couldn’t stand by my arguments that it wouldn’t be good for my hair or that I would spend the afternoon wanting to wipe a slice of bread on my head for a snack. I agreed to let her butter me up the following Sunday.

Sunday arrived and I got my hair braided because I guess it helps hold the butter on the scalp as opposed to running down my forehead or neck as it melts. The butter went on about 3pm and I was thinking I’d wash it out before dinner. That idea got crushed as a group of women flocked around me tying a plastic bag around my head explaining it would keep the butter off my pillow. Looks like I was stuck. I thought maybe I could sneak in a shampoo right before bed but just my luck the water was off. The next morning I woke up to the whole compound giggling at my bagged head. When they do it, it’s no big deal, but the minute the ferengi does it, it’s hilarious. It took two shampoos before the grease was gone and another one a day later to completely remove the smell. But now at dinner each week I get to hear about how beautiful I looked with a head full of butter!

Packages and letters from home have been an unbelievable boost to me while I’ve lived here. So, with deep gratitude for your generosity, I’m officially cutting off package sending. I would hate for anything you sent from the states to sit in the Maychew Post Office until the place closes or the old priest who runs things gets too curious and opens whatever you sent. The VSO volunteer Mike will be getting anything that doesn’t arrive before I leave.

Adventures in South Africa and Zimbabwe

2010-10-31T13:28:00.003-05:00

I have only one way to begin this entry about my trip to South Africa. The PCVs lucky enough to be placed in that amazing country have NOTHING to complain about! (Maybe the astronomical HIV rates and extreme divide between the poor and the rich but they still have it pretty good) The first day of my glorious adventure is appropriately titled:

9 Wine
My flight began early in the morning from Addis, and waking up early
always makes it feel later in the day than it actually is. Therefore, when the flight attendant asked “what would you like to drink” I swear the bottle of chilled white wine actually jumped a little before I could utter my selection. And, well, I needed those other two glasses just to get through the awful Catherine Zeta Jones “comedy” they played.

I arrived in Johannesburg drowsy and astonished, thinking, “Did the plane accidentally fly to America?” Grocery stores, high-end watches and out-of-this-world duty free shops were staring me in the face taunting, “Remember what you left behind?” It was all a bit sickening until I passed the food court. I had to grip the handle of my suitcase to keep myself from running over to the pizza place and licking the pictures of the deep dish on their sign. It was all so beautiful.

Another two hours later I found myself actually feeling like Catherine Zeta Jones when I got picked up at the airport by a guy holding a sign with my name on it! I was so excited I made him pose for a picture. I guess CZJ wouldn’t need a sign because her driver would most likely recognize her, and she definitely wouldn’t ask him to stop for a pic, but I felt like a celebrity nonetheless. A half-hour drive through a sunset lit Cape Town brought me to what I was sure a mistake. When the driver pulled up to an ocean front hotel with uniformed bell hops and dried pears on the check-in desk I could only mumble one of the Ethiopian’s favorite phrases in English, “Are you sure?” It was in fact, my home for the next four days and home did I make it. After a joyous reunion with my Aunt Mary Anne I found myself doing a little horizontal happy dance as I lay back in my swaddling of feathers and perused the hotel’s pillow menu.

In true wine country style, Mary Anne and I wrapped up our evening getting to know the Twelve Apostles hotel bar staff. As we downed a third glass of wine (after at least three tasting glasses too) the bartender decided it was time for a change in music. Spinning through the Ipod he turned his head, winked, and said, “After three glasses of wine, I think Barry White is the best choice!”

Day One
Our first morning at the Twelve Apostles Hotel brought out that same happy dance as we wandered down to continental breakfast to find a cheese buffet! I enjoyed my cheese (along with a gluttonous array of other breakfast foods) overlooking the Atlantic and what we were sure were ducks floating along in the surf (which we later found out was just lively seaweed). After breakfast, we used our best lost puppy dog faces to convince the hotel shuttle to drop us off at the base of Table Mountain. The view from the top was well worth the daring cable car ride up and after an hour photo shoot, we headed back down. At the bottom we were lucky enough to bump into Lucky, a local mini bus driver. He offered to drop us down at the waterfront for a competitive fare. Along the way, when Lucky wasn’t screaming out the window either at friends or enemies of the road we questioned him about tours of the Cape and again, he generously offered to take us for a competitive fare. We took his number and told him we’d call him. After some shopping, an ice cream cone (just for the deprived PCV) and a glass of wine on the harbor we headed back to the hotel for dinner with the Tabas’, a lovely couple from Philadelphia also on our tour. After a three course meal (ice cream, again, for dessert) and a luxurious bath (separately) we called it a night.

Day Two
We didn’t know this was to be a marathon day when we realized we’d overslept. Somehow the travel alarm failed to go off and we found ourselves with the perplexing question: do we get ready in five minutes, skip the indulgent breakfast and make the first shuttle or do we shower, enjoy breakfast and have to take the second shuttle, which would cause us to miss the first tour of Robben Island? Naturally, breakfast was my biggest concern (showers, make up, what are those?) but we decided to push it, a cheese danish had to do that day.

Standing in line for a tour of Robben Island brought two realizations, the first, that we don’t like cultures that don’t value queues. Second, we’re not all that great at planning ahead. The next available tour was the following afternoon so we left with tickets in hand to go make a new plan. Our lust for sweet African stuff brought us to Green Square Market, a jewelry, art and beadwork haven. I haggled down a couple paintings and a silver cuff bracelet using all the skills I’ve gained bartering with Ethiopian taxi drivers. I think a lot of English phrases are learned in other countries from American movies. When I was touring Egypt the popular catch phrase for locals to say to tourists was, “Welcome to Alaska, ha ha ha.” Well, I have no idea where this one might have come but most of the peddlers at this market welcomed me, asked how I was, then told me, “Touching is free!” Come to think of it, maybe there was an underlying meaning there...

On the way to our scheduled winelands tour pickup we grabbed a few deli sandwiches and a Tab, and chowed down in some other hotel’s lobby. This only furthered my idea that in Africa, nobody questions the white lady. After a tour of the Seidelberg winery by Pete, our nervous but knowledgeable young guide, we settled into the picturesque wooden chairs to taste some Seidlelburg products. No sooner had we sipped the first sparkling rosé when a frisbee gone haywire grazed the edge of my aunt’s head. Over jogged its owner, a charming yet tipsy 20 something apologizing profusely and offering a bit of his own sparkling rosé to make up for the near collision. As I gazed dreamily into his sun kissed, fresh face I realized, he’s drinking pink wine. It probably wouldn’t have worked out anyway.

Back at the hotel, strategizing on how to make the most of our last 36 hours in Cape Town we took a leap of faith, called Lucky and booked a tour for the next morning. Still a little sauced from our wine tasting we decided a night on the town was in order. We showered, called a taxi and headed for Long Street. Long Street is the place to be in Cape Town for nightlife. We were in the thick of it on Saturday night and chose a local favorite for dinner, Mama Africa. With live music and a sort of African Rainforest Cafe feel we dined on a mixed grill of ostrich, crocodile, springbok, and a few others. Two margaritas (for me) later we took a stroll to evaluate the bars. Our Irish blood couldn’t hold back and we paid the cover charge to enter the Dubliner and were pleased to find a pretty ok cover band on stage.

Either dancing is in the South African’s genes or Saturday night starts early as everyone, and I mean everyone had their dancing shoes on that night. As my aunt giggled at the young men’s moves I was getting talked up by Mr. Africa, a tall dreaded guy with an all-too-tight soccer jersey on. At one lull in the conversation I noticed him lean over to Mary Anne and say something that made her stare at him as if he were speaking Afrikaans. I asked her what he said and she quoted, “Mam, your neice is smack dab, you better hold me back!” We rolled out of the bar at 2a.m. and into bed as quickly as we could.

Day Three
The cheese buffet and I met again. Lucky was waiting for us as we rubbed our eyes patted our overstuffed bellies and set out for Chapman’s Pass the rock-cliffs-meets-the-ocean drive. We heard from some other tourists that many luxury car commercials are filmed at this location. They must remove the fences holding back escaped boulders before the shoot. It was the most beautiful highway I’ve ever seen. We headed on to Cape Point, what we thought was the farthest South point of the African continent. The rain came just as we exited the trolley car at the top but still managed to snap some beautiful pictures of the line between the Atlantic and Indian Ocean. We stopped on our way back to see some South African penguins and a sea lion do a few tricks. Lucky dropped us off at the waterfront just in time for our Robben Island tour. A 45-minute choppy boat ride later, we found ourselves on the island where Nelson Mandela, along with several other anti-apartheid activists were imprisoned for decades. Unfortunately, I think I missed a lot of crucial information because our guide’s accent (a former prisoner himself) was too thick to understand most of what he was saying. However, reading several of the plaques provided an idea of the harsh conditions these men lived under. Maybe it’s a stretch to say this or maybe it’s from living in third world conditions for so long, but after seeing the cell that Mandela himself used, all I could think was, “That’s not too bad, it even has a window!” Dinner closer to home in the neighborhood of Chapman’s Bay and an early night prepped us for our early morning wake up call.

Day Four/Five
Just so you can understand how luxurious this trip was, we had breakfast to-go waiting for us in the hotel lobby when we rolled up at 6 am. Not only was it breakfast to-go but it was packed up in little cheetah and zebra printed boxes. How Africa fashion! An easy hour and a half flight later we arrived in Hoedspruit for our time in the South African bush. A 30 minute drive from the airport to our lodge, seeing nothing but bush made us realize we were truly away from it all. We were greeted with fresh mango juice and a list of our culinary options for dinner maybe we weren’t so far away from it all. Not an hour later we were climbing into our open 11-seat open Land Rovers for our first safari adventure. We spotted some impalas on our drive out of the lodge parking lot, a wildebeest a little farther down the road and not 20 minutes into our drive we located a cheetah feasting on a recently killed impala! The following morning we arrived back to a breakfast of impala quiche. Our next drive out one of our fellow safariers sadistically muttered to the dashing impala, “We ate your cousin for breakfast.”

Between the four safari outings we saw over 25 animals and even got chased by a playful (albeit still quite intimidating) elephant. Floris, our husky white Afrikaans guide, led us to see more than any of us could have expected including three lion cubs having dinner, a baby cheetah waiting for it’s mom to come back, and a hippopotamus crossing from one body of water to another. Floris was more about facts than jokes on our outings and when one rider joked about the small birds surrounding a giraffes’ excretory parts Floris told us, “well they’re just taking the tics out of his ass.” Right, why didn’t I think of that?

Unfortunately we didn’t see temperatures warm enough to utilize the pool but it was the perfect climate for long baths and lazy naps under the mosquito net. I woke up the second afternoon to find a wildebeest casually feeding not 20 feet from our door. Equally as fascinating as the animals was getting to know the other nine people staying at the lodge with us. Family style dinners and mid-safari sunset glasses of wine allowed us ample time to get to know the other travelers. People from Texas, Pennsylvania, California and Georgia (and Ethiopia) had come to experience the incredible African bush.

Day Six
An early morning game drive to find a male lion (an unsuccessful pursuit), a shower and one last delicious meal (with extra cheese) preceded our trip back to the airport and into Johannesburg for the night. Following safety suggestions we didn’t leave our ornate Vegas-Italian style hotel after dark, rather opting to finish a Jack Black movie and a seafood dinner in Nelson Mandela Square. The next morning (after another cheese buffet, somebody really should have stopped me it was getting a little disgusting at this point) it was back to the airport and through customs to get to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.

The balmy temperatures left only one thing on the brain as we unpacked. I dug in for my swim suit and lathered up in SPF but couldn’t help a stop at the bar for a cold one before I headed down to catch the afternoon’s last rays. Dinner we scheduled for The Boma, a kitschy Zimbabwean all-you-can-eat barbeque. Each guest is required to wear an African-print toga and be adorned with gender specific face paint while dining on such delicacies as warthog steak, impala ribs, springbok sirloin, and wildebeest stew. Dinner comes with a complimentary dance show, drum lesson and voluntary dance party. Watching a herd of Japanese tourists elbow themselves to the front lines of the circle was a spectacle. Watching the 60-something, in colorful toga and white gloved Japanese women (former geisha girls?) float along to serious African beats was something else.

Day Seven
Seeing the first of the seven natural wonders of the world is an experience I will never forget. Another thing I won’t forget is watching those same 60-something geisha princesses from the previous night giggle and grab at our tour guide’s long dreadlocks. One particular part of the falls that lets over the same amount of water in three days that New York City uses in an entire year. I can’t imagine what early explorers thought when they found themselves at the top of the widest falls on earth. September is considered part of the dry season for the falls and still the spray was reaching us 50 feet across the way. They say that during the rainy season pictures don’t even turn out because of the solid white wall of mist coming off the water.

After the falls we spent a few hours haggling over wooden platters and hippopotamus carvings at the craft market and it was back to the pool for a margarita and a pedicure. Our tour scheduled us for a sunset cruise on the Zambezi River, and none of us were expecting much. But as we pulled away from shore, we spotted an elephant bathing and heard the sweet phrase “complimentary drinks”. It quickly became the second highlight of the day. Not ready to call it a night, we headed out to the historic Victoria Falls Hotel for a buffet (cheese included) dinner and entertainment. Forgetting that I had sent out laundry to be done the previous day, I arrived back at the hotel to find the cleanest pair of jeans I’d seen in a year and nine months. Sleepily we packed our suitcases as the next morning we’d be riding elephants into the sunrise.

Day Eight
Yes, you read correctly. We were riding elephants into the sunrise. When I cautiously asked the guide of my enormous vehicle whether or not carrying humans hurt the animal he said, “Even with your big weight you are still only 1/10th of his weight.” After our incredible ride I took my big weight back to the last breakfast buffet I would see on this trip. The warm Vic Falls airport and another slow trip through customs brought us back to Johannesburg, me to a local airport hotel, and my adventuresome aunt onto a flight back to the US. The hotel was my first chance to breathe and watch a bad Queen Latifah movie on cable; I repacked only to find that my Ethiopian money, ipod, charger, Ethiopian internet flash and one earring were gone. I chopped up my losses against a great trip and fell asleep with an empty room service tray next to me.

Day Nine
I woke up and walked to a local grocery store to stock up on cheese and chocolate before my flight back to the cheese-less land called Ethiopia. I headed to the airport and perused the grocery stores, high-end watches and incredible duty free shops one last time. I had to keep reminding myself, “you’ll be back in all this before you know it.” This mantra didn’t make boarding the plane any easier. An uneventful six hours later I found myself back in the place where the natives call me “YOU!” Welcome home!

This exciting and luxurious trip was made possible by my adventurous and extremely generous Aunt Mary Anne Meade. She is the greatest of traveling companions. I give her my heartfelt thanks for this once -in-a-lifetime experience that I will never forget.

How I spent my summer vacation

2010-08-24T13:08:00.006-05:00

4th of July

The fourth of July was a cross-cultural event to top all experiences. I’m one of the lucky volunteers who shares my site (town) with a VSO (Volunteer Service Overseas). Mike is from Manitoba, Canada and works as an IT volunteer at Maychew Technical College. Due to our busy lives and separate work places, we don’t see each other too often but get together regularly enough that we decided to plan a joint Canada Day/Independence Day celebration for the 4th of July weekend.

What started as simple brainstorming over coffee turned into a weekend getaway for over 20 volunteers serving in Ethiopia. As the weekend drew closer and the planning and organization required more and more attention, I began to get nervous about the number of ‘ferenji’ who were about to show up in this little town that rarely even sees tourists. I knew I would be questioned about any behavior the locals found strange or inappropriate.

The first load showed up Saturday morning to accompany me to the market where they perused puka shells and iron bracelets meant to keep evil spirits at bay while Tina and I haggled over the price of a kilo of potatoes. We spent the next couple hours peeling, dicing and chopping veggies for potato salad and lentil salad.

Saturday night was our big event—a traditional Manitoba social. Mike had to explain the components a few times but to me it sounded much like a church social plus dancing and booze. Luckily, the types of people who tend to volunteer in Africa are the types of people who tend to be happy with cold beer and good music. Over 60 people attended the social, volunteers and Ethiopians alike. The Ethiopians got a kick out of watching the ferenjis cut a rug on the dance floor as well as "boob-flap dancing" around with them to more traditional tunes. After our feast, a poorly led (by me) trivia game between Americans and “Commonwealth members” (from England, Australia, Canada) along with a token Frenchman and Ethiopian on either side and several hours of dancing, things wrapped up around 4:00 a.m. Sunday was a day for relaxing, hiking, and movies followed by a very small fireworks show and a bonfire.

“And God said, “Let there be… rain?”

My father recently emailed me with song lyrics that reminded him of my situation; “I bless the rains down in Africa…” well my mantra is a little different as I glop through the mud avenues of Maychew. “I curse these rains falling in Ethiopia…” The rain came mid-July and hasn’t shown signs of stopping yet. The silver lining to my muddy life is the unbelievable shades of green surrounding me and a particularly delicious crop of cactus fruit called beles. They are so good, my health center gathers each afternoon, pools a few birr and orders in a big basket of fruit, scarfing them as quickly as the little boys selling them can cut off the prickly peel. Consuming more than ten (the village-measured serving) can cause serious digestive problems. The health center workers have come up with a handy ditty in English to remind me of my bodily limit of cactus… “More than ten beles makes you to fight with your anus!”

Camp Queen Sheba

The first week of August I had the privilege of holding a Peace Corps sponsored summer camp for 25 Ethiopian girls ages 13-16. Eight HIV/Health volunteers and I designed a camp curriculum focusing on leadership, personal health, decision making, self-esteem and peer support. We incorporated aspects of American sleep-away camps like silly songs, arts and crafts and competitions before meals but utilized our classroom time to educate the girls. We had an amazing group of Ethiopian staff for the week including a nurse, a painter/café owner, an employee from the Clinton foundation and a former soccer player. A couple of the campers were HIV positive but all of the girls had been affected by HIV in some way. We had a positive ‘house mother’ named Roman to make the girls feel at home and make sure their needs were taken care of as some of the girls traveled from another town to come to camp. Roman jumped right into every camp activity with the spirit of a 16-year-old practicing brushing her teeth, decorating a Burger King crown, and explaining the importance of sticking to a drug regimen for HIV patients.

One night I had the joy of leading a stress and relaxation techniques session. The girls were particularly giggly and every time I asked them to close their eyes, the chuckle train would inevitably start and before long I had 25 girls sitting cross-legged, trying to suppress snorts. All things considered (limited language skills, completely foreign concepts, and a new environment) the camp went extraordinarily well.

Miscellaneous

My other major project of the summer has been working on a Cross Culture Manual for the Peace Corps Ethiopia program. When I was in training for service I was given a 15-page document on culture in Ethiopia. I was also given a book called “Culture Matters” which is a cross-cultural workbook used by Peace Corps around the world. A Peace Corps staff member had the vision to combine the two resources into a mother load of cultural information specifically for Ethiopia. When I received a text in late April asking if I could come to a meeting to discuss the potential of such a manual, I had no idea I would be part of a book-writing team! Through this experience and many late nights at the Peace Corps office in Addis, I’ve gained a new appreciation for the Ethiopian culture. It hasn’t really made the cultural differences any easier to live with, but I find that I’m less frustrated now that I have a context to place the difference in. The book layout is now complete and printed copies should be available for the next group of volunteers coming to Ethiopia in late September.

If you’re thinking of sending something, I’m still welcoming consumable items which can not be found in this country: cheese, chocolate, Orbit chewing gum, garlic salt, wine (in plastic bottles), hot cocoa, Parmesan cheese, yogurt covered raisins and any other packable, snack goods you find in those incredible American supermarkets!

Month 19 (June 2010)

2010-07-07T09:42:00.004-05:00

It’s getting warmer in Maychew and I’ve been thinking about how long I’ve been here. Peace Corps Headquarters puts out a chart called “Cycle of Vulnerability and Adjustment of a Volunteer”. I’ve had it posted on my wall since day one, but just recently started to see the silliness of it. From month 18-21 I’m supposed to feel like I’m on top of the dividing line between vulnerability and adjustment. I guess that means I’m supposed to be on a high of sorts. But for the most part, I’d still describe my existence in that little squiggly part at the beginning of the graph. The chart tells me the emotional issues I’m supposed to be dealing with are fear/panic, aloneness, and unreal expectations of going home. I’m confused. Am I supposed to be adjusted or panicked? Is this chart trying to tell me I should just now be realizing I’m living in a remote African town where the native voices sound so much like cookie monster, only the female version.

In a sense, did I advanced beyond the chart because I started panicking 18 months ago? Who knows?

Aside from what the chart tells me my life should be like right now, it’s busy. I’ve been working on a few projects for Peace Corp Ethiopia as well as the projects I have going on in Maychew. I’ve been working with Getachew, a local preparatory school teacher on a fundraiser for the local Health Center. In a discussion with the health center head, she told me one of their goals was to buy a hemoglobin machine. Currently they have to refer patients to the zonal hospital and often lose them in the process. From what I understand, the test is vitally important for both pregnant women and HIV+ people as ARVs often lower their hemoglobin levels. I dared to ask how much the machine costs and the response was anti-climactic. 8,000 birr ($592). “That’s it?” I thought. No problem. The HC head then told me she could help me as much as possible with the proposal to send a funding request to NGOs. I stopped her right away. We would be asking no one from outside Maychew to contribute for this machine. Finally, here was a reasonable, achievable goal from only community resources. I sought the anti-AIDS clubs first.

I explained the need and told them as active community members it was their role to do what they could to help out. They jumped on board with my idea for a variety show fundraiser event. When I told them how much money we needed to raise they looked at me as if to say, “done.” Getachew and I developed a ‘to-do’ list and talked about a timeline. We decided sometime over the summer would be a good time for the show. I gave him a few assignments and left to tour other parts of Ethiopia with my visiting brother and then down to Yiragalem during the election in late May. I returned the first week of June and met with Getachew to set the show date.

“Miss Jilly, I think we should have the program on Sunday.”

“Like three days from now?”

“No, no, no. Don’t be silly. Ten days from now.”

“Ten days! Getachew do you realize how much we have to do?”

“Yes, that is why we should wait until next weekend!”

“If you think we’ll be ready, let’s do it.”

“Oh Jilly, it will be fine. Don’t worry.”

“Ok…”

We ran around like decapitated chickens all last week trying to coordinate over 100 club members to sell tickets on the street, making special invitations for health staff and town administrators and trying to get local businesses to buy and sell tickets for us. I felt like a girl scout during cookie season spreading myself too thin (or too thin mint). The show came and went with a profit of about 1,400 ETB, far short of our goal. After a debrief session, we decided to make rounds to all the government offices on pay day in an attempt to reach those who didn’t contribute the first time around. I tried to explain to Getachew why I thought spending more time preparing for the program might have improved our result and it seemed like it sunk in a little. We’ve definitely got our summer work cut out for us, coming up with new fundraising ideas that are actually plausible in this town.

On another topic, I recently went to my first birthday party here in Ethiopia. The birthday girl, who lives on the compound of the English school where I teach, was turning three. The family is quite westernized, evident by the teenage sister who wears pants more often than skirts, and the mom who allows it. I was invited for lunch. So, after the mandatory injera and wat lunch was served and we were about to move on to the good stuff, the photographer arrived. In Ethiopia, many families don’t own cameras and so ‘rent’ a local photographer to come and snap photos of their important family events. After a round of about 50 photos with every combination of people possible we were served cake covered in melted, flattened candles. I was just about to take my first de-waxed bite when a handful of fried potatoes was plopped on top of my tea saucer holding the pastry. A blob of ketchup promptly frosted the whole concoction making a cake-wax-creamy-tomatoey potato dish. Mmm. The birthday girl’s older sister said, “you like chips, right?” Yes, but not with a side of frosting!

2010-06-10T13:12:00.006-05:00

The following was written by Jill's brother, Phil, about a recent trip to Ethiopia:

As many of you know I was recently blessed with the opportunity to go to Ethiopia and see the country with my sister and Peace Corps Volunteer Jill, who has been living there for the past year and a half. I claim absolutely no expertise on Ethiopia beyond having thumbed through a few travel books and being guided for a few weeks by my sister, so I genuinely hope I haven’t misrepresented anything in an offensive way. But because this was an experience not many people are afforded I’m glad to share my impressions with anyone interested in reading.

PCVs
First of all, a shout out is in order. I had the privilege of spending time with maybe 10-15 Peace Corps Volunteers, aside from my sister. Every one of them is a hardy soul. Life in a developing country is very difficult for those who are from there. It is even more difficult for someone born in the first world to give up the amenities they’ve been accustomed to and live in a developing country, always being a foreigner, learning the language and the culture, and then doing humanitarian work on top of all that. I found each one of them to be an intelligent and interesting person that I genuinely hope to meet again. With all the ambivalence regarding the US internationally, these are exactly the sort of people I want representing my country. They deserve every handwritten letter and block of cheese you could possibly send them. (BTW cheese does, in fact, survive without refrigeration for quite a long time. With no additional immunities to such things, I ate cheddar that hadn’t been cold for two weeks and had been opened 4 days prior. Cheese will make it through the mail. Hint hint.)

The coffee ceremony
Being a life-long religious coffee drinker, I considered this trip to Ethiopia true a pilgrimage. My once-in-a-lifetime trip to the black-bean Mecca. Even with all the anticipation, there was no letdown; the coffee was every bit as good as I had hoped. In a restaurant, coffee is generally served in tiny tea cups about the size of an espresso mug. The stuff is very strong and dark by American standards, but without the bitterness of an espresso. The Ethiopian custom is to fill the bottom third of the cup with sugar. I quickly learned one of the most important phrases in Amharic, “suquar yellum” or “without sugar”. The phrase sometimes elicited facial expressions from waiters that might have said “why don’t you just order a glass of bile?”, but usually I was able to get my coffee in the pure form I prefer.

Now any religious center of the world must have its own rituals surrounding an important rite and Ethiopia is no different. The rules of the coffee ceremony are strict and unchanging across the region. The ceremony is always communal and involves a lot of sitting around waiting for the multiple rounds of coffee to be made. There is always a little food provided, often popcorn, incense is lit, and there must be a grass rug on the floor; sort of the Ethiopian equivalent of turning on the lava-light and putting on Dark Side of the Moon. The coffee beans are green at the beginning of the ceremony, and are roasted and ground by hand as part of the ritual. After much conversation and inevitably looking through someone’s family photos, the first cup of coffee is served. Again, I ask for no sugar, and although to them this is like putting ketchup on filet mignon, I think it’s accepted because I’m a faranji (foreigner). No one can dream of leaving the ceremony until at least three rounds of coffee are served. So more conversation in anticipation of the next round is needed. The Almighty could be beckoning you by name, but if you haven’t had your third cup, he’ll just have to wait. Finally after the third cup and an exhausted list of things to talk about, the ceremony is over and you leave with the sun going down and your belly politely asking to be fed.

Bus rides
The most common way to move about the country is by bus. The experience inevitably begins before the light of day. We head to the bus station with groggy heads, where there always seems to be loads of people milling about, and we’re directed towards a particular bus that is going to our destination. The buses don’t leave until they’re full, so we wait. After maybe 40 minutes of nodding off, every seat has been filled and we’re now leaving the bus station as the first rays of sunshine poke over the horizon.

Many of the roads through the country are very curvy, and it’s not a rare occurrence for a passenger to open a window and toss their cookies onto the side of the bus. So, as someone prone to motion sickness I skip breakfast and pop a Dramamine. Now, there’s an unwritten law that all windows are to remain closed, despite the sweltering heat inside. Try to crack the window next to you, and a disgruntled Ethiopian will reach in front of you and shut it as if their valuable hot air is leaking out and can’t be replaced. The attempt to open a window can be repeated as many times as one likes, always with the same outcome. Sensing the illogic of the answer, I never bothered asking the question “why do you want the window closed?” So after only a few hours of sleep the night before, a motion sickness drug that makes one sleepy, and a warm bus, it sounds like a great time for a nap, right? Nope! It’s time for Ethiopian pop music.

Remember that AM radio with one speaker your grandpa used to listen to talk-radio on? It sounded bad at low volumes, but when you turned it up it sounded like a banshee screaming through a tube. The Ethiopians love that sound, and it’s only possible to get that unique banshee-like tone with the volume knob as high as it goes. Now, imagine polka played entirely on a Casio keyboard, but somebody lopped a few beats so you can’t tap your foot to it (for the musicians - 5/8 time with uneven eighth notes). Then over the top of the lopsided Casio groove, alternate a very nasal vocalizing with synthesized saxophones. Then keep this going without any change for no less than 10 minutes and – voila! Authentic Ethiopian entertainment. Once the song finally stops, I breathe a sigh of relief. But then the next one starts, and it’s in the same key and has the same tempo as the last one, in short – it’s the same song with a new track number. After about eight of these go by, there always seems to be one song that sounds different. Maybe it has something like an American R&B groove to it. These tracks are always met with a prompt finger on the ‘skip ahead’ button, and then we’re back to 5/8 Casio polka.

If I was a darker soul, I might pitch this whole bus riding/sleep deprivation thing to the folks running Guantanamo Bay as an alternative to waterboarding.

The hours roll by, the sun gets hotter, and finally the bus stops in a little town for a bathroom and food break. Jill and I scramble through the ocean of children selling gum and wanting handshakes from the farangis to the nearest restaurant. We sit down and request a menu and the waiter promptly brings a menu in both English and Amharic. The English side of the menu offers things like ‘scrambled haggs’ and ‘meet sandwich’. My English spelling is only marginally better, so I’m generally impressed by all this. Besides, I really could go for some cold ‘mango jews’. After perusing for a minute we make a choice and the waiter responds “we don’t have that”. We peruse a little more and make a second choice – “we don’t have that”. After a third choice brings the same response we’re forced to ask “what do you have?” “Only tibs” our waiter replies. Maybe he just wanted to show off his menu.

After our tibs and a visit to the shint bet (literally, pee house) we’re back on the bus listening to the same CD for the fifth time. Only four more hours to our destination….

Kids, guides and donkeys
As a white person, it’s impossible to stand out any more. A circus caravan could come through town pulled by flying elephants, and I think it would command less attention than two white people. As we would walk down a street, small children would literally chase us down to shake our hands and say “hello”. The slightly older children prefer to stay where they are, but yell “you!” at regular intervals until one of us turns and acknowledges them. The really advanced people on the street bombard us with the phrase “Where are you go!” This is, in fact, a question despite the attacking tone. And although the people that ask this aren’t generally able to understand the answer, they ask it just the same. So I reply with the equally useless “We’re off to see the wizard.” Any answer seems to elicit the same blank stare. If Jill wanted to really throw them for a loop she’d reply in Tigrigna. One guy actually passed out in sheer amazement at seeing a white person speak his language.

In the cities that bring in tourism, we couldn’t walk for more than two minutes without at least one local insisting on being our guide. Occasionally it was welcome and helpful, more often it was annoying, but in the end it was totally unavoidable. As soon as you convinced one guide you didn’t want his services, two others would appear with the phrase “Where are you go!” On one afternoon promenade with no other ambitions than to poke around town, Jill and I acquired a band of no less than eight school-aged guides, accompanying us in any direction we decided to walk. It was explained to each of them in two languages that we didn’t need their services, and that we really would prefer to be left alone. The children didn’t accept this, and all we could do was continue our walk with a parade of children behind us.

On a different occasion we had been told of monastery a ways outside of town. There are no maps and the only ways to get there are to hire a very expensive taxi, or to rent donkeys. The better choice was obvious. I gleefully pictured us riding through sun scorched valleys with the soundtrack to Aladdin magically underscoring our desolate trek. It never occurred to me that we hadn’t seen a single person riding a donkey anywhere in the country.

We get our donkeys in the middle of town, each of the two donkeys is guided by a human. It turns out, the way it works is the tourists get on the donkeys and the guides jog to keep up with the pace while making sure the animals go where they’re supposed to. Somehow not exactly as I had pictured. Imagine yourself as an Ethiopian child minding your own business. You can’t remember the last time you saw white people, nor anyone riding a donkey, but suddenly you see two white people trotting down the street on donkeys, trailed by donkey owners running to keep up. Again, flying elephants would cause less commotion. It’s too late for us to change our minds about this now: for the next hour we have no choice but to be the strangest thing anyone has ever seen in this town. The children are literally tripping over each other to run to the edge of the street and wave and say “hello”. The “you’s” are being fired from every direction. We saw a man on top of a hill maybe two miles away cup his hands to his mouth and belt “WHERE...ARE…YOU…GO!!!”. I felt that for all this attention I really ought to be putting on more of a show, like maybe getting off the donkey and doing a tap routine while singing Hello Dolly. But being that Jill had already made someone pass out with a few words of Tigrigna, I decided it best to resign myself to smiles and waves and accept my fortune of being a farangi on parade.

Traditional music
One evening after a few beers at a local squat, Jill and I were walking back towards our hotel, when we were allured by what sounded like live music. The whole trip I had been asking about live music, and we had found none. So on hearing this I insisted that we stand outside for just a few minutes. The music was not altogether removed from the music played on the bus, but without the hairpin turns, the heat and the smell of sweaty bodies, somehow it was more enticing. Better yet, they ditched the Casio keyboards in favor of real instruments.

After milling about outside for a minute, we went in and ordered a round of beers. We sat down and observed in the dim light a drummer in the corner accompanying a one-stringed, bowed instrument. Just as we realized we were the only customers in there, a women who previously sat in the corner leapt to her feet, realizing she had some farangis to entertain. Was she part of the band? Or just a local eager to show off her abilities? In any case she took it upon herself to entertain us very directly. She began singing and doing a dance I can only describe as a ‘boob-flap’. Suddenly we found ourselves a little less comfortable just as our beers arrived, and we were obligated to stay at least long enough to finish them. Jill told me that it was still early, and suggested that within an hour the place should be crowded. So we tried to enjoy our beers as the singer tried to get us to join in with her boob-flapping (‘but I have nothing with which to flap!’ I lamented to myself). Jill and I aggressively resisted the singer’s invitations to dance, as Jill explained to me how Amharic and Tigrian dancing is all in your shoulders. And I wondered if this was because there is no other way to get one’s boobs to flap than to move one’s shoulders. We finished our beers and had managed to avoid dancing, and figured our luck wouldn’t last another round, so we asked for the bill.

“Sixty birr!? How could 2 beers be sixty birr!?” This is only about $5, but we had been paying 5 birr down the street for the same beer. It was the principle. For sixty birr we may have been able to buy a pony, and ridden off into the night fulfilling our childhood dreams. Jill decides this is worth an argument in Amharic, for which I can lend no rhetoric, only dirty looks. We’re still the only customers in the place, and as if to highlight the disagreement, the music stops. Jill explains that she’s not a farangi, she’s a hobisha (Ethiopian) as is evident by her skills in two local languages plus an Ethiopian ID. Would they dare charge a hobisha such a price? After every point has been made, and I’ve cast all the dirty looks I’m able, the bartender sticks to his price of sixty birr. There’s nothing left to do but pay the bill and leave.

As we leave the now empty and silent bar, I turn around and notice a sign we had missed on the way in advertising “traditional music”. A well traveled chimp would have known better. Nobody describes anything as ‘traditional’ unless they’re trying to sell it to tourists.

Gorsha
Verb: to gorsha. One can gorsha or be gorshaed. Listen to the word… gorsha. Does it sound pleasant? I think not. To gorsha, one takes a handful of injera (bread) and wat (sauce) and proceeds to put it straight into the mouth of the vict…I mean, subject. This is considered a sign of being close friends. The larger the handful, the more strong the sign of friendship.

The first time I experienced this I was totally unprepared. Jill and I were invited to a friend’s house for an evening meal. We sat around enjoying a communal plate of injera and wat, pleasantly washing it back with St. George’s lager. We casually discussed culture in a midsized Ethiopian town, life in America, the varying qualities of the weather throughout the country, with the din of American hip-hop filtering through the room. About halfway through the large platter of food, our host picked up a healthy handful of food and moved it toward my sister’s face. I had seen this move before in elementary school, and it was usually a sign that the person was intending to squish their jelly sandwich against a schoolmates face. But much to my surprise, Jill willingly opened her mouth as the ball was placed inside. I was horrified, thinking ‘what is this man doing to my sister!?’ But the amazement was far from over, because immediately afterword my sister returned the action to our host, this time with an even bigger ball being stuffed into his slightly larger mouth. Of course I was thinking ‘Jill, what are you doing to that man!!??’ but I was really too stunned to speak, so I sat in silence hoping that an explanation would make itself apparent. With still no explanation, our host proceeded to scoop up the largest yet ball food and move it towards me. My heart was beating out of control, but somehow my fear of breaking social norms was greater than my fear of being affectionately fed by another man, and my mouth opened as wide as possible as the soggy injera was crammed in. I had a gag reflex as my eyes watered and I was sure I was on the verge of death. But with a mouth crammed full of food, I still managed a sheepish smile towards our host.

Jill, now sensing my extreme discomfort, decided not to come to my aid with an explanation, but instead picked up the camera and asked our host to perform this ritual on me again so that it could be documented. I was overjoyed. This time, the ball was about the size of a baby’s head, and had to hover right near my lips as Jill fiddled with the camera waiting to capture the moment. Finally the flash went off and the baby’s head was stuffed into my face, and I could see light at the end of the tunnel and heard St. Peter’s voice saying “it’s not your time yet…” After about 10 minutes of chewing I managed to swallow everything placed in my mouth, and the polite conversation returned on the subject of whether or not Obama is an honorary Ethiopian.

After the meal Jill and I returned to her complex. I found myself still shaking from the whole event, although that may have been the 3-cup-of-coffee-minimum that’s expected before leaving a guest’s house. In any case I managed to lie down. I don’t mean to imply a direct relationship between my double-gorsha and the following events, but the next morning I awoke to an intense pain in my stomach and an hourly ejection at both ends for the remainder of the day. Needless to say, the gorsha is my least favorite of all the Ethiopian traditions.

Poverty, tourism and you
I’ve mentioned very little about the dire poverty and genuine need of the people in this country. It’s ever-present and I don’t mean to underemphasize the issue by not discussing it. But I’m unable to make a cute story out of it because there’s nothing cute about it. I also have absolutely no expertise on the subject and really don’t want to do anyone a disservice by misrepresenting it.

I’ve also mentioned very little about the amazing attractions in Ethiopia I was able to experience such as the churches hewn from single pieces of bedrock at Lalibella, or the 100 foot tall obelisks at Axum. If you’re curious about these things, I suggest you go see them for yourself. Your dollars/euros/pounds go an awfully long way, and they’re so desperately needed. If you’re not lucky enough to be related to a Peace Corps Volunteer, the local guides will literally line up to help you.

My ancient Egyptian secret trip

2010-04-03T13:16:00.013-05:00

My trip to Egypt seems like a distant mirage now. The main reason for this feeling is that the trip is a big secret. No one in Maychew knew I left Ethiopia when I said I had meetings in the capital for a few weeks. My motivation for the trip secrecy stems from the everlasting argument I have with Ethiopians on whether or not I am rich. This is now my second international trip since coming to Maychew, and many Ethiopians chalked up my German trip to luck and a generous family. Trying to explain that I lived with my parents after graduation, working and saving so I’d be able to travel does not make sense to many of them. So, in an effort to re-visit the awesome trip, I thought I’d write about it.

My travel partner was my good friend and Peace Corps neighbor, Tina. We flew into Cairo via Khartoum, Sudan . All I could say when we landed briefly was that "Khartoum looks so developed from the runway"! We arrived in Cairo in the middle of the night and were herded through customs only to be laughed at minutes later by the currency exchange employee when we tried to give him Ethiopian birr, and then shook his head tiredly as he also refused ou American travelers checks. Luckily, Tina had brought some dollars that would pay for our taxi ride and hotel that night.

We spent the entire next morning roaming the empty streets of Cairo (stopping for a cup of McDonald’s drip coffee and an Egg McMuffin, a real treat!) looking for American Express or Thomas Cook, the only places that will exchange traveler’s checks without an additional charge. After asking around a bit we discovered both of them closed until the next day. It was a Friday, the muslim Holy Day—like Sunday in Christian nations—and we would not be getting any cash that day. A local tipped us off that the Hilton may exchange currency that day. Having no other options, we walked over to the very large, very American looking hotel.

Explaining to Egyptians that we actually came from Ethiopia, where we live, and that we don’t have a fat tourist wallet is pretty funny. First, their pronunciation of Ethiopia sounds like Esziopia, and most were too shocked to even believe it after they saw our American passports. After about 30 minutes of small talk with the bank employee at the Hilton, he was finally getting it—that these checks were all we had for the entire week, and we wouldn’t be staying anywhere like the Hilton. He kindly smiled and said, “Well, I have a flat and it is very free! You can stay with me!” This was our first taste of the speed at which Egyptians considered us family.

That afternoon we wandered the Egyptian National Museum, observing all the stuff taken out of tombs, temples, and excavation sites. The sheer size of some of the statues, walls of hieroglyphics and seeing a hair stuck to the inside of King Tut’s famous gold head covering was incredible. We stayed at this kitschy little hostel on the sixth floor of a building tucked off of the main street with three twin beds and communal hot showers for about $10 US. That night, we splurged and took a taxi rather than public transportation out to a neighborhood of Cairo on the Nile for dinner. We showered and put on dresses (the nicest we’ve looked in about 15 months now) for our night at Seqoia., an open-air Nile-side restaurant with canvas ies, low couches, and lantern lighting. We both enjoyed chicken without Ethiopian spicy red sauce, a few glasses of wine and an after dinner sheesha. After occupying our table for nearly three hours we decided to head back. When we asked our waiter for the bill he looked at us, shocked, and said, “You can’t leave, after 30 minutes everyone is beautiful. Enjoy your sheesha, ok?” We were easily convinced as an on-the-house glass of wine appeared in front of us. After much playful banter with the waiter and sheesha attendant we finally got the bill and headed back (in another contracted taxi… so indulgent) to our hotel.

The next day was the pinnacle of what both of us pictured for the months leading up to the trip. Feeling tourist savvy from our travel guide we headed over to Giza, the land of the great pyramids and the Sphinx. It was top on our priorities list to ride camels around the pyramids and when an overly friendly “non-guide” negotiated student price tickets for us we decided to hear him out. We had heard that everyone is trying to swing a deal; essentially getting everything they can out of unknowledgeable tourists and promptly explained we didn’t want a guide and had no intention of paying him for his tour services. He insisted again and again he was simply helping two beautiful ladies. He introduced us to his best camel boy, Boogie, 13, and stuck out his upturned palm awaiting his tip. We both rolled our eyes and when we offered what we thought was a generous 5 pound tip, he mumbled some choice words in Arabic and kicked the dust as he walked away. He warned us that Boogie spoke no English, as a reason to continue to hire him past this point but we felt it could be adventurous to try and take camel riding instructions in a language neither of us knew. Boogie robotically led us in a large loop behind the three famous pyramids, stopping at many key photo-ops. He took great joy in not warning us when the camel was going to kneel down or get up, resulting in a girlish squeal as Tina or I descended several meters unexpectedly. At one particular stop he thought it would be funny to get Tina’s camel to give me a kiss, which would have been more like a slobbery lick with a tongue the size of my entire face. When I refused he took that to mean I only kiss humans, and therefore might give him a kiss for his services. Boogie confidently swung around in our saddle (we were riding double on my camel, Moses) flung his arm around me and leaned in. Completely shocked all I could manage to say was, “Sorry Boogie, I don’t date seventh graders.”

We completed our trip to Giza with cheesy photos of each of us kissing the Sphinx, a meet and greet with an Ethiopian family we spotted among the tourists, and finally lunch at Pizza Hut. A corporate-American end to an ancient-wonder-of-the-world morning. That afternoon we explored Coptic Cairo, although the Christian city was walled off we had a good time in the souvenir shops trying to bargain down the price of wooden cats and opal boxes. We learned that the subway in Cairo has separate men’s and women’s cars and if someone of the opposite gender accidentally runs into the wrong car just before the doors slide shut, they will politely stand facing the doors until the next stop where he or she will get off and move a car down. This is a fascinating dance to watch.

That night we took the overnight train from Cairo to Aswan, a hot, Southern town on the Nile. We had three goals for Aswan: swim in a pool, take a felucca ride, and see the temple of Isis. We arrived mid-morning in Aswan and took our time getting lunch and finding the one hotel in town with a rooftop pool. Then we headed out to the Island of Isis, where the temple of Isis still remains. This requires a half hour ride across the Nile which we took in a motor boat adorned with Disney princess stickers. The temple had been restored beautifully , but with no guide we were left to wonder which of the small chambers was the lavatory. We felt our energy literally drain out of us the more we wandered the temple in the afternoon sun so decided to retire to the hotel. We had the half-filled pool entirely to ourselves besides the maid who kept giggling at our Ipod-accompanied-sunbathers-chair-dances.

That evening we hired a local felucca driver who proudly calls himself, Dr. Chill for an hour ride down the Nile. The river is crawling with feluccas around sunset, the long, wood sailboats with chipping white paint and some foreign country’s flag sewn onto the sail. I learned how to steer the rudder which takes much more strength than I imagined. We had dinner at yet another Nile-side restaurant, although this one had much more of a local flavor as we could hear the felucca captains shouting from one boat to another, trying to decide which watering hole to go to that night. The next day we crossed the river by ferry and checked out was called a traditional Nubian village, although the wandering animals, playing children and dilapidated housing didn’t look much different from our small towns in Ethiopia. We saw more temple ruins and had a blast running around in the unattended ancient playground.

That afternoon we boarded a train for Luxor and found a quaint hotel that serves breakfast on the roof. We had dinner in an imitation Irish pub that even advertised trivia nights. We rented some European-style bikes, sans gears, for $3 a day and set off for the temples. We saw many incredible sights and met some very interesting people. At one temple, we met an American man working as a photographer for National Geographic on a tour around the world. We met another photographer, a British woman, who seemed more interested in hearing about our work in Ethiopia than talking about her own in Egypt. We were sitting in the middle of one temple, in some shade, resting our weary legs and she asked if she could take our photo just as we were.

The next day we were surprised by the promptness and comfort of the Egyptian bus system. To start, there was a bus schedule. The bus came on time, had ample luggage storage, real air conditioning and we each got TWO seats to ourselves. We felt like we were in heaven. Five hours later, we knew we had died and gone to heaven. Out the bus window was a sea so blue it looked fake. Gleaming white hotels sprawled along the beachfront of Crayola-colored water. Tina and I looked at each other and squealed with excitement as no words could have described exactly what we were feeling as we stared out at the aquamarine paradise. When the bus finally rolled into Hurgada we anxiously grabbed our bags and started out to find our recommended hotel. After asking many people, getting a ride from a stranger who claimed to know where it was (I know, sorry Mom) and trying to call the number for the hotel, we found it nestled among under-construction condominiums. Not the best location but we knew we were home when the manager walked up and introduced himself as Hassan and asked if we wanted to snorkel the next day. An avid scuba diver and owner of a boat and crew and diving instruction team, he affectionately nicknamed us ‘Doctor’ (because Tina wears glasses) and ‘Chicago’ (because he loves gangster movies). We agreed to meet him in the lobby at 8:30 the next morning for Red Sea snorkeling.

We heard Hurgada was the place for nightlife outside of Cairo because nearly everyone here is on vacation. Showers and dresses and a taxi (another splurge) took us to a beach front club that had swings instead of bar stools and a nice mix of locals and tourists. Surprisingly, my 5’8” frame felt dwarfed next to the circle of Russian women occupying the front of the dance floor. We learned that lots of Russians are able to get cheap travel packages to Hurgada, and flock to Egypt to escape long, cold Russian winters. We danced the night away and were nicely escorted home by, I kid you not, Aladdin and his friend Ahmed, who took us to their favorite falafel shop on the way home. Our hotel owner squinted at us confusedly when we sheepishly knocked on the door at 5:30 am.

The next morning as we sleepily drank tea and ate bread and jam, Hassan smirked at our laborious movements and droopy eyelids. We crammed into his taxi with bins full of flippers, masks, and wetsuits. When we arrived at the boat, which was much larger and nicer than I was expecting he introduced us to “Obama” our snorkeling guide for the day. We stared at our skinny, 20-something guide, shrugged, and climbed to the upper deck to nap in the sun. We were soon joined at our front-of-the-boat-sun-soaking-spot by three Frenchmen in exactly the type of swimsuits I expect Frenchmen to wear. After exhausting my French, “Je ma pel Jill” (I don’t know how to spell in French but that is what it sounds like to me) and “No pas de probleme” we resorted to giggling over the hairy pirate-looking man throwing ropes around the lower deck. For that moment, I felt truly decadent, part of the elite aristocrats, if I may.

After a two-minute lesson on how to blow water out of the tube and how to clean goggles (with spit and sea water) we jumped in and I only hyperventilated a little as I got used to being able to breathe under water. When I figured out how to calmly oxygenate myself I looked around and saw the movie, “Finding Nemo” all around me. There were red fish, blue fish, one fish, fifty fish! It was one of the most spectacular things I’ve ever seen. “Obama” took the responsibility to swim us around so I grabbed an arm and stared at the postcard in front of me. I had no regrets that I didn’t research the type of fish I was watching, the colors alone were something to ponder for days. We came up, had lunch and a hot cup of coffee and did a second dive in the afternoon. Again, one of the most spectacular sights I have ever seen.

Trusty Hassan met us at the dock where we parked for the day and Tina and I took our danced-out, snorkeled-out, sunburned selves to the shower and to our beds. Hassan convinced us we were ‘not allowed’ to go out that night that he and his employee would cook us dinner that evening. We emerged to the smells of frying fish and followed our noses up to their roof-top hangout, obviously maintained by two men, and were greeted with cold Stellas and a lovely cucumber salad. Over dinner we chatted about the current President of Egypt, the conflict between Upper and Lower Egypt, Arab nations, the best way to cook whitefish, and belly dancing. Hassan divulged that he was computer illiterate but desperately wanted to advertise on the ‘interweb’. After convincing him that internet advertising really wasn’t that hard he promised that if we could help him onto the interweb, we were welcome to come back and get our scuba diving licenses for a package deal of $250. He ended the evening by presenting us with little dolphin necklaces and making us promise that ‘Chicago’ and ‘Doctor’ would return.

We reluctantly took a bus back to Cairo the next day and a real mall the few hours before our flight left. Our parting meal was proof that we had been living in Africa for a year and a half. We didn’t choose from one of the many fabulous local establishments, getting that last taste of Egyptian food before we left the country. Nope, we had our last meal in that wonderful country in the all exotic, Chili’s. I had cheese and mushroom chicken fajitas and Tina had a different fattening chicken dish. Almost drugged with satisfaction from our meal we made our way to the airport, shedding a tear (one of us figuratively and one actual) over our last cold Stella and all the wonderful items we couldn’t afford in the duty-free shop.

In a haze of airplane food and Amharic-English plane announcements, we found ourselves back in the Addis Ababa airport, staring out at the bright morning as if it never happened. We woke up and staggered off the plane and it all seemed like a dream—one of those dreams where you close your eyes and hope to fall asleep right where you left off. In hindsight, I’ve wondered if I enjoyed the trip so much because I was coming from Ethiopia. If I were coming on vacation from America, would I have found more things annoying that I now simply find quaint? Would I have left speaking the 10 odd phrases I picked up in Arabic throughout the week? Would I really have thought Hurgada was heaven on earth? Maybe not, but I guess I’m thankful for my altered perspective, for now, Egypt will forever remain in my head, this Eden-type (or ‘Prairie Home Companion’) land where everything is cheaper, everyone thinks I’m a little more beautiful, and the people are just a little friendlier.

Compassion child visit

2010-03-09T10:59:00.021-06:00

A Church Circle group from Jill's home church, Geneva Lutheran Church, sponsor an Ethiopian child through Compassion, an international child sponsorship program. The women in this group have corresponded with this girl (named Etsegenet) for several years and asked Jill if it would be possible for her to visit this child. She found out from Compassion that she could make an appointment to visit after passing a background check. The following is Jill's emailed message describing her visit on March 1, 2010.

Monday afternoon I was picked up at my hotel in Addis Ababa by a tall, friendly Ethiopian man named Mamitu. As we walked over to Etsegenet’s school, I found out he works at Compassion Ethiopia’s head office in Addis Ababa. He explained that at this school of about 250, the Compassion-sponsored children are intermixed with regular students. After a brief tour of the Compassion office on the school grounds and a glance at Etsegenet’s school records and health profile, a skinny girl with a beautiful, bright smile turned the corner with a plastic package in hand. She opened her mouth and bravely said in English, “Hello, my name is Etsegenet Deksisa and I am in grade 6.” She then shyly said in Amharic, “Ewedeshalo,” (I love you) as she pulled a bouquet of flowers from her bag.

Etsegenet led me into a nearby classroom and proudly walked past her fellow students, in the middle of a history lesson, towards her usual seat in the last row. She introduced me to her best friend, Desta (which means "happy") as we snapped a few photos. The students were surprised as I uttered a few encouraging phrases in Amharic, not expecting the foreign woman to speak their language. I discovered Etsegenet’s favorite and best subjects are English and Mathematics. We departed to visit her home and meet her family.

We strolled the 1 kilometer road to her neighborhood and turned off just behind a familiar foreign restaurant. We descended a steep slope to a small creek with a stick and mud bridge. Etsegenet uttered a soft “Ques” (slowly) as I crossed the bridge. Turning around dense foliage hiding small mud houses we approached an alley-like row of homes with low windows and doorways. The fourth door was the entrance to Etsegenet’s home she shares with her mother, grandmother, and three siblings. Etsegenet’s father died in 2006, but I did not ask about the cause. As we ducked into the dim two room house, Etsegenet’s mother was preparing the traditional coffee ceremony. Introductions were made all around and the family was quite happy to hear my Amharic greetings. I was offered popcorn as I sat and Etsegenet brought over her pile of letters and photo album of her sponsors. I looked over pictures of people I recognize, a strange experience to have in a mud home in east Africa. Many of the letters from the women’s group talked about their children, grandchildren, and the weather in the Chicago area. Each letter was translated into Amharic by Compassion staff as are Etsegenet’s responses. Etsegenet’s mother told me her work is spinning cotton on a loom. I met Etsegenet’s younger brother and sister Abi (baby) and Kidis (saint) when they arrived home from school.

As we drank the second tiny cup of coffee, Etsegenet’s friend Desta and another friend came over to get an up close look at Etsegenet’s white visitor. I talked to Etsegenet about her responsibilities at home and hobbies. She helps her mother cook for the family and clean the house. Her home has electricity but no indoor water supply so she also helps carry water in large jerry cans from the spigot 15 meters away. When I asked if she had a message for her sponsors she said "Please tell them thank you very, very much. How are you? Will you send more photos? How is the weather? Ewedeshalo (I love you)!"

We wrapped up our visit with the third cup of coffee and blessings back and forth for health, wealth, and happiness. I promised to get the photos of our visit to Etsegenet and encouraged her to work as hard as possible in school. We parted with the traditional shoulder bump of familiarity and no doubt Etsegent promptly went back to enjoy her new gifts.

2010-02-28T05:27:00.001-06:00

If you want to check out pictures from my trip to Egypt, follow this link!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2065340&id=11400655&l=f5bcfb366a

Enjoy!

Ethiopian coffee makers

2010-02-01T15:58:00.006-06:00

The other day I was trying to explain to one of my many Ethiopian admirers (who all inevitably want to accompany me back to the States) some differences between our countries. Our conversation went a something like this:

Him: You want some coffee?
Me: Coffee sounds great!
Him: OK. Let me call my sister to come over and make some.
Me: Difference number one: an American coffee maker is a machine; an Ethiopian coffee maker has a gender!
Him: I’m sure I could learn to use this American coffee machine maker if you showed me how.
Me: I don’t doubt that, but the problem is I would have to show you how to use the coffee maker, toaster, refrigerator, blender, stove, oven, and microwave. I could never leave you to cook your own food because you would be asking me where the fire is!
Him: What is a toaster?
Me: The thing that makes toast.
Him: What’s toast?
Me: Exactly.
Him: Well, if you cross the bridge from Ethiopia to America, blow it up and then put those human-eating fish in the water, how am I supposed to swim to you?
Me: What? Do you mean sharks?
Him: I mean it’s a lot harder than you think for me to get to America without your help. And don’t laugh at me, Ethiopia is surrounded by land!
Me: I guess so. Those sharks can be ferocious!
Him: What does ferocious mean?
Me: Exactly.

In other news the IGA (income-generating activity) project I’ve been working on with the PLWHAs has finally picked up the pace. After a month and a half of waiting for their chairman and my counterpart to schedule a meeting, we hit the ground running last week. We held a training session for the participants on small business management and micro enterprises and introduced them to the 4 community members who volunteered to serve on an advisory committee (like a board of directors) including the mayor, the head of Women’s Affairs, an administrator from Maychew Technical College and the head of the municipality. The PLWHAs were all very interested in the training and worked hard for three days. We divided the 30 participants into three 10-person work groups to instigate a little competition among them. Each group elected their management team and we began the process of legalizing each group with the Small and Micro Enterprise Office. When that process is finished, each group will be receiving 20,000 Ethiopian birr to begin the trade of teff, a grain widely used in Ethiopia. The mayor informed us the city would be donating three indoor stalls at the market free of charge for the use of the project.

As usual, a recent holiday interrupted the flow of our work. Timket, better known in English as the Epiphany, is one of the biggest holidays in this country. Even I spent two and a half hours in the salon having my hair braided into the traditional “kunano” for the event. We’ve been slow to get back on task, but it seems that work comes in bursts here. We work all day for a few days and then focus on other things for a day or two. Today happens to be one of the "off days" and I plan to finish the book I’m reading and wash my floor.

Here’s a shout out to my blogmaster (and Mother) who has a birthday coming up in February. I hope it’s a good one and thanks for all your hard work keeping up my blog!

For those who are asking what I need, here's my wish list:
-cheese
-ear buds for iPod… mine bit the dust
-pumice stone
-toothpaste
-your favorite pen
-Cheez-its
-Wheat Thins (the hexagon-shaped ones are awesome)
-Peanut Butter M&M's
-hot cocoa mix
-marshmallows
-olive oil
-“Little Women” (the book)
-letters from you...
Jill K Meade PO Box 51 Maychew, South Tigray, Ethiopia, East Africa

Mother-Daughter Q&A

2010-01-17T17:32:00.005-06:00

Subject: Re: Mom's Christmas wish list
Date: December 27, 2009 7:22:12 AM CST

Mom,
Here’s some answers to your questions.
Feel free to post any or all of this on the blog.
Merry Christmas!
Love, Jill

What kind of foods are you eating in Ethiopia?
As I sit down to write the first part of this it is lunchtime. Today I made a rice dish by boiling together onions, garlic, rice, spices (a little tomato bullion, Old Bay, Mrs. Dash, black and red pepper), and a chopped tomato. I’ll have a few carrot sticks on the side and a banana. I make a lot of veggie stir-fry type meals with cabbage, carrots, onions, green beans (when they’re in season), squash (if possible). I also eat lots of eggs, oatmeal, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, lentil burgers, pancakes, rosemary potatoes, fresh salads and egg salad. I make soups and pastas by just throwing a bunch of stuff together. I have learned to cook almost independently of recipes. I make hummus from the powder they use to make shiro. The powder is basically dried, ground chickpeas mixed with spices and some salt but I add olive oil, cumin, garlic, lemon and salt. Speaking of, I could use some tahini if you can find some that would be mail-able. One time I made a lentil-based shepard’s pie but that was way more work than it was worth. I don’t buy meat to cook for myself but I eat it when I go out and when I have dinner with Ashenafi. He always feeds me meat—presumably to prove his wealth (ha ha). Sometimes my cooking is too spicy. And sometimes I feel like I add more salt than anyone should eat in a day. But I’m learning.

How do you wash big things like sheets?
I wash all my own clothes which is actually not very common for a working woman here. A lot of people hire someone to do the wash because it is HARD WORK. But I don’t mind as long as I’ve got the time. My sheets are quite thin and pretty poor quality which makes washing them a lot easier. I have a system that includes a big, round tub, a medium-sized bucket and my sink. I use cold water because to heat up enough water to fill a tub would take forever and a TON of gas. I fill the tub with soapy water and do things that need to be the cleanest first like undergarments and tank tops. After the dirt is scrubbed out they go into the big bucket to rinse and then a second rinse in the sink and finally onto the line to dry. I change the wash and rinse water after it turns grey. They sell small boxes of regular powder detergent, imported from Saudi Arabia or Europe, I think.

How much is your rent, water and electric? How much does Peace Corp give you to live on a month?
My rent in my old house was 800 birr/month, but in this new house my landlord negotiated 950/month from Peace Corps. My rent is deposited into my account with my monthly living allowance and I am responsible for paying my landlord in cash. According to my lease, I don’t have to pay water or electric. This is completely fair considering most Ethiopians pay 50-200 birr/month for rent. My extraordinarily overpriced rent allows for no haggles over the utilities, although it does give the impression I make much more than I do. For living expenses I get 1800 birr/month ($144 USD) and by living rather frugally I tend to save quite a bit. I will be able to pay for my flight to Egypt in February using only PC money.

Are you having weird dreams or other side effects from the anti-malaria medication?
I switched from Mefloquin to Doxycycline because of acne. Mefloquin was the one that causes weird dreams and when I was taking it (weekly) I would have really vivid, real-feeling dreams. Doxy is just a regular anti-biotic—so no weird side effects.

What's are some funny things that happened while in Ethiopia?
I don’t know if I actually LIKE this about Ethiopia but it is something I have gotten used to and will probably notice only when it’s not happening. I get stared at no matter what I am doing, wherever I am going. I can go nowhere without being noticed by someone and chances are, they are going to tell someone else. Some days it makes me feel like a beauty queen to have everyone I pass ogle me and some days it makes me feel like an alien. Wherever I go, I am usually the guest of honor and get treated like a princess. If I try to bring my own chair into a room, everyone rushes in to rescue me of what they see as a huge task.

Do you think this is because you have white skin or because you’re from United States? Does this happen to individuals from other countries as well—like would they react like this to someone from China, Germany or Russia? How do they treat “African-Americans”?
I think part of it is that I will forever be a “guest” to them, part of it because I am a female, and partially because I am white. I’m not sure how African Americans are treated on a day-to-day basis in the towns they work in because none of them live near me. I think in this case, its more “foreigness” rather than being white.

Something ironic that happens quite often is that I get called beautiful and have every single fault pointed out all in the same conversation. Ethiopians love to tell me how lovely I am, how pretty my hair is, and how much they “appreciate my physical” (meaning they like my body). But four sentences later they will point to a pimple and ask, “What happened?” or say, “Wow, you are too fat” or inquire about my freckles. Ethiopians also come up with the craziest ways of complimenting me. Just yesterday I was hanging out with a friend and he told me out of the blue, “God must have taken 5 hours to make your teeth.” “Huh?” I thought. He then said, “Yes, at least five hours in your mother’s womb. You want to know how much time he spent on my everything? Maybe 30 minutes!” I guess this was his way of saying something like, "They broke the mold the day you were made.”

People say funny things to me nearly every day. Just yesterday, someone who has satellite TV in their house was telling me that they think of me even when I’m not around. He said “When I watch TV and see a white person, I think of Jilly!” It seems weird to be representative of an entire race, but that’s how some people see it here.

It sounds like most of the people you meet speak some English. Is that correct? Do they also speak Tigrinya?
Yes, a lot of the people I spend time with speak English to some degree. Everyone speaks Tigrenya and most can speak Amharic as well. Students learn in Tigrenya through grade 8, then switch to 100% English for 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade. ETV is usually in Amharic, but there is news in Tigrenya, Afan Oromo, Guragae, and Somaali at various times of the day. I believe there is an English news segment but it’s really late at night. Newspapers are in Amharic, unless it is a regional or local paper, which would then be in the regional language like Tigrena or Afan Oromo.

What things have made you sad in Ethiopia?
I get very sad walking past people I know could use my spare change much more than I could, but yet I will not hand it over on principle. People who are crippled or disabled often beg from me because I am white, and to discourage this practice, my policy is that I don’t give money away to anyone, no matter their situation. But often someone who really, really needs it will ask and it is really hard not to give in and gratify my desire to make them happy. I think it will change things in this country over the long run, as Ethiopians experience a foreigner living in their town, and even in Maychew they have begun to understand that I’m different from the tourists they see coming through here every day. But it’s been a slow and very sad, heart-wrenching process.

What things do you miss most about the U.S.? What things do you like the most about Ethiopia?
I miss the diversity of entertainment. I get to go to a movie in a “real” theater in Addis about every six month. There are no clubs or bars that are appropriate for young women who do not practice commercial sex work to hang out in. It seems as though the high school kids have the most vibrant social lives, holding drama, singing, and dancing programs quite frequently. So, my social life usually revolves around them.

What kind of programs are on Ethiopian TV? How many people even have TV in Maychew? Do they have sitcoms? Crime shows?
I would say most families in Maychew own a TV. Only the wealthier ones (maybe 20% of the residents) have satellite… so more than one channel. ETV (Ethiopian TV) shows a lot of news, particularly news of what’s happening around the country. Sometimes there is world news, but usually only if Ethiopia is somehow involved. In the afternoons they show old PBS-type shows explaining the origins of typewriters and random things like that. Every once in a while you can catch Spanish soap operas dubbed over in English. It also shows LOTS of Ethiopian music videos, which are really poor quality and inevitably have a scene with people dancing in a field. At midnight, they show the news in English but needless to say I never watch it. ETV for Ethiopians is highly entertaining but garbage for everyone else. That being said, I’ve been caught on TV at least three times now. Once for our swearing-in ceremony, once for a cultural competition that was held in Maychew, and once regarding the women’s football conference I planned.

ETV is government-owned and produced—right? To me, this means there’s only one point of view being presented. Other than local news, is there any commentary on Ethiopian government or international politics? Yes, ETV is government owned and produced. Like I said, if the person with a TV is wealthy enough to have a satellite, they can get BBC, CNN, Al Jezeera, and other mostly Arab news channels. The Oromia region has their own TV channel but as far as I know that is run by the regional government. But if all a person has access to is ETV, the only commentary they will receive will be government-produced.

In what ways has this experience changed you? When you come back to the States, what will you do differently?
Sadly, I will still take longer-than-necessary showers (I think that is unchangeable about me, but here it also takes a while to scrub the dirt off!) but they will probably be way less often. There’s no WAY I could accumulate as much dirt on myself in three days in the states as I do here in one. Along the same lines, remember how you were always telling me to pick my clothes up off the floor? I will probably take much better care of my clothes because I will be washing them much less frequently. My idea of what is clean and what is dirty has changed IMMENSELY. Jeans don’t need to be washed until I slap my knee and a cloud of dust rises up

As an effect of the culture here, I will probably be much friendlier towards neighbors than I would have normally been. I experience such communal living here. Even though I have my own house where I can shut the door, my neighbors are constantly borrowing stuff, asking for batteries, moving my laundry around and on the flip side, inviting me to coffee. We are all a part of each other’s lives. We know who came home the latest at night, who got a phone call from America, and whose child is sick.

How do you report what you're doing to the PC? Do you have a direct supervisor? How often do you hear from PC? Can you call a supervisor if there's a situation where you need help?
I have to fill out an electronic reporting form describing all of my activities three times per year. It’s both quantity and quality oriented, with some objective and some subjective formats. Absolutely, I have a direct supervisor. Honestly, I have a “parent” in PC. If I leave Maychew for the night I have to tell my supervisor where I will be. This is both comforting and annoying. I would say they call or email about every month if they don’t hear something from me to follow up on.

After receiving your report, does your supervisor make suggestions or are there “rules” for what you can and cannot do? How do they know if a PCV is just lazing around doing nothing? Yes, I get feedback via email on my trimester report. Sometimes there are suggestions for new project ideas and I can always ask questions for him to answer if need be. The rules of what we can and cannot do mostly regard travel and personal time and media-related things. We are adults and voluntarily joined the Peace Corps so are allowed to decide how to delegate our time helping our communities. If the PCV is “lazing around” it will usually show in their lack of activities to report on. I don’t think they have to deal with this very often as all of us signed up for this and I think most of us tend to be pretty self-motivated people.

About how many people do you think are HIV+ in Maychew?
I would say about 10-15% of the population is HIV+… so about 2,500-4,000 people.

About how many people have died of AIDS in Maychew?
I don’t really know. I would imagine many people who died of unknown causes, were actually HIV+ and either their family didn’t know or they never sought professional care. Many are afraid to know their status, and thus, never get tested. If they are positive and don’t take care of themselves, the disease progresses rapidly. I don’t know the mortality rate of this town, but if I had to guess, I think maybe 20% of deaths have something to do with HIV.

About how many AIDS orphans do you estimate there are in Maychew?
This is also an unknown number, as not all of them are registered. I think there are about 1,200 (both orphans and semi-orphans – meaning at least one parent is dead) on the books in this town and maybe another 500 that the government doesn’t know about.

Is there an official Ethiopian government “count” of AIDS orphans? Is there a branch of government that just deals with AIDS?
Yes, the Social Affairs office is supposed to keep count of the number of OVCs in the town. The office that Halefom, my counterpart, works for is the government “HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Office (HAPCO)”. In this region each HAPCO worker works within the town Health Office Administration and has to report quarterly about his/her activities. Halefom does not get a lot of work or projects assigned to him by HAPCO, and therefore is quite available to help me with mine.

What happens to these orphans in Maychew?
Most of the time they live with the surviving parent or relatives who live in town. Sometimes older siblings take them in and a few of them become street kids. Just the other day I was in a meeting at the HIV Prevention Office of the Orthodox Church and a 10th grade boy walked in with his registration letter asking for some form of assistance. I asked him whom he lives with and he said both his parents are dead and he has no family in the area so he rents a room by himself. He is having trouble paying his rent and feeding himself and was looking to the church for assistance. Sadly, the church was at the max for their orphan support program. I told him if he wanted to take English classes for free he could be one of my beneficiary students at the language school but I had no way to help him financially. It was really sad because he was so interested in pursuing his education, even though he had to drop out of school to start working.

Describe the way HIV+ people are treated by others. Are they shunned? Do people admit it when someone in their family is HIV+ or has AIDS?
There is an active HIV+ persons association in Maychew with about 300 participating members. This is far from the majority of the HIV+ people in town, but the ones who are part of this organization do lots of volunteer work with community dialogues and other activities to tell their story. There have been massive campaigns to reduce stigma and discrimination, but people still get kicked out of rented houses, denied jobs, and suffer other mistreatment because of their status.

In the U.S., HIV/AIDS is more prevalent in the gay community. From what you’ve told me before, I think it might be more prevalent among the poor. Am I right about that? Do you think there is a “main cause” in Ethiopia or are there multiple things going on that contribute to the spread of the disease? Yes, I would agree that HIV/AIDS often affects the poor more severely here. I would blame a few major factors for the HIV pandemic. First and foremost, what I’ve experienced, condoms are NOT common. Prostitutes are widely used, particularly by transient workers (i.e. truckers and drivers). Men will even pay more for a prostitute who does not require a condom. Many women with no marketable skills and little education will turn to commercial sex work, even if they have an income from something like domestic work, as a supplement to support their children. I also think there are a lot of people who refuse to get tested for HIV because they are afraid they will be positive. They then spread it to all their other partners because they don’t use condoms. Sadly, there are also people who know they are positive and choose not to use condoms because they want to spread the disease. I guess it’s their way of avenging their status. As you can see, one factor bleeds into another and when all these are combined, small towns like Maychew end up with 11% of its residents (possibly even higher) HIV+.

Where and what kind of medical help do they get? Who pays for it?
The government pays for the medication they take called ARVs. If they get an opportunistic infection, such as TB, and need another prescription, usually there is money to pay for it if the patient cannot. The Social Affairs Office in this town allocates a 40,000-birr budget each year for this type of expense.

It sounds like you’re saying that if someone is diagnosed HIV+, they will get free government medication… right? And with AVR’s the progression to AIDS can be stalled almost indefinitely… right? It almost seems like the scare of death from full-blown AIDS is gone now. Yes, if someone is found positive, HIV-related medical help is provided. ARVs are completely free. The Ethiopian government (which is largely supported by foreign aid, like USAID) provides the necessary prescriptions to hospitals and health centers. There are people here who have been living with HIV for nearly 15 years and are still healthy. It is important to take good care of oneself, to eat well, when taking ARVs. So, if someone is malnourished and HIV+, they may take their medication and still get sick.

What happens when they become sick with AIDS? Do they hide it? Will their family care for them?
The families usually do all they can to help, but if the patient is near death in Maychew, they will usually go to the hospital. If someone dies from AIDS and the co-workers and friends didn’t know, word often spreads at the funeral. This happened to a woman who worked in our health center. She died after being sick for only two weeks and nobody knew she was HIV+ until after she died. She chose not to seek treatment because she had such a high profile within the Maychew health community.

What kind of progress do you think there is in changing risky sexual practices in Ethiopia?
“Ques be Ques” as they would say (slowly by slowly). Condom use is still highly resisted by both the Orthodox and Muslim churches and many people refuse to use them for that reason. Transient workers, like truckers, often use commercial sex workers, and even towns too small for a bar or hotel will usually have a few women who will have sex for money out of their homes. There is LOTS of premarital sex happening, however it is not talked about at all. Many act as if it is not happening. There are pushes from NGOs to make condoms widely available to youth, and the healthnworld seems to be onboard here. But the religious issue is a difficult one to combat.

What reasons do the churches for their anti-condom stance? Do “commercial sex workers” use condoms? Is prostitution legal in Ethiopia? The Ethiopian Orthodox Church has the same reasons as the Catholic Church for their stance on condoms. I’m not as sure about the Muslim Church globally however, I know in this country they are also against the use of condoms. Prostitution is not legal, but law enforcement does not seem to do anything about it. The government seems to just accept the fact that it happens, as most CSWs have some other work that is legal—like waitressing.

Do you think the younger generation is changing their risky behaviors?
I think some are, and I think a lot of them are more comfortable with getting tested occasionally—as they grew up with the disease’s presence. However, I think the younger generation is much less prudent about sexual activity—which may invite future problems with eradicating HIV.

Do the Ethiopians think of this as a "crisis" like the U.S. media presents it?
I think that depends on where you are. Maychew has an INCREDIBLY high HIV prevalence rate, but there are places in Ethiopia where it is as low as .1%. Maychew’s people still see it as a crisis, but many places see it as foreigners will donate money to, so therefore, they must present to donors that they have a problem in order to get funding.

Happy 2010!

2010-01-01T15:54:00.002-06:00

Happy 2010 to my beloved blog audience! As I look back over 2009 and speculate what 2010 may hold for me, I've realized how “normal” life here has become. In the last six months I’ve adjusted to living alone, and actually kind of like it. I’ve started talking to my cat, and have learned to cook a bunch of yummy food from scratch. I’ve improved in this incredibly difficult language and have watched more ‘bad’ movies than I can count. I’ve lost and regained my entire 4,559 song i-Tunes library, read 28 novels, and written 77 letters to people in the states. I’ve worn the same three pairs of shoes all year (all are holding up rather well) and have washed every article of clothing I’ve worn this year by hand. I've introduced the Black Eyed Peas’ Boom Boom Pow to a small town in northern Ethiopia and now get to watch one bad hip hop routine after another, all to that soundtrack.

All this considered I feel like 2010 may not be as full as adventurous change as I would like. However, it’s never the changes we want that change everything, so maybe I’ll keep my fingers crossed for some boat rocking in 2010.

It’s beginning to look a lot like… CHRISTMAS?

2009-12-23T08:07:00.002-06:00

To mark the occasion of this holiday I would like to share the words of an author admired by my father, and now me. From the book Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris, enjoy an excerpt from the short story, "Six to Eight Black Men".

“While eight flying reindeer are a hard pill to swallow, our Christmas story remains relatively dull. Santa lives with his wife in a remote polar village and spends one night a year traveling around the world. If you’re bad, he leaves you coal. If you’re good and live in America, he’ll give you just about anything you want. We tell our children to be good and send them off to bed, where they lie awake, anticipating their great bounty. A Dutch parent has a decidedly harrier story to relate, telling his children, “Listen, you might want to pack a few of your things together before going to bed. The former bishop of Turkey will be coming tonight along with six to eight black men. They might put some candy in your shoes, they might stuff you into a sack and take you to Spain, or they might just pretend to kick you. We don’t know for sure, but we want you to be prepared.”

This was the reward for living in the Netherlands. As a child you get to hear this story, and as an adult you get to turn around and repeat it. As an added bonus, the government has thrown in legalized drugs and prostitution—so what’s ‘not’ to love about being Dutch?”

It's a question we should all be asking ourselves this holiday season, particularly my former roommates who may or may not have been beneficiaries of this great tale. I suggest you make a New Years resolution to actually read the book. It’s an enjoyable one.

As I’m sure some of you are wondering how I will be spending Christmas this year... put your fears aside. I will be with my Peace Corps family, the group of now 10 volunteers that serve in my regional area. We have planned a feast fit for kings (with Mamasita Joy’s own… well I suppose it was Grandma J’s before that… sweet potato pie) and no bellies will go hungry that night (at least from our group). Who knew cans of yams, brown sugar, pecans, and cornflakes could make it all the way across the Atlantic, the Sahara, and into my post box? Thanks Mom.

Ethiopian Christmas is celebrated around the 7th of January so to make up for being away from my family, I get to celebrate twice! Although my experience with the Ethiopian Christmas festivities last year leads me to believe there is no Santa Claus or gifts involved (hence the bizarre beach towel and bra combo I received from my host family in Ambo) but mostly revolves around the making and eating of spicy chicken with enjera. Whoopee!!!

I’m not quite as depressed to be missing the holidays in the states as I thought I might be. This may be because it looks nothing like the Christmas season here. It's sunny and 75 degrees here. And there's no sign of Jingle Bells or Christmas lights here. This year, I will definitely not need that blanket on the car ride home from my aunt and uncles house after our Christmas Eve celebration. For all of you that will, happy holidays!

Thanks

2009-12-13T15:28:00.003-06:00

I'm thankful for many things this year. I'm thankful I have a life interesting enough to write about occasionally and for the audience out there who acts as a witness to this crazy journey. I'm thankful to wake up in Africa (today at least) and that most mornings I still feel like that. I'm thankful for the friends I've made here and for everyone back home who is supporting me. I'm thankful for the postal system who routinely brightens my day with news (or goodies!) from home and for the internet, which allows the news to get here faster (in theory). I'm thankful that my day today includes breakfast, laundry, lunch, a trip to the bank and post, a meeting and an English class... and that's IT.

I'm really thankful for my family. Being so far away from them allowed me to realize just how much I love them. Also, watching families from other cultures and hearing about other volunteers' families makes me grateful for how amazing mine is and how perfect they are for me. The thing I am the most thankful for this year, is both incredibly selfish and utterly reliant on the people most important to my life, the people that helped shape me. I'm thankful for the person I used to be and how it allowed me to become the person I am now through this experience. I could never be where I am today without these people. I'm a bigger and better person because of you. Thank you.

I have the feeling many of you thought about me on Thanksgiving. Maybe it was because you know Ethiopia doesn't have turkeys, sweet potatoes, or cranberries, or maybe it was because you were thankful you are my friend/relative/old co-worker/acquaintance. Or maybe, just maybe, it was because you wished you could have shared the thanksgiving FEAST I had with 50 other Americans! It truly was the best Thanksgiving I could have hoped for here.

I spent the last two weeks in a town called Assela, in southeastern Ethiopia. There are 41 newly arrived Peace Corps volunteers in training, just like I was a year ago in Ambo. I have been assisting with the technical and cultural aspects of their training. So quickly the student becomes the teacher! My second week there was Thanksgiving and being my favorite holiday, and their first away from home, I knew we had to cook-up something special (pun intended).

The trainees are all together on Thursdays at a hotel in Assela so Tina and I (my Thanksgiving partner in crime) met with the kitchen staff to brainstorm the possibilities. Explaining a food that Ethiopians have never seen is difficult in itself, but trying to explain it in a foreign language is impossible. I never knew that I didn't know the word for "mashed" or any of it's synonyms until that day. We brought in jello mixes and the makings for a chocolate cake and a white cake. We managed to get the kitchen staff to cook chicken without the usual spicy red sauce. Tina and I made some chicken gravy. We eventually did get mashed potatoes, Italian and romaine salads and green beans. For Ethiopia, it was the best feast we could have hoped for.

To make the day a little more special, Tina and I asked each of the volunteers to make an envelope with their name for a game of "I'm thankful for your ___________" game. They could anonymously write what they liked about each other and by the end of the day each volunteer had an envelope full of compliments from their fellow trainees. I gave a fact about turkeys every hour throughout the day and the volunteers were allowed a little extra time to use the internet to write to their friends and families. The trainees were all pleased with the day and inspired by the culinary possibilities of Ethiopia. In the game of Turkey day I'm definitely 1-0.

PJ-wearing, tooth-brushing, penguins

2009-10-28T12:53:00.003-05:00

The book I’m currently reading, “Shantram” by Gregory David Roberts routinely puts me in a state of mind where I feel thankful for everything I have and have seen. The book tells of an ex-convict’s escape from prison to India, where he befriends a hodgepodge group of ex-pats and a local city guide who treats him like a king in exchange only for the pay of an honest day’s work. One of his new worldly friends describes how the authors guide must have fallen in love with him, as he asked him back to his village in rural India. He goes on to say that love happens easily and often in a country like India because it is essential to the survival of the population. “They know how to fight and lie and cheat each other, and all the things that all of us do. But more than any other people in the world, the Indians know how to love one another.” He explains that India’s geographical size is six times the size of France, yet has nearly 20 times the population. He ganders that if a billion Frenchmen lived like the Indians do, every problem would be solved in pools of blood. But the Indians choose to quelm their lack of space with an overabundance of love.

Hopefully, we Americans would not react as severely as this character seemed to think the French would. However, I’ve never been to France, and frankly, I know a lot of Americans who like their personal space and run with a pretty short fuse. But if I’ve learned one thing from living in a developing country where ‘personal space’ is a foreign concept, it’s that we just have to get over it and love each other. Sure, certain people and situations will make anyone uncomfortable but really what does one have to lose other than a personally-constructed sense of pride? I really think it has made me a better person to be able to walk out of my house first thing in the morning, still in my pajamas, un-brushed hair and teeth to my outdoor kitchen to heat up some water for coffee. I run the ‘risk’ of seeing one of the other 13 people who live on my 30’ x 30’ compound, but they look just as disheveled and are content to see another beautiful morning in Ethiopia.

This weekend I was at another Peace Corp volunteer friend’s house for our women’s football conference. Tina lives even rougher than I do. She has a common latrine on her compound as well as a common water spigot. So, because there is no sink to brush our teeth in front of, we just do it outside, sharing a plastic pitcher of water to rinse. Charo, the little 13-year-old boy who is always hanging around the other family’s house and often borrows Tina’s basketball jogged around the corner and was halted in his tracks by the sight of two white girls, in their pjs, staring absentmindedly at the mountain view in front of them as they simultaneously scrubbed their teeth. He dissolved into a fit of giggles at the sight of us, and rather than be embarrassed by our seemingly strange behavior, we just laughed with him. The two of us looking like a breed of penguins wearing pj pants and miming each others actions (spit, drink, pass the pitcher, spit, drink, pass the pitcher, rinse the toothbrush, rinse the toothbrush) is probably a sight Charo will never erase from his mind.

Anyway, back to my original point, I’ve managed to live much more communally since I’ve been here. With each lesson I learn, my heart becomes a little more able to love. So, the next time your neighbor fails to mow the extra three feet of grass in between your yards, another passenger accidently steps on your foot on the subway, or the person in front of you buys the last gallon of skim milk, take a deep breath and remember there are people out there who have it a lot worse than you, and still manage to love each other.

Making Progress

2009-10-19T09:05:00.006-05:00

If September was a month of traveling and thievery, October is turning out to be a month of successes and setbacks. It’s 11:00 a.m. on a Monday and I just got home from my morning of ‘work’. My counterpart and I planned on visiting a few schools to check in with their anti-AIDS clubs and see how they are getting started this school year, but he was handed a report that had to be done urgently and our office was apparently hosting an evaluation meeting they wanted me to sit in on, so our plan went out the window. I really want to be reading a book or re-watching episodes of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” right now but I figured I should clue in my blog audience on my recent activities.

To start, I began teaching English in a more formal way. I’ve befriended a local foreign language school owner, Ashenafi, and one night over Giorgies (my favorite Ethiopian beer) I started talking with him about his social responsibility to his community. I suggested he set up some sort of scholarship program for OVCs (orphans and vulnerable children) to do his part to fight HIV here in Maychew. Allowing a few students to attend English classes wouldn’t really alter his business that much, as he already has a solid roster of paying students. Ashenafi countered my suggestion with the idea that I teach for him a few nights a week and in lieu of paying me, he will let me bring 7 of ‘my orphans’ to be his students. He benefits by having a native-English speaker as one of his teachers, and the OVCs benefit from free lessons. He’s lucky that I was not concerned with my benefit, but I figure I am a volunteer and that kind of thing is what being here is all about. So I agreed.

Ashenafi turned out to be less of a profit-concerned-penny-pincher than I thought, as he tried to pay me after the first class I taught. Being sassy and uninterested in the 50 birr (about $4) I told him if he really wanted to pay me, he should buy me a gift. Little did I know he took me seriously! Two weeks later I ended up with a brand new cell phone in my hand. It was quite a thoughtful gift considering my phone loss but seemed a little over the top and way more than 50 birr. He refused to take it back and justified it with his frustrations in trying to contact me, so even I benefited from this situation.

Word got around town of this arrangement and on Sunday, his competition, Nolawi, another language school owner asked me to meet him so we could talk about a “program”. He tried to subtly grill me on my agreement with Ashenafi and very unsubtly told me he wanted to arrange something similar. In attempts to one-up Ashenafi, he said I could bring 10 orphans but only if I agreed to teach 3 nights a week. Well, that would mean I teach five nights a week between the two schools and as much as I enjoy being busy, that does not sound like fun to me. We’re meeting again later this week to work something out.

My issue with both of these agreements is that they have no future once I leave this community. The sustainability of both situations is null. It usually takes students 2-3 years to move through the English program and become fluent enough to cease classes. I will only be living here another year so won’t even see the original students graduate. I also don’t believe Ashenafi or Nolawi is dedicated enough to let the students finish the program in hopes that the OVCs will then perhaps volunteer as a teachers assistant. Personally, I think both of them are hoping to improve their own English and don’t care as much about helping children in need as hanging out with the ‘forengi’. So, if anyone out there has any ideas of how I could increase the sustainability of this program, please let me know!

In other endeavors, I got some good news from Peace Corps. They approved the proposal I wrote for the IGA (income generating activity) for the association of people living with HIV. ‘What does that even mean?’ you ask? Well after having coffee with HIV positive women once a week for four months they basically said, why don’t you help us some how? I asked, “What do you need?” They answered, “We are HIV positive, yes, but really what we need is an opportunity to make money to support our families.” So we came up with the idea of grain processing. Ethiopians use the grain called teff everyday in the food called injera, the staple of their entire diet. A group of 60 participants will be trained in small and micro business enterprises, and then will collectively design the management of their IGA. Once they have decided how it will work, the VAST grant we received will pay for some materials to clean and process the grain, along with 49 kuntals (4,900 kilograms) of teff to start with. They will (hopefully) invest some of their early profits (about 150-200 birr per kuntal) in the expansion

Photo: The HIV+ women and me on "Ashenda" holiday

of their business and creation of a safety net for poor harvests or inflation of prices. At the moment we are just waiting for the ‘check in the mail’ that is coming from PC headquarters in DC.

My third big program [fun language/cultural fact: In Ethiopian English most things can be referred to as programs i.e. a coffee program, a meeting program, or a dinner program. My fellow volunteers and I like to poke fun at the over-use of this word and say things like, “I need a peeing program,” “let’s have a beer program,” or “Saturday I had a clothes-washing program.”] is a women’s health, HIV, life skills, goals, and soccer weekend conference. Confused yet? It’s a good, logical program, I swear!

Tina, my closest PCV neighbor, noticed that in her town, the men’s football team (soccer to stubborn Americans) receives support in the form of uniforms, advertising and transportation to games from the Youth and Sport Affairs Office, while the women’s team gets zilch. I inquired at my Youth and Sport Affairs Office, and although they do a little for their women’s team, it isn’t even close to the amount of support they give the men’s team. So, we planned and plotted for how we could get these women more assistance from their community. We decided to use it as an opportunity to drop a little capacity on these young women as well as show community support for their efforts.

We've planned a day-long conference to talk about how this group of women can improve themselves, their situation, and their community. We have a nurse coming to talk about women’s health, STD’s and HIV along with the social aspects of disease. We will do condom demonstrations (my favorite, as you readers know!) and play some games both to show the strength and reliability of condoms and to make the women more comfortable in handling them. We will talk about and do a couple activities on decision making, goals, team building/peer support, and role models, have a panel discussion with admirable women from the two communities and make a pledge board for each town to hang in their Youth Affairs office to help the women achieve the goals they identified. The following morning the women will play a game against each other and hopefully apply some of the theories they learned the previous day on the field.

The budget for the whole event has been graciously provided by HAPCO (HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Office - a division of the Ethiopian government, I think largely supported by foreign aid) but has proved quite difficult to acquire and manage. Tina and I have no clue about the paperwork and bureaucracy that comes with a government funded program but are learning rather quickly. The conference has now been pushed back twice, both times because we can not get the Finance office to work quickly. Fingers crossed, it will actually happen October 24-25.

I know this was really long but wanted to let you know that I AM working hard as a volunteer and as much time as I spend reading, doing crossword puzzles and watching the movies you sent (Amanda & Mom), I do equal amounts of life-changing work :) A huge thanks to everyone who sends letters, packages, and words of encouragement. As always, it’s stuff like this that makes living in this difficult culture/country manageable.

Photo: The women's team from Maychew at the end of the "Goals 4 Goals" conference

September

2009-10-01T16:21:00.002-05:00

September was a month of extreme highs and extreme lows for me; periods of immense joy and incredible stress. When I first arrived as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ethiopia one of the seasoned volunteers told me that this was an experience that allows one to feel emotion from one end of the spectrum to the far other, sometimes within the same hour. Romans 5: 3-4 says, “We… have joy with our troubles, because we know that these troubles produce patience, and patience produces character, and character produces hope.” I’ll just say that September was a month in which my character grew a lot more than it has in others.

Let me first start with the good. I spent nine glorious days with some of my family, biking through Germany and Austria. I ate more food in those nine days than a single human being should in probably a month. I indulged in cheese, Nutella, fresh bread, ice cream, coffee, pizza, schnitzel, cereal, fruit, chocolate and beer. We biked along the Danube River and got to see large towns like Munich and Vienna, and smaller towns like Melk, Lintz, and Schtokerau. We completed about 350 kilometers (I think) which helped burn off some of my culinary immoderation. The family shared many enlightening conversations over picnics of Gouda, gherkin, Wasa, apples, and dark chocolate but also enjoyed the more common subjects of Meade family discussion like politics, music and flatulence. After a day and a half of sightseeing in Vienna, I had to bid adieu to my family and begin the long journey back to East Africa.

My flight was uneventful save a six-hour layover in Istanbul, where I devised schemes to enter the duty-free shop unnoticed as to snatch another free sample of Turkish delight. I arrived back at the Addis Ababa airport around midnight and was thrown right back into Ethiopian culture by having to argue with the contract taxi drivers (in their own language) over why they shouldn’t charge me a higher price because I have white skin. We finally settled on a price that I could stomach and got in the cab. In Germany, we called a cab when we dropped off the rental car. A clean, new-looking Volkswagen complete with an English speaking driver arrived and pleasantly drove us to our hotel chatting about sights we shouldn’t miss on our trip.

Well, my cab in Ethiopia quickly reminded me I wasn’t in Kansas, or Europe, anymore. My driver spoke no English, had a towel wrapped around his head and a blanket in place of a jacket. The blue and white 1980s sedan smelled of gasoline and the dusty fringe lining the roof and dashboard was hanging dilapidated in many places. But, I made it to my hotel safely.

The next day, eager to get back to Maychew I showered and went to the bus station. I had to take two different line taxis (their version of public transport) to get there and arrived to discover that my cell phone was no longer in my pocket. I don’t know if it was taken out without my noticing or it somehow wiggled out on one of the buses. However it happened, I was now alone in the capital of Ethiopia, two to three days bus ride from my Ethiopian hometown and with no memorized phone numbers to tell someone where I was. I didn’t know what I could do to fix the situation so I got as far as I could that day on a bus and got a hotel room.

I had the hotel guard knock on my door at 4 a.m. so I could catch a bus and managed to make it to the town 40 kilometers from Maychew, where my friend Tina was hosting my cat and our friend John, a Peace Corp Volunteer from the south who was visiting. I walked into her house and was greeted much like I was a 16-year-old girl who kept her father up, waiting and worrying (something I remember quite vividly). We went and got some dinner and crashed. I woke up the next day having no idea what time it was or even what day it was, but luckily my friends knew because it was MY BIRTHDAY!

They made some apple cinnamon bread and eggs and then the four of us (the cat came in a pillowcase) boarded a bus for Maychew. Overall, my birthday was uneventful, but a relaxing day considering all the recent travels. We got some shakila tibs (meat cooked over a charcoal fire served with pepper, very tasty) and baked a funfetti cake Tina had received from someone back in the states. I checked my email and sadly found out Peace Corps would not be flying me back into Addis for the meeting I had the following Monday, so I unpacked, washed some underwear, and repacked to get BACK on the bus the next day. Nine buses and three days later I was back in Addis, at the bus station again, looking for a line taxi to the hotel. We were in a crowd of hundreds—everyone trying to go somewhere different—with loaded buses driving unapologetically close and fast past the masses.

We decided to forget the bus station and walk the first part of the way, hoping to find a few extra seats where others had gotten off. As I turned to walk out of the bus station, John asked me which pocket my wallet was in. I swung my backpack around to find the top compartment open and empty and me penniless, with only a passport to prove my identification. I let out a hasty scream, “Not again! Ugh, I hate this country!” but I know it could have happened anywhere in the world. I just felt vulnerable, jaded, and angry at the proximity of my losses. Most items from my wallet are replaceable, and many of the items that are not, I didn’t really need anyway.

This trouble or tribulation taught me a lesson about extra baggage. Tribulation comes from the Latin word tribulum, which was the word for a farm tool used in Biblical times. It was a tool that was drawn over freshly harvested grain to separate the good from the useless. This tribulation I experienced helped me rid my wallet, and my life of some excess baggage I was carrying around. Now that I have sorted my valuables from the extra baggage, I have learned to be more vigilant about protecting what is of real worth to me. As Romans says, ‘trouble produces patience, patience produces character, and character produces hope.’

Ahh!

2009-09-04T05:35:00.002-05:00

Well, tonight I embark on my first big international vacation. I will be flying to Germany to spend a week and a half with my family. I'm pretty much peeing my pants I'm so excited but am also nervous to be traveling halfway across the world by myself. Please keep my ventures in your thoughts and prayers over the next few days. If I can make it in a village in Ethiopia by myself, I can handle just about anything, right?

You want me to use that marker for what?

2009-08-22T12:23:00.003-05:00

This past week I have been serving as the 'facilitator' for a training session in our office. We are teaching 16 Community-Based Reproductive Health Workers how to lead Community Conversations, a program I think was designed by the Ethiopian government to fight HIV/AIDS and other societal challenges from the neighborhood perspective. My role basically entails keeping fresh chart paper taped to the wall, taking attendance, making sure the tea breaks are ready and trying to speak Tigrinya to make the participants laugh when they need a mental break. Well, maybe I have a few more responsibilities than this but on paper that’s basically what the ‘facilitator’ does.

I taught a session on sex vs. gender that proved quite interesting. The basic concept of the activity was to divide various chores and roles into male and female categories. We gave each participant a task or two written on a piece of paper and told them to place it under male, female, or both based on their first instinct. The tasks were things like raising children, church activities, going to school, pregnancy, cooking, sports, doctors, digging graves, family decision-making, chopping firewood, etc. When they had finished the first round there were 5 tasks under male, 11 under female and 17 under both. We went through them individually and changed any that the majority of the group thought was in the incorrect spot. A few of the men’s activities moved to both. I then explained that what we had an example of was gender; a socially constructed idea of men’s and women’s responsibilities. I explained that in this culture it is quite common for women to wear skirts, but in some cultures it is just as common to see men wearing skirts (or kilts… this blew their minds). Similarly, in this culture usually only men drive cars, buses or trucks and in other cultures it is a genderless activity. They then asked if I could drive, if I had a car, and if my father taught me to drive. I said yes, I could drive and showed them my license. I said I’ve never actually owned my own car but my family had four to share, and that I learned to drive from someone else’s dad (in school) and that I did a lot of practicing with my mom, too. They stared at me like I was eight feet tall and grew from the ground like a carrot; it was such a foreign idea to them.

We then did the activity again, giving each participant different tasks. I told them to put the tasks under the gender that was physically or biologically capable of the task. We ended up with 32 under both and one under female: pregnancy. I gave them a minute to let it sink in and then when they realized how many ‘work’ activities had been under the female category and ‘authority’ activities had been under the male category they got a little huffy. It led to a lively debate (there were 16 women and 2 men at the training) which we had to cut off for tea break before it got nasty!

Another of my fun extra duties for the training was to give a condom demonstration. We forgot to pick up the penile models from the health center that morning so as I was explaining to check the expiration date and for any tears or holes in the packaging my counterpart was desperately searching for something relatively close to the size and shape of a phallus in our training room. We settled on the marker, not exactly an easy target. After an embarrassing 15 seconds which seemed like an hour to me I tossed the condom in the trash and sat down.

A conversation ensued, the details of which, I have no idea. But as I sat there understanding about every 7th word I realized how incredibly funny human gestures are when we talk about condoms and sex in general. I have used gesture as a tool to understand meaning when I can’t understand language in Ethiopia. But watching this discussion, paying as much attention to their gestures as possible I found myself dubbing over the participants in my head in English, and it was a hilarious dialogue indeed.

Running from rabies

2009-08-18T12:23:00.007-05:00

One weekend, I decided to take a break from village life and head to Mekelle, the closest 'city' for some R&R. I was with my usual companion Tina, and two other female Peace Corp volunteers. In a group of four, walking around the city at dusk is no big deal. But we had no idea what we were about to experience because we were so noticeable.

Mekelle is quite hilly and some roads don't have sidewalks, so we just mingle among the crowds, dodging the mini-buses swerving in and out of the non-existant traffic lanes. Because we were minding traffic, watching for forenji-swallowing potholes and trying to chat we failed to notice the strange behavior of a homeless woman we passed. Only when we heard an unhuman-sounding shriek did we turn and notice the woman with her clothes bunched and twisted around her thin body awkwardly running towards us with what looked like white foam coming out of her mouth. She shrieked again and started to run faster towards us which kicked in our survival instincts and caused us to run away. I found myself pushing Tina in the back to make her run faster as I was genuinely afraid of what might happen if this woman were to catch us. Visions of being bitten flashed through my head as I clutched my bag and ran for my life. Thanks to our mountain-climbing fit legs and her limp we out ran her. We then had a lively discussion over dinner about the symptoms of rabies in humans. We decided rabies was the only thing we could think of that it might be and then plotted a different route to get home.

Other than this adventure, I haven't experienced anything quite like what the visitor Chris described in his trip summary, which I posted on my blog. I think living in a small village and avoiding the areas where most tourists go may be why my experience differs from that of Chris.

However, I notice that foreigners often come to Ethiopia and with their pockets full of the freshly exchanged money, they seem to lack understanding for how little money most citizens here live on, and may think "This bill is only worth 10 cents. If I lose a couple bills, it's no big deal." It has been a difficult mission to teach both the people of Maychew and the residents in the tourist areas that I get paid in birr and make about what a local civil servant does in a month. My friends and coworkers have been incredibly understanding and sometimes find it unbelievable that I would give up a life in a country whose streets are 'paved in gold' to live and work in a country where the streets are rarely paved.

A Fresh Perspective

2009-08-01T11:47:00.003-05:00

This blog entry is not my own writing. It is from a friend of a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer named Chris, who came to visit in June. He has some great insight and descriptions to share as an ‘outsider’ in Ethiopia. So much of this has become normal life for me that I forget how incredibly shocking it all is. If you are wondering, I was one of the ‘American girls’ he met and his first sentence after, “Hi, my name is Chris,” was, “I can’t believe you girls pee in a hole in the ground.... willingly! I never thought girls from the states would do stuff like that.” His story is long, but good.

So I really don’t know where to start, I’ve had a month to think about everything that happened on my 1 week trip to Ethiopia, and in that 1 week everything has changed about me. I don’t think the same about anything anymore. I guess Ill start with the people.

The people were amazing. Both good and bad. With the good, they were very very interested in white people. Everywhere we went, we were like celebrities (everyone told me that too). I mean I for real know what its like to be famous. They literally will follow you for blocks just looking at you because you are white. But once you talk to them, they are all very very nice and friendly. I mean everyone is totally friendly, they all enjoy talking and messing with us.

Ethiopians have no shame in staring or following, the people literally would just circle around us and stare (no one saying a word, just looking, it was horrible for me, since I'm very weird about people looking at me). They also were very hospitable, people want to help you, I got bananas on the bus, they all are just really happy to give and share with one another. When I had to go back to the airport alone (a 6 hour bus ride), the people were very helpful, a random guy actually took me under his wing and guided me to the place I needed to be just to be nice. Also, there is no mean people, despite the harsh conditions over there, most people generally seemed happy. Bullys just don’t exist, its all just average people. The people are also just beautiful, I mean even though no one over there showers or any of that, they just had a natural beauty like I had never seen anywhere in the world. The women are just stunning, its hard to explain, but you would know if you saw them.

On the bad side, most people try to steal from us since we are white. I mean it got to the point where I was holding my pocket at all times walking since the people would just walk next to my pocket staring at it. But its understandable though, its survival of the fittest over there, and I for sure understand. There are also tons and tons of orphans and homeless people. I mean literally there are thousands of orphans living on the streets (and in the sewers). These children are just the saddest thing I’ve ever seen. 14% of people over there have AIDS, so when their parents die, the children have no where to go but the streets to live. There are foster homes, but I literally saw thousands of homeless children on the streets, all in rags, begging for money. And these kids don’t just beg sitting down, they follow you for miles. When they see us coming, they literally would follow us for miles, begging the whole time. It really puts the American homeless to shame. I’ve always been very sensitive toward the homeless in America, but the 1st homeless person I saw when I got back, I actually didn’t feel bad for. Its one thing to live on the streets and have addictions to alcohol, drugs, etc., but the people in Ethiopia, have no addictions. I can think of few people I saw smoking, drinking, etc (most of them were white people I met through John in the Peace Corps). When the homeless get money over there, they use it to eat, and thats it. It really puts the homeless of America in perspective, though I still feel sensitive about their problems, I can’t help but almost laugh at how lucky they truly have it compared to the homeless in Ethiopia. On my trip back to Addis Ababa (where I had to fly out of), a child ran up to me and walked with me for over a mile. And this kid had serious problems, some kind of facial deformity, no home, just living in the streets, begging was his life. When you see a 5/6 year old kid by him/herself all alone on the street, begging for food, it really puts everything in perspective.

They also have a ton of myths, things that are just stunning. All of John’s Peace Corp friends kept telling me “you are thinking logically in an illogical world, so stop trying to think normal”. It took me the whole time I was there to start to get over the myths, here are some: On the buses, people will not roll the windows down because they are afraid of getting sick (even though the buses are full of sick people), they think the air outside makes them sick, not the actual people.

They put up broken glass on the edges of the walls to protect them (like a security fence). Even though you can just push the glass off there, people just put it up there ( I mean it would take days to put all that up there), and it would take maybe 5 seconds to move the glass to jump the fence.

People litter and piss/shit in the street. There is no sanitation. I actually saw a kid take a shit in the street and he waved at us since we were white (I laughed my ass off).

The businesses there are horrible. Instead of thinking for themselves, they just copy each other. All the stores are almost identical because they think thats the only way to succeed. John told me one time he saw 17 hardware stores next to each other (they don’t understand that setting up a hardware store next to another is a bad thing).

They sweep dirt. I still never figured this out (neither did anyone else), but they actually get up in the morning and sweep dirt with a broom. Like just sweeping dirt, not doing anything, its the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen. And they do it for hours too. They water the walls. The concrete walls are really dry so each day they get buckets of water and water the walls (like how we would water plants).

So those are some of the weird myths and weird things, its [expletive deleted] weird, but its so in their culture that nothing can change their minds. Ethiopians are EXTREMELY stubborn which is one of the biggest problems with trying to help them since they don’t make changes (unless their elders tell them too, the only people they respect are their elders).

Some more about the people. They love to touch you. Like everyone over there is all about touching you and getting close to you. I had some girl on the bus touching my arms because they were hairy. The children just cling on to you and wont let go. Its impossible to keep sanitary there. Some guy at the airport was touching my legs and putting his arms all over me, I actually was laughing it got so ridiculous. Its illegal to be gay in Ethiopia. But whats crazy is that all the guys hold hands and the girls never do. It literally is like how it is with girls in America but the roles are switched. Most guys that are friends will hold hands, hug, etc and that's not gay.

Women are less than nothing over there. A woman is more or less a possession. If a guy takes a girl on a date and he asks to marry her, its pretty much set in stone. The women also do chores ALL DAY LONG. I mean from dawn till dusk, while the men just watch and do nothing.

Animals are abused like I had never seen in my life. It was so hard to watch I can’t even tell you how hard it was for me. In the 1st 3 hours there, a donkey fell in the street so 3 people were kicking it in the face trying to make him stand up. The dogs are all tied up to trees with leashes that are about 1 foot long. The aren’t petted or any of that, their sole purpose is to bark for intruders. So they live on these trees and just get fed. The cats are the same, they are at peoples yards, but just to kill mice and rodents. Animals over there are no different then a sack of food, just a possession with a purpose. No one cares for them, they are just something to be used.

John mentioned some of the “Ethiopian sports” to me. Some of these “sports” are staring at people working, staring at people, and literally just doing nothing. I saw one time a group of about 30 people just watching one guy dig in the dirt. If someone has a job, they all just watch them, its crazy. The government also makes jobs that are fake. For example, you will see a guy in a construction outfit, just standing in the street doing nothing. His job is just to stand there, because they make jobs even though they have no real purpose. They also, just stare at any and everything, I mean staring over there is crazy. You can’t do anything without being stared at. If you go in the street, you are immediately stared at until you get back home. They will actually run out of nowhere and just walk with you just to stare.

The service there is horrendous, you order something, it never comes, you generally have to order 2-3 times to get it. And the best part is that once you do finally get it (generally around 45 min to one hour), the food/drinks are sometimes not even what you ordered. They will just say “we were out of that so here is something else”. You still have to pay for it and everything

Another thing is every single person has a product or service to sell. I mean you can be in the woods and some person will be trying to sell you lottery tickets, or trying to shine your shoes. Its crazy. When we got off the bus with my suitcase, literally about 20 people surrounded us and were fighting to carry our suitcase (I was really scared, it was overwhelming, but luckily John knew what to say and do to get rid of them).

There is no such thing as a line over there. Every where you go, the line is just whoever can push the hardest. I saw a guy getting on the bus, he fought his way to the front and then the bus driver punched him in the face, so he took a few steps back and got back in line. John didn’t even flinch it was so regular to see that. The bank, is literally just a giant group of people holding their deposits out in the air at one teller. Lines don’t exist so everything that requires waiting is chaotic.

Ok so enough about the people now on to the country and animals. The country was amazing, just stunning. Huge mountains, lakes, just beauty like I had never experienced. I mean you will just be sitting there and a bird that looks like a damn dinosaur will fly over your head, just amazing things. We went on a trip to the nicer part of Ethiopia, went out in a boat in the “great earth valley”, surrounded by mountains on a lake, the lake had hundreds of wild hippos and crocs. Just stunning. They just pop up and look at you, it was amazing. The crocs are HUGE, I mean [expletive deleted] scary. Like if you fell in the water, one bite would finish you off. Also monkeys just run in the streets, I saw tons of monkeys, one of them stole our bananas (he was crazy!!!)

So the story about how John and I almost died. A day when we were in “Arba Minch” (the place we visited with the scenery and animals), we got a tour guide and he took us on a trip into the woods to see the natural hot springs. We rode bikes into the forest and it was fun. So all of the bikes had flat tires (its still ethiopia mind you), so we ended up having to walk up this big hill. When we were almost at the end all of sudden 2 masked men with machetes jumped out of the brush and started running at us. Our tour guide instantly through his bike down, and started running (he didn’t say a word, just ran for his life). So we did the same.

I mean in a matter of like 3 seconds we were all running for our lives. I didn’t look back, but John looked back and he saw them jumping over our bikes running after us. So we ran about 1/4 mile and then found a police car (armed guards are everywhere there), and we got help. We find out they were a gang that hides out in remote areas and attacks/robs people (especially foreigners). So me and John outran an Ethiopian gang. I thought I was about to die for real, I now know exactly what people mean by the “fight or flight instinct”. It was the most real feeling I’ve ever had, my body just told me to run, that this was the end and I had one chance to live.. Over there, if you are killed, nothing happens, you are just dead and they get away. I ran the fastest I ever ran in my life, my legs hurt for 4 days afterwards I ran so hard. As soon as I saw them come out of the bushes my stomach just dropped to the floor, it instantly was survival mode. I swear, me and John were so lucky, its unbelievable, I mean these guys were trying to kill us for real. Luckily we all were decent runners, and they just gave up and let us go. Needless to say that night we went out and had some beers to celebrate life. It was scary, without a doubt the most serious and scary moment of my life. But we were all good and thats all that matters (the experience was great though, that alone was worth the trip).

Overall, Ethiopia was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had, I mean totally life changing. When I got back to the States, the 1st thing everyone wants to ask is “so how was it!!”, and my response has always been “be grateful for everything you have, you and I have never had a bad day”. And that is the truth, I used to think days were bad, working too much, having a hard time, etc. But now that I know what the worst of this world is like, I have to honestly say that every single day of my life has been great. The worst day I’ve ever had, has got to be better than the best day of some of the homeless children over in Ethiopia.

It’s funny how we think days are bad when a boss yells at us, when we get a ticket driving, when things are just not like they should be, but over in Ethiopia, a good day is living to see the next. A good day is getting enough money to get food to live to the next day, that’s something that almost all Americans will never have to experience (even the homeless). We have never been hungry, never had to worry about where we are going to sleep, never had to worry about getting a disease treated, its all just available for us, where for Ethiopians, none of that is available. I am so lucky, its just ridiculous, and now when I hear people complaining about a hard day at work and whatnot, its laughable, I just wish I could show them the images I have burned in my brain now.. Like I said before, when you see a half naked child come up to you at 1 AM, in total darkness, begging for anything you have to offer, it really puts things in perspective. When you see a man that’s half dead coming onto your bus begging for anything, he has no eyes (just gaping holes where they should be), missing an arm, and has a scar on his face that looks like someone stuck an axe in his face, it puts things in perspective. We are lucky, anyone reading these words is lucky, you and I have never had a bad day, and thats a fact. This world is a scary and brutal place, now that I’ve been in the 3rd poorest country on earth, I just feel so grateful for everything I have in my life, its just ridiculous. So Ill end my story at that, just remember how lucky we are and don’t take any day for granted.

As far as John and his friends in the Peace Corps, I have nothing to say but positive things about them. I mean just seeing Johns life alone, was totally stunning. He has nothing, I mean he can barely afford some chairs in his house (though he just bought some, but with a huge price tag). These people are living their lives in a place where they are constantly harassed, followed, and have nothing, to try to better this world and themselves. They don’t get any thank you’s from the people, nothing except the satisfaction of knowing they are making a change. To me, thats one of the most noble things I’ve ever seen. John has always been one of my best friends over the years, and I can honestly say that my respect for him is through the roof. It takes a lot more than balls and willpower to stay in a place like Ethiopia. I mean the average person could never make it over there. I am an extremely strong willed person, and by the end of one week, I was starting to get scared about things. At the end I was starting to worry if I would make it back alive or not. Getting to see John and his Peace Corp friends was very enlightening, especially seeing the girls. The girls in the Peace Corps don’t bathe (rarely), they don’t wear makeup, they don’t do any of the stereotypical American girl things. I actually feel really bad because I told them that it was hard for me to imagine seeing American girls do that kind of stuff (which they took offense too, totally understandable and I feel really bad about). They are just the most independent and most extraordinary group of people I’ve ever seen. So if any of you girls are reading this, just know you have my utmost respect and it was a pleasure to see you in that environment, really changed my perspective of what american girls” can do :). I think they just see things through a different set of eyes that very few people have. Dedicating your life to the betterment of this world is incredible, and my respect for all these people is more than any other group of people I’ve ever met. If all people had these kind of morals, guts, and just goodness, then this world would be a beautiful place :)

Well I will end it at this, just remember like I said, love everyday of your life. We are so lucky, its just ridiculous, just be thankful for everyday you have and live each day to the fullest. I hope this has been a good insight into my trip and I hope you all enjoyed it. If any you guys want to hit me up about my trip and whatnot you are more than welcome to do so. Talk to you later.

Jill's updated wish list

2009-07-27T12:44:00.005-05:00

For those of you wanting to know what Jill needs, she gave me an updated list on 7/23/09:
• old-fashioned pink spongy curlers
• pocket thesauras
• world map
• Womenomics by Claire Shipman
• yogurt-covered pretzels
• Cheez-Its (reduced fat version)
• butterscotch hard candy

Shipping to Ethiopia can be really expensive, but US Post Office FLAT RATE envelopes and boxes are cheaper. See information on shipping rates in post dated 6/12/2009.

posted by Joy Meade (Jill's Mom)

Who’s Got it Right?

2009-07-12T20:41:00.003-05:00

7:57 am - Chicago, Illinois, USA
Scarfing down a Fiber One bar and desperately trying to cool down my coffee with my winter-icy breath. Mentally reviewing talking points for the meeting starting in 18 minutes with staff I really should be impressing more. Oh crap, I just spilled coffee on my shirt.

7:57 am - Maychew, South Tigray, Ethiopia
Absentmindedly stirring a bubbling pot of oatmeal contemplating if the damp roads require Chacos or tennis shoes for the day. Oh crap, I forgot to add cinnamon before all the water absorbed.

11:57 am - Chicago, Illinios, USA
If I work through lunch I should be able to scoot out of the office half an hour early so I can make that yogalaties class and shower before my dinner date. I’ll just call him and tell him to meet me at the restaurant rather than picking me up at home. Oh crap, my boss just emailed another assignment.

11:57 am - Maychew, South Tigray, Ethiopia
Well, we had two meetings this morning so I guess there’s no harm in going home for lunch 33 minutes early. We walked to both of them so we definitely deserve an afternoon nap. Oh crap, here comes that crazy man who holds my hand all the time, maybe he won’t see me. Impossible; I’m the only white person in this town.

1:57 pm - Chicago, Illinois, USA.
Yawn. Five hours of sleep is NOT enough. I’ll try to go to bed early tonight. Oh crap, Obama is supposed to be on John Stewart tonight.

1:57 pm - Maychew, South Tigray, Ethiopia
What a nice nap that was. But the temperature must have gone up 10 degrees during lunch. Oh crap, another person to say "hi" to. At this rate it will take me an hour to get back to the office.

2:57 pm - Chicago, Illinois, USA
Man I am really tired today. I’ll go get a Diet coke from the break room.

2:57 pm - Maychew, South Tigray, Ethiopia
Today is the first of the month, I forgot. Well, enough work for today, time for the monthly office coffee ceremony!

8:57 pm - Chicago, Illinois, USA
This candle lit restaurant really has character. It’s almost like dining in a real Italian village!

8:57 pm - Maychew, South Tigray, Ethiopia
This candle will probably only last until the end of the chapter I’m on. This village electricity problem is getting old. Time for bed I guess!

10:57 pm - Chicago, Illinois, USA
What a crock, Iran always messes up the best Stewart interviews.

10:57 pm - Maychew, South Tigray, Ethiopia
...Dreaming...zzz...zzz...I’m driving a car, eating pizza and chocolate ...zzz...zzz... avoid the donkey....wait, what is a donkey doing on Lake Shore Drive?...

I often consider what I would be doing if I were not in Ethiopia trying to ‘save the world’. I would probably be driving a car AND eating pizza and chocolate on a regular basis, but I wouldn’t know what a luxury that was. I would probably be concerned that I might lose my job (presuming I found one after graduation) and therefore be willing to sacrifice personal time and interests to ‘get ahead’. I would probably have at least a date or two. I’ve had plenty of offers here but there’s something odd having your first date in his parent’s house to drink coffee, so I usually decline. I probably wouldn’t greet every fourth person I pass in the street and DEFINITELY wouldn’t have little boys with no pants and filthy hands sprinting to shake my hand and say, “Hi Miss Jally” before I’m out of sight.

I would (hopefully) be making more than $157.89 USD per month, but wouldn’t be saving upwards of 40% of my net income. I wouldn’t be the guest of honor at every event I attend, but I would be able to walk down the street anonymously. I would probably be able to ask anyone what day or date it is and get the correct answer. Its not that the people here don’t care, its just that one day is no different from the next and they are happy and content everyday. At home I fill the coffee maker at night to save time the following morning. Here I fill my teapot at night because there may not be water the following morning.

Work moves a LOT slower here. If success is measured in simply completion of the task and the time it took to do it then the US is the clear winner. But if you factor in personal relationships, stress level, and whether your collegues know how your family is doing, then Ethiopia gives the states a run for her money. I think little by little, this country is learning to work as efficiently as possible, given their constraints (frequent power outages, lack of transportation, and poor communication lines). But what they do have is true community. This was easy for me to see, coming in as an outsider. On the short walk from my compound to my office I greet the kids selling cactus fruit, the furniture maker, the coffee house waitress, the boy who repairs tires, the tele-center booth worker, the vegetable merchant, the group of hoodlum kids outside the hotel, the shoe shine boy, and the guard of our building.

Who do you greet between your house and your office? Who’s got it right?

Money and mission

2009-06-21T08:38:00.003-05:00

I guess many people were wondering how exactly I receive the miniscule amount of money I live on each month. There are modern banks in Ethiopia... government run in all their glory. Peace Corps deposits my monthly living allowance into my account and within about 10 days, I can take it out. A fairly western system, minus the online account balances and bill pay, of course. I still have to wait in line (although my white skin reluctantly moves me to the front many times) and pay my landlord with a stack of cash. As far as checks or credit cards, I have yet to see either, or even hear of a place that will take them outside of the Sheraton in Addis.

I have also been asked to write more about my “work”. This is a poor description of what I am actually doing on a daily basis. To the untrained eye, it may seem that I am on a two year paid vacation in small town Ethiopia. BUT with President Obama and the thousands of former Peace Corps volunteers behind me, I can say that just being here is making a difference. You may find the actual Peace Corps website helpful (www.peacecorps.gov) but I’ll paraphrase the 3 goals of the organization:

1. To educate other nations about American culture and values
2. To learn about other cultures and spread that knowledge back in the US
3. To connect skilled workers with developing countries promoting peace and modernization from within a community

Therefore, me going about my daily activities such as going to the bank, shopping, attending sporting and cultural events, hanging out in the office, and just meeting with friends, and then writing about it to my blog audience, in letters and emails accomplishes goals one and two. Now, I am here for an HIV/AIDS prevention program, which, in MY opinion, is a good way to fund the program (through PEPFAR) but pigeonholes the actual ‘work’ many of us volunteers do. We are expected to report on our activities from the perspective that HIV/AIDS prevention is the ultimate aim of any projects we work on, but it doesn’t have to be the only objective.

“So what does a typical day look like for you, Jill?”

Each one varies greatly but many days I go into the local government health office, where I have been given a desk in an office I share with my counterpart, Halefom. Halefom is employed by another government agency called the HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Office but since there is no department for this other than him, he is also part of the health office. I am not really given anything to do here so I don’t feel that it is productive to spend 40 hours a week in my office, as nice as it is. Halefom is responsible for “mobilizing” different government and non-government sectors to work on HIV prevention. Together we made up an informational and discussion provoking handout for each of the sectors to display and met with each one to discuss any prevention activities they already do. We also got involved with the anti-AIDS clubs in the schools, particularly the high school. We help with any major activities of the health office such as the TB awareness campaign, the health extension package in the homes of community members and statistical reporting. He and I have been attending the ‘chaibunna’ (tea and coffee) programs of the PLWHA association (People Living with HIV/AIDS) on a weekly basis.

As far as a major, funded project goes, I’m in the very beginning stages of attempting to set up a computer center at the youth association. The head of the youth center, Meressa, and I plan on applying for a grant through the U.S. Embassy self-help program to fund the purchase of a number of computers for recreational and educational use. This was an idea he had before I ever came to Maychew and I am excited to be a part of it. I’ll keep you posted on the status as it progresses.

For those of you sending encouraging letters and packages, thank you so much. I was overwhelmed at the post office when I got back from a trip in southern Ethiopia. I had more boxes than I could carry home! Before I left I had a dry spell and got no mail for almost two weeks. I started to think I’d been forgotten! But thankfully, it’s very much over! However, there is a literal dry spell here in the north. The rainy season has not come yet, despite a few short evening showers. This means that the electricity (hydropower) and water is off every other day now. So send good, wet karma my way!

2009-06-12T14:08:00.004-05:00

A note from Jill's mom about mailing things to her...

For those who want to know if there's things Jill still needs, here's my best guess:
1) Letters, pictures, cards and email from friends & family. Her last email sounded like she was discouraged, so anything you can do to inspire or amuse her would be appreciated.
2) paperback books - bestseller type (books mailed to her include: The Red Tent, Girls Guide to Hunting & Fishing, Water is Wider, Into Thin Air, The Devil in the White City, German Boy, The Secret Life of Bees, Why Do Men Have Nipples, The Color of Water, Like Water for Chocolate, The Alchemist, There is no me without you, Memoirs of a Geisha, Eat, Pray, Love, Nobody’s Fool, The Rainmaker, Body & Soul, The Divine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood, The Devil in the White City, You Shall Know Our Velocity!, The Bean Tree, And Then There Were None, The Emigrants, The Book Thief, All the Pretty Horses, Where the Lilies Bloom, Inherit the Wind, Cannery Row, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Kite Runner, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, Water for Elephants, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, One Good Turn, When Crickets Cry)
3) stationary for writing long letters to you all!!
4) DVD movies
5) shampoo/conditioner -- travel size or samples are fine
6) chocolate (she's received lots of M&M's), Laughing Cow Cheese or other similar sealed cheese (apparently we Americans are foolishly refrigerating many things that don't really need to)

SHIPPING TIPS
• U.S. Mail FLAT RATE BOXES or ENVELOPES are the cheapest way to ship.
• Shipping rates for them can be found here:
www.usps.com/prices/priority-mail-international-prices.htm#E
• Pickup an envelope or box (there's 2 sizes of boxes) at post office before you start to buy things or pack, so you can see how much space you'll have and will be aware of how much it will cost. Several people have reported near heart attacks at the post office when they found out shipping rates!

Here's my house in Maychew

2009-06-12T08:55:00.008-05:00

Enjoy the tour!

My Host family photos

2009-05-01T11:23:00.008-05:00

While in Peace Corp training, I spent 3 months living with a host family in Ambo, Ethiopia. This is Hotel Takastee, my host family's business. One of the sisters also ran the small "boutique" shop attached to the hotel.

The photo below was taken in the "den" of my host family with the women Tidag, Chu Chu, China and Tsyone. To the right are their children Izzannah, Alvele and Poppi who loved playing with my stuff and helped me learn the Amharic alphabet.

Below photos are of Mekelle, Ethiopia, a nearby town.

A day in Maychew

2009-05-01T10:44:00.003-05:00

Sometimes I forget that I am living in a developing country in Africa. Like when I am startled awake by my cell phone alarm, hit snooze, and get up in just enough time to make breakfast and be at my desk in the Health Office by a reasonable hour. Well, this sounds like a western-style morning, except there is rarely a shower (or even running water for that matter) involved in my morning routine and breakfast is usually oatmeal and tea cooked over my little charcoal stove. Not exactly like life in the states, huh?

But seriously, my life here is much more comfortable in some respects than I ever imagined it would be. I can eat at a restaurant and even order wine or a beera kesskasa (cold beer), provided the electricity has been on to power fridge. Then there are other times when I couldn’t be farther from where I was just a year ago. Particularly those evenings when the power is out and I find myself cooking dinner, brushing my teeth, practicing yoga, and reading in bed all by candlelight, or thanks to a package from my mom’s friends, my new headlamp!

Last Thursday I gave my first tutorial at the high school for 9th and 10th grade students who are members of the anti-AIDS club. I teach English through discussion and games having to do with health and HIV/AIDS. The students were really engaged and the teachers who hung around to help and observe were stunned by my ‘revolutionary’ teaching methods (a bit of an exaggeration if you ask me, plus I bear no responsibility to evaluate the students performance, we just have fun together.) I don’t know if this is an Ethiopia-specific thing, a foreign thing, or a Maychew thing, but all of the posters hung on the walls of the school have been jazzed up with splashes of colorful paint or rubbings of leaves. The anti-AIDS club meets in the office of the school health worker (like a school nurse but with much less medical supplies) so naturally there are health-related posters all over. I’m not sure who made the executive decision of where to put which poster but whomever it was chose to put the tie-dyed female reproductive system right next to the blackboard. Yea.

We were going through the alphabet in English, coming up with words for each letter that had to do with HIV (A-AIDS, ART B-blood, breast C-condom, D-drug, etc) and every time I turned around to write another word on the board I was met face to face with a bright red, yellow, and blue uterus; quite a shocking image for a Thursday afternoon. I found myself trying to remember what my high school health classroom looked like.

Throughout the lesson my surroundings were a gentle reminder that I am very much in a developing country. The door to the classroom (which opens directly into the schoolyard) was off its hinges, merely propped against the door jam with enough room for thin Ethiopians to enter and exit without moving it. The blackboard eraser was so saturated with chalk dust it paints the board gray each time it is used. The volleyball net is not a net at all, just two ropes strung between poles, and the fence surround the grounds is several rows of barbed wire. But I was amongst a group of students who very excited to learn and potentially educate and mobilize their community to stop the spread of disease. The students attacked each challenge I posed to them with vigor not often seen in western students. Although their resources are meager, they really do make the most of what the do have.

Q & A

2009-04-25T13:03:00.003-05:00

The following are some questions I’ve received in emails and letters, and the answers will hopefully be interesting for the whole audience!

Are you having any minor health issues or catching communicable diseases and how do you treat them?
-My cousin Carrie, upon revealing she has ringworm, AGAIN, from her preschool students

As I am sure you all want the nitty gritty details of my health, I actually have had a few issues since being in country. The worst of which was a bacterial infection somewhere in my digestive system. It resulted in a lot of vomiting (I learned Ethiopian food is very unappetizing in reverse!) serious diarrhea, a chronic tummy knot, and a lot of sleep interrupted by trips to the bathroom for one of the aforementioned symptoms. For this I took an antibiotic and avoided any food with color, taste, or smell, drank some revolting oral re-hydration concoctions and rested. All was well within a few days.

I also had my feet swell up to the size of papayas one afternoon. The previous night I had been out gallivanting with the other trainees at Georgie’s, our favorite watering hole in Ambo, which has quite a lot of vegetation, and thus, a lot of bugs. I though my feet had been feasted on by mosquitoes, but the next day when they looked like giant fruits instead of feet, I figured it had to be some other creature. (I was wearing my Chacos at the time so when my feet were the most swollen they looked like two obese opera singers in black strappy corsets.... 3 sizes too small!) The problem was ramified with some hydrocortisone cream to relieve the itching, large amounts of Benadryl which induced large amounts of naps, and lying on my back with my feet above my head. I will never know how it happened!

How is your luggage holding up?
-My mom

Well, rolling suitcases were probably not the most practical decision for a trek to Africa, however, the big blue bags are holding up quite well. I have to admit, they’ve been carried by generous Ethiopians (on their heads) more than they have been rolled in this country. They are much dirtier, but still have all the zippers and handles that they left with!

Is it dumb to ask if there is a grocery store near you?
-My mom

In Addis, 660km from Maychew, there is such thing as a ‘supermarket’. At these said institutions, many things typically found in an American grocery store can be purchased. There is no such thing in Maychew. There is a big market on Saturdays where one can buy basic house wares (pots, pans, silverware... although no butter knives), some furniture, and the basic livestock (donkeys, sheep, goats, chickens and cows). The butter is rolled into balls and wrapped in large green leaves, the eggs are sold individually, the sugar and salt (which looks like road salt) is sold by the kilo, and the only fruits and veggies are tomatoes, onions, garlic, cabbage, potatoes, carrots, limes, oranges and bananas. The whole operation is BYOB, Bring Your Own Bag.

What are you doing putting stamps with critically endangered rhinos on them on the envelope? Aren’t there any lollipop stamps in Africa?
-My former co-worker Wally

There are two men who run the Post Office in Maychew one is young and really fun and the other is a seriously crotchety old man. When the old guy is working, he keeps the stamps in a top secret binder that he will not open in front of me so I just have to tell him the dollar amount of stamps that I want and he produces a strip from his little book. The young guy, Mengestu, is really great and usually greets me at the gate by saying, “Oh Jilleya it is good day today, you have full box” (which usually makes me giggle) or “the parcel is here you for!” Keep my box full!

Jill Meade
PO Box 51
Maychew, South Tigray
Ethiopia
East Africa

What’s been your most favorite thing over there so far?
-My college roommate, Hilary
Well Hil, remember how I used to sit on your bed munching on spinach with ketchup while we studied History of Biology? Those days are long gone for me. So I would have to say one of my least favorite things is the lack of variety in cuisine to qualm my bizarre cravings. But from one coffee lover to another, the java here is unbeatable!

How are the Ethiopians at speaking English? Is it so hard to communicate sometimes?
-My friend Rachel

Communicability all depends on whom I am talking to. Some have wonderful English and are even able to pick up on my cultural nuances and sarcasm but a lot gets lost in translation. One of my favorite mix-ups was when I was on a trip to visit a stone church in a nearby town and an Ethiopian was telling me about ‘praying monkeys’. I figured he had to be talking about praying mantises, which I don’t know a whole lot about. But when he was explaining that they like to wear brown robes in Ethiopia I got a little confused. When he told me the praying monkeys only eat one meal a day and usually it is porridge I stopped him and tried to figure out what the heck he was telling me about. It was monks, not monkeys :)

Swearing-in Ceremony

2009-04-05T16:31:00.005-05:00

After the Peace Corp swearing-in ceremony, I got to pose with mini-Ambassador Yamamoto in front of the American Embassy in Adis Ababa, Ethiopia. This is my most precious picture EVER! The below video is my speech at the ceremony. The other photo from the Swearing-In day is the other PC volunteers in my group and others who attended including Ambassador & Mrs. Nwando and other embassy staff.

This is our entire PC volunteer group and others who attended including Ambassador & Mrs. Nwando and other embassy staff.

Ethiopian Eats

2009-03-16T15:26:00.007-05:00

I'm reading a new book called Eat, Pray, Love, and the first section is set in Italy where the main character gives mouthwatering descriptions of the food she enjoys in the culinary wonderland of Rome. I also received an email from my brother who listed a few items he would be willing to send in a package from one of his ports in Europe. Even the idea of spiced olives makes me want to board the plane and try and get a job with the cruise line he works for. And at the request of my mother, along with others, I will tell you a little bit about my typical fare and its preparations.

To even begin telling you about my typical diet, I have to explain where I acquire my food and the conditions in which it is prepared. There is a big market day on Saturdays (think the quaint farmer’s market in Holland, Michigan, run by rural Ethiopians. Multiply it by 100 and exchange the parking spaces for donkey cart parking). I usually buy tomatoes, potatoes, onions, garlic, lettuce, cabbage, carrots, eggs, bananas and oranges or some combination of the above depending on what's available, fresh, and what I have use for. Most of the produce is bought by the kilo or the bundle, and eggs are whatever price I can negotiate that day with Desta, the 16-year-old I usually buy from. Today I paid 4 birr for 5 eggs, and they were a pretty good size! There are small suks (shops) not bigger than my bedroom in Geneva that have various food items as well, a lot more of the “packaged” stuff like pasta, salt, sugar, wheat flour, rice, lentils, popcorn, oil, peanut butter, oats, etc. When I say packaged, I mean they put a poor quality plastic bag on the scale and fill it from a giant woven sack until it weighs a kilo then tie it up and hand it over. Rolls of bread are two for 1 birr but only last a few days so I usually buy them from a suk every couple of days. Needless to say, I am eating quite organically these days, and everything is from scratch because there is no other option.

On to my kitchen. I have a room maybe 4x6 feet with a mini-fridge, a sink, and a propane stove with no tank. The tank was sent to Mekelle 3 weeks ago to be filled but hasn’t yet returned. Therefore I also have a tin charcoal stove made from an American-made vegetable oil can that stands maybe 8” tall. It takes me about 20 minutes to get it lit and ready to cook on, but this is a vast improvement from the hour it took my first attempt.

My first week I made some pasta sauce that I was pretty proud of from just tomatoes, onions, garlic, oil, and the local red wine. No recipe, just my taste buds! I have learned to cook cabbage in an edible way, as I’ve never eaten it without the juice of corned beef. I’m perfecting my omelet, and I can make some pretty mean oatmeal. My first time making lentil burgers made me realize the importance of thoroughly washing and sorting my raw materials because I think I consumed a good amount of dirt and a few small rocks in that meal! As far as local foods, I might suggest you google some images to get a better idea of what they look like.

The main food item consumed here is injera, a large sour tasting crepe thing, made from a grain called tef. Injera is used as a utensil as well as filler. With the injera there are different types of wat, a stew/soup type thing made from beans, legumes, meat, or veggies. My favorite is shiro, but only with tinish burboree (little spice). I am still working on this dish. I have hopes of creating a dutch oven to do some baking and I’m sure I’ll get more and more creative as I learn to cook the local foods.

All this being said, I have created another wish list!
• measuring spoons
• tea
• a few butter knives
• pesto mix, like McCormick in seasoning section of most groceries (sent 1 package 3/21/09, but she's saving it for a special occasion, so feel free to send more!)
• Laughing Cow cheese (other PC volunteers have received these in fine shape)
• pine nuts, almonds
• extra virgin olive oil
• duct tape
• crayons
• blank CDs
• deodorant (they only have the spray here, blech!)
• chocolate
• books (Here are the books I have read while in Ethiopia: The Secret Life of Bees, Why Do Men Have Nipples?, The Color of Water, Like Water for Chocolate, The Alchemist, There Is No Me Without You, Memoirs of a Geisha, Eat, Pray, Love, Nobody’s Fool, The Rainmaker, And Then There Were None)
• stationery & envelopes (for writing long letters when electricity is off and I can't use my computer)

Many thanks to everyone for the letters, photos, email & other items. It's a wonderful day when I get something from friends & family at home!

My Two Lists

2009-02-25T09:34:00.004-06:00

To commemorate, well, celebrate in a weird way, my first three months in Ethiopia I have compiled two lists. Enjoy!

Integration? Adaptation? I think so!
Things that no longer phase me:
1. Walking past piles of very large bones, including skulls, licked clean
2. Walking around used condoms...everywhere!
3. Estimating how many times a pile of poop has been walked on before deciding whether to step on it or around it; sometimes it's unavoidable!
4. Not flushing soft down the toilet
5. Never leaving home without tissues or a roll of soft
6. Calling toilet paper soft
7. Rolling up my pant legs before entering a bathroom (Cuz nobody likes shint bět bottoms!)
8. Clapping at waiters to get their attention
9. Restaurants never having menus
10. Restaurants having the blue plate special, and only the blue plate special
11. BYOW (bring your own water) to restaurants, or drink at your own risk!
12. Not tipping my waiter
13. Male (and occasionally female) public urination (they are usually kind enough to turn their backs to the street but if the power is outin the early evening, they often underestimate the amount of natural light and pee freely
14. Citizens strolling with their AK 47s slug over their shoulders like their newest handbag
15. Having the Chief of Police's personal cell number...just in case

Reality Check: I'm not in America anymore!
Things that surprise me now but never would have at home:
1. If an internet page loads in 4 minutes or less
2. Walking into a shint bět that has a toilet, sink, and gasp, soft!
3. Wait, you're watching BBC? Wait, you have more than one TV channel?!?
4. You're kidding, 17 birr! ($1.70) That was an expensive breakfast!
5. Receiving a grammatically correct (or even sensical) text message
6. The same store selling bananas, bread, and peanut butter
7. Correctly spelled signs in English (What does a "Weeding Cake" taste like?)

Its a little imbalanced, but an interesting reflection nonetheless I think.

Halefom the Comedian

2009-02-18T09:49:00.001-06:00

I suppose I should preface this story with the note that I hear the words, "You, you," just about every 50 feet when walking around town. This is the only word many Ethiopians know in English and it is their way of saying hello and pointing out the foreigner. Depending on the day and my mood I may smile and wave back, understanding they don't mean harm by pointing out the outsider, or stomp home in a huff and try to check my attitude at the door.

My counterpart thinks he is hilarious at times, and I am willing to give him props for his sense of comedic timing even with English as his second language. We were walking back to my house last night and discussing the recent tetanus vaccination campaign in Maychew and other health-related stuff. He told me that there was a new virus in town. Shocked, I asked what the virus was. He said it was called the, "You, you!" virus and I was the mode of transmission!

One thing that does make us both laugh is anytime I yawn; he looks into my gaping mouth and asks, "Is it for rent?"

My usual response is, "Its not ready yet, it needs to be painted."

What a bunch of jokesters :)

The Beginning

2009-02-18T09:39:00.002-06:00

Day One: Maychew

11:45 am- I was dropped off by the contracted mini bus right at my front door, which immediately made me wish I had bought more stuff when I was in Addis the few days before. My house looked exactly as I had left it, only the adjoining bedroom was now vacant for my use. I dragged all my stuff inside and said goodbye to the other volunteers who were headed North to Mekelle.

12:30 pm - My counterpart, Halefoam came over to help me settle in and my landlord came home from work for lunch. I ate some shiro and injera and hung out for a coffee ceremony. Then the three of us headed out to buy a bed frame and some laminate flooring for my bedroom. After much arguing in Tigrena, none of which I understood except when numbers were spouted off, we found a quality bed for 1275 birr

1:45 pm - Who knew sheet linoleum could be purchased at a dress maker's shop? Only in Ethiopia, I swear, do these two things make sense to sell from the same location. I asked my landlord the dimensions of the bedroom and he seemed to think a sheet 2x3 meters would be sufficient. After deciding on a gray tile-like pattern (it blends with the duct tape holding it down) it took 3 employees, my landlord, my counterpart and myself to measure, cut and roll up the purchase.

2:15 pm - We unrolled the plastic, it wouldn't lie flat and didn't cover the whole room. "Betami tsbuq" Halefoam said. (Very good). I didn't have the heart to tell them I was less than ecstatic about it. So now I'm hoping the sun will warm it up a little so I can stretch it across the floor and pull out some of the ridges.

7:00 pm - I was having dinner with Halefoam (I ordered tibs, chunks of meat eaten with injera...yes, its true....I ordered meat) and he asked if I wanted to go watch the Manchester United game at 8. I agreed not knowing where we were going.

8:09 pm - I was sandwiched in between countless Ethiopian males between the ages of 8 and 40. I'm pretty sure I was the only female in the room and definitely the only white person, which attracted quite a lot of attention when the lights turned back on. But it saved me the 2 birr entrance fee. It was a good game to watch, especially when I am faking interest in futbol with Man U as my team of choice :)

Day Two

7:36 am - I wake up and look at the clock. I am amazed I naturally wake up this early but it's usually because I have to pee so badly I can't stay in bed for another minute. Because I haven't set up my kitchen, I have nothing to eat except some crushed crackers and peanut butter. I made a peanut-butter-cracker-ball and headed out for a run. When I was on site visit I came across a dirt track near the particleboard factory so walked in the direction I remember it being. I found it with relative ease and found myself already out of breath. I forgot how high in elevation I went the day before so the run turned into two laps and then a brisk walk. I met a girl named Marta who was probably about 15 and schooled me on the second lap. She asked for money as she was lapping me.

11:58 am - I have now showered (with cold water in my cement bathroom), made a second peanut butter cracker ball, and written a blog entry. I have plans to check my PO box to see if any of you love me, head to the HAPCO office and maybe buy some pans. Who knows what the day will have in store for me!

Changes

2009-02-01T19:18:00.006-06:00

Unlike the song (preferably the Tupac version) I woke up one morning and saw many changes. I was in a completely different bedroom, I could see my breath as I exhaled, and I had no clue what the day had in store for me. Nope, I was not back in my room in wintry Chicago, I was on my newly purchased mattress in Northern Ethiopia IN MY NEW HOUSE! Last week I was on my site visit to Maychew, (pronounced my chow, and means 'salty water') which I discovered could make one believe they are not truly in Africa anymore!

Maychew is south, along a windy mountain road, of the city of Mekelle, the region where the Italians and Ethiopians battled for control of Ethiopia. I sure felt the European influence while walking down the cobblestone side streets, peering into boutique windows and celebrating Ronaldo's goal that ensured Man. U's victory against Everton.

I spent a few nights in Mekelle with volunteers who will be placed nearby and our Ethiopian counterparts. Sunday we departed for Maychew so I could see where I will be living for the next two years.

It is much smaller than Mekelle—about 25,000 people—but it still has a bank, post office, many schools, a library and a few other amenities other volunteers will be living without for the next few years. There is no internet cafe in the town, but it seems probable that I will be able to have internet hooked up directly to my home phone line, so no need to worry yet ;)

I visited the town administration, youth organizations, women's associations, a particleboard factory, many of the schools, and the health center, all of whom were quite welcoming. Surprisingly, the particleboard factory wants to get right to work when I return, developing a HIV education program to go along with their yearly testing and counseling program. The mayor made sure I was hydrated, giving me water, pop and coffee all in our 10-minute meeting. I had a wonderful tour of the local technical college and discovered a running track off the beaten path so my recreation doesn't become local entertainment.

I'm sure I will have tons to say about my work when I actually start doing some, but for now my job is adjusting. I am the 51st person to rent a PO box in town and will probably set records for the amount of incoming mail. Want to help me reach those records? Send me something!

Jill Meade
PO Box 51
Maychew, South Tigray
Ethiopia

My 'poor volunteer' wish list ;)
• chocolate
• cheese (i have heard vacuum sealed block cheese or laughing cow will make the journey through the postal system ok)
• really... any good food that can be mailed
• words of encouragement and pictures from home
• disposable razors (6-pack sent 3/21/09)
• good shampoo and conditioner
• AA batteries
• Burt's Bees chap stick
• soft toothbrush (2 toothbrushes sent 3/21/09)
• Crest toothpaste (2 tubes sent 3/21/09)
• any kitchen utensils (tongs sent 3/21/09)
• really good dental floss
• paperbacks (no Danielle Steele or other junk like that)
Note from her Mom...WARNING ON SHIPPING COSTS: Before shipping you might want to estimate your package weight & then use the US Postal Service online calculator (http://ircalc.usps.gov/) before going to the post office. Flat rate envelopes & boxes are available at the Post Office in a few different sizes & from my experience, seem to be the best deal.

I'm sure I'll think of more but this is a good start! And for those of you hoping for pictures... if a CD makes it in one piece across the ocean to my mother, you'll have them! (Including a self-portrait of the infamous "wedding dress"!)

Note from her Mom: When we talked to her this morning, she mentioned that she feels the hardest part is about to begin... that is going off on her own from the 40 other American Peace Corp trainees she's been with daily since early December. She also said she reads every piece of mail from home over and over—so I know she'd appreciates mail. It's only 94¢ to send a letter (up to 1 oz).

Challenges

2009-02-01T19:11:00.002-06:00

Christmas has come and gone. It's now the year 2009. I lived through my site visit to Maychew (more to come on this later) and... what is the next big thing on the calendar? The inauguration! Not having frequent access to American television, or even current news for that matter proved to make this event quite planned. I knew I would be in Maychew Tuesday evening when it would take place, and had no idea where I could possibly watch it. Fear not, for my new landlord has satellite TV in his house! I told him how excited I was to see it and he said I could watch it with him, "chikeraleum," (no problem). Tuesday night came; I was in my new living room with my landlord's wife, while their maid performed a bunna (coffee) ceremony. My counterpart from the local HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Office, Halefoam, called to say the hoopla was starting. We hurriedly moved the ceremony to the main house and changed the channel to the BBC. I felt a rush of emotions as the ceremony unfolded; it was definitely the most moving political event I have personally witnessed. I have a few words for our new President.

Dear President Obama, January 21st, 2009

I heard your speech yesterday, I watched you inspire the millions in front of you, even more watching around the world. It looked bitterly cold there in Washington. I felt a chill as well, both from the navy East African evening air and the velocity of your prose. I sipped rich, sweet Ethiopian coffee, wrapped my scarf a little tighter, and while a pair of small, brown, tired feet rested in my lap you laid blame, created hope, and took command. Your words came filtered through the eyes of the world and were critiqued by one who's English sounds different than my own.

Mr. Obama, you challenged our nation to live up to a higher standard, and through character, start to mend our battered society. My father says that we can all live a hero's journey if our purpose is to live up to our potential. Well, Mr. President, you have done that yourself. Congratulations.

I would like to think I myself am at the beginning of my journey to heroism. By the simple fact that I watched you speak from halfway across the globe, in a living room with 3 women I cannot speak more than a few sentences to marks a road less traveled. However my purpose in this letter and on this path is not self-serving or intended to be congratulatory. It is one of challenge.

I accept your challenge Mr. President, as I simultaneously accept that of President Kennedy's from that historic speech over 40 years ago. I will serve my country, and promote the American brand and do my part to improve things for the sake of humanity. But, let's make a deal.

I want you to improve the quality of education in America. I want you to lower the cost of higher education, making it more widely available, and more affordable. (And if you could do something about the student loans I will have to pay off upon my return that would just be frosting on the cupcake!) I want you to attack climate change seriously and aggressively, be weary of making preservation a business. Spend my family's and friend's tax dollars wisely over the next few years (I'll let you spend mine when I am actually getting paid in dollars, not Ethiopian birr.) And if you are going to hype up programs like my own, Peace Corps, Americorps and the volumes of other NGO service organizations please do everything in your part to protect our existence. Be our advocate and value our contribution.

In exchange I will be a volunteer. I will wear my Obama t-shirt from Moveon.org proudly, and explain to every Ethiopian who questions that you are just as American as me, despite the color of your skin. Yes, you are a son of Africa, but I am a daughter of Europe so lets all remember our origins, recognize our nationality and get to work!

I will officially swear in to the Peace Corps on February 13th, 2009. Just over a month after you began your rocky road to heroism I will start mine. I wish you the best of luck, and may we both truly live up to our potential.

In hope and faith,
Jill Katrina Meade, Peace Corps Trainee

A wedding is a wedding is a wedding

2009-01-11T10:17:00.003-06:00

Ethiopians run on a completely different sense of time. To start, their calendar is now 8 years behind, it is the year 2001 here. There are 13 months on their calendar. The 13th month is really short but varies in length depending on whether it is a leap year or not. Leap years in Ethiopia do not coincide whatsoever with everyone else's leap years. Their clocks are 6 hours different than forenji (foreigner) clocks. So if I have to be at training at 8am, according to Ethiopians it is 2 o'clock. Well, I have to be at training within about 20 minutes of 2 o'clock, because habisha (local) time is quite approximate. As I'm sure you've guessed, it's hard to ever know when I have to be somewhere. And I don't even attempt to explain what day and time it is in Chicago!

A few weeks ago I was in the hotel restaurant my host family owns discussing upcoming events such as Ethiopian Christmas, my host sister's birthday, and a wedding in our neighborhood. I was invited to the wedding by my 'uncle' who was one of the groomsmen. After much discussion we established the wedding was on Saturday, January 10th, around lunchtime. I tried to ask what was appropriate to wear to a wedding in Ethiopia but all I could get out of them was that since I was forenji, I could wear whatever my heart desired. "Great," I thought!

Flash forward to Saturday, January 10th. As I was having my morning chai (tea) and dabbo (bread) my host sister asked where I was having lunch that day. Some days we are served lunch at the Technical college where our training classes are held, and other days we are free to go home or go out for lunch. I couldn't remember where I was supposed to be that day so I looked confusedly at her and she exclaimed that today was the wedding day and started dancing around the room! I was too deep into my morning slump to dance with her but I got pretty excited for the days events.

I went home immediately after class to find nobody there. I was told the wedding started at 1:00 but who knows how accurate that actually was! I changed into a cotton skirt and light sweater and put on my cleanest pair of sandals. It was close to 1:00 but still I was the only one around besides the kids on the compound and their babysitter. I chilled out on the front porch reading and sipping a Pepsi while I waited. Genut, the mother of two of the kids came around and put on her traditional Ethiopian dress. She said what I had on was fine and that I could either walk to the wedding with her and my host grandma or wait for the "young ladies" crowd. My mom piped up from her bedroom that I better wait for the young crowd otherwise people may believe I was a Wezero (a married woman). She summoned me in and I saw that she and my host sister were wearing long, black cocktail dresses, much different than the white, flowy, conservative traditional garb.

She took one look at my outfit and said, "Another." This was her way of telling me I needed to change. I tried to tell her I didn't bring anything fancier and that I was comfortable in what I had on but she wasn't having any of it. She dug in her armoire and produced another black dress. I figured none of their clothes would actually fit as I have about 5 or 6 inches on all of the women in my family. She insisted I try it on anyway. She and my sister squeezed me into a dress 3 sizes too small and said it was "Konjo" (beautiful, perfect, wonderful, etc). I looked down and saw more of my legs exposed than had been since last July in America! I was under the impression Ethiopia encouraged conservative dress. It is not often I see women's shoulders or knees, and that plus more was out for the viewing in this dress! They thought it was the prettiest thing I had worn yet in Ethiopia. So they doused me in perfume, applied some orangy lip gloss and I was whisked out the door.

I received more sideways glances on that short walk to the wedding than I had everyday combined since I have been in Ambo. To see a forenji is a big deal around here, but to see a forenji in a miniscule black cocktail dress is a once in a lifetime sight! As my sisters stumbled over the rocky path in their high heels my ridiculous looking Chaco sandals proved quite resourceful :) We found seats under the huge white tent set up in the front yard of the bride's family's compound. There was quite typical decorations with flowers and balloons, never mind the huge slabs of raw meat hanging near the food tables...

We waited for probably half an hour when my family decided we needed better seats. We made this couple get up so all 5 of us could sit together, but had a much better view of the ceremony. The bride, groom, and bridal party walked in to a huge group of family and friends cheering them on, clapping wildly and chanting things I couldn't understand. They sat at the head table while a prayer was said, then grabbed some food. After every guest had eaten, the bride and groom stood on a pedestal, kissed, and cut the cake. There were a few dances of just the bridal party and then the crazy ethnic dancing started. I had been drinking taj, a local drink that tastes like watered down orange/lemon juice, fermented, with no sugar, so after a few tall glasses, poured by my host mom, I was ready to "get down" with the family. They were impressed by my grasp on the Tigray style of dancing, which basically involves putting your hands near your hips, bouncing your shoulders, and step touching. After an hour or so of dancing, it was all over.

I made it through my first scandalous outfit, large social gathering, and mass consumption of home made alcohol. My friend count is up, my reputation is a little faltered, and my stomach has been tested!

Christmas, again?

2009-01-05T10:58:00.002-06:00

For those of you who are wondering if I was eaten by a lion, my plane crashed in the Atlantic Ocean, or if I died of malaria, no fear I am still alive. One thing Peace Corps Ethiopia failed to mention before my departure is that blogspot is blocked by the Ethiopian government. I was in livid turmoil for a few minutes when I learned this but quickly got over it when the first pick up soccer game with local kids started. I have been finding plenty of things to fill the time with which I planned to write in my blog. I have since outsourced a webmaster in America (my wonderful mother) and hopefully will now be providing updates a little more frequently.

Let me get the details I'm sure you are all wondering about out of the way. I spent 3 days in Addis Ababa when I first arrived in Ethiopia. This was a good but somewhat false introduction to life in Africa. For example, showers. At the hotel we had a hot water heater that seemed to provide unlimited warm showers. However, there was no shower curtain so after my roomate Bonnie and I had both bathed, there was a small pond in our bathroom. We learned the art of brushing out teeth with only bottled water and sleeping through early morning rooster calls and very loud, energetic religious worship of some kind. Our group of 40 moved out to Ambo, about and hour and a half outside of Addis a few days later.

I was then introduced to my host family. The day prior, I was given a sheet listing their names, the number of rooms in the house and whether we had electricity or not. Most families in suburban Africa live on what is called a compound. A compound usually has one larger house and either a smaller house or individual rooms outside the main house all surrounded by a large gate. In my host family's compound there is myself, my 'grandma' Tidag, 3 'sisters' Tsyone, Choo Choo, and China and Tsyone's 4-year-old daughter Aluele. Their brother Eauboo, his wife Ganut and their two boys Izzannah (6) and Poppi (2) live in the other house. There is a gardener boy named Girma who lives in a tin lean-to, a dog and two puppies, two cows, one of which is pregnant, and a few chickens. With this varied bunch, I never know what to expect when I come home. Usually it is some mix of ninja dance parties, being force fed way more than my stomach is built to handle, ETV (Ethiopia's TV channel which mostly shows news in Amharic or really great low budget green screen Ethiopian music videos) or a treasured but short nap.

Training is going. I am learning a ton of Amharic, one of like 70 different languages spoken in Ethiopia. It is crazy hard, and based on an alphabet that has over 200 letters. We sit through a lot of power point presentations by our technical staff that discuss the status of health care and disease in the country along with specifics of HIV and AIDS treatment and availability. We have done a few praticum "Village Visits". I am in a group that goes to a smaller town called Addisalem and we met with many different organizations like the health center and clinic, the Woreda office (local government), Compassion International, a secondary school, and anti-AIDS establishments.

Next Saturday I find out where my site placement will be. I still have 6 more weeks of training but will spend one of those at my site setting up things like a PO Box, meeting my counterpart and supervisor, and beginning an evaluation of the village.

Thank you to everyone who has sent mail, it definitely makes my day to get stuff from home. I have sent some letters already but didn't realize I had to write 'Air Mail' on the envelope so they are probably on a ship in the middle of the ocean somewhere. I had a great Christmas and New Years, but definitely different than the holidays in the states. January 7th is Christmas in Ethiopia so I'll compare and contrast for my captive audience soon :)

I'm sending warm African sun vibes your way and keeping you all in my thoughts!

2008-12-02T22:53:00.002-06:00

Today: I flew from Chicago to DC...no hassles except emptying my life out in front of many people at the airport to change 17 pounds from one suitcase to another. I sat through 6 hours of in-your-face Peace Corps training and preparation. I ate some good DC-style pizza and had a few beers with the group of wonderful people I am about to embark on this journey with.

Tomorrow: pizza at George Washington University Medical School to meet a few future docs that may be able to answer some HIV/AIDS questions for us. Shots at a clinic. 4 hours at the airport and boarding the plane about 8:30 to arrive the following night at 7:30 local time.

I may not have access to email or the blog so know that I am safe, happy, with good people and ready for this adventure!!

Allyance

2008-12-01T13:21:00.004-06:00

I have been making many new purchases in anticipation of my trip. I have been buying things I never thought I would be adventurous enough to use, such as a headlamp. (My dad was quite jealous of that one!) By far, the best thing I have acquired is the mustard-yellow all weather rain coat that I bought while my college roommate, Holly, was visiting last week. A nod to effective advertising....I decided to buy the coat despite the putrid color mostly because of the all purpose description on the tag. It reads as follows:

"The allyance cannot be defined. Like you, we are always changing. Changing our plans, changing our clothes, changing up the whole program and letting it rip. Born from the world of action sports, we've grown into a monster. From the traffic jam to the halfpipe, to the afterparty to the VIP. We've got hardcore roots, but on the exterior, we're a bit more refined. We don't follow, we feed the charge, in both style and stoke. First one up, last one standing: 24/7-365, or maybe even 151. The Allyance is all about freedom; choices that fit your lifestyle. Like you, we've developed a unique style without limitations, without apologies. The Allyance is about getting gone. Getting hyped. Getting what you want without having to ask. We are in a constant state of evolution and we cannot be stopped. www.theallance.com"

Now tell me you wouldn't have bought the mustard yellow raincoat.

I'll post a picture from the first VIP, halfpipe, or monsoon I encounter in Ethiopia :)

"I'm gonna write you a letter..."

2008-12-01T12:06:00.001-06:00

My mailing address for the first 10 weeks is:

Jill Meade, Peace Corps Trainee
P.O. Box 7788
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Send me stuff!

The Farewell Fiesta!

2008-11-24T11:13:00.002-06:00

My wonderful friend Sarah, threw a going away party for me Saturday night. Although it makes the process of leaving even harder to have a big event celebrating my departure, the party was oodles of fun. I have to give a special shout out to all the Hope College attendees who came from far and wide (well, mostly Chicago) to be at this glorious event. You may enjoy the following video of my friends Annie and Brandon (with a cameo by Jeremiah) dictating their feelings about my trip.

With 7.5 days before I actually board the plane at O'Hare I have a few feelings that can actually be put into words: excitement, nervousness, anticipation, apprehension, confusion, wonder, and surprise. Surprise mostly because a part of me doesn't believe I am actually doing this. Let the countdown begin!

Moving on

2008-11-13T16:50:00.007-06:00

Today was my last day at In the Swim, the pool supply company I have been working for since graduation. I arrived to find my desk decorated for an African Safari. The decorations were great, although one of my co-workers, Walter, needs a lesson on colors because he seemed to think lions came in red, blue, pink, and black. I loved them despite the psychedelic color scheme.

Can you handle it?

2008-11-09T07:51:00.003-06:00

Who is this blog for? It's not for those who want to make sure I am getting the proper amounts of protein and veggies. It's not for any who may be worried about the coordination of my outfit or how my hair is reacting to my new environment. It is definitely, definitly not for the faint of heart, weak stomached, or those with a particularly serious demeanor. That is not to say you will never hear about the food I eat, the clothes I wear, the frazzled state of my coif, the trials of a health educator, the heartbreak of an American volunteering in a developing country, or the joy in finding human connection. You most definitely will. May this first entry serve as a warning. Proceed with caution!