Hey from Mekelle!
We’re doing well here with less than two weeks left in Mekelle, then we hang out in Addis Ababa for a few days then head home—it’s insane and seems completely unreal. Our programs are still going well and we are enjoying what we do. This week was our last with the orphan girls and I was one of the most depressing moments of my life to say “see ya later” to them. Things are going well at the Youth Center and we are still teaching English and playing way too much Uno. We have been able to visit a few outside villages this past week and it’s been really cool to experience a little more of rural Ethiopia. We are in the process of preparing for the other UPC team to arrive as well (they get here in a little under a week!). We are also hoping to go on a little hiking excursion this weekend with the Irish guys, because you’ve gotta climb at least one mountain while you are in Ethiopia, right?
We have also been continuing to hang out with the middle and high school aged girls that are at the youth center. Last week was kind of long, especially because of me being sick and we also had quite a few visitors, so we decided to just have the older high school girls over for a movie on Sunday afternoon. We invited them to come over around 2pm, but really even when you give them a time, they will basically just show up whenever they want. One girl, Rahel, showed up about 40 minutes early (and really, what is more awkward than trying to entertain one person who doesn’t have fantastic English? You can only talk about what they did the night before for so long). Then our friend Jamba showed up right on time (Jamba is the best- we really wouldn’t be able to survive here without her). We were expecting three or four others, so we waited, and finally about 30 minutes later our friends Helen, Winta, and Semhal showed up. So we started the movie (Mr. And Mrs. Smith) and we were all kind of tired and enjoying not doing anything too exhausting. Well, about an hour into the movie, we heard a loud knock on the gate. So I threw on some shoes and ran out to the gate. I opened it and was surprised to see our friends Yeshi, Atsede, Eyrosalem, and Eyro’s little sister, Fana (Fana might be coming home with us if we can convince her to travel in one of our duffle bags). These three older girls are the younger middle school aged ones and are super fun. We didn’t exactly invite them over, but they showed up anyway and informed me that they really wanted to make us coffee (and really, why on earth would we ever turn down coffee?). So they came in and pretty soon everyone seemed to be doing something different. I should preface this with the fact that when we are aware of certain people coming over to our house, we “Ethiopian-proof” the house according to who is coming over. Since it was just the high schoolers, we put away our ipods and cameras and anything that would show that we have expensive things just so we don’t tempt them to take anything. When we invite the middle schoolers over though, we usually put away all our food because they always ask for it. So we had nine Ethiopians running around our house while trying to keep an eye on all of our things. It was literally just ridiculous. Rahel and Jamba were just talking in the corner, Winta, Helen and Semhal found Mindy’s “In-Touch” magazine and were screaming on the couch when they found someone they knew. They also enjoyed cutting out pictures (don’t worry, we were basically done reading the whole thing—and it was pretty outdated). While the older girls were in their own little worlds, the middle schoolers were busy preparing the coffee ceremony. Atsede was attempting to figure out how to light the gas burner on our stove (yes, it IS necessary to turn on the propane before you hold the match up to the burner), Eyro was making popcorn (Ethiopians put sugar on their popcorn-weird, right?), and Yeshi was outside grinding the freshly roasted coffee beans (I got to help with this part and now really want to grind coffee by hand, though I’m sure my passion for this will disappear once I get home). Little Fana found Mindy’s headlamp and was completely amused for about an hour that she only had to move her head and then as if it were some sort of magic trick, the light would shine in the same direction. Mindy and I just stared at each other and were completely overwhelmed by everything that was going on around us. Once the gas burner was under control and coffee was boiling we were in business and ready for our coffee ceremony. Traditionally Ethiopians do three rounds of coffee, using the same coffee ground each time, so progressively the coffee gets weaker (but even the last round is still amazing). You pass around popcorn or cookies in between and just get to smell amazing coffee for a good hour. By this point, our house was pretty smoked filled due to the roasting of the beans and the cooking of the popcorn on the stove. Our house is pretty “western-ized” by Ethiopian standards because many of them don’t have actual floors, so they just throw things on the ground of their home and its no big deal, because its just like the ground outside. So popcorn is getting thrown on the ground, coffee is being spilled, and everyone just walks on it, dragging it with them wherever they choose to walk next. Our poor tiled floors haven’t seen much worse than it did over those two hours. The ground literally felt like a sticky movie theater, but the coffee was totally worth it. It was fun to hang out and just enjoy a little bit of Ethiopian culture in our house. After coffee and kicking the middle schoolers out, we were thoroughly exhausted and ready for bed because entertaining nine Ethiopians is about the equivalent of entertaining 900 Americans. We are having only the middle schoolers over this weekend for a pancake night and another coffee ceremony, we provide the pancakes, and they prepare the amazing coffee. So hopefully it will be another good night.
It’s completely insane that it is going to be our second to last weekend here, but we’re trying to just take everything this last week and a half as it comes and enjoy it all.
I’ll leave you with another fun fact about Ethiopia: just because there is a hot water heater in your house does not guarantee that you will ever get a hot shower J
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Thursday, June 19, 2008
update three
Oh heeeeeeey, from Ethiopia!
I honestly feel like I am in an alternate universe where time moves at a ridiculously fast pace. We leave Mekelle in less than 3 weeks and we are officially freaking out about it. Our routine is still in full swing with not a whole lot more to report; we still visit the girls’ orphanage two mornings a week (and its still the highlight of my life), though this morning we were informed that most of them go home to extended family members during the summer and they leave NEXT WEEK. It was literally the most depressing news I’ve had in a while, so we are enjoying our last few times with them and attempting to make 60 friendship bracelets by next week (I know, we are so ambitious and crafty). We still go to the blind school on Friday mornings and play crazy games and have an amazing time. We have been attempting to make it to the house for the older blind girls in the morning…but mostly we don’t make it because on the way we find the most wonderful street kids to hang out and play with. These kids are so fun, we entertain ourselves for the longest time with a rolled up pair of socks. All our programs at the youth center are going well, too. Teaching English is still one of the hardest things to do (you can’t tell them that the word ‘apple’ starts with the letter A because 1) they don’t know the word apple and 2) there are no apples in Ethiopia). We play Bingo and it is insane, and an organized table tennis tournament causes enough excitement to stop the train of camels passing by outside. We still live off of Ethiopian coffee, and its amazing-ness still hasn’t worn off.
The two Irish guys arrived this past weekend and are working on getting into their routine. They have some pretty thick accents though and at times we have a harder time understanding what they are saying that we do with the Ethiopians. They seem fun though and we are glad to have some other ferengis to hang out with. In other news, we still don’t have power every other day, and for some reason we were out of water for 4 or 5 days (which is really the worst thing that can happen), but we recently got it back and we are hoping that will put life back to normal for a while (well- as normal as life can be here). Other exciting news—as of earlier this week I was officially the first one to get sick; I’ll spare you details, but I assure you it wasn’t fun and I am thankful to be feeling better now. Mindy is still hanging in there though and is set on being the third of the 76 short term-ers to be here and not get sick (we’re all rooting for her and there is talk of a plaque being made in her honor if she makes it).
I have also made it two weeks without having another stick thrown at me! (there was a rock incident, but the guy had TERRIBLE aim, and missed by about 5 feet…amateur). The men aren’t any better, but we are better at ignoring them and avoiding objects (I challenge you to dodgeball when I return).
That’s really all there is to update you on as of now, but if you are feeling ambitious and want to keep reading I am going to share our mini-bus story from a few weeks ago when we went hiking…
We had a day off from work on a Wednesday (some Ethiopian holiday I think its called “fall of the durg” or something), so Mindy, Joel and I, along with an Ethiopian friend named Philemon, decided to check out a waterfall that is popular among the Ethiopians. The place is called Roamanaut (well, that’s what it sounds like to me at least), and it we were promised we wouldn’t be disappointed. The four of us made our way into town to find a minibus that would take us out of town to a place where we could start our hike. Well, we finally found the mini-bus and after Philemon did some bartering for us we agreed to a reasonable price. We had to wait until the van was full though, which took a little longer than expected. People who were already on the bus got impatient waiting for the driver to leave and would get off, leaving us there hoping someone else would get on. Well, almost 2 hours after getting into the car we left. We weren’t envisioning a far journey out of town, but we just kept going…and going…and going. Then we went some more. The road was no longer paved and we were basically driving through villages. We picked up some more people on the way, which was fine because a few had gotten out earlier, but it was still pretty crowded. At this point Mindy and I were wedged into a seat next to an old smelly Ethiopian man, and Joel and Philemon were equally squished in a seat right in front of us. When we stopped to let people on a man got on carrying a burlap sack (no big deal, right? Everyone and their mom in Ethiopia has one…well this one was special). Once we got moving the sack began to move…then we began to hear ‘meow…meow’. Yes…the man had a kitten in his bag. He put it behind him and the cat basically got sat on accidentally by another man holding a bag of raw eggs that was leaking because some had been broken in the process of this ridiculous ride. The man then moved to the front of the van near Joel and Philemon, and at this point the cat was going crazy. Joel finally grabbed the bag and was trying to calm the cat down by petting it through the bag…it was completely ridiculous. We traveled on for maybe another mile and came to a stop in this village where a bunch of people (probably around 30) were gathered in a mob outside of a little building. I was confused why all these people would be gathered in one place, but didn’t realize what they wanted until we stopped right in front of them. Well, it turns out that all of these people wanted to get into the van. Yes. All 30 of them expected to get into an already bursting van with about 15 of us in it. These people were INSANE, they were literally fighting for a spot (you’d think you were witnessing a group of middle-aged women fighting for Hannah Montana tickets for their daughter, or maybe the newest beanie baby or something, not a seat on the bus). Well Philemon decided we were close enough and we decided to walk from there. It was a great hike, super pretty and there was a great water fall (it would have been better if we could have gone in, but thanks to some weird parasites that apparently we can’t handle we decided to let Philemon enjoy the water while we watched). We headed back out and started our journey back and after walking on a long dusty road and hoping that another mini-bus would come back (which it did after walking a couple miles) we made it home and were thoroughly exhausted. Its still one of the craziest things that I have ever experienced, and we still get a good laugh about it. If you know me well, you know how much I enjoy a good round of people watching…this was literally the best I have ever been through. So thanks, Ethiopia, for not running out of ways to entertain me and providing excellent people-watching.
I’ll be sure to keep you posted on any other notable bizarre encounters we happen to have here (and I’m sure there will be more).
You’re an all-star if you’re still with me, but I’ll spare you and more details on our crazy lives here and leave you with this fun fact about Ethiopia: Ethiopia has the largest Camel population in the world. (I know, not the greatest claim to fame, but at least it’s something).
I honestly feel like I am in an alternate universe where time moves at a ridiculously fast pace. We leave Mekelle in less than 3 weeks and we are officially freaking out about it. Our routine is still in full swing with not a whole lot more to report; we still visit the girls’ orphanage two mornings a week (and its still the highlight of my life), though this morning we were informed that most of them go home to extended family members during the summer and they leave NEXT WEEK. It was literally the most depressing news I’ve had in a while, so we are enjoying our last few times with them and attempting to make 60 friendship bracelets by next week (I know, we are so ambitious and crafty). We still go to the blind school on Friday mornings and play crazy games and have an amazing time. We have been attempting to make it to the house for the older blind girls in the morning…but mostly we don’t make it because on the way we find the most wonderful street kids to hang out and play with. These kids are so fun, we entertain ourselves for the longest time with a rolled up pair of socks. All our programs at the youth center are going well, too. Teaching English is still one of the hardest things to do (you can’t tell them that the word ‘apple’ starts with the letter A because 1) they don’t know the word apple and 2) there are no apples in Ethiopia). We play Bingo and it is insane, and an organized table tennis tournament causes enough excitement to stop the train of camels passing by outside. We still live off of Ethiopian coffee, and its amazing-ness still hasn’t worn off.
The two Irish guys arrived this past weekend and are working on getting into their routine. They have some pretty thick accents though and at times we have a harder time understanding what they are saying that we do with the Ethiopians. They seem fun though and we are glad to have some other ferengis to hang out with. In other news, we still don’t have power every other day, and for some reason we were out of water for 4 or 5 days (which is really the worst thing that can happen), but we recently got it back and we are hoping that will put life back to normal for a while (well- as normal as life can be here). Other exciting news—as of earlier this week I was officially the first one to get sick; I’ll spare you details, but I assure you it wasn’t fun and I am thankful to be feeling better now. Mindy is still hanging in there though and is set on being the third of the 76 short term-ers to be here and not get sick (we’re all rooting for her and there is talk of a plaque being made in her honor if she makes it).
I have also made it two weeks without having another stick thrown at me! (there was a rock incident, but the guy had TERRIBLE aim, and missed by about 5 feet…amateur). The men aren’t any better, but we are better at ignoring them and avoiding objects (I challenge you to dodgeball when I return).
That’s really all there is to update you on as of now, but if you are feeling ambitious and want to keep reading I am going to share our mini-bus story from a few weeks ago when we went hiking…
We had a day off from work on a Wednesday (some Ethiopian holiday I think its called “fall of the durg” or something), so Mindy, Joel and I, along with an Ethiopian friend named Philemon, decided to check out a waterfall that is popular among the Ethiopians. The place is called Roamanaut (well, that’s what it sounds like to me at least), and it we were promised we wouldn’t be disappointed. The four of us made our way into town to find a minibus that would take us out of town to a place where we could start our hike. Well, we finally found the mini-bus and after Philemon did some bartering for us we agreed to a reasonable price. We had to wait until the van was full though, which took a little longer than expected. People who were already on the bus got impatient waiting for the driver to leave and would get off, leaving us there hoping someone else would get on. Well, almost 2 hours after getting into the car we left. We weren’t envisioning a far journey out of town, but we just kept going…and going…and going. Then we went some more. The road was no longer paved and we were basically driving through villages. We picked up some more people on the way, which was fine because a few had gotten out earlier, but it was still pretty crowded. At this point Mindy and I were wedged into a seat next to an old smelly Ethiopian man, and Joel and Philemon were equally squished in a seat right in front of us. When we stopped to let people on a man got on carrying a burlap sack (no big deal, right? Everyone and their mom in Ethiopia has one…well this one was special). Once we got moving the sack began to move…then we began to hear ‘meow…meow’. Yes…the man had a kitten in his bag. He put it behind him and the cat basically got sat on accidentally by another man holding a bag of raw eggs that was leaking because some had been broken in the process of this ridiculous ride. The man then moved to the front of the van near Joel and Philemon, and at this point the cat was going crazy. Joel finally grabbed the bag and was trying to calm the cat down by petting it through the bag…it was completely ridiculous. We traveled on for maybe another mile and came to a stop in this village where a bunch of people (probably around 30) were gathered in a mob outside of a little building. I was confused why all these people would be gathered in one place, but didn’t realize what they wanted until we stopped right in front of them. Well, it turns out that all of these people wanted to get into the van. Yes. All 30 of them expected to get into an already bursting van with about 15 of us in it. These people were INSANE, they were literally fighting for a spot (you’d think you were witnessing a group of middle-aged women fighting for Hannah Montana tickets for their daughter, or maybe the newest beanie baby or something, not a seat on the bus). Well Philemon decided we were close enough and we decided to walk from there. It was a great hike, super pretty and there was a great water fall (it would have been better if we could have gone in, but thanks to some weird parasites that apparently we can’t handle we decided to let Philemon enjoy the water while we watched). We headed back out and started our journey back and after walking on a long dusty road and hoping that another mini-bus would come back (which it did after walking a couple miles) we made it home and were thoroughly exhausted. Its still one of the craziest things that I have ever experienced, and we still get a good laugh about it. If you know me well, you know how much I enjoy a good round of people watching…this was literally the best I have ever been through. So thanks, Ethiopia, for not running out of ways to entertain me and providing excellent people-watching.
I’ll be sure to keep you posted on any other notable bizarre encounters we happen to have here (and I’m sure there will be more).
You’re an all-star if you’re still with me, but I’ll spare you and more details on our crazy lives here and leave you with this fun fact about Ethiopia: Ethiopia has the largest Camel population in the world. (I know, not the greatest claim to fame, but at least it’s something).
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Update Two
Well, time is just flying by here in Mekelle. I swear a day has just started and suddenly we have done about 8 thousand different things and then its time for bed at 9 o’clock (or as we like to call it, ‘missionary midnight’). We are constantly running around this town, with occasional breaks for some amazing Ethiopian coffee (really, you have not experienced coffee until you have been through an Ethiopian coffee ceremony…I think I am ruined for the ordinary now just based on how good the coffee is, sometimes Mindy and I lay in bed at night and just talk about how excited we are for our coffee the next morning).
The other intern here, Joel, just left this past weekend after he spent 6 months here, so we have a few weeks of quiet before a couple of guys from Ireland join us, then the other UPC team comes a couple weeks later. So, since we have no man to protect us from the dangers of Ethiopia at night, we are pretty much confined to our compound at night, but its led to ridiculous amounts of reading (I’ll come back much more intellectual if anyone desires some grown-up conversation). Before Joel left, the three of us and Philemon (an Ethiopian friend) went on a hike to a waterfall and had one of the most ridiculous trip there…it will probably earn its own blog entry.
Don’t worry, we do more than drink coffee all day. We’ve been spending our mornings mostly at a couple different orphanages. The one I get most excited about is the girls Orthodox orphanage. We walk in there twice a week and are just bombarded with hugs and handshakes and invitations to do all sorts of activities. They have one caregiver taking care of all of them; the caregiver truly does have a good heart, but is disabled and just too old, so these girls really have no one caring for them. They appreciate everything we do with them or bring to them. You have never seen anyone as thankful as these girls are when they understand that we are there just to spend time with them. We do crafts, and play really fun games that they have created. My favorite is called “volleyball”. Now, get rid of any preconceptions of volleyball and imagine a game where one person is in the middle and two others on either side of the compound. The person in the middle attempts to stack about 20 bottle caps on top of each other while the two girls on the outside throw a pair of rolled up socks at the one in the middle. If you get hit while stacking you are out and someone else tries…I could literally play that game all day (who wants to start a summer league?). These girls make me appreciate so much of what I have, but more than that, they have really shown me how much of an impact you can have just by showing Love. Every time we step into the compound my heart just breaks for these girls. There are 62 girls living at this orphanage that shares property with one of the Ethiopian Orthodox churches in Mekelle. Around five of these girls are HIV-positive, and that has been the one thing here that really blows my mind. You really would never know who was HIV-positive unless someone else told you, and it really gets us questioning how many kids we know who are HIV-positive, and we will never have a clue. It’s just tough knowing that some of these kids may not get the medicine they need, or that they have been taken to an orphanage and are unwanted because of their status.
So, when I am not making bracelets or dodging rolled up socks in the mornings, you can usually find us ferengis either at a blind school, or blind orphanage. The language barrier gets a little tougher here, just because you can’t do ridiculous charades in order to describe anything to them. When we visit the blind boarding school, we bring a couple of the older girls from the Youth Center with us, its neat to have these girls doing something selfless and just to watch them have fun and get in there with people less fortunate than them (and its pretty hard to be less fortunate than some of them). We join in some pretty fun games like “Mongo Mongo” and “Arungueda” and what we like to call “basket”. Some of these older girls who join us have already had so much more influence on me than they will ever know. They are the core group of girls who were our “target” group going in, and we focus a lot on them. We had them over for a movie night over the weekend, it was insane. They are really all great kids with hard stories. A couple grew up in orphanages, a couple are basically running household, and it was fun just to have them over to be regular teenage girls. It was a little painful sitting through High School Musical 1 AND 2 consecutively, but it was good to have them over and just to hang out. I really like these girls and I think they are pretty entertained by how weird we are and they enjoy mocking our poor Tigrinya and Amharic, it’s humbling that they know three languages and I know one.
So, we hang out at orphanages, hang out with the older girls, and drink coffee. We work a little bit too. We are teaching English four days a week, and its actually challenging. Just because I can speak English well definitely does not mean I am qualified to teach it. I have a new respect for teachers with all their organization and lesson planning. When I decide what’s going to happen and what we are learning, it usually turns into a big game of silent ball. You ask a question in English, throw it to a kid, and he or she answers you in English. It gets more challenging on the days when there is no power and you play silent ball in the dark classroom. We run other programs, too. Table tennis and bingo tournaments are big, we do Anti-AIDS classes and peer education too.
Not all of life here is totally enjoyable, though. We have some serious issues with Ethiopian men, especially when it is only Mindy and I walking around by ourselves. We have to be careful about any eye contact with men. If you make eye contact with them, you have literally just told them “yes, I would like to have sex with you”. Walking somewhere is literally the most frustrating part of any day, you have no idea how many times I have accidentally made eye contact with an Ethiopian man. No worries, we have a fun game we play now: we look down and try to find bottle caps. We have a really big collection. Ok, so the men thing really is the biggest issue. We are constantly yelled at, stared at, approached, and followed. Ethiopian men are accustomed to getting what they want, and when you ignore them or tell them to go away they are not happy. The other day we were shopping at a local fruit and vegetable market and when we ignored a group of guys, they literally threw a stick at me. Yes, I got hit with a stick in the middle of an Ethiopian fruit market, it was a little irritating, but now I guess I have my token “I got a stick thrown at me in Ethiopia” story.
We are still in fairly good health (I know, knock on wood again), but I am just waiting for the moment something weird sneaks into some of the food we eat. I subsist mostly on nutella (yeah, I’m becoming one of those people who goes abroad and comes back addicted to nutella) and also on an Ethiopian snack called “Kolo”. Kolo is basically roasted barely and a few peanuts thrown in, most Ethiopians eat it at coffee ceremonies, but it is really turning into my favorite food…don’t worry I’m bringing some home with me, I’d love to share some with you. We’ve had some weird animal encounters, most notably Bueller the gecko, and more recently a scorpion…we can’t find the scorpion (the night we found in on the ceiling in the bedroom, we moved our beds to the kitchen and slept there) so we now sleep under nets and pray that our friend will not return.
There are ridiculous amounts of other stories to tell, but I’ll spare you, you are a champ if you have lasted this long. Pray for good health, no more scorpions, and no more getting sticks thrown at us.
Here’s a fun Ethiopian fact to leave you with:
There are literally no trash cans on the streets of Mekelle. (Talk about a dilemma when we want to spit our gum out but have too much of a conscience to throw it on the street.)
The other intern here, Joel, just left this past weekend after he spent 6 months here, so we have a few weeks of quiet before a couple of guys from Ireland join us, then the other UPC team comes a couple weeks later. So, since we have no man to protect us from the dangers of Ethiopia at night, we are pretty much confined to our compound at night, but its led to ridiculous amounts of reading (I’ll come back much more intellectual if anyone desires some grown-up conversation). Before Joel left, the three of us and Philemon (an Ethiopian friend) went on a hike to a waterfall and had one of the most ridiculous trip there…it will probably earn its own blog entry.
Don’t worry, we do more than drink coffee all day. We’ve been spending our mornings mostly at a couple different orphanages. The one I get most excited about is the girls Orthodox orphanage. We walk in there twice a week and are just bombarded with hugs and handshakes and invitations to do all sorts of activities. They have one caregiver taking care of all of them; the caregiver truly does have a good heart, but is disabled and just too old, so these girls really have no one caring for them. They appreciate everything we do with them or bring to them. You have never seen anyone as thankful as these girls are when they understand that we are there just to spend time with them. We do crafts, and play really fun games that they have created. My favorite is called “volleyball”. Now, get rid of any preconceptions of volleyball and imagine a game where one person is in the middle and two others on either side of the compound. The person in the middle attempts to stack about 20 bottle caps on top of each other while the two girls on the outside throw a pair of rolled up socks at the one in the middle. If you get hit while stacking you are out and someone else tries…I could literally play that game all day (who wants to start a summer league?). These girls make me appreciate so much of what I have, but more than that, they have really shown me how much of an impact you can have just by showing Love. Every time we step into the compound my heart just breaks for these girls. There are 62 girls living at this orphanage that shares property with one of the Ethiopian Orthodox churches in Mekelle. Around five of these girls are HIV-positive, and that has been the one thing here that really blows my mind. You really would never know who was HIV-positive unless someone else told you, and it really gets us questioning how many kids we know who are HIV-positive, and we will never have a clue. It’s just tough knowing that some of these kids may not get the medicine they need, or that they have been taken to an orphanage and are unwanted because of their status.
So, when I am not making bracelets or dodging rolled up socks in the mornings, you can usually find us ferengis either at a blind school, or blind orphanage. The language barrier gets a little tougher here, just because you can’t do ridiculous charades in order to describe anything to them. When we visit the blind boarding school, we bring a couple of the older girls from the Youth Center with us, its neat to have these girls doing something selfless and just to watch them have fun and get in there with people less fortunate than them (and its pretty hard to be less fortunate than some of them). We join in some pretty fun games like “Mongo Mongo” and “Arungueda” and what we like to call “basket”. Some of these older girls who join us have already had so much more influence on me than they will ever know. They are the core group of girls who were our “target” group going in, and we focus a lot on them. We had them over for a movie night over the weekend, it was insane. They are really all great kids with hard stories. A couple grew up in orphanages, a couple are basically running household, and it was fun just to have them over to be regular teenage girls. It was a little painful sitting through High School Musical 1 AND 2 consecutively, but it was good to have them over and just to hang out. I really like these girls and I think they are pretty entertained by how weird we are and they enjoy mocking our poor Tigrinya and Amharic, it’s humbling that they know three languages and I know one.
So, we hang out at orphanages, hang out with the older girls, and drink coffee. We work a little bit too. We are teaching English four days a week, and its actually challenging. Just because I can speak English well definitely does not mean I am qualified to teach it. I have a new respect for teachers with all their organization and lesson planning. When I decide what’s going to happen and what we are learning, it usually turns into a big game of silent ball. You ask a question in English, throw it to a kid, and he or she answers you in English. It gets more challenging on the days when there is no power and you play silent ball in the dark classroom. We run other programs, too. Table tennis and bingo tournaments are big, we do Anti-AIDS classes and peer education too.
Not all of life here is totally enjoyable, though. We have some serious issues with Ethiopian men, especially when it is only Mindy and I walking around by ourselves. We have to be careful about any eye contact with men. If you make eye contact with them, you have literally just told them “yes, I would like to have sex with you”. Walking somewhere is literally the most frustrating part of any day, you have no idea how many times I have accidentally made eye contact with an Ethiopian man. No worries, we have a fun game we play now: we look down and try to find bottle caps. We have a really big collection. Ok, so the men thing really is the biggest issue. We are constantly yelled at, stared at, approached, and followed. Ethiopian men are accustomed to getting what they want, and when you ignore them or tell them to go away they are not happy. The other day we were shopping at a local fruit and vegetable market and when we ignored a group of guys, they literally threw a stick at me. Yes, I got hit with a stick in the middle of an Ethiopian fruit market, it was a little irritating, but now I guess I have my token “I got a stick thrown at me in Ethiopia” story.
We are still in fairly good health (I know, knock on wood again), but I am just waiting for the moment something weird sneaks into some of the food we eat. I subsist mostly on nutella (yeah, I’m becoming one of those people who goes abroad and comes back addicted to nutella) and also on an Ethiopian snack called “Kolo”. Kolo is basically roasted barely and a few peanuts thrown in, most Ethiopians eat it at coffee ceremonies, but it is really turning into my favorite food…don’t worry I’m bringing some home with me, I’d love to share some with you. We’ve had some weird animal encounters, most notably Bueller the gecko, and more recently a scorpion…we can’t find the scorpion (the night we found in on the ceiling in the bedroom, we moved our beds to the kitchen and slept there) so we now sleep under nets and pray that our friend will not return.
There are ridiculous amounts of other stories to tell, but I’ll spare you, you are a champ if you have lasted this long. Pray for good health, no more scorpions, and no more getting sticks thrown at us.
Here’s a fun Ethiopian fact to leave you with:
There are literally no trash cans on the streets of Mekelle. (Talk about a dilemma when we want to spit our gum out but have too much of a conscience to throw it on the street.)
Bueller
Bueller?...Bueller?
The other night we had power and decided to take a break from African life and watch a DVD just to wind down a little bit. We have a cell phone here that we use to communicate with the rest of the staff and just other people we need to talk to around Mekelle, and some creeper just kept calling our number. Finally, after 15 minutes of phone calls, we decided just to turn off the phone. So, Mindy gets up and turns on a light and at the same time we both see this lizard run across our wall. It’s a gecko. Really? Africa has geckos? I thought they were only in tropical places, not at 8,000ft above sea level in the mountains of Ethiopia. But yes, we had a gecko in our house. The movie was paused and the next 30 minutes were dedicated to gecko wrangling.
Geckos are FAST. It basically ran along the wall and hid behind a desk in the corner of our living room. I’m not sure how the roles were decided, but Mindy grabbed the camera and started recording the action while I grabbed a plastic cup and set to using my cat-like reflexes to catch this gecko. I would get close and it would run away, so I’d just chase it along the wall and attempt its capture. After two tries I got close and ended up tearing its tail off (oops-don’t worry animal lovers…geckos tails grow back). After some coaxing, and after giving it the endearing name “Bueller”, I finally had it pinned to the wall under a cup. But how do you go from cup on wall to the floor? There is an awkward transition at the corner of the wall and floor where the gecko could escape, so there was no way we were going to give it that chance. Mindy, being the recent college grad, tapped into her fountain of knowledge and suggested the construction paper under the cup tactic. It was successful and we moved cup, paper, and gecko to the floor, then put a large heavy glass bowl over the top, just for good measure. It was then that our sympathetic nature kicked in and we felt bad leaving it under a plastic cup where it would clearly suffocate. Then came the next stage of planning how to remove the cup, and replace the bowl without letting the gecko escape. We decided to lift the bowl and swiftly knock the cup over. After a few deep breaths it was time for the attempt. Failure. We lift the bowl, knock over the cup, and Bueller was liberated from his plastic prison and on the move along the floor in our kitchen. Being the mature and cool-headed people we are…we let out two ridiculous screams, ran across the living room and jumped on top of two chairs. It was soon after we questioned the credentials of our guard, who did not come running.
So Bueller was on the move again-but lucky for us this time he was on the ground and attempting an escape under our door. After he got out, we followed him a few feet and placed a large glass bowl over him to foil any more attempts he was planning to enter our house. He lived in that glass bowl for 24 hours as we decided his fate. It was good timing that the next day was Joel’s 23rd birthday. Along with a delicious chocolate cake we made from scratch AND at high altitude, Joel received Bueller, with instructions that if he wanted to release him, it would have to be done far away from our compound.
No more gecko experiences as of yet, but if any of Bueller’s extended family decides to show up, they will be named and you will definitely be informed.
The other night we had power and decided to take a break from African life and watch a DVD just to wind down a little bit. We have a cell phone here that we use to communicate with the rest of the staff and just other people we need to talk to around Mekelle, and some creeper just kept calling our number. Finally, after 15 minutes of phone calls, we decided just to turn off the phone. So, Mindy gets up and turns on a light and at the same time we both see this lizard run across our wall. It’s a gecko. Really? Africa has geckos? I thought they were only in tropical places, not at 8,000ft above sea level in the mountains of Ethiopia. But yes, we had a gecko in our house. The movie was paused and the next 30 minutes were dedicated to gecko wrangling.
Geckos are FAST. It basically ran along the wall and hid behind a desk in the corner of our living room. I’m not sure how the roles were decided, but Mindy grabbed the camera and started recording the action while I grabbed a plastic cup and set to using my cat-like reflexes to catch this gecko. I would get close and it would run away, so I’d just chase it along the wall and attempt its capture. After two tries I got close and ended up tearing its tail off (oops-don’t worry animal lovers…geckos tails grow back). After some coaxing, and after giving it the endearing name “Bueller”, I finally had it pinned to the wall under a cup. But how do you go from cup on wall to the floor? There is an awkward transition at the corner of the wall and floor where the gecko could escape, so there was no way we were going to give it that chance. Mindy, being the recent college grad, tapped into her fountain of knowledge and suggested the construction paper under the cup tactic. It was successful and we moved cup, paper, and gecko to the floor, then put a large heavy glass bowl over the top, just for good measure. It was then that our sympathetic nature kicked in and we felt bad leaving it under a plastic cup where it would clearly suffocate. Then came the next stage of planning how to remove the cup, and replace the bowl without letting the gecko escape. We decided to lift the bowl and swiftly knock the cup over. After a few deep breaths it was time for the attempt. Failure. We lift the bowl, knock over the cup, and Bueller was liberated from his plastic prison and on the move along the floor in our kitchen. Being the mature and cool-headed people we are…we let out two ridiculous screams, ran across the living room and jumped on top of two chairs. It was soon after we questioned the credentials of our guard, who did not come running.
So Bueller was on the move again-but lucky for us this time he was on the ground and attempting an escape under our door. After he got out, we followed him a few feet and placed a large glass bowl over him to foil any more attempts he was planning to enter our house. He lived in that glass bowl for 24 hours as we decided his fate. It was good timing that the next day was Joel’s 23rd birthday. Along with a delicious chocolate cake we made from scratch AND at high altitude, Joel received Bueller, with instructions that if he wanted to release him, it would have to be done far away from our compound.
No more gecko experiences as of yet, but if any of Bueller’s extended family decides to show up, they will be named and you will definitely be informed.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Update One
Selam!
Hey everyone,
Sorry its taken me SO long to write an update, I can’t actually get onto the website to update the blog, so we’re going the route of me writing an update, sending it to Melissa, then she’ll post it (thanks, twin). So since I can’t get on this website to see anything you might be leaving fantastic comments about, but you still feel the need to say something really insightful, shoot me an email…I love email.
So here is round one.
We left Seattle two weeks ago very early in the morning, flew for two days, and arrived in Addis Ababa (the capital of Ethiopia) on a Sunday night. We had absolutely no idea what the game plan from there was going to be, but we were met at the airport, then headed to “HQ” (yes, they call it HQ, though is definitely not cool enough to earn that title). Our trip from the airport was the first I got to see of Ethiopia, it was kind of neat, lots of lights on, some cool buildings here and there- I learned the next day that the city is much prettier at night. After we made it a little ways from the airport there was a distinct change in the city, I’m not sure if it was the area of town, or just because I started looking in front of the car, not out the sides. There were people running all around our car, lots of little kids, widows, people who were crippled, begging for money. It was kind of hard to not do anything because duh- I came to Africa because I wanted to help people, so it was kind of hard to just sit there and do nothing. We finally got to headquarters and learned we would stay in Addis two full days then fly out that Wednesday morning. Monday consisted of just orientation, I didn’t like when we met with the nurse and she found out we hadn’t gotten our rabies shots. She had a minor freak out (the next morning we got stuck with round one of the rabies vaccine). The next day was a little better because we got out and got to explore a little of Addis, it’s a neat city with a lot of history, but definitely is not somewhere I would like to stay for an extended period of time. We were very relieved to leave Addis the following morning and head up to Mekelle.
Fun fact about Ethiopian Airlines…they leave whenever the heck they want to. We got to the airport at 530am for our 730am flight, and were met by people yelling “Mekelle?! Mekelle?!!” apparently the flight was leaving early. We caught our flight (after paying 200Birr for excess baggage), and everything went smoothly. We sat in front of an Ethiopian professor who was trying to convince me that if biology doesn’t end up working out, I should switch my major to agriculture and come to Ethiopia to do something with crops….right. We made it safely to Mekelle, and we were met by Jon, the American missionary who runs the Youth center. We went straight to his house and did some orientation, then went out to lunch for our first Ethiopian cuisine experience. I ate sheep, and actually enjoyed it. Ethiopian cuisine is a little weird, you eat with your hands (or should I say hand, major social taboo to eat with your left hand), so basically you tear off a piece of Injera- imagine sourdough bread that is the consistency of a pancake- and grab whatever paste-like entrée they have put in front of you. The texture was weird, but the taste is pretty good. I’m still getting used to the Injera…but I think I’m slowly beginning to enjoy it.
So Mekelle is quite the town. A population of 200,000 with two main paved roads and ridiculous chaos all around. One of the first things that really said “Welcome to Mekelle!” was the herd of camels (yes, camels) wandering along the busiest street. As we got farther into town, we realized it wasn’t just camels, but horses, donkeys, goats, cows, sheep, dogs, you name it and its probably wandering the streets of Mekelle; and they don’t just wander alongside the road, but just decide to hang out in the road, no one really seems to care though, drivers just zoom past, and the animals get out of the way. I’m not sure if there are traffic laws in Africa, if there are, no one observes them. People drive all over the place, don’t stop for pedestrians, and are basically just ridiculous. Crossing the road usually presents a daily challenge, but what kind of day would it be without a little adventure, right?
Ok, so that’s sort of the feel of the town, but what the heck are we doing here and how are we spending our days, right? Well, when we are not avoiding potentially rabid animals on the streets of Mekelle, we are usually found hanging out at the Mekelle Youth Center. There is an Ethiopian staff, and then our staff…which consists of me, Mindy, and another intern from England named Joel. The first week we just kind of hung out and got to know the in’s and out’s of the youth center. We are supposed to be targeting two groups of girls, the high schoolers and the middle schoolers. It has been very hard to break in and find common ground with them, but we are just hanging in there and earning our right to be heard (thanks, Young Life). It was getting tiring playing endless games of Uno, Skip-Bo, and I-Spy, but we have finally set our schedule now that we have figured out what we want to do with our time here. We work 6 days a week and get Sundays off. We spend our mornings at various other ministries around Mekelle (a couple orphanages, a blind school, and an orphanage for blind girls who are older). Our afternoons are all at the youth center putting on our various programs. We do Anti-AIDS clubs for boys and girls, table tennis tournaments, organized games, little boys and little girls’ bible clubs at our house, and English conversation and English reading classes four times a week. We also hang out with the older girls in our free time and lead a couple bible studies with them. It’s pretty neat and we are solidly booked from 9-5 Monday-Saturday, but its great and we can hang in there for seven more weeks just going non-stop.
Overall, it’s been a really good experience so far, we are learning to just roll with whatever gets thrown at us. My favorite is that there is an energy shortage and so every other day we don’t have power, but we find ways to entertain ourselves, we are pretty far along in a jigsaw puzzle we do by candle light at night. We also have people over and have recently gotten into baking. We made our own tortillas (they actually look like real tortillas) AND we made Joel a birthday cake (and no, it did not come from a box). We are both still in pretty good health (knock on wood), but prayer for continued good health would be fantastic. I’ll try to update again soon now that we have a system figured out. But I’ll leave you all with this little nugget of information:It is the year 2000 in Ethiopia...there are also 13 months in a year, and they go off the traditional Jewish time schedule, so everything is 6 hours off. The days start and end at 6, not 12. It is very confusing when an Ethiopian asks you for the time and then you have to automatically add 6 six hours before you tell them. It’s quite the experience to be living at a different time of the day, in a different month, and in a different year
Hey everyone,
Sorry its taken me SO long to write an update, I can’t actually get onto the website to update the blog, so we’re going the route of me writing an update, sending it to Melissa, then she’ll post it (thanks, twin). So since I can’t get on this website to see anything you might be leaving fantastic comments about, but you still feel the need to say something really insightful, shoot me an email…I love email.
So here is round one.
We left Seattle two weeks ago very early in the morning, flew for two days, and arrived in Addis Ababa (the capital of Ethiopia) on a Sunday night. We had absolutely no idea what the game plan from there was going to be, but we were met at the airport, then headed to “HQ” (yes, they call it HQ, though is definitely not cool enough to earn that title). Our trip from the airport was the first I got to see of Ethiopia, it was kind of neat, lots of lights on, some cool buildings here and there- I learned the next day that the city is much prettier at night. After we made it a little ways from the airport there was a distinct change in the city, I’m not sure if it was the area of town, or just because I started looking in front of the car, not out the sides. There were people running all around our car, lots of little kids, widows, people who were crippled, begging for money. It was kind of hard to not do anything because duh- I came to Africa because I wanted to help people, so it was kind of hard to just sit there and do nothing. We finally got to headquarters and learned we would stay in Addis two full days then fly out that Wednesday morning. Monday consisted of just orientation, I didn’t like when we met with the nurse and she found out we hadn’t gotten our rabies shots. She had a minor freak out (the next morning we got stuck with round one of the rabies vaccine). The next day was a little better because we got out and got to explore a little of Addis, it’s a neat city with a lot of history, but definitely is not somewhere I would like to stay for an extended period of time. We were very relieved to leave Addis the following morning and head up to Mekelle.
Fun fact about Ethiopian Airlines…they leave whenever the heck they want to. We got to the airport at 530am for our 730am flight, and were met by people yelling “Mekelle?! Mekelle?!!” apparently the flight was leaving early. We caught our flight (after paying 200Birr for excess baggage), and everything went smoothly. We sat in front of an Ethiopian professor who was trying to convince me that if biology doesn’t end up working out, I should switch my major to agriculture and come to Ethiopia to do something with crops….right. We made it safely to Mekelle, and we were met by Jon, the American missionary who runs the Youth center. We went straight to his house and did some orientation, then went out to lunch for our first Ethiopian cuisine experience. I ate sheep, and actually enjoyed it. Ethiopian cuisine is a little weird, you eat with your hands (or should I say hand, major social taboo to eat with your left hand), so basically you tear off a piece of Injera- imagine sourdough bread that is the consistency of a pancake- and grab whatever paste-like entrée they have put in front of you. The texture was weird, but the taste is pretty good. I’m still getting used to the Injera…but I think I’m slowly beginning to enjoy it.
So Mekelle is quite the town. A population of 200,000 with two main paved roads and ridiculous chaos all around. One of the first things that really said “Welcome to Mekelle!” was the herd of camels (yes, camels) wandering along the busiest street. As we got farther into town, we realized it wasn’t just camels, but horses, donkeys, goats, cows, sheep, dogs, you name it and its probably wandering the streets of Mekelle; and they don’t just wander alongside the road, but just decide to hang out in the road, no one really seems to care though, drivers just zoom past, and the animals get out of the way. I’m not sure if there are traffic laws in Africa, if there are, no one observes them. People drive all over the place, don’t stop for pedestrians, and are basically just ridiculous. Crossing the road usually presents a daily challenge, but what kind of day would it be without a little adventure, right?
Ok, so that’s sort of the feel of the town, but what the heck are we doing here and how are we spending our days, right? Well, when we are not avoiding potentially rabid animals on the streets of Mekelle, we are usually found hanging out at the Mekelle Youth Center. There is an Ethiopian staff, and then our staff…which consists of me, Mindy, and another intern from England named Joel. The first week we just kind of hung out and got to know the in’s and out’s of the youth center. We are supposed to be targeting two groups of girls, the high schoolers and the middle schoolers. It has been very hard to break in and find common ground with them, but we are just hanging in there and earning our right to be heard (thanks, Young Life). It was getting tiring playing endless games of Uno, Skip-Bo, and I-Spy, but we have finally set our schedule now that we have figured out what we want to do with our time here. We work 6 days a week and get Sundays off. We spend our mornings at various other ministries around Mekelle (a couple orphanages, a blind school, and an orphanage for blind girls who are older). Our afternoons are all at the youth center putting on our various programs. We do Anti-AIDS clubs for boys and girls, table tennis tournaments, organized games, little boys and little girls’ bible clubs at our house, and English conversation and English reading classes four times a week. We also hang out with the older girls in our free time and lead a couple bible studies with them. It’s pretty neat and we are solidly booked from 9-5 Monday-Saturday, but its great and we can hang in there for seven more weeks just going non-stop.
Overall, it’s been a really good experience so far, we are learning to just roll with whatever gets thrown at us. My favorite is that there is an energy shortage and so every other day we don’t have power, but we find ways to entertain ourselves, we are pretty far along in a jigsaw puzzle we do by candle light at night. We also have people over and have recently gotten into baking. We made our own tortillas (they actually look like real tortillas) AND we made Joel a birthday cake (and no, it did not come from a box). We are both still in pretty good health (knock on wood), but prayer for continued good health would be fantastic. I’ll try to update again soon now that we have a system figured out. But I’ll leave you all with this little nugget of information:It is the year 2000 in Ethiopia...there are also 13 months in a year, and they go off the traditional Jewish time schedule, so everything is 6 hours off. The days start and end at 6, not 12. It is very confusing when an Ethiopian asks you for the time and then you have to automatically add 6 six hours before you tell them. It’s quite the experience to be living at a different time of the day, in a different month, and in a different year
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Last Minute Preparations
Well, the countdown is officially at three days. Our deputation team of two is scheduled to depart on Saturday (May 10th) at 730am, we are looking forward to getting through a couple days of traveling. I am going with a recent WSU grad, Mindy. We're getting stoked, little things like purchasing a "mammoth" sized duffle bag tonight seem to make us realize that we are actually leaving the country, though it probably won't hit us until we step off the plane in Africa.
Instead of the mass-email option, I decided on a blog, but I will try to also send a quick email when I update, but try to check in if you have some free time. I'm not sure how often I'll be able to update, but I'll do my best to keep you posted on our daily lives in Mekelle.
I hope you enjoy reading (and maybe living vicariously through me?) and best wishes!
Megan
Instead of the mass-email option, I decided on a blog, but I will try to also send a quick email when I update, but try to check in if you have some free time. I'm not sure how often I'll be able to update, but I'll do my best to keep you posted on our daily lives in Mekelle.
I hope you enjoy reading (and maybe living vicariously through me?) and best wishes!
Megan
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