Do You Then Have Any Idea?

4 April 2009, part II

2009-04-04T10:00:00.000-07:00

Out of all my projects during my Peace Corps service to date, I think none has taught me more than the mill IGA project. Also, I believe none has made me feel more conscious of being an American. Business practice and philosophy is one of those areas in which the cultural divide really makes itself known, and on frequent occasions with the mill project, I have been aware of stark differences between my perspective and that of my Ethiopian counterparts. I was often frustrated and put off by two-or-three-hour meetings in which the group, seemingly to me, did nothing but bicker back and forth about so-and-so who hadn’t done such-and-such and why and what should happen and so on and so on and so on… When I confronted the RINA coordinator about these constant arguments, though, expressing my concern that such issues should fall under the jurisdiction of the group governance rules that should have been set forth CLEARLY from the beginning, he turned the tables on me by expressing his concern that my strategy was much too impersonal. Issues among the group members, he told me very seriously, are better resolved in the sessions I was seeing, with extensive discussions and with decisions being made on a case-to-case basis.

Another similar instance came during our financial planning discussions. After deciding the percentage of profits to be given directly to group members for their labor and participation, the group had to make a decision as to how their wages would be distributed to each individual member. Considering the lengthy, fairly heated arguments I had witnessed surrounding members failing to do their expected work, I suggested that the wage received by each member would be proportional to the work they had done – a fairly commonsense notion in my American capitalist eyes. But the group insisted that each group member, as an equal, should receive an equal cut of the profits, and that the group would “encourage and motivate” members to fulfill the expectations for an equal share of the work. Having made my strong suggestion as to which system might make the enterprise run most smoothly, but acknowledging that the venture is ultimately the group’s and not mine, I relented to the group’s wishes, provided that the group members themselves would take responsibility for enforcing a fair distribution of the workload – and not present complaints to me in long, angry sessions.

In the U.S., we say it’s just business, it’s not personal. In Ethiopia, business is typically thoroughly personal, relying not so much on structures, rules, market-based dictates of demand and pricing, as on interpersonal relationships, arrangements, and understandings. It’s yet another case of the balance that we Peace Corps volunteers must constantly strike between respecting the local culture and yet also providing the technical advice that the Ethiopian government has asked us here to supply. It’s not always easy to tell when I should yield to the local way of thinking and when I should really push for what seems most efficient to me. I think that I’ve walked that tightrope fairly well throughout the course of this mill project, but I suppose only time will really tell.

In the meantime, the group members and I continue to be pleased with the mill’s success, and I’m very proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish together.

4 April 2009

2009-04-04T07:30:00.000-07:00

Here in Ethiopia, I’ve come to discover that holding an economics degree is often more of a liability to me than an advantage. Mostly because people, upon hearing this fact, expect me to know things about the economy. It’s no use telling them that my degree is a bachelor of arts, thus excluding me from all those just-kill-me-now-and-get-it-over-with sorts of subjects like finance and accounting, or that many of my degree requirements were fulfilled through fuzzy conceptual courses in fringe areas like behavioral economics and sports economics. In fact, if anyone actually came to me with a problem about economics in the traditional sense, I’d be limited to solutions involving tradeoffs between guns and butter, or production of “widgets.” Firms under my counsel would have a choice between advancing either militancy or obesity, or trading in units of merely theoretical value providing no discernible use to society (though I hear some people on Wall Street have done quite well in the latter).

One way in which my economics degree has benefited my Peace Corps experience, though, is by thrusting me into the fascinating, challenging, and greatly rewarding area of small business promotion and income-generating activities (IGA). One of my biggest and longest-running projects within my community has been working with a group of people living with HIV to start and manage a local mill, or wofcho bet, in order to establish for them a steady source of income and promote self-sufficiency and thus self-esteem.

My initial visits to the group found them discouraged over the recent failure of their chicken farming project and questioning their ability to work as people living with HIV. They were eager for an opportunity to start over again, but many were beginning to grow skeptical that their efforts could create anything with long-term viability. Yet watching the steady stream of traffic passing on the large transit route beside their site, rural farmers hauling enormous sacks of grains and other dry goods into town for grinding, had given them the idea that a mill in that location could be successful.

I worked with the group and the coordinator of their umbrella organization, RINA, to write a grant proposal, which we presented to Peace Corps and to the zonal and regional level government HIV prevention offices. The proposal being accepted and the necessary funds being secured, we moved forward in establishing the new mill. RINA collected bids for machinery, materials, and associated transport and labor costs, as well as facilitated the necessary approvals and licensing from the local government business office. The participants in the project elected leaders and set forth rules and expectations for governance of their group. I met with an instructor of business management at the technical college to develop a curriculum for teaching the group and equipping them with the basic skills necessary for running a small business. The 23 participants, 17 female and 6 male, then received training covering basic business concepts, market management, operations management, and basic accounting principles.

For a period of a month, milling equipment and associated materials were purchased and installed at the project site, improvements such as concrete floors were made to the existing building (formerly a chicken coop), and electrical wires were run to the site for powering the mills. During this time, I wanted to make sure that we installed as many business management structures as possible up front in order to prevent the sort of failure the group experienced with their chicken farm. I used resources from various international NGOs to put together a questionnaire that would help the group think through issues relevant to their enterprise, make the necessary decisions, and put together the necessary plans. Over a series of often lengthy meetings, we discussed issues of pricing, marketing, labor, and budgeting, ensuring that these issues were sorted ahead of time, before any one of these concerns became the downfall of the whole business.

In early January, the mill finally opened. In my first visit to the see the mill, the building was lined with waiting people, the yard filled with their grazing donkeys. I talked with one customer, an energetic farmer wearing an emerald green jacket, colorfully patched Gojjami cloth shorts, and a floppy straw hat, the wide brim of which framed his dark, weathered face like a lion’s tawny mane. He complimented the fine quality of the powder produced by the mill, much finer than that obtained from other local mills. He remarked on the convenience of the mill’s location, right on the route from his village into town, and praised the site for its cool shade and the abundance of grazing land for his pack animals. Shaking my hand, he promised to recommend the new mill to people throughout his village.

The mill had been doing good business for just over two months when I learned from the participating group members that they had yet to receive any payment in return for their labor. From the project’s earliest planning stages, I had preached the importance of putting a solid plan in place for profit distribution, project reinvestment, and savings, so I was shocked to hear this grievance now. I began insisting to RINA’s coordinator that we resolve this issue as soon as possible, before group members lost any and all motivation to work at the mill. I saw this as the last big piece of my technical assistance that remained to be given, to help the group develop this sort of financial plan in order to promote the project’s sustainability into the future. Due to various other engagements and responsibilities on the part of RINA’s coordinator, it was not until a month later that our vital discussion on these issues was held, but the result was what I believe is the outline of a viable financial plan for the enterprise.

On the Saturday following our discussion, I had joined the sea of people walking down to the big weekly market when I found myself beside two of the women from the mill group. Smiling brightly, they told me that they had received that morning their payments for three months of work, and they were on their way to buy food with it. They told me it was all because of me that they had this money to spend, and I responded that, rather, it was the payment they deserved for their hard work. It was an incredibly rewarding moment for me to see in action the achievement of our project’s ultimate goal: the empowerment of people living with HIV to support themselves through solid, sustainable jobs.

11 February 2009

2009-02-11T08:47:00.000-08:00

I was at a karate exhibition in town when my friend, a young Ethiopian female working at the local government Women's Affairs bureau, asked me if I wanted to come to the hospital with her. It wasn't an unusual request, given my involvement in HIV&AIDS issues and the fact that I had been to the local hospital on several previous occasions to speak with doctors and administrators. I asked her what was going on at the hospital, and she replied, "We are having a virgins beauty contest, and the participants must go to get their certificate."

Despite my friend's typically immaculate English, I had to have her repeat her answer several times for me to be sure of what I was hearing. But sure enough, a "virgins beauty contest" was being held in my town, was being organized by a representative of Women's Affairs, was moreover being planned for World AIDS Day, and I was being asked to participate in the planning and support the implementation. Once I had taken this in, I told my friend, gently and privately, that maybe it would be a good idea if the two of us could talk this thing through over lunch in the coming week.

She called me three days later, and we met at one of the local hotels for dinner. I began by asking her, first, to explain what she had in mind for this event. She in turn began with, "Well, so the girls will go to the hospital to have their examination and get their certificate as virgin. Then, once they know their status, it must be kept very, very secret, because if it is known they are virgin, they will be raped. I think we will have to have the cooperation even of the police, the Women's Affairs..." She said it all so casually, as if the risk of these girls being raped was just a logistical trouble that would have to be sorted out in the interest of the all-important promotion of female virginity.

Taking a different approach, I asked my friend about the intended aim and objectives for this virgin beauty contest, what the organizers were hoping to accomplish and how this fit into World AIDS Day goals and themes. She mentioned abstinence and how it was one of the pillars (in addition to partner limitation/faithfulness and condom use) of preventing the sexual transmission of HIV. She also brought up the subject of cultural values, how virginity for Ethiopian women is expected and thus must be promoted and appreciated locally.

This gave us some more substantial ground to build discussion upon, so for the next hour or so, we talked through all the issues raised by this virgins beauty contest. We talked about the subtle but critical difference between sexual abstinence and virginity, that sexual abstinence is (under the best circumstances) a personal decision that can be made at any stage in life, regardless of the past, while virginity tells young women that they have been given something of value that can be held only once, and that can never be recovered once lost. We talked about the context of both abstinence and virginity in Ethiopia, where social and economic inequalities dictate that women often have little control over sexual negotiation, and where, therefore, abstinence and virginity can hardly be seen as the "choice" of women. Moreover, in a country in which women are married as young as age fourteen, typically to men twenty or more years older than them, and in a country in which upwards of 85% of HIV transmission occurs during heterosexual sex, often within marriage, the concept of abstinence as an HIV prevention method begins to lose meaning.

We talked about how the concept of virginity, applied as it is specifically to females, further entrenches women's social disadvantage by enforcing restrictions upon women while completely precluding men from responsibility. While women are expected to remain "pure", with heavy repercussions if they fail to do so (including severe social stigma and near inability to find a husband), men are not held to the same standard and are even implicitly encouraged to be sexually active, as a sign of vitality and masculinity. In relation to HIV&AIDS, a woman who has carefully guarded her virginity until marriage is still left vulnerable to exposure through a husband's unfaithfulness.

We talked technically about the unreliability of the "virgin test" itself. We returned to the risk faced by these girls who publicly declare their virginity, a risk so clear and certain that it was identified by my Ethiopian female friend in her first sentences about the planned beauty contest. We sorted through the images and messages being communicated by placing young women on stage to have their worth determined solely through judgments on their "beauty" and virginity - on front of an audience almost certain to be dominated by men and boys, as the demographic most able to take the time to attend such events.

At the end of our discussions, my friend seemed torn between the principles we had talked about, and the male heads of organizations who were directing her that the event must be one promoting virginity specifically. When we parted ways for the night, she said she would try to speak to the organizers about various concerns, and I made myself available to support and assist her in any way that I could. I didn't hear from her about the event during the next week, and then I left for trainings in the capital and then for my holiday at home.

I wish I could say that our talks were taken back to the organizers of the virgins beauty contest, that they sparked honest and meaningful discussion about gender roles, that new ideas were sincerely considered and women's voices were sincerely heard...but unfortunately, events did not seem to take that turn. My friend's updates on the event, from that time on, became more and more vague, and it became difficult to discern what exactly went on with what took place in my absence. My friend and colleague from VSO, however, attended a "wrap-up" meeting for the contest involving the girls, their parents, and representatives from local government offices and law enforcement, and the discussion she picked up in Amharic seemed to indicate that everything went as planned with the virginity requirement at the forefront.

I further wish that I could tell you this sort of thing was an anomaly, a one-time event poorly conceived and exclusive to the highly conservative area of Amhara, Ethiopia, that I find myself. Recent developments, though, prove otherwise. For one, the local university has begun offering "virgin scholarships", with certificate proof required of applicants. Working with the gender officer at the university, my VSO colleague has put in a formal complaint to administration, related to the disadvantage to women who are married, have been raped, or have otherwise lost their virginity due to reasons utterly outside their control. There is little hope, however, that any result will come of the complaint. In addition, my hopes that the contest was just a product of the ultra-conservative culture of my area were dashed when, while visiting Bahir Dar, one of the more progressive, "modern" cities in Ethiopia, I saw a poster in a local storefront picturing "Miss Virgin Bahir Dar 2008".

As an American woman living in Ethiopia, it has been a struggle for me to pick my battles. Is this virgins beauty contest, for example, a case in which I need to recognize that I come from a vastly different cultural background and concede to the tenets of the culture in which I am living as a guest? Do I need to frame all my concerns and critiques in the context of a "sexually liberated" American society, grant that things are simply different here, and move on in silence? When the lives and safety of women are at stake, as they were with their involvement in this contest, I think silence cannot be held. But what about those small occurrences, those daily annoyances, like the harassing comments from young men in the street on my way to work? Or the man who strokes my hair as he walks past my chair in the café? Can I afford silence in these cases, or by ignoring them, do I implicitly give consent to the social mores that allow men superiority over women that are expected to remain meek and largely powerless? And even if I choose to speak out in those instances, to what extent can I actually promote even the smallest change? Even after more than a year living here, I haven't yet figured out all these answers.

Viewing things more generally, though, I see a major part of my role here as mediating the exchange of ideas between two peoples and cultures, including in the realm of gender roles and rights. For me to be able to demonstrate the example of an empowered, assertive, confident, creative, and dynamic female accomplishing things in the world is deeply significant to me. I believe that change can ultimately only come from within a culture. But I also believe in the power of people relating on a real, personal level, and I believe that the ideas, values, and practices conveyed in that exchange can have lasting impact.

So perhaps my voice did not create tangible change this time around. Perhaps my views were not heard at the levels of administrative power, and if they were, perhaps they were dismissed as merely the crazy liberal views of a crazy liberal American woman, not fit for the culture and context of Ethiopia. But I know my voice was heard by one female Ethiopian friend, and I will not dismiss the importance of that one connection. I, in turn, have learned more about the depth of the struggles faced by women in the developing world, the social hindrances they face and the thinking that serves to keep them in place. The battle still remains, and I believe it is one worth fighting, on behalf of the rights of women in Ethiopia and throughout the world. Perhaps I can take encouragement that even a little headway has been made, and that I can be more informed, insightful, and prepared in my efforts.

7 February 2009

2009-02-07T08:46:00.000-08:00

Check out http://clemsongnomeproject.blogspot.com/ for stories and pictures from GNOME the Clemson Gnome's visit to Ethiopia!

14 January 2009

2009-01-14T08:45:00.000-08:00

There were whispers and hints along the way, but it was a car commercial aired during the NFL Playoffs that provided the definitive evidence: America has seen profound changes during the time of my absence.

It was just over one year ago that I left my home and my country to serve in Ethiopia with the U.S. Peace Corps. It was October 2007, I had just graduated from college with two shiny degrees, and my friends and I were heading off to graduate schools, medical schools, respectable jobs or crazy adventures in foreign locations. Americans were showing optimism heading into the new year, according to a variety of slightly rising poll numbers. Jim and Pam were together on The Office. The future looked bright and supremely confident – just as it always had for as long as I had been alive to anticipate it.

A Peace Corps volunteer in Africa has a limited number of windows through which to view her home country, and it wasn't long until the glimpses I was getting began to paint a steadily darkening landscape. Letters from friends recounted struggles to find work. Emails from my alma mater announced new measures to meet a drastically reduced budget, including a mandatory five days of unpaid leave for all faculty and staff. Phone calls from my parents found them at home, having called off their weekend trip to visit my grandparents in the face of soaring gas prices. Meanwhile, stories passed throughout the Peace Corps world lamented rising food prices. TIME and Newsweek began educating the public on subprime mortgages and collateralized debt obligations, and shortwave radio programs aired experts delivering increasingly more pessimistic predictions about the future of the world economy. As news of massive home foreclosures, rising unemployment rates, and collapsing financial institutions streamed back to us volunteers with frightening regularity, we felt as if the very fabric of modern society was crumbling before our attentive ears. And polls showed that for the first time, a majority of American parents believe their children will be worse off financially than they are.

It was with some trepidation, then, that I boarded a plane to come home for the holidays. What could I expect now, over one year later, from a country that had seen such dramatic events in my absence? Would I find a sense of national depression? Wide-spread panic? Would I even recognize this new American life that awaited me?

When I deplaned in Knoxville, swaths of grey clouds hung low in the cold, desolate sky – not unusual for a Tennessee winter morning, but perhaps, to my apprehensive mind, a reflection of the gloom I would witness in the coming days. What I actually saw, however, did not immediately appear so far removed from life as I had always known it there. With gas prices having fallen back to more comprehensible levels, people were returned to their old driving ways. My mother insisted on driving twenty-five minutes out to Norris, Tennessee to buy a bottle of mead for Christmas. (And here I had always thought mead was only for celebrating Viking pillagings and plunderings – not so, apparently.) I did, though, spot two Smart Cars during my time at home, which was much more that I would have expected to see in staunchly conservative East Tennessee.

It was Christmastime, that most wonderful time of the year, that epitome of American commercialism and consumerism and generally extravagant habits of spending, and in many ways, Americans seemed determined to press boldly onward into all the glorious holiday chaos, economic slow-down be damned! The mall exit ramp remained backed up well onto I-40 throughout the days leading up to Christmas, and the brilliant displays of alternately blinking colored lights and glowing plastic Nativity scenes were erected just as big and brash as ever. (Energy crisis? What energy crisis?)

A little closer to home, though, Christmas at the Smith household and elsewhere was a more subdued affair than in years gone by. The gifts exchanged were fewer, smaller, less extravagant, and the gift-giving, for once, did not seem to constitute the core of the holiday. Families employed "Secret Santa" and other similar strategies to cut down the number of obligatory exchanges, some forgoing presents altogether. With my family, the whole gift-exchange ritual consumed only fifteen minutes of our Christmas morning, leaving us the rest of the holiday to...spend quality time together? Enjoy being together again after a year? Talk?

It was really the car commercial, though, that convinced me that a massive shift had taken place in American society. My dad and I were watching the Colts and the Chargers play in the AFC Wild Card game when it came on, an advertisement for the Hyundai Assurance Program, which offers (with some strings attached) the chance to return your car if you lose your income within a year of buying. It was contrary to everything that a car commercial placed during a prime-time sporting event should be, the fuel-injected, pulse-pumping, semi-erotic demonstration of speed, power, and sleek curves counted on to appeal to the American football viewer's yearnings for adventure, ostentation, and all-around bad-assedness. In an industry whose advertising has always taken advantage of an American craving for thrills and risk-taking, this foray into realms of safety and security – assurance, if you will – reflected a significant change in the hopes, needs, and desires of the American public.

My time at home showed me a country gaining in caution, shedding some of its formerly unshakable certainty, more worried and perhaps a little more humble. As a nation, we are beginning to entertain the idea that not all steps forward constitute progress, that sometimes misguided steps must be retraced, undone, in order to return to a point where real advancement is possible. It is of course no coincidence that "change" carried the day in our presidential elections, when American voters raised their voices in favor of a new direction for our country's future.

Moreover, we are beginning to truly see and acknowledge that our actions have profound consequences in the world, for better and for worse. The slogan for Hyundai Assurance is, "We're all in this together, and we'll get through it together." As the frightening domino effects of this financial crisis ripple throughout a tightly interwoven world, one gets the sense that the "we" is being interpreted in America more broadly than ever. One gets the sense that this time around, finally, the U.S. is ready to see itself as part of a global community, and to act accordingly. In the words of Hillary Clinton during her Senate confirmation hearing, "America cannot solve the most pressing problems on our own, and the world cannot solve them without America."

Now that I am back in Ethiopia for my second year of service, local people ask me, "How is America?" I tell them that times are difficult, that the American people face many challenges, that many are worried and some are indeed suffering. But I can also tell them that I know the determination of the American people, that I have seen it in action time and again in the face of crisis. I can assure them out of my belief that an American system that responds to its people and gives them the freedom to speak, act, and innovate will find solutions to our problems, especially when it is allowed to admit and learn from the mistakes of our past. I can say that even when the American Dream has become tarnished, the American Spirit remains, believing that despite all its imperfections, America has every potential to be great, if its people demand greatness from it and work together to achieve it.

And in that way, nothing has really changed after all.

11 November 2008

2008-11-11T03:38:00.000-08:00

This entry should probably just be called "Catharsis." Perhaps, though, I can also rightly subtitle it "The Dark Side of International Volunteerism."

So, here we go.

Christen's Catharsis:
The Dark Side of International Volunteerism

Since the very beginning of my recently-completed one year in my site, I have taught supplementary, conversational English twice a week to a group of ten orphaned high school girls, housed together by a local NGO. For the past nine months of that instruction, I have been joined by the VSO volunteer who works at the local university. Over the time that we have spent with the girls, we have developed a close relationship with them. We have seen them grow and progress both in their studies and as young ladies. We have been fortunate to have them open up to us, moving beyond thinking of us as teachers to considering us as friends.

At the end of last Saturday's class, the girls told us that a man named Colin would be coming from Canada to visit. Visits like these, judging from the photographs I've seen and the stories I've heard, occur fairly frequently, in which donors to the program – usually male, usually Canadian – come to see the girls they have been sponsoring. At least two others have come to town during this past year, but having been away both times on other business, I had never been personally involved. This time, however, we were invited by both the program director and the girls' house mother to come and meet Colin, to help welcome him and explain our role in the girls' lives.

When we came to the house on the appointed day, along with the program director and the rest of the office staff, Colin had already arrived and was sitting at a table with some of the girls. We entered the room, greeted everyone in turn as per Ethiopian culture, and then introduced ourselves to Colin and explained our function as volunteers. Immediately, he seemed confused and put off by our presence. As we sat down in the chairs that were pulled out for us, Colin asked his Ethiopian counterpart for "a word" and called him into the hallway for discussion.

When Colin had finished his "word", we all sat down together in the living room to wait for the rest of the girls to arrive from school. The oldest girl, our best and most eager student, sat next to us, her teachers. She had qualified to enter the medical program at a prominent university, and this would be our last day to spend with her before she moved there. As we all waited in the slightly awkward silence borne of language barriers, relative unfamiliarity with our new guest, and a perceived formality of the proceedings to come, our little cluster of three made light conversation and laughed as I managed to spill things all over myself. Colin chatted with the girls at his table, and they responded as well as they could in their limited English. They gave him gifts, and as they named the girl who had given him each one, he pretended that he knew what they were talking about. I complimented a sweatshirt Colin had given to our star student, and overhearing, Colin turned to me and said, "Yes, she has received her shirt early. Once the two of you leave, we will give out the rest of the gifts." It seemed to me a rather odd thing to say, and I was beginning to feel quite uncomfortable with this Colin character.

Girls trickled into the room one by one as they arrived from morning classes. Finally, as our group was complete, the room quieted down, and Colin took charge of the proceeding. Namely, he took charge of the proceedings by saying to the room, "So, I think we are all here now, but our other guests have not yet left…So if you two wouldn't mind to leave, I think we'll make this a time for just our family."

Fortunately, the shock of his incredible brashness kept me silent until I could gather myself enough to be diplomatic in front of the girls. In the most amiable voices we could muster, we gathered up our things and exited the house, telling the girls we would see them in class the next day. Our star student walked with us to the front gate, where we stood and said our final goodbyes. Then, once safely outside the compound and out of earshot, we gaped at each other in disbelief of what had just occurred.

I know for certain that this was the most brazenly disrespectful act that anyone has ever deliberately committed against me. In retrospect, though, I can't actually decide which part of it was most audaciously offensive. There was the fact that a once-a-year visitor has just walked into my town of residence and my place of work and tossed me ungraciously out. The fact that a man had stepped into a program designed to encourage girls' confidence in a strongly male-dominated society, proceeded to gain control of things by disrespecting his female counterparts. The fact that, despite my living and working here for a year now, I was demeaned as a "guest" who was not worthy of inclusion in some sponsorship-purchased "family". There were so many things, really, to infuriate me in that moment. Looking back in a more calm and collected hindsight, however, one thing stands above all others in bothering me.

Beyond the personal slights involved in Colin's dismissal of myself and my colleague, his actions reveal an attitude of ego and self-importance that is poisoning international aid and volunteerism. Every industry has its egos. For some reason, though, we tend to turn a blind eye to such things in the charity and aid sector, as if the sheer force of perceived "goodness" surrounding our acts can overpower any shortcomings in our motives. The problem becomes worthy of our concern, however, when self-involved motives begin to hinder our labors. In my experience, there are too many Colins doing charitable work abroad, too many people who are more concerned with arriving as the foreign savior, savoring center stage in the temporary affections of a disadvantaged people, then broadcasting their righteous acts back home and collecting accolades and pats on the back from the people around them.

If Colin were really concerned with the wellbeing of these girls, he would have been interested to talk to the two volunteers who had been involved with them for the past year, to find out exactly what they had been doing, to learn from their first-hand perspective, to discover ways to work together with them for real solutions to real needs. Instead, his concern was that the two other white people in the room would steal his thunder. We were treated as a threat and an intrusion, rather than partners in a common cause. In the same way, concerns over recognition and attribution have blocked efforts to collaborate and cooperate throughout the world of international aid and development.

The dire needs that challenge us as a global community are simply too large for stubborn, go-it-alone egoism. They are simply too important for solutions to be forestalled and derailed by antagonism and short-sighted selfishness. If we cannot put aside pettiness to work together toward effective, broad-scale, sustainable solutions, then no amount of sponsorship money will be able to cover the fact that we have thrown away our best opportunities for success.

5 November 2008

2008-11-05T03:37:00.000-08:00

In the still hours of the morning of Wednesday, November 5, in Bahirdar, Ethiopia, an international assembly gathered on the patio of the Obama Café. Throughout a sleepless night, they kept vigil over the American election, watching a gargantuan outdoor screen that seemed to reflect not only the proceedings themselves but also their momentous implications. Day broke, and as the rising light gradually overwhelmed the projected images, they moved indoors and crowded around the small television, where just an hour later, together with a fresh contingent of locals, they would celebrate the anticipated election of Barack Obama as the next president of the United States of America.

It was like the long-anticipated finale of an epic narrative we had been observing in installments from afar. We had heard the equally compelling yet vastly different personal stories of the two candidates. We had watched the long and grueling fights through the primaries. We had followed all the twists and turns of the general election campaign, the promises, posturing, predictions, foibles, attacks, criticisms, doubts, and wildest wishes. We wondered as, incredibly, all around the world, everywhere we turned, a wave of excitement for a young, black Illinois Senator swept powerfully through hearts and hopes. Finally, together, we watched him make history.

It was the storybook ending breathlessly desired by the Ethiopian people. Inside the Obama Café, there were cheers and tears, embraces, applause, and a rush of phone calls to family and friends. Meanwhile, footage of Obama-supporting crowds broadcast from all across the world mirrored the outpouring of emotions. There were the images of a victorious Obama at dramatic camera angles, the stirring music, the expectant silence that fell over the gathering as he delivered his acceptance speech, passionate words recalling the momentous march of progress over American history. One could hardly help being swept up in the poignancy of the moment.

For the Ethiopians with whom I watched this all unfold, the pivotal storyline was all about the ground-breaking rise of a son of Africa to the American presidency. Coincident to this historic moment, however, a highly significant side plot was playing itself out. For me, the climax of all the drama came not with Obama's acceptance speech, but with John McCain's concession. There, the American democratic ideal was reflected not only in the ascent of a multi-racially and internationally rooted young man with a foreign name to the seat of highest national executive power, but also in the humble, selfless bending of his opponent to the will of the people.

On stage before his supporters and before the eyes of the world, Senator McCain acknowledged, "The voice of the people overwhelmingly has spoken…" Then, he affirmed Barack Obama as the nation's president, as his president, and promised to continue to service his country faithfully under Obama's leadership. On a continent where power is the ultimate prize and its passing often proves the ultimate problem – a continent shaken by Robert Mugabe's brutal attempts to cling to power in Zimbabwe, horrible election violence in Kenya, military coups, warring factions and constitutional manipulations that have become all too painfully common – it was a moment and a message I was proud to share from my country.

When I consider my country's image on the global stage and think about how I would like the world to see us in this recent election, I do hope that people see the progress and promise of America in a victory that would have been unthinkable not so long ago. I hope we can join together to celebrate a triumph for racial equality and the embracing of a dynamic, multicultural society. But I also hope, especially living here in eastern Africa, that the image of a people determining their future, of one man stepping aside to yield to their collective voice while another steps up to heed their call, will be one that endures. This is government "of the people, by the people, and for the people." This is the dream of America.

14 October 2008

2008-10-14T04:42:00.000-07:00

America is, of course, the most important nation on the face of the earth. At least that's what we Americans like to tell ourselves. You might even forgive us for thinking so this year, however, as eyes and ears all around the world tune in eagerly, anxiously, amusedly to the Presidential election that is being billed by international media as, well, the most important on the face of the earth.

For Ethiopia, there is one point of interest concerning the U.S. elections and one point only – Barack Obama. Ethiopia loves Barack Obama. Charismatic and eloquent son of a Kenyan father, a black man who has risen meteorically in American politics and now stands well positioned to assume the highest office in a country whose wealth and freedom hold an almost mythical pull for most Ethiopians, he has captured hearts and imaginations in this developing East African nation.

The evidences of Ethiobamamania are everywhere. Within the past five months, "Obama Café"s have sprung up all over the country. The largest and most prominent of these is in Bahirdar, where you can eat the best steak-and-cheese sandwich in Ethiopia under multiple images of the man himself, smiling endearingly down on you from the walls. Unsurprisingly, the most extravagant display of Obama exuberance can be found in the capital city of Addis Ababa, where an eight-story construction project has been christened the Barack Obama Building. A fellow volunteer reported to me an incident in which her Addis taxi driver told a young street girl soliciting money, "Obama yistilin" – in Amharic, "May Obama bless you." The driver remarked, "God and Jesus, number 1. Obama, number 2!"

Ethiopia's affection for Obama is grounded in both the personal and the political. Asked why they favor Obama, I have heard Ethiopians respond, "He is a black man," "He is a youngster," and even, "He is tall and handsome!" Black skin and youthful optimism about the world have made Obama a compelling symbol of the hope for a prosperous and respected Africa. Yet, some of this hope reaches beyond the symbolic. Many local friends and colleagues have told me of Obama, "I think he will bring good governance to Ethiopia." It is a belief that I hear echoed regularly among Ethiopians.

Expressions like these make me incredibly nervous. Inflated American sense of self-importance aside, the American president's potential for real impact in the internal governance of African nations like Ethiopia is extremely limited. Diplomatic pressure and economic sanctions can only go so far, as evidenced forcefully in the case of Zimbabwe, for example. Moreover, the limited success that was achieved diplomatically in Zimbabwe was only realized through the mediation of fellow African leader Thabo Mbeke, of South Africa. Ultimately, real achievements in African governance have to come from the African people themselves.

What should it say, then, that so many Ethiopians are resting their hopes for their own country on a U.S. presidential election? For one, it should pose challenging questions about the way in which the U.S. and other developed nations have interacted with Africa, and about the appropriateness of the messages being sent by our methods. When the ingrained instinct is to wait for help from the outside instead of mobilizing it from within, we have all taken steps backward.

As this historic election advances toward its conclusion, questions about an Obama presidency hang expectantly in the air. Would an Obama presidency in fact salvage America's tarnished image in the global community? Would Obama indeed bring an element of cooperation and dialogue that has been lacking in recent American politics? Will Obama, or any American leader for that matter, really deliver sound governance to Ethiopia? In the last matter, at least, I fear real risks for dependency and disillusionment on the part of the Ethiopian people.

If nothing else can be said for sure, however, it is clear that Ethiopians are allowing themselves the audacity to hope.

11 September 2008

2008-09-11T23:02:00.000-07:00

On the evening before the New Year, I found myself sitting on my back step, peeling a kilogram of garlic. My landlady had recruited me to help with the preparations for this most celebrated of Ethiopian holidays. (I have told myself that her recent comfort in assigning me chores is a positive thing, demonstrating that she considers me a member of the family, capable of contributing to life on the compound. Perhaps, though, she just likes having a source of free work.)

A stripe of cloudless sky was visible between the edge of my peaked tin roof and the tops of the renters’ quarters behind my house, where my landlady was busy cooking injera over a smoking wood fire. Gradually, as I stripped my way through the pile of pungent cloves, the hazy dusk gave way to the clear, sharp nighttime sky, glittering with a million dazzling points of light. I reflected that, due to quirks in the history of man’s accounting of time, on the day that my home country would pause to remember tragedies of the past, my host country would be earnestly looking to the promise of the future.

The whole week had been one of anticipation, with a series of town hall meetings, culture shows, dances, and concerts all leading up to the main event. The most notorious of these featured a local girl performing the topless dancing of the South Omo tribes, which was rather shocking in the context of my highly conservative Gojjami town. My landlady’s second-born son, a singer, was thrilled to finally have me in the audience at some of his band’s shows, and I was inevitably pulled up out of the crowd to dance at the last song of each one (fully clothed, thank you).

New Year’s Day itself began this morning with a heap of fried sheep meat for breakfast. I ate with my landlady and her singer son, the only one of her five boys who had stuck around to spend the holiday with their mother. Planning ahead for future piles of sheep meat to be consumed throughout the day, I ate as little as I could get away with and left for my female neighbor’s home. I colored pictures with the family’s three little children while a male cousin slaughtered the holiday sheep, spilling its blood on the grass-covered floor of the house, as prescribed by culture. We ate together (more fried sheep) and took silly pictures in the yard before I had to leave again to join my landlady for lunch (yet more fried sheep).

In the afternoon, I had second-lunch with KB’s compound family and managed to coat myself in spiced butter while holding their fussy, butter-haired infant. Then, in my final stop of the day, I visited my office’s secretary for evening coffee, bread, and, reluctantly, more sheep meat. Having only interacted with her in the rather male-dominated office setting, I was thankful for a chance to get to know her outside of work in a setting where she felt more comfortable opening up. We bonded over talk about husbands: When I asked if she was married, she replied laughingly in Amharic, “No, I don’t want a husband,” which is my trademark reply to this common inquiry (followed typically by more questions about why I don’t want a husband, to which I usually reply with some variation of, “Husbands are nothing but trouble.”) Thus, the holiday was successful if for nothing else than my discovery of the only single female my age in the whole of my town.

Now, back at home, I’ve settled down into sheep meat coma and am watching from my living room window as, again, the hazy dusk darkens into deepest ebony. The anticipated day is over, and tomorrow, all that will remain of the festivities will be a scattering of sheep bones in the street-side ditches and the smell of garlic that has seeped indelibly into the skin of my hands. Judging, however, from last year’s abundance of posters and cards that proclaimed the arrival of the Ethiopian New Millennium long after the venerated day had passed, the hope of a new year and a brighter future will carry on with bated breath.

4 September 2008

2008-09-04T10:27:00.000-07:00

Peace Corps service is reliably marked by ups and downs, by the facing of a constant stream of challenges, practical, professional, and psychological. Yet this past month for me was the most emotionally testing by far.

It was a month in which those anticipated ups and downs seemed to climb and dive to extremes beyond their typical character, and every high was tempered by a sobering low. We saw the most sun since the rainy season began three months ago. We also experienced some of the most intense downpours. I took major steps in my two biggest projects. My volunteer assistance grant was approved by Peace Corps for the local mill that will be built to provide job opportunities for people living with HIV, and the HIV&AIDS community forum I have been planning with the teachers college looks to be on its way to happening. Day-to-day work, however, was agonizingly slow, with schools out of session, work partners in other towns pursuing degrees and certificates through summer classes, and rain regularly disrupting each day and usually taking electricity with it. With the hiring of a new APCD, program assistant, and administrative officer, the Peace Corps Addis office had hopes of being fully staffed for the first time since April – until the resignation of our EPC (I don't know what it stands for, either) was announced. Volunteers were overjoyed to hear that one of us who had left the program due to family issues was initiating the process to return. On the other hand, we were hit hard by the departure of six more volunteers (four by choice, two four medical reasons), reducing our current numbers to just 30. Ethiopia had a mixed showing in world news. Four Olympic golds and the restoration of the ancient Axum obelisk to its rightful home counted among the positives; severe food shortages in the southern regions and a bomb blast in the capital, killing four and injuring 24, were among the tragic negatives. Even the Olympics served this roller-coaster pattern. Watching with my community as Ethiopian runners took spectacular victories in the men's and women's 5,000- and 10,000-meters, and joining in the exuberant celebrations following, I was blessed to share the triumph of a nation that has begun in special ways to become mine. Yet sitting in local cafes surrounded by Ethiopians, witnessing thrilling wins by the U.S. including Michael Phelps' historic 8 golds, feeling the welling pride and excitement of those moments and finding no one with whom to share it, painfully underlined the fact that I am away from the country that will always be my true home.

We volunteers are entering the period that the Peace Corps literature terms, "mid-service crisis." Elements of Ethiopian culture that we formerly found interesting, quirky, endearing, or at least amusing, now somehow spark only annoyance. Excitement over the exotic has given way to longing for the familiar. When we get together, we talk about home more than is probably healthy, as many of us look forward to spending the year-end holidays with America family and friends. When we return again to our respective sites, in moments of quiet solitude our thoughts drift inevitably homeward. All my dreams that I can remember from the past three weeks have involved people and places from back home.

And yet, even now I can see glimmers of light at the end of this emotional tunnel. I can sense the competency and state of settled adaptation that I've been assured are coming. I'm feeling more savvy in my work these days. I know which organizations and offices are doing what, I know where to go for resources, I know who I can (and cannot) count on to get things done, I know who will be my leaders and advocates, I know generally "the way things work" and can more adeptly navigate the necessary processes and channels. An impressive portion of my town's 120,000 residents know me by name. Some of them even know what I'm doing here. Children in the streets are catching on to the drill that I ignore, "YouYouYou," "FarenjiFarenjiFarenji," and "MoneyMoneyMoney," but will faithfully and cheerfully respond to, "Hello," "Hi," "Good morning/afternoon," and any variant of, "Kristi." Often I hear them correcting their unenlightened friends. I can navigate full days in Amharic. I actually enjoy going to the chaotic Saturday market. Even the environmental conditions are looking up. The fleas and mosquitoes are on their way out with the rain, the mud occasionally has the chance to dry up, and – miracle of all blessed, blessed miracles! – one local shop has begun to stock Snickers and Twix bars.

Above all, it's such a comfort to know that I'm not riding this emotional roller-coaster alone. It's funny: You hit a slump, and you come up with a whole litany of extenuating circumstances. (It's cold, and I hate cold weather. My nose is runny. My couch has fleas. My bed has fleas. I'm out of postally-provided American chocolate because I binge on it instead of rationing.) Then you talk to fellow volunteers and discover that, across the board, they're feeling the same way, even though your lists of reasons read completely differently. You realize that you'll always have someone to talk to about the tough times, someone who will understand and empathize, a comrade to see you through.

So yes, it's true that I feel like screaming when I get the exact same questions over and over again from everyone I see, when my Amharic inevitably gets laughed at and repeated several times over amongst the giggling crowd of curious gawkers, when each person I talk to during the day feels compelled to point out the pimple that's popped up overnight on my forehead and cross-examine me on how it got there. It's true that I would probably sell my soul at this point for just one day at home with my family and friends, eating terrible processed foods and watching college football. But it's also true that the melancholy feelings will pass, that I'm not alone in experiencing them, and that most importantly, they are a part of a much larger journey that, in the end, will be wholly, unarguably worth it all.

7 August 2008

2008-08-07T06:25:00.000-07:00

On the eve of the Olympic opening ceremonies, I called my Ethiopian host family in Welliso. My momma answered and had barely enough time to say my name, before my little brother swiped the phone and yelled excitedly into the receiver, "Christen! The Beijing Olympics start tomorrow!"

Throughout much of the Western world, mention of Ethiopia recalls the images of pot-bellied starving children and skeletal adults that were broadcast during the terrible famine of the mid-1980s. Perhaps occasionally, the name sparks association with fine coffee. Often, it sparks nothing at all. Once every four years, however, Ethiopia has a chance to shine brightly on the world stage for a distinction that is undeniably worthy and universally commanding of respect: supremacy in the gruelling sport of distance running.

This August, the eyes of the world will be on these Games in China. Some will look on in pride, seeing the emergence of a strong and modern nation into the ranks of the global elite. Some will watch in anger, indignance, and disgust as the Olympic torch is taken up by a government marked by heavy-handed oppression and a dubious record of human rights. But amidst all the politics, the posturing and the protest, there will be one bright-eyed Ethiopian twelve-year-old - and millions of others like him - watching in breathless anticipation for a chance at victory, for that moment that will exalt him with his country into the limelight of international glory where they will be seen without pity or trivialization, where, most importantly, they will be SEEN.

I will watch these Olympics on behalf of the dedicated athletes and the ordinary people to whom they mean so much. I will watch for the sake of those remarkable stories that unfold to captivate and connect us all. I will watch for my awesome little Ethiopian brother. I hope you will, too.

15 July 2008: And Back Again

2008-08-04T11:57:00.001-07:00

I slept in awkward spurts lying on benches in the airport and stumbled semi-deliriously through check-in, security, and onto the plane. I must have strung together some amount of rest, though, because I was alert enough this time to actually see our descent into Khartoum, even awake enough to humor the flight attendant by taking the 5 A.M. breakfast offering. Khartoum appeared much as it had been described to me: "hot and dusty." As we took off again, I tried not to think about the disasters that had recently taken place on the same runway.

My first experience back in Addis was that of three men push-starting the line taxi heading into the city. Welcome home.

It's a little strange to be back. It's not so much coming from Egypt back to Ethiopia; rather, it's seeing my best friend again after so long, reuniting with that part of my life, feeling that longed-for connection to home, and then having to leave it all behind again.

On the other hand, it is nice to be back in the place that I know. It's nice to feel competent again, to fall back into the "don't-mess-with-me-I'm-not-a-tourist" swagger. It was good to settle into my little house again, to see the familiar faces around town, to be greeted by name out on the streets, to be told I was missed in the community, even to be told in the curious complimentary fashion of Ethiopia that I was looking SO good and fat after my vacation! It feels good to feel that I belong.

14 July 2008: Final Day and Departure

2008-08-04T11:56:00.000-07:00

I woke up the next morning to say goodbye to Suzanne as she left for the airport. It was an abbreviated affair; neither of us is a big fan of goodbyes.

My flight not being set to depart Cairo until 3:30 the following morning, the girls were good enough to let me tag along with them through the day. I walked with them around the city, glad to be able to see areas that were new to me (though also painfully aware of the big blue hiking pack I was toting through the crowded streets). While they went off to a meeting, I hung out in a trendy café near the American University, drank iced lemonade with mint, and finished up my postcards. In the evening, I met back up with them at the center where they teach English, and their boss invited us to see their newest center on the other side of the city. My last image of Cairo was gathered as we drove with him across town at the close of day: a fiery sunset over the Nile silhouetting a commercial skyline, with two of the Great Pyramids just visible in the hazy distance.

At the new center, we were surprised to find a quaint little grassy backyard, where we were seated like VIP guests for dinner at plastic tables amidst the flower gardens. The girls' boss had bought us each a strand of jasmine from a street seller on the drive over, and we wore them in our hair and felt like perfect pixies as we dined on hotdogs, hamburgers, and hibiscus tea in our secret garden.

It grew late, and the girls and I finally parted ways, they to their home and I to the airport. Their work colleagues helped me obtain a taxi at a fair price, and generally showed unbelievable kindness to a strange girl that had stumbled into their lives for an evening. Along the drive, I chit-chatted with my driver, Mohammed, who was all smiles and so pleased to hear that I had had a wonderful time in his country. It was a long way from that first uncertain taxi ride into the city.

As I watched out the windows, the lights of Cairo streamed past me and faded into the night in the rearview. I felt truly sad to be putting it all behind me.

12-13 July 2008: Cairo, Alexandria, and Cairo Again

2008-08-04T11:48:00.001-07:00

On the morning of our arrival back in Cairo, Suzanne and I dumped our bags at the hotel and hopped the Metro to the Coptic section of the city. Wandering through the Coptic Museum, I was fascinated by the peculiar religious mixtures that emerged in the wake of Christianity's appearance in the region. Christian mythologies mingled and merged with those of ancient Egypt and Greece, John and James beside Horace and Anubis beside Leda and the swan. I will say, though, that the shock effect of 5, 6, and 7 A.D. falls somewhat flat after a week spent amidst wonders from a few thousand years prior.

We went back to the hotel and hung out with those still remaining from our tour group, who were set to leave that night. We sat around and watched whatever happened to come on the English-language movie channel – I think Fatal Attraction (through which I slept, my apologies to Mr. Redford) and that one with Deniro and a very young Leo Dicaprio. An Axe Body Spray commercial came on, and we had to explain to our Egyptian tour guide what "bow-chicka-wow-wow" meant. ("Bow-chicka-wow-wow" apparently does not translate across cultures.) Later, we applied this new vocabulary when he left to go visit a "girl friend" at another hotel.

After finally saying goodbye to the others, Suzanne and I caught a few hours of sleep in their vacated hotel rooms before heading out early to Alexandria. Our tour guide had helpfully arranged everything for us, securing a car and dictating a day's itinerary to our driver. He had requested a small car, which apparently was not available that day, so we had the rather awkward experience of being chauffeured around just the two of us in a spacious 12-passenger van.

Alexandria is a beautiful seaside city, described to us a having a "distinctly Western feel." (I think this refers to the TGIFriday's in the downtown.) It provided an interesting contrast to Cairo. Mainly, though, I think I was just thrilled to see the ocean again. We toured the catacombs, Pompey's Pillar, the shoreline citadel, and the enormous Alexandria Library. At each stop, our driver would drop us out front, go to park our small personal bus, and promptly pass out in the reclined driver's seat, leaving us to sheepishly wake him upon our return.

I'm not sure whether it was the fact that we were two foreign women traveling around alone or if it was a distinction of the city itself, but Suzanne and I got more attention in Alexandria than we had anywhere else. Waiting in line to enter the Library, we attracted a pack of adolescent Egyptian boys, who somehow managed to entertain themselves for 20 minutes by speaking to us across a significant language barrier in broken Arabic-English. Walking through the citadel, I was followed relentlessly by one Egyptian man in particular, who wanted to take a picture with me. When, in hopes of getting rid of him, I finally assented and asked him for his camera, he said, "Oh no, I don't have a camera. It is a photo for you!" Thanks…but no thanks.

We ended the day by splitting a pricy (by our African-volunteer-and-in-debt medical-student standard, at least) seafood dinner and strolling down the trash-strewn beach that abutted the sapphire-blue ocean. As we drove away from the city, I tried to keep the sea in sight for as long as possible, storing up memories to take back with me into my landlocked life. Our tour guide called us once, ostensibly to check up on us, though I think he really just wanted to brag about his night. ("Bow-chicka-wow-wah-wee-WOW!!" was, I believe, the exact word he used in telling me.) Two hours later, we were back in Cairo, boarding the Metro out to our accommodations for the night.

In true Peace Corps Volunteer spirit, I feel, I both began and ended my Egyptian tour by imposing myself upon strangers tenuously connected to me through mutual friends. This final night's stay was with some friends of a PCV friend who, also in keeping with Peace Corps spirit, were living with an Egyptian host family on the outskirts of the city. This proved to be one of the most colorful, authentic, and memorable experiences of my whole trip.

Upon our arrival at the house, we shared tea seated together on the family's living room floor, the three women of the family, two little girls, and the five of us Americans. Our three hosts answered in Arabic all the family's questions about Suzanne and me, and we smiled and nodded and tried to look as agreeable as possible. I realize how much the Peace Corps experience has affected me by how little I'm bothered being in the midst of totally incomprehensible chatter. In fact, I could have sat and listened to them talk all night, just observing the scene, soaking in the moment, picking up words here and there and storing them away. Such has been much of my life in Ethiopia.

A cassette player was produced from the back bedroom, and before we knew it, tea time had broken into a belly dancing party. Washtubs and metal pots were beaten like drums in rhythm with the music, and we each took turns making fools of ourselves as the sassy little six-year-old daughter dragged us up in turn in front of the gathering. That is to say, the rather more Caucasian among us made fools of ourselves, while getting to see displays of incredible talent from the others. It reminded me very much of all those nights spent dancing in the living room with my host family in Welliso – except that now it was my hips, rather than my shoulders, that I was attempting to gyrate in ways that I believe are truly beyond my physical capabilities.

When the music and the laughter finally subsided, we bid the family goodnight and retreated to the girls' wing of the apartment, where we talked late into the night about our different experiences abroad. It was a perfect last night in Egypt, in my mind, one that felt less like tourism and more like traveling. It exemplified all the things that drew me overseas with the Peace Corps in the first place, all the things for which I have gained an even greater appreciation since.

10-11 July: Luxor

2008-07-30T08:44:00.000-07:00

Leaving behind our faithful felucca and taking once more to travel by land, we followed the path of the Nile north, reaching Luxor by midday. Formerly the ancient capital of Thebes, Luxor maintains a sense of power and regality through the magnificent temples, tombs, and monuments that it still hosts.

We started at Karnak Temple. If Abu Aimbel had seemed to me the impressive embodiment of authority, Karnak was even more so. Massive stone pillars, towering obelisks, kingly statues, and a fantastic wealth of hieroglyphics all paid tribute to the god above all Egyptian gods, Ra. I couldn't help but be held in awe.

(At times, though, I will note, my awe was mingled with immature amusement, as I also couldn't help but snigger at the many representations of the fertility god Min, who as a result of having impregnated the entire female population of an ancient Egyptian village, is always depicted in an…aroused state.)

The next day, we traveled to see the Colossi of Memnon and the Valley of the Kings, similarly constructed to honor, inspire, and exalt. The ravages of thousands of years gone by had diminished the effect very little.

Lunch that day was served to us at a home off the back streets of Luxor. We had been invited by the wife of the brother of the owner of the hotel at which we were staying – an incredible show of hospitality on her part to invite 12 foreign strangers into her house. We sat on cushions around a long, low table in the living room and ate savory chicken broth and pasta soup, stuffed peppers, fresh marinated tomatoes, baba ghanoush, dense bread, and the best fried chicken I've tasted since leaving behind the American South. After the meal, we sat together with the family and sipped mint tea, while the two little daughters constructed cars and boats out of the couch cushions.

Throughout all this, there was an element of the Luxor leg of our tour that felt like the beginning of the end. During group meals, our tour guide made speeches about how much he enjoyed his time with us and how leaving was the hardest part of his job. Email addresses were exchanged, along with all the usual, "It's been nice meeting you," "Safe travels," "Keep in touch." Boarding the night train back to Cairo, though, sparked the formal goodbyes. We took our goofy group photos in the station, we played our last hands of cards together on the train, and finally in Cairo we said hurried goodbyes to those who were rushing off to make morning flights. The organized portion of our trip had come to an end, but Suzanne and I were just on our way to a new (disorganized?) portion on our own.

7-9 July 2008: Aswan

2008-07-26T07:22:00.000-07:00

The city of Aswan is gorgeously situated on the banks of the Nile at the point of some of the clearest waters. From the balcony of our hotel room, Suzanne and I had a stunning view of the blue flowing waters, the vivid green waterside palms, the canvas sails of the wooden feluccas.

The two of us began our stay in Aswan by exploring the area around our hotel, and we eventually found ourselves inside the large, open-air Nubian bazaar. The experience was pretty much the same as inside Khan al Khalili, but the wide, bricked streets and the reduced number of tourists out in the heat of the afternoon made it a little more comfortable (other than, of course, the heat of the afternoon that most other tourists were smart enough not to go out in). Vendors attempted to draw us in by asking us where we were from, and I confused them terribly by answering, "Ethiopia."

Joining back up with our group at the hotel, we took a boat out to Elephantine Island, home to the oldest extant Nubian village. In ancient times, the region of Nubia consisted in all lands south of Egypt, including Ethiopia. As a result, the commonalities between the Ethiopian and Nubian cultures were striking, in the relaxed pace of life, the conventions and expectations for showing hospitality to a guest, the colorful ceremonies and celebrations. I felt comfortably at home in a way that I had not in Cairo.

We were invited into the home of a Rastafarian-leaning Nubian gentleman who went by "JJ", seemed to know everyone on the island, and could have easily passed for the Nubian Godfather. We drank fresh, chilled mango juice and saw photographs and video from his wedding. One posed photograph showed the groom brandishing a large whip in front of his bride, who faced him with palms pressed together in front of her heart, as if in prayer or plea. Our uneasiness over this picture was only slightly allayed when our guide explained that the whip pertained to a traditional Sudanese wedding dance between groom and best man.

We trolled around the Nile upstream from Elephantine Island, eventually taking to shore at a scenic outdoor café on the riverbank. There, I got my first chance to swim in the Nile. I use the term "swim" loosely in this case, since the currents toward the middle of the river were far stronger than I wanted to really test. But I did have my entire body immersed in the waters of the Egyptian Nile, which was enough to validate the experience for me, anyhow. I saw no crocodiles, unless you count the small one kept in a plastic bucket by the owners of the café gift shop.

After several minutes in the chilly water, I joined the others on shore for shisha and Nubian coffee, which was not quite as bold as Ethiopian coffee but beautifully and piquantly spiced. Then, once we had dried off, we hired camels and rode inland over part of the Sahara to Saint Simeon's Monastery. Sitting atop my tall, white camel named Leon, it was a plodding, bumpy, but rather soothing ride through the vast and desolate stretch of sand. Between the Nile, the Sahara, the camels and the shisha, it felt a thoroughly stereotypical Egyptian experience.

That night, we ferried out to Philae Temple, built to commemorate Isis's sacrifice of love for her murdered Osiris, which restored the waters of the Nile. (Perhaps ironically, considering the temple's mythological origins, the temple was flooded in 1906 after the construction of the first Aswan dam, and it was only through international efforts during the 1970s that it was saved.) We watched a "sound and light show" that walked us through the temple's complex five-thousand-year history and demonstrated the dynamic lines of history, mythology, religion, and politics converging and running through it. It was a vivid reminder of the richness, depth, and intricacy of all the things we were seeing in Egypt, which offered even more beyond the beautiful architecture noted by casual observation.

We returned to the city late at night and, sadly, were forced into supporting the intrusion of American fast food abroad, since the only place to grab a quick dinner at that hour was the McDonald's. Maybe I was just paranoid and self-conscious, but I swear the Egyptians we passed on the street were laughing at the Americans carrying their red and yellow paper sacks of greasy, supply-chained, ultra-standardized, factory-produced fast food.

Aswan had come alive at night, after the harsh sun had plunged below the horizon and given way to the cool darkness and a brilliant starry sky. It was exciting and invigorating for a girl used to being locked indoors for the most part during the night hours.

Suzanne and I stopped in a little shop to buy a couple bottles of water. As we were walking back to the hotel, we began to hear offensive catcalling behind us. It started as kissing noises, and then we began hear an Egyptian voice calling, "Hey! Hey! Hey, girls! Hey! Want some company? Hey, girls, want some company?" It followed us for about a block, after which I turned to Suzanne, and I believe my exact words were, "I'm gonna punch this guy in the face. I'm gonna kill someone." We heard the pace of the footsteps behind us quicken to catch up with us, and the next "Hey!" came from just behind us. I whipped around. I was angry. I was ready. It was our tour guide. Our lanky, goofy, mischievous Egyptian tour guide was screwing with us. He laughed and laughed, hugged us, and made fun of the infuriated and indignant expression on my face. It became a favorite joke between us for the rest of the trip. Perhaps nine months of harassment as a foreign woman in Ethiopia has made me just a little bit touchy…

A late night was followed by a very early morning, as we had to join the police convoy at 4 AM in order to travel southward to Abu Simbel. Abu Simbel consists of two giant rock-hewn temples, constructed under the Pharaoh Ramses II in the 13th century BC. Built into the side of a limestone mountain and transferred in the 1960s (again due to the construction of the Aswan dam) to its current waterside location on the banks of the artificial Lake Nasser, it is a massive structure, obviously meant to convey power and invoke awe. An intimidating lineup of four giant statues guards the entrance to the larger of the two temples. But for me, the most incredible aspect of Abu Simbel was the wealth of hieroglyphics adorning the walls in the extensive network of internal chambers (which, unfortunately, tourists are prohibited from photographing).

I had passed out on the back seat on the bus ride to Abu Simbel, which was uncharacteristic of me, as I'm usually one to enjoy watching the scenery flying past me. I was woken up just briefly by the "oohs" and "aahs" of my tripmates on the bus, and I sat up groggily and stared out the back window to see a dazzling sunrise over the vacant desert landscape. For the most part, though, I slept soundly, and seeing all the desolate nothingness through which our path took on the way back, I didn't feel like I had missed much.

Back at the hotel in Aswan, Suzanne and I slept and showered. There was a confusing and rather frightening moment in which an Egyptian man in a possibly uniform polo shirt showed up at our door holding a knife. He made signs and gestures that suggested he was there to fix our air conditioner, but as the air conditioner was working quite nicely, I didn't feel compelled to invite him in. I'm sure he and the rest of the hotel staff of which he was likely a legitimate part had a great laugh at me later, but I sure wasn't going to take any chances.

We spent the next day on the water. It was a day of complete relaxation, a leisurely boat trip on a bright, lazy day that recalled time passed on the lakes at home on beautiful, muggy summer days. We read, played cards, drank cold beers from our cooler, and napped under the canopy of our canvas-sailed felucca. Stopping every so often to swim in the cool water, we inevitably drew a crowd of curious Egyptian boys with whom we threw Frisbee. Good alumni that we are, Suzanne and I made sure to fly our Clemson flag from the stern of the boat. It waved proudly in the breeze and glinted vivid orange under the splendid sun.

At night, we docked at a little sand beach with two other tourist boats. The boat assistants built a campfire, Egyptian drums appeared out of nowhere, and suddenly the quiet beach was transformed into a spirited circle of singing and dancing. We spun, stomped, stepped, clapped, kicked, swayed, and shook to the lively rhythms until guides and guests alike were worn out. We settled ourselves down on blankets around the fire, and the smell of sweet apples filled the air as the shisha pipes were fired up. A demonstration of the traditional "haka" from the New Zealanders launched a sort of nationalistic talent show, in which a song was demanded from the citizens of each country represented there on the beach. I led my countrymen in a rousing rendition of "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling," which might not be quite as cultural or historical as the hucker, but surely won a special part in the American tradition after its prominent appearance in Top Gun.

We slept on the deck of the felucca. When I awoke the next morning and rolled over on my stomach to peek over the side of the boat, I was greeted by the sun rising brilliantly over the water, lighting up the Nile like fire.

5-6 July 2008: Cairo and Giza

2008-07-26T07:21:00.000-07:00

We began our sightseeing by walking to Al Azar mosque in the heart of Islamic Cairo. We strolled around the large open courtyard and tried to take in the towering minarets, the smooth curved domes, the intricate Arabesque arches. Inside the mosque, we wandered through a forest of wooden pillars and the many young men dozing up against them, sheltered from the intense afternoon sun. (Our tour guide remarked of the men napping in the mosque, "This is a bad habit.")

Our next visit was to Khan al Khalili market, the noise and bustle of which provided a stark contrast to the solemn serenity of Al Azar. I wandered with Suzanne up and down the aisles and aisles of stalls selling traditional clothing, scarves, papyrus paintings, wooden instruments, silver jewelry, intricate boxes inlaid with mother-of-pearl, carved statuettes, and fragrant spices. We were bombarded on all sides by the insistent sales pitches of the merchants, the forceful proffering of items, the assurances of "top quality" and "honest price", the shameless flattery and even several offers of marriage. I have experienced the haggling culture of several different countries now, but in my opinions the Egyptians have thought up the wittiest lines. My favorites included, "I don't know what you're looking for, but I have exactly what you need!", "Ninety-nine percent discount for beautiful girls!", and "How can I take your money?", which I found rather refreshingly honest.

From Khan al Khalili, we went up to El Azar park, which overlooks the city from the top of a hill. We watched the sun set over a hazy skyline, surrounded by happy Egyptian families and small boys flying colorful kites. Then, in the evening, we watched a traditional Sufi dance show. White-robed musicians played cultural flutes, drums, tambourines, guitars, bells and cymbals while Sufi dancers in gigantic, round, rainbow-colored skirts whirled and twirled, sometimes, amazingly, for up to half an hour without stopping. It was a fantastic display of color, motion, and sound.

At the end of the day, the group gathered back at the hotel bar and swapped travel stories over local Stella beers. Suzanne and I really hadn't STOPPED talking since our scene in the lobby, but in spite of this, and despite some serious jet lag on her part coming from India and then the States, we stayed up late into the night catching up on everything from our nine months of separation.

Fortunately, it wasn't TOO terribly early the next morning when we set out for the pyramids at Giza. (The city has encroached much further into the desert since ancient times, such that the Great Pyramids are now only about a twenty-minute drive from downtown Cairo.) Our second day was filled with ancient wonders: the Great Pyramids, the Sphinx, King Tutankhamen's gold head mask and golden sarcophagi, and innumerable treasures housed by the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Seeing all these iconic marvels from ancient Egypt, I felt an extraordinary connection to peoples and civilizations of the past, as well as to the millions and millions of others throughout time who have seen and been held in awe.

After a free afternoon (mostly spent napping) we boarded our sleeper train to Aswan. I passed the night playing Texas Hold'em and slept on a bunk bed above Suzanne. It felt just like college again (except that a leak in the piping allowed urine to seep up through a spot in our carpet and stink up our small enclosed car, which only reminded me of isolated moments of college).

5 July 2008: Arrival in Egypt

2008-07-26T07:19:00.000-07:00

In my first steps off the plane, I was met by a thick desert heat that even at 4:00 in the morning was oppressive. I had arrived in Cairo to begin a ten-day trip that would show me architectural wonders of the ancient world, provide me first first-hand taste of an Arabic nation, reunite me with my dear friend and four-year roommate from college, and expose me to a quite different extreme of weather from the Ethiopian rainy season.

Aside from all that, though, it would be the first time in nine months that I would have to consider myself merely a tourist in a foreign country. I felt all the uncertainties of that long-ago flight to Ethiopia, except that the inscrutable chatter around me was now Arabic rather than Amharic and produced not by an old tattooed woman but by dozens of senior Egyptian men dressed in their grayish galabeyas. Most of all, I felt clumsy, timid, and ignorant, having come from a country in which I had amassed now nine months of language and culture proficiency, to a country in which I was armed only with a phrase book and a booked tour itinerary.

The flight had gone smoothly, albeit mostly sleeplessly. On any other airline, one could expect a flight departing at 10 PM and arriving at 3 AM to pass quietly and rather uneventfully. But Ethiopian Airlines is not like any other airline. And so it was that my "red-eye" flight was filled with the constant glare of the artificial overhead lighting, the loud and jovial chatter of Egyptian men, two in-flight movies, two drink services, and a 2 AM dinner, for which occasion the flight attendant felt compelled to forcibly shake me awake. After now two international flights with Ethiopian and having been woken up for every snack, meal, and other offered service, I am beginning to think that they take sleeping on their flights personally.

After deplaning, I mentally braced myself for my first set of challenges. Buy visa. Exchange money. Pass customs. Find taxi. The first three were much simpler than I had envisioned, as the entire procedure for obtaining an Egyptian tourist visa consists in handing 15 USD through the money exchange window. (I was thankful that I had not bothered to complete forms and submit pictures beforehand to the embassy in Addis.) As for the taxi, I found myself apprehended by a small, wiry man at the airport information desk and shuffled upstairs to "an honest government tourist car." I'm sure the wiry man was simply a taxi operator, and I'm sure the driver was simply a friend of his, and I'm absolutely certain I paid double the normal going rate, but as a rather clueless tourist showing up alone in a country where I speak almost none of local language, I'm going to have to expect to get ripped off a little bit initially. The driver asked me if I would like to listen to Egyptian music, then asked me how much I would pay to hear it. He also told me several times during the drive that he hoped I would not forget his tip.

On the drive from the airport through the city, I felt like a little kid, wondering at the beautiful domed mosques and soaring minarets, the intricate palaces, the imposing stone citadel. I caught my first glimpse of the Egyptian Nile lying serenely between Cairo and Giza in the pale morning light.

I was staying with a friend of a friend of a friend, who was kind enough to offer hospitality to a total stranger (outside of the all-important Facebook friendship) for the several hours I'd have to myself in the city before meeting my tour group. When I opened the door to the flat, I was struck immediately by the wood floors, which I had seen in Ethiopia only in the Ambassador's residence. This shock was immediately supplanted in my mind, however, when a glass of ice cold filtered, REFRIGERATED water was placed in my hand.

I slept through most of the morning and took a cold shower upon waking in order to relieve the heat. Then I strapped on my pack and hit the streets.

For a large capital city, it seemed a relatively calm Saturday morning. Families strolled together in residential areas. In the commercial districts, business owners watched people in the streets from the cool shade of their breezy shop doorways. I stopped at a small snack shop and bought some coconut-flavored biscuits to get change for the Metro. Being confident in only three words of Arabic (the common two-word greeting and, thanks to watching Al Jazeera in Ethiopia, the word for "soup," which is the same in Amharic) and being unfamiliar with Egyptian currency and pricing, I handed over my purchase and a 50-pound note and hoped for the best. I'll never know if the wad of colorful bills I received in return was correct or not, but the elderly woman behind the counter seemed nice enough. Her son in the store with her asked me in English where I came from, and though I answered, "the United States," they somehow heard "the Ukraine" and seemed pleased by this.

Half an hour later, I found myself standing in front of my hotel, feeling quite proud of myself for having successfully navigated the Metro and city streets to arrive there. (I chose to ignore the fact that I had stood with my back to the door for about five minutes, looking undecidedly at the large stone building across the street, before the doorman told me to turn around because my hotel was probably right behind me.)

I had made it just in time for our tour group meeting. Introductions around the table showed us to be a well-traveled group, all of us coming to Egypt in the midst of larger overseas adventures. We were three Aussies, four Kiwis, and five Yanks, though three of us were living outside the U.S. To my great disappointment, however, my friend Suzanne had not yet arrived. I have to admit, I spent most of the meeting glancing over to the front door in hopes of seeing her walk in, but the meeting ended without her appearing. It was not until we were all assembled in the lobby half and hour later, ready to head out into the city, that I finally saw the familiar face I had been waiting for. We hugged and shrieked and made all the loud, dramatic, slightly teary scene that nine months apart necessitated, so much so that our tour guide ran into the lobby concerned that some disaster had occurred. The moment was finally complete, and I felt ready to set out on this Egyptian adventure.

22 June 2008

2008-07-16T05:20:00.000-07:00

If the result of the game wasn’t clear from the triumphant roars emanating from the stadium, if it wasn’t demonstrated in the chanting, flag-waving crowds streaming into the streets, then it could certainly be read unmistakably in the downcast faces and sullen silence of the three girls from Mauritania who had been sitting in the row behind me.

The World Cup qualifying match between Ethiopia and Mauritania had packed an impressive crowd into the Addis Ababa stadium. A reported 13,000 people were in attendance, and yet we still managed to seat ourselves in front of the handful of Mauritanians – dignitaries, officials, and their families – who had flown across the continent to see the game.

The first half ended in a 1-1 tie, an Ethiopia goal off a penalty kick in the 38th minute and a quick answer by Mauritania. But Ethiopia ran away with it in the second half and went on to claim a punishing 6-1 victory, with 3 goals coming in the last 10 minutes. I don’t know much French, but I do know enough swear words to recognize that the Mauritanian teenagers in the stands behind me were using a dazzling array. When the sixth Ethiopia goal found the back of the net in the 90th minute, though, all other sounds were drowned out by the screaming of the host country fans. Hordes of ecstatic fans poured over the chain link fences to greet their team on the field – only to be chased back over by a menacing sea of blue camouflage and brandished clubs. So the energy, noise, and mania diverted itself outside the stadium and spread out over the city, and we were swept up in it. All the way back to our hotel, we waved the little paper Ethiopian flags we had pilfered from deserted seats in the stadium, and sang along with Amharic chants that we at least mostly understood.

People sometimes ask me why I like sports. I think one of the most interesting things about the world of sports is how it provides a common ground, where people from different cultures, different backgrounds, different situations in life can meet and engage each other. The rules and goals are clearly defined and universal, the environment is familiar and controlled, the competition connects people from all over the world. I might not understand all the joys and pains associated with being an Ethiopian child growing up on the streets of Addis Ababa, a working Ethiopian father having lived through the desperation of the 1984 famine, an Ethiopian mother striving to raise her family of seven. But watching that game today and taking part in the celebrations, together we could all share the joy of victory, even if only for a moment. And had the result been different, we would have shared the ache of defeat. The distinctions of nationality, ethnicity, class, gender, and skin color that too often erect barriers between us are trumped by our loyalty to a common side. Perhaps the context seems trivial, but the connection never is.

The triumphant clamor that stretched out over Addis Ababa today rose up from a crowd of businessmen, bus drivers, and beggars, priests and politicians, soldiers and students, rich and poor, male and female, young and old, literate and illiterate, black and even a handful of white. Their song was communal, their joy was shared, and the crowd was one.

18 June 2008

2008-06-30T05:43:00.000-07:00

The rain fell steadily on a grey, dreary morning as I said goodbye to my friend. Though her leaving had been a long time in coming, it was still somehow no less of a shock to realize that this would be my last time seeing her in Ethiopia.

I had been with her throughout her journey to this point, had seen factor after factor adding up to this inevitable outcome. I, along with her many other friends here, had talked her through the various stages of this difficult decision. We heard all the circumstances we knew would eventually push her to go: a lack of meaningful work at her assigned office, active efforts by her supervisor to prevent her from working elsewhere, haunting first-hand experiences with the devastations of poverty and disease in a developing nation,unresponsiveness on the part of the Peace Corps office, feelings of helplessness, isolation, and utter frustration. We sympathized, being faced with similar situations ourselves. But we saw, too, an unmistakable confidence building in our friend. We saw her growing assurance in who she was (and was not), what she was (and was not)passionate about, and what she wanted out of life. Ultimately, we recognized a new found courage to pursue those things, to break away from the path being laid out before her in order to chart a course of her own.

We all gathered at her house on the weekend before her departure. It was the seven of us who had gone up into the mountains together, as part of her farewell tour. As we stayed up talking together late into each night, I was struck by how much we had gained from each other in just a short time – strength, confidence, comfort, friendship,connection, understanding for one another and ourselves – and saddened by the fact that a part of it all would soon be leaving us.

Faced with the early exit of one of our own, our thoughts and discussion were led toward that momentous question: Why are we here?Leading up to our arrival in-country, we heard U.S. officials talk about Ethiopia in the context of "historical friendship" and "a key ally", and we grasped vaguely some of the political reasons behind our assignment. As we were briefed on our PEPFAR-directed goals and objectives, we began to understand the programmatic and policy issues that would shape our service. And a recently published Internet news article supposedly revealing a lack of "skilled volunteers" (Multiple degrees, field research experience, internships with internationally-recognized development agencies, volunteer service with health-related community groups, Red Cross certifications,extensive travels abroad, and generally one of the most impressive assemblages of experiences among recent graduates with which I've had the pleasure of associating myself…are all apparently invalidated if some enjoy the occasional flip-flop sandal.) clued us into external debates concerning the larger purpose and philosophy underlying the Peace Corps. But together in that tiny house, surrounded by the stillness of the Ethiopian night, reflecting upon our friend's justifications for leaving and trying to formulate our own justifications for staying, we laid all those other grand considerations aside to focus on what all too often gets lost in the shuffle: our PERSONAL reasons for coming here, the hopes and aspirations that caused us to sign up for this adventure, and the growth and accomplishment being worked out in each of us individually as a result of our having taken this step.

It's been a month now since my friend returned home, but I am thinking of her especially tonight, when another gloomy rainfall marked the departure of yet another friend. Their leaving is a reminder of how personal this experience is, providing a unique journey and meaning to each that undertakes it.

And to both of them back in the U.S., each for very different reasons, should they be reading this now: I want you to know that however people view your service, it's you that made the journey and only you that can define its significance. It takes strength to leave your home and all its familiar comforts to challenge yourself in a new environment. It takes AMAZING strength to realize the right decision is to go back. You've enriched my life unbelievably. May you live and love all of life's adventures, whatever form they might take.

30 May 2008

2008-06-04T11:51:00.001-07:00

"Hi! Do you know me? No? I am the friend of your friend... You know... What is his name...? You know, the red one? Oh, what is his name...? Wait... (searches through cell phone) Ah! Yirga! Yes, your friend Yirga! I am his brother and BEST friend."

(-- unfamiliar man who stopped me in the street)

"I...own a small business. I am...a druggist. Yes...I own a drug store."

(-- man on the minibus next to me chewing his way through two bags of khat, in response to my asking him, "What do you do for a living?". Khat is considered an illicit drug under U.S. law.)

23 May 2008

2008-06-04T11:50:00.000-07:00

Surely, one of the finest ways to see Ethiopia is from the front seat of a public minibus.

Traveling northward, I'm sitting in just that favorite seat on the "twelve"-passenger van (currently carrying twenty) as it rambles along the asphalt road. I'm sandwiched between the driver and another young passenger, who wears a canary yellow Sean John t-shirt, wrinkled blue jeans, and thin, well groomed, shoulder-length dreadlocks bundled attractively just behind his ears. The driver balances a glass bottle of Coca-Cola in the storage pocket of the door beside him, and a plastic bag of khat on his lap. He sings along to the Amharic pop music blaring from the stereo and talks animatedly with passengers' reflections in the rearview mirror, as caffeine and amphetamine course in powerful combination through his body.

I have a perfect view of our surroundings as they roll past us. It is a brilliantly sunny day, and recent rains have made the land verdant and fresh. We drive through countryside painted in vivid greens and the rich browns of freshly tilled earth. In nearly every field, farmers are out driving their ox plows, preparing for the fast-approaching growing season. Processions of people make their way alongside the road, bearing goods to and from the market. The Gojjam men are bundled up in woven blankets from the waist up, but they bare their dark, spindly legs in tiny cloth shorts, sometimes stitched all over in beds and buttons. They present a spectacular array of colorful headwear, from various styles of turban-like wrappings to homemade stocking caps sprouting fuzzy yarn tufts all over their surfaces, creating the effect of a psychedelic bunch of broccoli. Each carries a wooden herding stick over his shoulder, to which the occasional live chicken is tethered by its feet. The Gojjam women wear their headwraps and simple cloth dresses, cinched at the waist with white sashes embroidered in neons, sometimes trailing cowry shells dangling from thin leather strands. They carry produce in large wicker baskets and water in fired clay pots, loaded heavily upon their bent backs. Lines of children coming home from school form rivulets of color in their solid-hued uniforms. Some of these trickle out far from their sources, as students from rural areas cover the many kilometers of their twice-daily trek.

The paved road is shared between people, animals, and vehicles, traditional and modern. 4.5-metric-ton white Isuzu transport trucks maneuver around rickety horse carts. Minibuses like ours routinely brake for herds of sheep, goats, and cattle making leisurely crossings. A particularly stubborn sheep in the road brings us to a complete halt from 100 kilometers per hour, and I have to grab onto my dreadlocked seatmate's arm to keep from sliding into the dashboard. Accidents are common on the road in Ethiopia, with the highest per capita rate of car fatalities in the world. We pass through a scene of mangled chassis and twisted guardrail, but our driver seems unfazed, continuing to bounce in his seat along to the music like a hyperactive seven-year-old.

We pass through shrubby hills dotted with round, thatched-roof huts. We pass over muddy streams, where women wash their families' clothes and lay them out like dazzling banners along the banks to dry. We pass the rusted carcasses of decrepit military tanks, remnants of the toppled military regime left to rot in open fields. We pass through a scattered few towns, which spring up suddenly from the rugged landscape and disappear in a blur of colorful storefronts and NGO logos less than two minutes later. We pass men and boys urinating in the roadside ditches.

At some point along in our journey, the music cassette ceases to play, bringing a rare peaceful silence to the car. The driver ejects the tape and bangs it repeatedly against the steering wheel in an attempt to fix it - surprisingly, to no avail. A female passenger in the row behind me cracks a window in an attempt to relieve the greenhouse heating effect being created inside our vehicle under the intense midday sun. I draw in one delicious breath of cool, fresh air before the driver demands the window be shut; the wind gives him a headache. A new cassette tape is inserted to replace the malfunctioning one. The blaring music resumes.

As our destination comes into sight, the driver refastens the seatbelt he had removed at the start of the trip, once town and traffic police had been safely left behind. He reaches down beside his seat to retrieve the sideview mirror that has come detached from its frame and holds it at arm's length through his window to check traffic behind him.

We pull into the bus station, where all is chatter, bustle, and dust. Swarms of station boys rush to surround the minibus bearing the white farenji in the front seat, eager to offer me another bus, directions, a hotel for the night, help carrying my backpack - all, of course, for a small fee. Suddenly my journey to this place, even with the heat, noise, stubborn farm animals, and chemically-amped driver, seems beautifully idyllic compared to the one that faces me next.

18 May 2008

2008-05-20T02:35:00.000-07:00

Fun with poorly translated, imported product labels in Addis Ababa:

Shirt series: we always keep the intonation of appearance supremacy of quality and the self nobility are all the distinctions of a modern leader's confidence.

Facial cleanser: Nurse Skin
The temperate clean surface, while the clean pore in-depth dirt, oil, gives the fresh comprehensively to moisten with maintains especially contains the many kinds of natural plants essence, the rich nutrition in-depth seepage flesh, softens cutin, reappears fairly is soft, the transparent skin nature. The natural smooth factor, locks in the moisture content, makes and the skin is smooth crystal clear, presents the pearl brilliance.
APPLICATION METHOD: With the lukewarm water moist face, takes right amount to hand heart, after lightly rubs massages the full froth, then the flushing is clean.
INGREDIENT: fresh lemon, the ginseng, the rose essence, the collagen, the nutrition facto, compound vitamin group, egg, smooth factor, the wet ingredient.

6 May 2008

2008-05-19T22:26:00.000-07:00

I humbly submit the following as a typical example of the many similar instances of awkwardness and hilarity that color my Ethiopian life.

One of my local counterparts, the head of an NGO focusing on reproductive health and family planning services, was recently promoted to the Bahirdar area branch, so I was invited over to his house for a small going-away party. I came to the house straight after work. By the time I arrived, after being swamped by a gaggle of overenthusiastic children in a neighborhood in which I had not yet made an appearance, the guests were all assembled. My counterpart, his in-laws, a work colleague and his wife, and a handful of neighbors sat together around two wooden tables. They sat by candlelight, as the electricity to the town had been cut during a recent heavy rain.

I greeted everyone in turn and took the place that had been reserved for me. Immediately, my counterpart’s wife appeared from the back portion of the house, bringing a tall drinking glass that she set squarely in front of me. A female cousin followed shortly after her with a kettle full of tella.

Tella is Ethiopian “local beer”. Its appearance is that of muddy lake water, and its taste is much like…well, slightly alcoholic muddy lake water (but not nearly alcoholic enough). And there are other issues confronting the tella non-drinker. First, it is invariably served in the largest beverage containers you will ever see inside Ethiopia. Coffee – served in a dainty four-ounce teacup. Tea – served in a miniature juice glass. Local wine – drunk from small round-bottom distilling flasks. But tella – gargantuan drinking glass. Second, as if the sheer volume capacity of the glass wasn’t enough, the glass gets refilled to the top with every sip you take from it, so that if finishing it off seemed challenging before, now it’s completely hopeless. That of course does not discourage the entire gathering from exhorting you, “Drink! Drink! Drink tella!” at every lull in the conversation.

Amharic discussion murmured around me as I sat trying to get way with as little tella consumption as politely allowable. I followed as best I could, but in the dim candlelight and after a long day at the office, I found my mind wandering from the discussions of local food prices and the weather. My counterpart, however, made a great show of engaging me in English, resulting in a dazzling array of nearly correct but entertainingly erroneous statements.

“Two people have been, you know, floated. They are floaters.”
(Two people were let go from the organization in the restructuring. Fired, floated…he was pretty close.)

“It is evacuating the earth!”
(The dog is digging.)

“It is a very smart and important drink. It is like…glucose!”
(This drink is good.)

“I appreciate your sacrification.”
(“Sacrification” has just joined “respection” on my list of favorite EthioEnglish words.)

“So do not be frustrated, because I do have a big stick.”
(I would try to provide context, but it really wouldn’t help much.)

If my counterpart’s English provided amusement for me, my Amharic was ten times more entertaining for the assembled Ethiopian guests. The party game of choice consisted in my counterpart pointing out an object on the table or around the room, asking me, “Do you know this?”, and then upon my correct answer, exclaiming, “Oooh! It is surprising! I think you know everything!” In another version of this game, whenever I said any one simple word of Amharic, guests turned each other and repeated it amongst themselves, laughing.

Eventually I was saved from these diversions by the re-entrance of the women from the back of the house, each carrying casserole dishes of steaming wot and baskets of injera. They presented food around the table, standing expectantly in front of each guest until they deemed the quantity of food taken to be acceptable. As we ate, the conversation resumed in Amharic, though my counterpart was sure to keep me involved by pointing out repeatedly that everyone in the room was “coupled” but me, by offering to find me an Ethiopian husband, by explaining that in Ethiopian culture the parents are involved in choosing “our intimates”, and by asking me questions about American relationships, such as, “It is important sometimes to beat the wife. Is it acceptable in your country?”

The women came around to force second helpings upon everyone, and I was privileged to witness some of the finest defensive maneuvers I have seen yet in Ethiopia. As my counterpart’s wife attempted to place a fifth roll of injera on her father’s plate, the old man whisked the plate from the table, holding it at arm’s length away and slightly behind his back. With his free hand, he executed a solid arm bar to keep the unwanted injera at bay. His wife went for the two-armed plate cover, being sure to keep her body positioned between her opponent and the goal. Some other guests decided the best defense was a good offense, opting for aggressive attacks upon the food being shoved at them, pushing away dishes and threatening to overturn baskets. All of this was done amidst a clamor of, “No more!”, “I’m full!”, and, “I’m done! I’m done! By God and Mary, I’m done!”

When the great supper battles had subsided and everyone was finally allowed to be “done, done, by God and Mary, done,” the after-dinner drinks of areke were served. If I had to compare areke to an alcohol common in the United States, I would say the taste most closely resembles the rubbing variety. We sipped and talked and waited in vain for electricity that never came on. Finally, the hour grew late, and we were forced to migrate to our homes in the pitch darkness. With two flashlights between the group of us, we stumbled our way over the rough, uneven dirt roads through the neighborhood. My counterpart kept me close, serving as my guide and lighting my way. He advised me periodically with things like, “This is a stone. It is not earth.” He reassured me with statements such as, “There is a dog here. But do not be frightened. I will kick its head.”

Eventually I arrived at my house, surrounded by a cluster of Ethiopians wrapped in their white gabis. I waved goodbye as I walked through the gate, and they all waved back and wished me a good night in chorus. Sitting alone in my house in near darkness, I reflected back on the night, and I was grateful for the warm hospitality that is a mainstay of Ethiopian culture. I was grateful for the laughter shared, the generosity, the coming together of different peoples, the opportunity to experience a sense of community so far away from my home…even the tella and areke.

26 April 2008

2008-05-07T05:59:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, in the unremitting drone of a hardnosed city and the monotonous progression of various offices, meetings, and workshops, I am prone to forget the power and overwhelming beauty of this place, the thrill of the adventure I am undertaking. Sitting here now – surrounded by gelada baboons feeding on mountain grasses at 3800 meters elevation and overlooking rugged crags soaring high into a flawless blue sky, plunging into seemingly unfathomable depths below, and stretching into the hazy distance as far as can be seen – is a compelling reminder.

As a post-IST/pre-site-return refresher, seven of us arranged a five-day trek through the Simien Mountains north of Gondar. Hiking seven to eight hours each day, camping overnight at three different sites, and attaining as high as 4430 meters elevation, we have wandered our way through the western side of the national park. We have encountered breathtaking vistas, truly unique native beauty, and an astonishing diversity of natural environments. We are led on our way by a rifle-wielding Ethiopian scout named Asmiro, a weathered Ethiopian man with a beautiful grin and a wonderful sense of humor. He speaks approximately six words of English: "Good scout! No problem!" and, in answer to our inquiries about the direction of our journey, "Up up up!" and "Down down down!" Fortunately, "up" and "down" are really the only words necessary to describe our path, as Ethiopian trailmakers seem to have largely eschewed the use of switchbacks. Why waste time winding gradually along the mountain ridges when you can just tackle straight lines up and down their faces? The hiking has been challenging, but we all feel a great sense of accomplishment in finally reaching camp each evening. Time at camp is also rewarding, as we spend nights around the campfire, talking with each other and sharing meals and sometimes music with the local scouts and park wardens.

This trip has been more than just a fun diversion and a change of scenery. In this vacation from official Peace Corps duties, we have encountered many of the elements that attracted us to this program in the first place: the lure of exotic places, the thrill of fresh experiences, the prospect of expanding our views of the global community, the joy of forming rich human connections, the chance to meet and overcome great challenges and grow stronger and wiser in the process. These were the reasons that caused us to choose Peace Corps over other similar volunteering or public health and community development opportunities. And as we return to our sites and proceed with our efforts to strengthen and improve our respective communities, we are sustained and encouraged by the reminder of how richly we ourselves are benefited from our service.

16 April 2008

2008-05-07T05:58:00.000-07:00

It seemed we had been given just enough time together during pre-service training to grow close to one another, when we were dispersed again, one by one across the country. Now, for two weeks, Peace Corps in-service training has brought us all back together again.

It has been a challenging and rather uncertain three months at our sites, as volunteers, PC staff, and local counterparts alike continue to feel our way, by trial and error and much debate and discussion, through this brand new program. Now assembled again, volunteers are glad to draw strength and support from one another, swapping stories, sharing laughter over our more ridiculous moments, and commiserating with our common struggles. In some ways, it is reassuring to know that the hardships and obstacles I face at my site are not necessarily unique to me. In other ways, though, it has been sobering to see how deep and wide some of these challenges run.

It has been a profound and significant three months, as well, and it is obvious that we are not the same group of people that boarded those buses to move out to our sites. The changes we have undergone, moreover, are not just limited to the darker tans, tougher stomachs, and subtle incorporations of habisha fashions and phrases into our everyday lives. There is a new recognition of our personal strengths and a willingness to assume roles that utilize them. There is a new appreciation of a trust in the strengths of our peers. There is a new confidence in our ability to create positive change – both inside our assigned communities and inside our Peace Corps community – and a new determination to do so.

There is one obvious change amongst us, however, that is not so welcome. It cannot be overlooked that the face of our group has also been changed by the departures of some of our members. Of the forty-two of us that swore in as volunteers, four have gone home and one is on the way, due to a mixture of administrative, medical, and personal reasons. They were colleagues and friends and important pieces of this society we have built together as volunteers, and now they are greatly missed. The departures are not limited to volunteers, either, with two main office staff members leaving Ethiopia to work with Peace Corps programs in other countries.

If these is one thing that has been made clear to us during these two weeks together, it is that we are strong people who are growing stronger every day through this experience, and that we will rely on this strength – our own and each others' – in our living and working here for two years.

25 March 2008

2008-05-07T05:57:00.000-07:00

"Um…no." It was my lame but best honest answer to the innocent question of a volunteer at the local orphanage: "So can you describe what a typical day is like for you?" The truth is, despite some of the comforting routines emphasized in earlier entries, there is really no "typical day" for me here. The word "typical", in many ways, seems almost entirely irrelevant to my current life.

Part of this is due to the nature of my assignment. I have been told by the Peace Corps organization that I am here to "serve as a link" within a network of HIV/AIDS prevention, care, and support services. In response to direct questioning about my anticipated job duties, my work supervisor has told me that I will be expected to "build capacity". Neither of these descriptions translates readily into a tangible laundry list of tasks to be completed, or even a clear mental image. And so, I spend my days doing what I figure a good link and capacity builder might do: visiting, meeting, observing, questioning, listening, and suggesting. This slate of activities has taken me to trainings, meetings, hospitals, schools, track meets, gynecologists' offices, cultural dance displays, chicken farms, construction sites, and even a reception for a visiting U.S. Congressman. It has put me in contact with government administrators, clinicians, small business experts, journalists, tourism officials, former commercial sex workers, people living with HIV/AIDS, Orthodox priests, Rastafarians, German architects, Swedish agricultural researchers, and philanthropic American fashion designers. If it has not catered to the neat categories of a program evaluation sheet, it has at least taught me tremendously much about the community, culture, and intricate system in which I will live and work for two years.

Then too, some of the unpredictable nature of my daily life can be attributed to unfamiliar cultural elements. Business is simply done a little differently here. I brought with me to Ethiopia a small blue planner covering the years 2008 and 2009, which I had planned to use in writing down all my scheduled meetings and appointments. So far, it has proven more a retrospective record of events that arose unexpectedly in the flow of my volunteer service. My work tends to be accomplished through spontaneous drop-ins, informal gatherings, and unplanned encounters. There was, for example, the afternoon I was picked up in a white Land Rover on my way home for lunch and carried off to the technical school to meet a microfinance trainer. There was the wrong number dialed to my phone that, thanks to my highly recognizable American-accented Amharic, resulted in a meeting with the woreda capacity building office. There was the business discussion that spontaneously arose when two local NGO directors and I found ourselves one evening at the same café. And that's not to mention the innumerable connections made and ideas generated in watching football games, going out to lunch, taking a coffee break, or just encountering a familiar face while walking down the road.

And so it is that my days here are anything but typical. In living them, I am becoming more flexible, resourceful, inventive, and patient. Of course, I am also becoming more confirmed in the fear that I will never be able to take on a "normal" job.

14 March 2008

2008-03-20T17:08:00.000-07:00

The bell jangles furiously, signaling the final lap. All eyes are locked upon the pack of runners and the drama unfolding between them. Their feet pound the earth as they begin their final kick, their bodies straining doggedly against exhaustion as they vie for position. As they make the final turn, the crowd of spectators rises to its feet, breathless, as one. The roar emanating from the bleachers urges on the athletes as they make their last desperate push toward the finish line. Intense struggle marks their faces as they each fight to claim the lead. The front-runner has run a good race, though, and down the straightaway she pulls away from the pack, breaking the tape to the sound of wild cheers and thunderous applause. She stumbles wearily along the edge of the track, catching her breath, grinning at the exuberant crowd, basking in the glory of her hard-earned victory.

The Amhara Track and Field Championships are being held in Debremarkos this week, bringing together talented young athletes from nine different administrative zones to compete for regional honors. Being in attendance, I found myself carried back to the bygone days of my (rather undistinguished, though fondly remembered) competitive running career. In the midst of this foreign lifestyle, the familiar context was refreshingly comforting. It was just like all the meets I had ever been to back in the States.

Just like all those meets in the States…except, that is, for the opening ceremonies, in which each team broke into rhythmic chanting and a synchronized dance routine at the announcement of its name. There were also the Amharic singers and cultural dancers, clad in traditional Ethiopian clothing, who entertained spectators from the infield during lulls in the competition. Then there was the infield itself, not the well-groomed greenery of American stadiums but covered in yellow African savannah grasses. Also, the packed dirt track. And the lack of uniforms among the competitors. And the fact that half the runners competed in bare feet.

In fact, I can think of few things more expressive of Ethiopian culture than these track meets: the vivid array of bold colors splashed everywhere from the advertising banners, to the miscellaneous assemblage of athletic apparel worn by competitors; the predominance of the Ethiopian flag, displayed with great national pride; the cultural entertainment, bringing ancient traditions forward for modern enjoyment; the spirit of communal celebration at the end of each well-fought contest. The very nature of the sport, too, seems to reflect essential elements of the Ethiopian ethos as I have come to know and respect it during these six past months. There is the simplicity and rawness of the pure competition between runners, competition stripped of its frills and, especially here, of its technologies and elaborate equipment. There is the demand for both physical strength and great mental fortitude. There is the presentation of a great challenge, a long and strenuous road ahead, and the hope of surmounting it only through grit, determination, and an inevitable struggle. It comes as absolutely no surprise to me that Ethiopia and its southern neighbor have given birth to the best distance runners in the world. This is THEIR sport, in so many striking ways.

An uplifting sort of excitement accompanies being able to celebrate alongside the community and the nation in THEIR sport. It is a feeling that has been missing from the six months I have spent immersed in Ethiopia's obsession with European football, as much fun as, admittedly, that has been. The African Cup of Nations, held last month in Ghana and televised nightly on Ethiopian Television, came close to providing that missing element. There were all the national rivalries and historical grudges forging steadfast loyalties and giving fans' affiliations a more profound meaning than otherwise possible. (One Saturday night of Premiership viewing, my friend turned to me and said, "You know…who is he?...Gallas? From Arsenal? I do not like his hairstyle." He is a Cristiano Ronaldo fan himself. Great hair on that kid.) There were all the political nuances and larger-than-life hopes that manage to elevate the contest to the level of something much more than a mere game. There was, however, no Ethiopia. The national team (at least, what's left of it) had failed to qualify for the competition.

In the world of distance running, however, Ethiopia reigns supreme. I was having dinner in a local hotel with some friends on the Saturday night when Meseret Defar and Melelech Melkamu placed first and second in the 3,000 meters at the World Indoor Track Championships. Promptly ten minutes before the scheduled start time of the race, the television in the bar area was switched away from Manchester United's FA Cup game (gasp!) to the satellite channel carrying the Track Championships. All eyes turned away from the platters of injera and wot and toward the images of the runners warming up. They remained glued to the screen as the competitors raced their way around the track, led by the women in red and green. Cheers and enthusiastic applause erupted throughout the restaurant and poured through the door from the streets outside. The pride was evident in everyone's faces, and it was contagious – I was proud to be a part of that moment.

And still now, apart from the prestige and high stakes of the international arena, I am proud to be a part of this week of competition between Ethiopian high school students in THEIR sport. I am proud to admire their singular talent, to celebrate their local heroes, to observe how the great accomplishments of their famous countrymen have resonated throughout the nation at all levels. I am proud to share in their pride.

2 March 2008

2008-03-20T17:07:00.000-07:00

"Yes, I think you have grown very fat! I think, as you adjust to life here, you will only continue to increase your size…and maybe even your length!"

(Fittingly, this was said to me by a man whose name in Amharic means, "Liar." I hope he's right, though. At an optimistic 5'5", I wouldn't mind to pick up a little more "length".)

21 February 2008

2008-03-20T17:05:00.000-07:00

A word about Ethiopian birthdays: When you tell people, "Tomorrow is my birthday," what you are really saying is, "Tomorrow I will throw a party for everyone in honor of my birthday." And said party will come along with an expected, very specific protocol. You will be expected to bake a large round loaf of bread to be cut and served as might a cake for the analogous American occasion. You will have the singular birthday honor of serving people sliced oranges and bananas from a plastic platter, offered forward to each guest individually. You will be obligated to purchase birthday candles to decorate the table, a very specific type of candle available at a very specific store in town that you will use to proclaim your age to everyone present. And, of course, you cannot hold a celebration in Ethiopia without the customary coffee ceremony! Furthermore, your cell phone having been stolen the day before your birthday is not an adequate excuse to release you from your birthday obligations. My advice: While in Ethiopia, reveal the date of your birth to no one. (I am beginning to understand why most people in Ethiopia "can't remember" their birthdays.)

A word about stolen cell phones: When word gets around town about your misfortune, a vast number of community members will want to spring into action to help you. Among this vast number will be the rather attractive young clerk at your favorite local spice store with whom you have become friends – which, sure, you won't mind a bit at first, but then you will discover that he has called his friend at the government telecommunications office to reprogram your stolen SIM card, which has ultimately shut down the SIM card obtained for you by the organization under which you are working, consequently leaving you without cellular communications for an additional two weeks. You might also begin to wonder how said spice store clerk has the power to be able to just "call a friend" at telecommunications to reprogram your SIM card. Or why he always has a spare cell phone and SIM card to loan to you when these things happen…

A word about rather attractive, though slightly meddling, young spice store clerks with whom you have become friends: You will chalk everything up to his good intentions and still find him rather attractive.

14 February 2008

2008-02-19T04:16:00.000-08:00

The soft glow of candlelight graces the room, waxing and waning as the flame flickers gently in the evening breeze that wafts in from the serenity outside. The air is laced with the sweet scent of eucalyptus. Magnificent chords swell forth from the classical concerto playing on the radio, touching in the soul an inexplicable feeling of connection to a larger, spiritual world and a passion for living. The taste of rich, imported chocolate imparts exquisite pleasure.

With the click of a switch, the room is abruptly illuminated. Harsh light glares from the naked bulb overhead. Jarring static rips through the concerto as the radio signal meets with sudden interference. Slowly, unwillingly, I open my eyes. My landlady's face hovers over me as she stands next to the couch upon which I am reclining. The power has returned, she tells me. Why don't I blow out the candles and turn on the lights? And what am I doing lying there on the couch?

Happy Valentine's Day!

12 February 2008

2008-02-19T04:15:00.000-08:00

Perhaps it is because I live among a people who speak a language that is still largely incomprehensible to me. Perhaps it is because the streams of communication that fill the world around me simply wash over me without seeping in to find understanding. Perhaps it is because, often lacking words, I commonly rely on the use of gestures, facial expressions, and other body language. Undoubtedly for all these reasons and many others beside, I feel a special attachment to the deaf students I have met here. Ever since that first visit to the special needs classes with Negalign, I have felt myself drawn back week after week to those beautiful children with whom I feel a singular sort of kinship.

My Tuesday mornings are spent invariably at the end of a rough wooden bench of students, learning to communicate with them in their voiceless voice. There are eight of them in this particular class, four girls and four boys, ranging in age from eight to eighteen. Among them are the eager twelve-year-old boy and 18-year-old girl, who race each other to be the first at the blackboard with the right answer; the tiny eight-year-old girl with the lemon-yellow dress, close-shaven head, beautiful bashful grin, and five-second attention span; and the fourteen-year-old boy with the gentle manner, who though frequently finding himself just a step behind his classmates, never allows his mistakes to discourage him from trying. They all sit in a row, a diverse collection of students brought together by virtue of their common impairment.

On this particular Tuesday morning, one of the five special education teachers is sick, so my teacher finds herself splitting time between three groups of students, one blind and two deaf. During the first morning period, the students' schedules have fortuitously aligned so that all are scheduled for math. My teacher starts at the blackboard in front of my group of eight, signing through exercises in addition and subtraction. Leaving them to practice with the bottlecaps that serve as their instructional materials, she moves on to the dozen blind students, running through the same exercises orally. She checks in quickly with the small, advanced groups of deaf students, who are left mostly to study independently. Then, she is back at the blackboard again, ready to repeat her whirlwind cycle.

The second morning session proves more difficult. My eight are scheduled for "sport and health." The advanced group has Amharic. The class of blind students has English. The cycle will no longer serve; it is time to divide and conquer. After receiving a cursory briefing on my assignment, I take charge of the English class. My job is straightforward. I am to read exercises from the one printed textbook so that each student may copy them in Braille to study at home. There are no Braille textbooks for their use. Meanwhile, my teacher is signing her way through the "ABCs" (Abstinence, Be Faithful, Condom Use) of HIV/AIDS prevention (trying to direct "C" over the heads of her younger students, in compliance with regulations). The advanced group, again, is left to study independently.

At the end of class, as students are dismissed for lunch, my teacher pulls me aside to ask, "What do you see are the strengths and weaknesses of my teaching?" It is possibly the most humbling moment of my Peace Corps service to date. Here is one teacher tasked with teaching 23 students, in three different groups, with two different impairments, at a spectrum of varying ages and abilities, in three different subjects simultaneously, with one textbook, a blackboard, and some bottlecaps at her disposal. Yet, rather than lament the difficulties of her situation, which she cannot control, she seeks advice for improvement in the areas of her teaching that she can control. In the midst of her hardships, she wants to be the best teacher she possibly can be. It is determination and drive like this that shines great hope for Ethiopia's future. I only hope that I can find a way to equip this determination and drive to better accomplish the noble ends that it seeks.

7 February 2008

2008-02-19T04:14:00.000-08:00

Some odds and ends:

"EasyMac", when one does not have a microwave, becomes merely "NormalMac". Indeed, if the exhortations printed on each packet are to be believed ("Made for the microwave. Just adding boiling water will not cook macaroni."), it actually becomes "SlightlymoredifficultMac".

Mice can, in fact, chew through duct tape, as well as wall plaster, wooden door framing, and crocheted yard pot holders. Multiple layers of duct tape, while an effective stall tactic, are not ultimately a deterrent.

Some people will recount with horror the lifelike nightmares they have experienced under the influence of mefloquine (a malaria prophylaxis). Some people will grin tellingly as they report having enjoyed vivid mefloquine-induced dreams of quite another kind. My mefloquine dreams of late have been about food. Last night's featured Papa John's Pizza ("The Works"), Breyer's mint chocolate chip ice cream, and Sam Adams Black Lager. I'm not sure exactly what this says about me.

We have kept two puppies from our dog's six-puppy litter, a female and a male. I named them Dounia and Raskol(nikov). I was reading Crime and Punishment at the time. If I ever have children of my own, keep me away from classic literature during my term, especially from the Russian authors.

I've made good friends of the armed guards posted outside my bank. I feel this has been a strategic move on my part. If major crisis strikes here, tell those leading the evacuation efforts that I have taken up refuge inside the Abyssinia Bank.

I ate a canned ham. All of it in one day, in fact, since I have no means by which to keep leftovers. Granted it was a small one; granted it was a real Hickory Farms ham and not its rather more dubious cousin, Spam; granted I ate it with sharp cheddar cheese, my first real cheese since being here, gifted to me by my beloved fellow Clemson alum PCV (God bless the Clemson Family!)…but it's still not something I'm proud of. I've heard admission is the first step to healing. Thanks for listening.

1 February 2008

2008-02-02T13:34:00.000-08:00

It was about a month ago that an unexpected visitor appeared on my doorstep. I was just sitting down to quiet Saturday morning breakfast when I heard a knock on my front door. Somewhat reluctantly tearing myself away from a stack of warm banana pancakes and the latest Sports Illustrated Magazine sent from my mother (a promising start to any morning, to be sure), I answered the door to find a small, weathered Ethiopian man, clutching a red plastic photo album.

"Miss Christen Marie," he said, though I had never before seen him, "I am Negalign Emere, and I have a message from A___ Andersen."

Neither of these two unfamiliar names shedding any light upon the situation, mystified by this visitor and wondering what message he could possibly be bringing, I invited the old man into my living room. He removed his white baseball cap as he entered the house, revealing a head flecked thoroughly with grey. He grasped my hand between both of his in a warm handshake, and his wizened face broke into a wide smile. His eyes were only barely visible as two small eddies amidst the rippling currents of wrinkles surrounding and threatening to inundate them at any moment. He stood and grinned, shaking my hand eagerly, and burst forth with his story before we even had a chance to sit.

He explained that he had been taught by a Peace Corps volunteer in the 1960s, whose name was A___ Andersen. Mr. Andersen had been a science teacher at the secondary school. Negalign had been a struggling fourteen-year-old student who solicited help from Mr. Andersen. Through the hours they spent together in private lessons, Negalign passed his classes with high marks, and so inspired was he by Mr. Andersen's example that he went on to become a science teacher himself. When Mr. Andersen returned to his school many years later to bring a donation of books for the library, Negalign contacted him, and the two reunited to begin a correspondence that continues to this day.

As he told his story, finally sitting down at my insistence, Negalign paged through the worn plastic photo album to show me pictures that had been sent from A___ Andersen along with his letters. I saw Mr. Andersen, his wife, and his five granddaughters. I read the card he had sent for Christmas. I heard stories about his former life in Debremarkos and his current life in America. I was shown the most recent letter from Mr. Andersen, in which he had told Negalign that the Peace Corps would be returning to his town. It was this letter, and his eventually hearing of our arrival as word spread around town, that prompted his visit. He wanted to welcome me and offer his friendship and willingness to help in any way he might be needed. He gave me the mailing address of one A___ Andersen and exhorted me to write to him (which I did, about two weeks later, having been reminded by Negalign every time we ran into each other around town). Finally, I was urged to come visit the school at which Mr. Andersen had taught previously, Negalign currently. We exchanged contact information, and Negalign left, beaming his gratitude and promising to arrange an appointment.

My enthusiastic visitor made good on his promise this week, and KB and I arrived this morning at the arranged time at Debremarkos' oldest secondary school. (I had been told by Negalign on the phone, "Do not be late.") Negalign had given his morning classes to a substitute teacher so that he could devote his full time and attention to serving as our guide. We embarked upon what was presented to us as a tour of need. We met the school principal, who told us of the 65-year-old school's crumbling structure and great need for basic furnishings. He lamented that all work had to be completed tediously by hand, without the benefit of photocopiers or typewriters (and certainly no computers). We toured the school's science lab, which housed rows of bare countertop, a set of five instructional anatomy charts, yellowed with age, and one faucet with no running water. We met the chemistry teacher, who bemoaned the lack of basic chemicals needed to perform demonstrational experiments. We observed an English class in which each textbook was shared between at least five students. As Negalign whisked us from building to building with astounding energy, he pointed out broken windows, mud floors, crumbling plaster, and overcrowded benches and desks. Along the way, we learned that there was no formal health education integrated into the curriculum. At various classroom stops, we were asked to do some impromptu Q-and-A with the students about HIV/AIDS. We received wonderfully insightful questions that showed, encouragingly, a good deal of background knowledge about the pandemic, while also revealing a number of informational gaps. (At this point, I must add: There are a host of specific regulations imposed by American funding agencies in regard to the ages at which students may and may not be taught about condom use. These become rather impractical when one finds oneself suddenly standing in front of a sixth-grade classroom filled with students ranging in age from twelve to twenty.)

Finally, we were introduced to the special needs classes. Two classrooms held a mixture of students, deaf, blind, and intellectually disabled. (We cringed as we were introduced to this last class with a rather more insensitive term. I suppose sensitivity, though, is difficult to translate across languages.) Clusters of students sat together by age and special learning need, as an overworked and undermanned teaching staff made the rounds between them, trying to give sufficient attention to each group. As we introduced ourselves to the blind students, they eagerly punched out the spellings of our names with the Braille styluses they shared. I watched in fascination as the deaf education teacher ran through flashcard vocabulary exercises with her students, signing each word in American sign language and spelling each in both American and Amharic sign spellings. I received sweet smiles of encouragement from the little girls in lemon yellow dresses sitting beside me on the bench, as I fumbled my way through the signs that they produced so effortlessly.

What was framed as a tour of need certainly proved to be so. Yet, it also revealed to us a great deal of hope in the astute questions, demonstrated efforts, and smiling faces of students eager to pave the way to a brighter future through education, as well as the resolve of the teachers determined to help them.

30 January 2008

2008-02-02T13:33:00.002-08:00

"Christen, your parasites, have they died?"

[Asked of me by the 20-year-old twelfth-grade student who lives on KB's compound, upon my first visit back to the house following a small brush with giardia. For the benefit of concerned readers, my parasites have, in fact, died, as a result of some absolutely marvelous tinidazole pills.]

26 January 2008

2008-02-02T13:33:00.001-08:00

I was speaking today with a local government manager from another town who was in Debremarkos for a conference. He spoke to me about the many benefits he saw coming out of Meles Zenawi's presidency: an increase in the number of universities, an increase in the average educational attainment of civil servants, an increase in relative freedoms and democracy (from those experienced during the rule of the socialist-inspired Military Coordinating Committee known as the Derg), and higher levels of foreign investment. When asked about Ethiopia's biggest obstacle to greater benefits, he highlighted corruption. When I asked for examples, he gave two, one of which was a classic case of fund embezzlement by a corrupt local official. As a second example, interestingly, he described the preference given to the children of rich and powerful families in university admissions. "Pretend you are child of powerful family. I am child of not powerful family. I have maybe 3.6 grade. You have only 3. But you will be chosen over me." It somehow sounded vaguely familiar…

23 January 2008

2008-02-02T13:32:00.001-08:00

In Amharic, the national language of Ethiopia, the future is seemingly an afterthought. In regard to time, there exists one major tense division, between the past and the present. Future actions are described, then, merely through the provision of appropriate context. I go today. I go every Thursday. I go two years from now. The past is established and set apart in a collection of formalized grammatical structures. The future is, grammatically, indistinguishable from the present.

The language's own future appears similarly unformulated. Recent, "modern" concepts are expressed almost exclusively in the English language of the countries from which they have been adopted: "strategy," "policy," "project," "bureaucracy," "sector," "mainstreaming," and technologies like "photo copy," "refrigerator," and "computer." In fact, the ancient Ge'ez alphabet in which Amharic is written has recently had to adopt a new seven-form character to provide the "v" sound in English words like "television," "DVD," "university," and "HIV." The addition is a bold move for a country that maintains its own time apart from the rest of the world, having refused since 1582 to give up the Julian calendar in favor of the Gregorian revision.

21 January 2008

2008-01-22T08:41:00.000-08:00

In the midst of all the delicious novelty, life here has organized itself into a series of comfortable routines.

I wake up in the morning and go for a run in the countryside just beyond my edge of town. At 6:30 in the morning, the sun's first rays are just beginning to break over the ridge of hills in the distance. As I run, I watch the sky ahead of me as it morphs through cool blues and purples, wisps of powder pink, and fiery reds, oranges, and yellows. On my return trip, the sun has established itself prominently in the clear sky, beaming down upon golden teff fields and the farmers who have already begun their day's work in them. The elevation (just over 2400 meters) and irregular footing of the rocky dirt roads add a distinctive aspect of challenge to running here, as do the herds of goats, sheep, cows, and donkeys that force me from the path from time to time. But, as in Welliso, I receive encouragement from those I pass in the form of garbled AngloAmharic exclamations, such as, "How are you the sport?!" and, "Oh my Cristos you are very fast!" (I confess here to the world that I try to slow my breathing whenever I pass someone on the road, so as not to reveal how winded running at elevation first thing in the morning really makes me. A short blonde girl must do what she can to look tough.)

Two days a week, I ride the neon green 18-speed across town to KB's house for meetings with our Amharic tutor. We struggle to discern the incredibly complex grammatical patterns underlying the Amharic language and wonder at least once during each session if we will ever be able to speak beyond the level of an Ethiopian five-year-old. Meanwhile, pantsless, dirt-covered, two-year-old Abi presses his face against the large front window to stare in at us, wondering when it will finally be time to play.

During these meetings, I leave the 18-speed at the local kebele office on the main road, so as not to endure the trial of dragging it down the steep, unridable hill to KB's house and back up again. Occasionally, I'll decide to spend the night on KB's couch, meaning the 18-speed stays overnight inside the kebele compound. The first time I did this, I had a brief moment of dread when I arrived the next morning to see a large pile of construction debris where my bike had been chained to the building. As office workers rushed to remove rusty sheets of corrugated tin and splintering wooden logs piece-by-piece from the haphazard heap, however, I saw the neon glow of the 18-speed emerge from underneath and realized that the heap had been assembled as a protective shelter.

The rest of my workdays are spent in talking to the directors of various local organizations and observing their programs. I am steadily gaining a clearer picture of this "network of HIV/AIDS response" inside of which I am expected to "serve as a link" and "identify gaps". I am also getting the picture that, over the next two years, I will be called upon to edit (read: completely redraft) many awkward and often incomprehensible project proposals written in non-native English in order to court foreign donors.

Shopping, once a daunting exercise in navigating innumerable stores and stalls and haggling down inflated farenji prices, has also settled into a manageable routine now that KB and I have established our "dembegnas" (the vendors of whom we are regular customers, who treat us generously in return). There is the seller of household items who will not let us escape without first having tea and bread. There is the seller of kitchen utensils who likes to talk to me about his side career as a writer (and who also will not let us escape without first having tea and bread). There is the store owner from whom we always buy peanut butter, who now has jars ready in hand before we even make it up to his counter. There is the store owner who always gives us free UAE-imported chocolates. There is our vegetable woman in the market (also KB's neighbor) who, rather than selling us items from the palette displayed in front of her, reaches into the sacks kept behind her for the VIP vegetables. And finally, there is the highlight of my Debremarkos experience, a small dry goods store stocked with tall sacks of flours, grains, legumes, dried chiles, and fresh spices of all varieties – and felicitously staffed by a kindly old man and his rather attractive son. For a young Southern girl who loves to cook, there's just something about a handsome foreign man surrounded by the smells of cinnamon and coriander…

Even some of our personal interactions with the community have taken on an air of the routine. We proceed effortlessly in Amharic through the same series of questions asked by everyone in greeting. (How are you? Are you fine? Is it good? Is it selam [peace]? How is Debremarkos? Have you adjusted? The weather condition, does it suit you? Ethiopia, how do you see it? How is work? How are you? Are you fine?) We laugh off the postman's daily request that we take him with us to America. I have tea and bread with Tsintayo at her family's café, where I invariably encounter what must be some of Debremarkos' shadiest characters. KB and I hang out in the Internet café, joking and listening to music with the girl and guy who work there (and enjoying just a little bit of concealed laugher at the guy's favorite t-shirt, which reads, "Soccer Mom," in big block letters with the American flag running through them). We laugh hysterically through jesting exchanges between KB's two supervisors, one aiming in all things to be "Western" and one resembling everyone's favorite crazy uncle, which unfold something like this:

"You see, he thinks he knows everything about Debremarkos. He told me so."

"No, I did not say so."

"You DID say so!"

"No, I did not say so. I do not know everything. I only know myself."

"You do not EVEN know yourself."

"I do."

"How can you ever truly know yourself? How is it possible?"

"I do. At least 50 percent."

"Where is the scientific research you have done on this point?"

"I know more than YOU."

"Ara! This man is a liar!"

"I am no liar! In fact you cannot compete with me in any aspect. I will beat you in a footrace! I will even give you ten meters of head start. I tell you, you cannot compete with me! Now why don't you pay for our tea?"

"Ara! Do you see how this man exploits me?"

"No, this man is rich! He has much money, and I have only my big stomach!"

"I have been trying to explain to this man that if I had so much money, I would put it in a bank. But as it is, I have no account."

"This man lies! He keeps his money hidden in his home! He takes all his much money and digs a hole and puts into the ground! One night I will go while he sleeps to his home and find and take his much money!"

"This man speaks very may words, and yet he pays for very little tea. He has not the expense to cover his many words."

"Talk is cheap! Ha-HA!"

"Socrates [pronounced Soh-krayts] has said, 'Greece shall not be ruled by the loudest voices, but by the sharpest minds.' And so, my friend, I think you will not prevail in this argument."…

In a country half a world away from home, in a culture still largely unfamiliar, amongst people I have only just begun to know, it is assuring to be able to call anything "routine". Though this place still delivers daily the promise and thrill of new adventures, its growing familiarity gives it the air of home.

20 January 2008

2008-01-22T08:37:00.000-08:00

Today marked the Ethiopian celebration of Timket (Epiphany). The festivities began over at KB's house with her landlord's family moving all their furniture out of the house and into the renters' quarters they will occupy during KB's stay. Generously, though, they left behind the neon-lit Orthodox Jesus icon clock hanging on the living room wall, not wishing to deprive us of the friendly face we have come to know and love as Disco Jesus. From his lofty seat in the living room heavens, he watched over the frenzied exodus of chairs, tables, and footstools, shining forth his blessings in the form of green, blue, and purple rays of light that swirled and danced behind him.

The dust had barely settled, and KB had barely been afforded the time to grasp the sudden and unannounced departure of the furniture that had once graced her house, when we were summoned again to action. Drumbeats, shouting, and singing announced the arrival of the Timiket procession. We hurriedly donned our traditional Ethiopian finest and scurried up the hill to join it. The streets were flooded with people clad in the traditional flowing white of Ethiopian religious celebration. Another less traditional clothing trend evident within the crowd was that of blue jeans, American pop culture t-shirts, and knock-off European football jerseys, popular among the teenage crowd on this major Orthodox holiday. A stream of iridescent parasols in every color of the rainbow glinted in the midday sun as it wound its way up the hill to the large Orthodox church. Into this stream my friend Tsintayo and I plunged, hand-in-hand. We allowed ourselves to be carried along in the current, swept up in the singing, chanting, clapping mass of humanity around us.

At the top of the hill, we were swept through the gates of the church, tall arches painted boldly in patriotic red, yellow, and green. We joined the crowd in circling the round church building three times, singing and clapping all the more loudly now for having reached our destination. Church elders in assorted white headdresses led the singing from the circular veranda of the church. Old women trilled their cries of triumphant celebration, while boys beat large skin-covered drums and blew zealously on metal horns. Once our three requisite revolutions had been completed, the crowd spontaneously formed into circles for dancing. Tsintayo spotted some of her friends and dragged me by the hand through the crowd to their circle (mercifully shaded from the intense Ethiopian sun by a small stand of trees). We clapped and laughed together as people from the crowd took turns dancing in the idle, some voluntarily, some forced by the collective will of the mob. There was a brief, enthusiastic campaign to pull the farenji into the middle, but, freely admitting my inferiority to their incredible skill, I adamantly preferred to watch. The dancers moved in impossible gyrations of their upper bodies within the ring of onlookers, and Tsintayo and I amused ourselves in the safety of the perimeter with comical attempts of the same.

Heading back down the hill again toward home, we were still laughing and shaking our shoulders to the drumbeats we had left behind us. When we reached the house and parted ways, we expressed the hope of celebrating together in the same way, with the same joy, at the same time next year.

13 January 2008

2008-01-22T08:27:00.000-08:00

It would, of course, be stating the obvious to say that things here in Ethiopia are different from the things to which I have grown accustomed in the U.S. Different circumstances, cultural norms, and social contracts dictate a very different dynamic to the interpersonal interactions making up everyday life. As a consumer in Ethiopia, for example, the absence of America's high degree of commercial competition, ease of price comparisons, accessibility to alternatives, and hyperactive legal system for seeking recourse makes the American motto, "The customer is always right," irrelevant. In a world where the community is emphasized over the individual and business is done in the context of informal chats over cups of tea and coffee, "Time is money," is similarly inapplicable. Living here in Debremarkos is a never-ceasing exercise in discovering these underlying rules for Ethiopian society and learning to navigate them competently.

Sometimes, though, a situation arises in which the potential implications are much greater than those of consumerism or concepts of time, and in which cultural mores seem not just different and quirky but possibly detrimental. These are the situations that raise difficult questions about which cultural mandates to accept and work within, and which to challenge. What is the limit of my right as a guest in this culture? What is my obligation as a volunteer working against the devastation caused by poverty and AIDS?

I was sitting in on an HIVAIDS workshop for local government leaders from the wider administrative zone, when one older man spoke up to make the argument that a woman who dresses provocatively is asking for men to have sex with her. I listened as he went on to blame globalization and increased exposure to the sexy dressing styles of foreigners for this problem, and I began to notice heads in the crowd turning in my direction, some nervously, some excitedly curious to see how the foreigner among them might react to this charge. The women's rights activist in me, as well as my sense of personal pride, wanted to stand up in the middle of the assembly to refute the charges now leveled doubly, though admittedly indirectly, against me, first as a woman and second as a foreigner. The public health worker in me was analyzing the cultural challenges to HIV/AIDS prevention measures implied in the man's statement. The rugged American individualist in me was formulating a speech that lauded the human ability to CHOOSE, rather than react, and stressed the importance of taking responsibility for one's own actions. My more prudent side, though, urged me to consider that I had a mere four weeks of experience in Debremarkos and was still working to integrate into the community; that I didn't have the sort of trust relationship with these largely unfamiliar government leaders that would have prevented me from being seen as an outsider; that there was a handful of Ethiopian women among the overwhelmingly male group who seemed ready to voice their opinions on the issue; and that at this stage, with little Amharic language and little knowledge of the community's workings, I was still largely a guest, observer, and student in a discussion that was rightly theirs. (The realist in me also chimed in with, "Sure, go ahead, Christen, launch into a diatribe about responsibility for individual decisions, the dangers of eternally blaming one's environment, and the innocence of the victim…in AMHARIC." The realist in me is terribly sarcastic.)

In the end, I let my obviously disgruntled and disappointed silence in front of my expectant onlookers express my disagreement with what was being said around me. And to gather my thoughts and rein in my emotions, during the tea break I visited a local friend at her family's café – where I was subsequently harassed by a heavy-set middle-aged man, drunk at 10:30 in the morning, who used his limited English skills to communicate to me things unsuitable for publication here.

It is easy to lay blame upon environment. It is easy to blame a chauvinistic culture for victimizing women. It is easy to blame a society exalting individual expression and "liberation" for the deterioration of traditional morality. But having acknowledged that none of us make our choices in a vacuum, in doing so we also acknowledge that we do make choices, for which we are personally responsible. And ultimately, through a critical mass of these individual choices, it is possible even to change the environment in which these choices are made. Lasting cultural change must come from within. But when two different cultural environments meet, in an ideal world, the fair, open, humble exchange that would take place would serve to more fully inform the individual choices made within each culture, possibly leading to cultural changes to the benefit of both.

7 January 2008

2008-01-09T12:34:00.001-08:00

Merry Ethiopian Christmas! Signs of the holiday are all around Debremarkos: Women are dressed in their white, traditional habisha dresses. A scattering of cows' hooves and even a few heads are strewn along the roadside in the aftermath of many meaty Christmas dinners.

Abbi – the two-year-old boy who runs around KB's compound in an orange-and-purple-striped t-shirt, bare bottom, and black plastic rain boots, sticking indiscriminately into his mouth any stray items he finds lying around the yard, from rocks to old nails – has even put on pants for the occasion. It has been a day full of food, festivities,…and probably the most work I've done since getting here to Debremarkos.

KB and I started our Christmas tour with lunch at my house. We reminisced fondly on Hank's life as we ate him, covered in spicy, soupy, dark red wot and rolled up in injera. I was there with him in his last moments of life – rather against my will, as it happens. I had gone over to KB's house for the afternoon, hoping that the slaughter would occur in my absence. When I got back home in the evening, though, my landlady called me outside, where I found Hank clutched firmly between our renter's hands. Thoughtfully, they had saved this highly cultural moment for me to witness. My landlady even encouraged me to photograph the action, though I politely declined. Hank, for his part, died nobly, going silently to his slaughter, without all the headless thrashing and blood-spraying I had observed in the deaths of some others of his kind. And just as he brought us all joy in his lifetime, so he continued to do so after his death as truly the tastiest chicken I have eaten in Ethiopia.

The compound was bustling with people for the Christmas holiday, with the renter's fiancée and my landlady's three youngest sons – 18, 19, and 20 years old – all present. Though people were in and out throughout our Christmas lunch, splitting their time between the homes of various friends, family, and neighbors, we all sat down together for the coffee ceremony. My landlady's sons questioned KB and me about American pop culture, and we laughed (and inwardly groaned) as one showed off his Backstreet Boys ringtone ("Show me the meaning of being lonely…"), one produced a picture of Eminem from his wallet, and one showed a keen interest in learning the meanings behind Celine Dion lyrics.

Our next engagement was at the house of a family friend across town, whose daughter happens to be one of our former language and culture trainers from our pre-service training in Welliso. It was fantastic to see a familiar face, and we filled each other in on all the latest news from our mutual friends now scattered across Ethiopia. KB and I had helping upon helping of alicha siga wot (something like beef stew) forced upon us, along with glasses of tella (local "beer" brewed from barley and looking suspiciously like muddy lake water) and red wine (good, yet always served mixed with Pepsi, which somewhat ruins it, I think). After two heavy holiday lunches eaten back-to-back within a three-hour period, we were both ready to settle into a peaceful food coma and go quietly into the night. But, alas, we had already committed ourselves to one more Christmas gathering…

We spent the evening at the home of our newly-hired Amharic tutor. His very pregnant wife cooked us a delicious meal of chicken fried rice, telling us importantly, "We once had three foreign volunteers working here with us. We KNOW about farenjis." Unfortunately, I was too painfully full to get properly excited about the well-cooked dinner, but I shoved at least half of my plate down out of politeness. Dinner was followed by coffee and popcorn, served to us by a young girl in faux snake skin pants. I lost the desire to ever consume anything again.

Now, nighttime finds me sprawled out awkwardly on my stomach on KB's couch, the will to move having long ago drained completely from my body. It's sort of a comfort to find the familiar aspect of overeating is common to holidays across the globe, but a steady diet of lentils, chickpeas, bananas, grains, and vegetables has not prepared my digestive system for three meat-laden meals in one day. At the moment, I am thanking God that Ethiopian Christmas only comes once a year.

5 January 2008

2008-01-09T12:33:00.000-08:00

Tonight I went out with my compoundmates to watch Manchester United and Aston Villa play in the third round of the FA Cup, at one of just a handful of local hotels with satellite television. Our hotel was packed with predominantly young Ethiopian men gathered to watch the game; both the restaurant area and a separate outdoor pavilion were filled to capacity. The first half of the game passed with no score, and as the second half began similarly, the ManU fans in the crowd began to get restless. Finally, late in the game, the TV cameras cut to a shot of Wayne Rooney hopping from the bench, stripping off his warm-ups, and preparing to enter the game. The ManU segment of the hotel crowd erupted into boisterous cheers for the Englishman, an Ethiopian fan favorite, and their roars were even later some twenty minutes later when he scored the second goal of the game, following Cristiano Ronaldo's first, to seal the ManU victory at 2-0.

In Ethiopia, football fandom is dominated by the English Premiership, and Ethiopian fans of the EPL give their loyalties, almost without exception, to either Arsenal or Manchester United. (Every once in a while, one will come across a scattered Chelsea fan or two, as well. I am told by my friend Mohammed that female Ethiopian football fans tend to favor Chelsea. He laughs as I ask him teasingly if this is the reason why he chooses to pull for the Stamford Bridge Club.) Ask the reason behind their chosen affiliation, and most people will give the obvious answer: Arsenal and ManU lead the League. Many Ethiopian football fans, especially those of Arsenal, will also cite the contributions of African players, a reason also noted by academics studying the phenomenal spread of the EPL's popularity in Africa. At least in Ethiopia, though, it is not the names of Adebayour (Togo), Toure (Ivory Coast), and Sanga (of Senegalese parentage) that are emblazoned on Arsenal posters and knock-off jerseys; nearly always, it is the name of the Spanish midfielder, Cesc Fabregas. Wall hangings of Ronaldo and Rooney - not Drogba (Ivory Coast) or Diouf (Senegal) - are sold in the marketplace beside those of Orthodox Saints Mariam and Markus. In partial explanation of this seeming discrepancy, merchandisers of the EPL have not yet begun to fully exploit their African fan base. In many ways, though, when it comes down to it, results are results, goals are goals, talent is talent, and the stars are those that can get the job done most often and consistently, in any culture and language.

4 January 2008

2008-01-09T12:31:00.000-08:00

My Peace Corps experience has entered into a new phase in two major aspects. First, I am living (mostly) alone, for the first time in my life. Peace Corps has finally been able to secure a house for KB, and she moved across town on Wednesday – a story in and of itself, but I feel it's KB's to tell. I can hardly say, though, that I'm truly living alone, as I have the company of my landlady, her twenty-year-old son, and a young male renter who works in a health facility, all no more than five yards away in back of the house. I am still greeted in the morning by ladylady's sing-songy "Kristiiiiiin! Indamin adderrrrrrk!" (Good morning!), I am still invited daily into her room for the coffee ceremony, and I am still regularly serenaded by Bob Marley pouring from her son's CD player. Furthermore, I can still fall back on KB's English-speaking, American-cultured companionship anytime I feel like biking across town to her kebele. KB and I were laughing the other day at the irony of our rather rare situation: We both signed up for the Peace Corps, a program that's entire premise is the placement of American volunteers ALONE in foreign communities for cultural exchange and professional assistance. Yet, neither of us can imagine having gone through half of what we've experienced here alone. Perhaps our fellow volunteers who are on their own will emerge from these two years stronger than will we…but we are certainly enjoying the short-term benefits of being here together.

Second, I am actually going into the office on a regular basis, which is a big change from my first two weeks here. I have been adamant that my first task here in Debremarkos is to learn as much as possible about the community, the culture, and the existing social structures, which I must understand in order to work within them effectively. Thus, my supervisors worked with me to compile a list of organizations doing HIV/AIDS-related activities in Debremarkos, and I will make an effort to visit each of them to observe their operations. My workdays have generally fallen into the following routine:

At 8:30 in the morning, I arrive on my bike at the HAPCO office. Sometimes Amoro has told me ahead of time what activity I will be observing and at which organization, but usually I show up unaware and preparing myself for anything. I chit-chat with the female secretaries in the office until Amoro arrives, a bit later than our pre-arranged appointment time but certainly within the reasonable expectations of habisha time. He informs me of the program for the day, ranging from facilitator trainings to recruitment for voluntary HIV/AIDS counseling and testing (VCT), and we ride off to our destination, he on his motorcycle and I riding behind on my 18-speed bike. We show up invariably in the midst of a large meeting already in progress. I am shown to a seat, a process involving an uncomfortable amount of fuss and generating an uncomfortable amount of attention. I listen to the introductions being made by each member of the assembly, straining through the language barrier and the faint Ethiopian voices to pick up the pattern I should follow. Finally, my turn comes, and I make my basic introduction, which, to my amusement, is met with rapturous, encouraging applause. Then, I settle in for hours of largely incomprehensible Amharic discussion, broken up by tea and coffee breaks every hour and a half. I glean what information I can from the proceedings, I monopolize the time of any English-speakers I discover, and I make lists of names, observations, and Amharic vocabulary to look up later in my dictionary.

While I miss out on most of the details of these meetings, and while I surely contribute nothing to the proceedings, this current work routine has been extremely valuable in meeting community members and in seeing various heretofore conceptual processes played out in the reality of Debremarkos. In one example of both, I accompanied the site selection committee for a USAID-funded mobile VCT campaign as it toured around Debremarkos to select locations for their next venture. I spent a lot of time talking with the two Ethiopian employees of the project and ended up having both lunch and dinner with them. Our lunch conversation having apparently gotten small-talk about work, family, and football out of the way, dinner resulted in a discussion about Ethiopian politics, culture, and inter-faith relations (the openness of which was perhaps encouraged by the bottle of red wine we shared between us). The full contents of this conversation I will not reproduce here, but one of the Ethiopians, a Muslim, in response to my questions about the fairly peaceful relationship between Ethiopians of different religions, shared with me an Amharic maxim: "The country is for all; religion is private." It is an interesting expression from a country with such visible public demonstrations of religiosity. Yet, at the same time, it seems to be an accurate reflection of how Ethiopians relate on an everyday basis to the religious preferences of their fellow countrymen.

1 January 2008

2008-01-04T08:08:00.002-08:00

The American new year began with new life – six of them, in fact. My landlady's younger dog had its first litter of six tiny little puppies, five black and one white with two black spots on his back.

The puppies have not been the only recent addition to the compound. One day last week as I was washing clothes in the yard beside the house, KB came outside and exclaimed, "When did that get here?" I looked up to see a large brown rooster standing on the concrete walk between the house and the renters' rooms. I asked my landlady about it, and she replied, smiling, "Christmas! Doro wot!" Apparently we are hosting our holiday dinner as a guest at the compound until the time comes to eat him for Ethiopian Christmas next week. KB and I watched amusedly as our Christmas chicken dinner clucked, bobbed, and wandered awkwardly around the compound, feet tethered together by a ribbon of old cloth. I doubt he perceived the irony when he wandered into the kitchen that would serve as the site of his eventual demise. Nor did he seem to perceive the danger as he stumbled repeatedly toward the barn housing my landlady's two dogs, so my landlady had to continually beat him away with a slender switch, causing him to squawk and hop clumsily away on his tethered feet. This dance repeated between the rooster and my landlady all around the compound yard for a good fifteen minutes, providing great amusement for KB and myself as we watched from the window of the house.

As I write this, I can hear my Christmas dinner crowing in back of the house. It seems to be no deterrence that everyone in the compound has been awake for about three hours now (assisted by his 6 A.M. wake-up call). I doubt this is healthy in light of his preordained resting place inside our stomachs, but KB and I have named him Hank. Lately, Hank has been intent on entering my house, and after a multitude of failed attempts to discourage him, we have settled on a working arrangement in which he is allowed to come inside provided:

(1) he leaves no chicken poops behind him, and (2) he proceeds directly in the straight path from my back door to my front door and out onto the front porch without deviating. I have warned him that if either of these stipulations is violated, I will eat him immediately. Thus, every day around noon, as the sun passes over the house from the back yard to the front, Hank struts in through the back door, announcing his presence with claws clicking on the tile floor, emerges from the kitchen into the living room, stares at KB and me for a bit, and then bobs his way out the front door to rest in the warmth of the sunny porch. He has become an establishment in my Ethiopian home life; I think I will miss him when he is gone.

30 December 2007

2008-01-04T08:08:00.001-08:00

As I write this, I am sitting on the shore of beautiful Tana Lake in Bahir Dar. A flock of around 60 large white pelicans floats in the shallows just beyond the reach of the tall shore grasses, which wave gently in the late afternoon breeze. The water laps soothingly against the concrete seating patio – though the effect is somewhat dampened by the jangling Amharic pop music blaring from the bar area behind me.

KB and I hopped a car to Bahir Dar to meet eight fellow volunteers for a Christmas/New Year's celebration. It has been a wonderful weekend, full of beautiful scenery, good meals, and the company of friends. As I have walked through the tourist town, I have sometimes forgotten that I am here in Ethiopia and not continuing a relaxing post-graduation summer at home, the palm tree-lined streets reminiscent of Florida and the expansive lake leading my thoughts back to m Tennessee home. The change of scenery has been refreshing, as has been the opportunity to spend time debriefing the past two weeks with friends who have achieved similar triumphs and survived similar challenges. We shared a delicious holiday dinner together, created from items bought at the farenji-catering supermarkets and American treasures sent from home (a big thanks to all PCV family and friends out there). We were able to celebrate the holidays with a spread that included appetizers of hummus and rolls and Lay's ranch potato chips, Stove Top stuffing, Kraft macaroni and cheese, Idaho cheddar mashed potatoes, canned cranberry sauce, red and white wines, no-bake chocolate oat cookies, Little Debbie Christmas tree cakes, popcorn, ("Premium") canned ham fried in chicken fat, and two chickens – which we purchased from the Saturday market chicken man, slaughtered, plucked, skinned, cleaned, gutted, cut, breaded, pan-fried over the kerosene burner, and ate with inordinate satisfaction. Afterward, stuffed and happy, we shared stories from our respective work sites and laughed harder than we had since we were together in Welliso two weeks ago.

With all that said, though, the weekend was not without its stressors. While Bahir Dar is a beautiful place to visit, the constant flow of tourists would make it difficult to establish a permanent identity within the community and shed the rich farenji label assigned automatically to white people. It was a tiring ordeal to face every day the kind of negative attention we have worked so hard to avert in Debremarkos, and on a much larger scale here. Being able to speak Amharic certainly helps, but even so, it is hard to distinguish yourself from the tourist masses. I am not sure I could live here (though I will definitely appreciate the chance to stay with friends here every once in a while!).

28 December 2007

2008-01-04T08:07:00.000-08:00

"Hello, beautiful, do you need a boyfriend?"
"No thanks, I already have one."
"One for the road?"

26 December 2007

2008-01-04T08:06:00.000-08:00

Today's entry begins in a slightly unorthodox fashion with the moral of the story: Be careful what you wish for.

Every venture outside our little living compound inevitably yields a new situation to process, a new challenge to face, a new town character to encounter, a new story to laugh about. Many of these occur on our three-quarters-mile walk from my house to the town center or vice versa, during which we pass seemingly half the people living in Debremarkos, all lining the two-lane asphalt road. Their responses to two blonde farenji girls walking down the street together range from unabashed gawking to calling after us with a hodgepodge of Amharic and English phrases. In the case of the bolder and usually university-educated ones, they approach us and strike up conversation as we walk, in order to test out their English. Sometimes, though, people are even bolder than this, and these occasions make either the best or the worst stories, depending on how you want to look at it.

Yesterday was, perhaps as a bizarre Christmas present, a day for bold characters. As KB and I walked home from some Christmas Internetting, we made eye contact with a young boy of about 16 years, wearing an old Miami Hurricanes Starter jacket, as he crossed our path. This proved to be a critical mistake, as he consequently altered his course and began following us home. We tried subtle evasion tactics at first. We sped up, but he sped up along with us. We stopped walking to let him pass us, but he stopped, turned around, and waited for us. We changed sides of the street, changed speeds erratically, and used other pedestrians as human screens, but through all our maneuvering the boy remained never more than two steps behind us. Every time we looked at him, he would laugh nervously (though I'm not sure HE had the right to be nervous, considering the situation). I asked him in Amharic where he was going; he replied (laughing nervously) that he didn't know. We were running out of subtle tactics. KB turned to me and said, seemingly harmlessly, "This is when we need to run into someone we know." At that exact moment, as if in a well-intentioned but horribly misguided answer to our desperate and perhaps hasty prayer, from the cross street ahead of us emerged a figure we indeed knew all too well: Tirssaw the Toothman, our neighborhood shady realtor, baring his four ludicrously protruding front teeth at us in a smarmy grin as he walked past. [See entry from 26 November.] While it was certainly not the answer we were hoping for, it did serve one useful purpose in making me decide I had had enough of sketchy characters for one Christmas. I stopped in the middle of the intersection, turned to the young boy, and prepared to launch into a firm Amharic telling-off, but I had gotten only as far as, "Ishee (okay), chao," when he replied, "Ishee," and left us. KB and I looked at each other incredulously – why hadn't we thought of that before?

The story might have ended there, but the Toothman's unexpected appearance proved to be a portent of things to come. Today, KB wanted to visit the government store to buy toilet paper (at the bargain price of birr 2.90 a roll, versus a normal price of birr 3). We were waiting outside the store while a worker went to retrieve some rolls from the warehouse when, from the darkness just inside the doorway, we caught the unmistakable glint of four familiar snaggled teeth. Tirssaw the Toothman had apparently chosen the government store as his Wednesday morning haunt and was relaxing in a wooden chair, watching the proceedings. As KB went up to the counter to collect her TP and look through a selection of other household items, I found myself standing alone with him, face-to-face with his jumbled dentistry. I tried desperately not to meet his unconcealed stare in my direction, as each time I did resulted in his waggling his eyebrows up and down at me pointedly (which resulted subsequently in my feeling the need to vomit). Mercifully, KB was not long in making her purchases, and we left the Toothman behind to unsettle other customers.

I wish I could say the story ended even there…but it was not to be. KB and I were having what we like to call a "competent day," one of those rare days amidst long stretches of clumsiness in which it feels like we really have things under control. We had been involved in successful Amharic conversations, made several purchases at fair prices from shopkeepers who knew us by name, and made friends of the post office workers (whom a PCV always wants on his or her side). We were basking in the glory of our cultural adaptation as we walked back to the house when, having apparently failed to learn my lesson, I made a very foolish comment to KB: "I almost hope we run into some characters on the walk home. We need to meet our daily quota of hilarious awkwardness." I got exactly what I deserved when, at the same fated intersection from the day before, we ran into the Toothman. I suppose it would be more accurate to say that he ran into us, as he sprinted out to the road from the hotel bar when he saw us approaching. Apparently our encounter at the government store had made us best friends, as we each received an enthusiastic hug in greeting. He tried to talk to us as we walked, but his Amharic was too rapid and too garbled from having to pass through his snarled teeth that he was absolutely incomprehensible to us. My language comprehension skills were not assisted by the fact that I was laughing uncontrollably at the irony of the moment. The Toothman was not deterred, however, and he laughed right along with me as if we were just having a grand old time together. After a few meters of carrying on like this, the Toothman took his leave, off to do some other important socializing. Being the lucky one at his side, I got a second hug. KB had walked far enough ahead that she was out of the Toothman's hug radius, but she received the celebrated chest-pump/fist-point combo, which I think officially makes them Ethiopian homies.

25 December 2007

2008-01-04T08:01:00.000-08:00

Christmas is here! Well, not so much here as there in America, but KB and I did our best to bring a little bit of American Christmas cheer to our Ethiopian lives. We woke up this morning and used our single kerosene burner to make a big Christmas breakfast: scrambled eggs, French toast, fried potatoes, and hot chocolate (Swiss Miss, straight from the States, courtesy of Suzanne and Bonnie, to whom I give my eternal gratitude). In lieu of presents under the tree, we opened up the letters we had been stockpiling all week. We listened to Christmas music on KB's laptop ALL DAY LONG – which, granted, still doesn't make up for the solid month of Thanksgiving-to-Christmas-Day holiday music we would have endured or avoided in the States. We watched "A Christmas Story" (only once, though we considered keeping it running all day in a continuous loop to simulate TBS's traditional marathon). I wore my Santa hat around the house like an idiot (thanks again to Suzanne and Bonnie).

Ethiopia was even willing to help us out a little bit in our quest for American-style holiday celebration. Santa brought running water to the house, not just once but, astoundingly, TWICE during the day. I went to the store to buy toilet paper and, deciding to buy two rolls at once in a little indulgence of Christmas spirit (merry Christmas to ME!), the shopkeeper pulled from the shelf one pink roll and one green. In the evening, KB's supervisors stopped by my house bearing two kilos of Christmas bananas. Muluken told us, "I said to Ato Zeleke: Today is their Christmas. It is a very special holiday. I have seen it on TV. There is singing and much food, and families are all together. They might be lonely today. We must go visit."

All in all, it really was a merry Christmas. I had debated whether to even acknowledge the day or to just let it pass like any other sunny, 84-degree December workday in Debremarkos, worried that my attempts to scrape together a makeshift celebration would only depress me when they inevitably fell far short of the real thing. But KB and I had a great day together, and through the warmth conveyed in letters and phone calls, we truly felt connected to the people we love. We each talked to several family members and friends from the U.S. My Welliso host family called me three times – one per each family member over the age of four – and there was a barrage of text messaging between PCVs. Far from all people I have long known and loved, it is indescribably good to feel an assurance that they are still thinking of me on this special day.

23 December 2007

2007-12-25T18:51:00.002-08:00

I met with my supervisor for the first time since coming back to Debremarkos. Ironically, while I have been free all week, Sunday has proven to be a workday for me (in a highly religious country, nonetheless).

On my way to the office this morning, Ato Amoro intercepted me in the street, loaded me into a vehicle with two other men I had never met before, and off we went – toward what, I had no idea, not only due to language barriers but also because Ato Amoro tends to be the gentle, quiet type. His constant smile and kind manner, though, never fail in assuring me to follow trustingly. As it turns out, this morning's program involved visiting kebele (the smallest administrative level of local government) meetings to introduce me and my mission. This, in turn, involved walking with Amoro into the middle of large assemblies, interrupting meetings already in progress, being stared at curiously by innumerable pairs of curious and amused eyes, and hoping to summon at least the coherency of an Ethiopian five-year-old in introducing myself to my new community. We visited three different kebeles. At the last one, Amoro stepped away for a bit and, in doing so, unknowingly left me to run through the entire production by myself. I was ushered inside a packed wooden house, seated at the front of a gathered crowd that spilled outside the structure and stared in through the windows and doorway, and asked in halting English, "Do you now have any idea?" What I wanted to say was, Not usually, no, not at all, and especially not now. What I did instead was greet the crowd, give my name and background, pull out my notebook, and run through the Peace Corps' purpose and goals in Amharic (the one language lesson I actually wrote into my notebook – Igziabher yimesgen! [Praise God!])

After surviving my first job-related Amharic trial and while waiting for Ato Amoro to return, I found myself discussing globalization with the head of the woreda (the next administrative level of government above the kebeles) education office. The conversation began in the same way as all my dialogues with English-speaking Ethiopians, with him asking me, "How do you get Ethiopia?" I gave my usual answer about Ethiopia being a beautiful country with very hospitable people, and then I added a bit about its having a rich culture and history, having never been colonized (and only briefly occupied by the Italians during World War II). He agreed with me but pointed out that Ethiopian culture has been profoundly impacted recently by trends of globalization.

It is not difficult to see the marks of globalization upon Ethiopian culture. Just this morning, as I sat in the courtyard of Debremarkos Hospital, waiting for Amoro to take care of some HAPCO business there, I saw two Arsenal jerseys (knock-offs, of course), one New York Yankees ball cap, and a Disneyworld sweatshirt. A rerun of Kids Incorporated – an American TV show from he 1980s in which small children in all their frizzy-haired, side-ponytailed, sequin-belted, spandex-leotarded glory stand on a fog-covered stage under glittering pink and blue lights and sing popular songs of the day – aired on Ethiopian TV on the set in the waiting area. From the back page of the Amharic newspaper being read by the man sitting next to me, Wayne Rooney's sharply dressed figure smiled out from an advertisement for "International Fashion" in Addis Ababa.

I asked the education official if he thought globalization had been good or bad for Ethiopia. He smiled and said, "I think no one escapes globalization. We all have to live together."

22 December 2007

2007-12-25T18:51:00.001-08:00

This morning, KB and I accompanied my landlady to experience our first Saturday market. The local market runs every day except Sunday, but on Saturdays countless people from all of the surrounding villages and countryside stream into town, hauling straw baskets and plastic sacks on their backs, hoping to sell whatever goods they have grown, made, or collected. Invariably, it seems, there are more hopeful sellers than potential buyers. Maneuvering through the market on a Saturday involves forcibly clearing a way through a dense sea of humanity. With years of precedent to guide them, vendors organize themselves spatially by the good they are selling. We walked through the fruit aisle and were disappointed to find the same bananas, jackfruit, and green lemons and oranges – only in greater quantity than usual. We walked down butcher shop alley along the gulley strewn with jawbones, hooves, and horns, bleached and dry from the harsh sun. As we entered berbere row, the crushed red pepper dust was so thick in the air that we began immediately and uncontrollably sneezing. We were slightly embarrassed by our farenji weakness in the face of hot Ethiopian spice, until in brief moments of recovery from our sinus distress, we noticed that the entire passageway of stalls was echoing with sneezes. We bought woven straw baskets from a vast yard of them, different forms and sizes all arrayed in the straw-blanketed earth, so many that the ground beneath was hardly visible. It all felt slightly like shopping in the world of Harry Potter, and some of the items – yellow and orange powders, purple grainy dust, mounds of oddly shaped seeds, gnarly roots – seemed no less enchanted.

21 December 2007

2007-12-25T18:50:00.001-08:00

KB and I were sitting together in the living room, I writing, she organizing some photos on her laptop, Rosie Thomas singing sweetly into the evening from her place in KB's ITunes repertoire, when all of a sudden I put down my journal and pen, sat up in my chair, turned to KB and said, "Do you hear water going through the pipes?" KB laughed at me. After just two weeks of living in water deprivation, I am so in tune with the beautiful sound of running water – and so desperately longing to hear it – I swear I could pick it out from 50 kilometers away.

19 December 2007

2007-12-25T18:48:00.000-08:00

I cooked my first authentic Ethiopian meal: shiro wot, a mixture of chickpea flour, water, oil, and spices. My version definitely had a farenji's touch, meaning that the flour was the main constituent instead of the oil, olive oil was substituted in place of solid palm oil, and the flavors of ginger and garlic tempered the predominance of berbere. I ate a healthy serving for lunch, then KB and I both ate it for dinner, but we were still left in the end with at least another generous helping. Having yet no means of overnight storage, I brought it to my landlady, thinking she might offer it to her two dogs. Instead, she took the pot from me and exclaimed, "You made shiro!" Now, I had been fairly nervous about bringing my concoction before a seasoned veteran of wot-cooking, and now that she had the pot in her hands, I was mortified. I became even more so when she dabbed a finger into the mixture and touched it to her tongue. After some moments of pensive lip-smacking, another finger dab, and a series of shifting and ambiguous facial expressions, she rendered her verdict: "K'onjo nouw." I laughed out loud; I didn't believe her. "Bewnet?" (Really?) "Bewnet. Bat'am k'onjo nouw." But she didn't stop at verbal affirmation. She would eat the remainder, she said. Now I was really laughing, and she along with me. I had just made my landlady dinner. The question was, was she really enjoying it, or was this all an elaborate program to protect my fragile farenji dignity? Either way, my immediate problem of food disposal was solved, so I was content. There would be time to confront self-esteem issues later.

But the shiro issue was not to be dropped so easily. About twenty minutes later, I heard the familiar, "Kristeeee…" and found my landlady standing in my kitchen, clean wot pot in hand. She wanted to know everything I had put into my shiro wot. I'd like to think she was asking for my recipe, but it is also distinctly possible that her inquiries were more along the lines of, "What on earth did I just eat?" In any case, she reaffirmed that it was "bat'am k'onjo," we laughed together a bit more, and she was out the door. But she was not done yet. I was in the bathroom when I heard KB laughingly call to me, "Christen, you're going to want to come out here." I walked out into the dining room area to see my landlady hovering over my makeshift pantry, examining each item that KB and I had bought earlier in the week. She tasted the shiro flour. She tasted the berbere. She scrutinized the liter bottle of olive oil for which I dropped 100 birr in Addis. She rattled my Tupperware container of dry lentils. She tasted the shiro flour again. She asked about everything: from where did we buy it, how much did we pay for it, in what quantity did we purchase it, in what form did it come to us? When her investigation was over, she told us that we would all go to the market together, we would buy everything we needed in its rawest (cheapest) form, and she would teach us how to prepare each individual ingredient for use.

I imagine that over the course of two years, I will be regularly willing to pay an extra seven birr (US $ 0.78) to have my chickpeas washed, dried, and ground for me. But now at the "honeymoon phase" of my Debremarkos experience, the thought of taking days to convert a bag of dry peas and a mound of hot red peppers into a pot of thick, spicy sludge (looking, quite frankly, like it's already a few steps down the digestive process, and a process taking place under some significant environmental stress, at that)…seems like good wholesome fun. Plus, I feel as if I've passed my first culinary test and have now been deemed worthy to be initiated into the next higher order of Ethiopian cooking.

18 December 2007

2007-12-20T06:27:00.000-08:00

This morning, KB and I walked into the countryside with my landlady, who volunteered to help us get fair prices on some food items we wanted to buy. We walked along the road leading northwest out of town until asphalt gave way to dirt. As we strolled down the dry, dusty roads, leaving town behind us, we were passed by steady streams of people making their way in the opposite direction, laden down with goods they hoped to sell in the day's market. As we met them, my landlady would ask, "Inkoolal allesh?" (Do you have eggs?), hoping to intercept some eggs on their way to the market. The question was repeated over and over to each passing individual, but none of the various bags and baskets that they or their donkeys toted seemed to carry eggs. At one point, I spotted a wire basket of eggs hanging in a small wooden store's front window and asked my landlady if we might buy them there. She insisted, though, that market eggs were cheaper – 50 santeem as opposed to 75 santeem in the store, or a difference of 0.0278 US cents. After she finished explaining that we should never buy eggs from the store because they are too expensive, she called out a warm greeting to the shopkeeper. "She is my sister," she explained. Family loyalties cannot stand in the face of the need to afford food.

Eventually my landlady's inquiries yielded a success, and we bought six eggs, nestled together within a plastic bag full of grass like an African Easter basket. When I handed over three birr, conversation ensued between my landlady and our traveling egg vendor, and then I watched as my bag of eggs – and the three birr I had just paid for them – continued walking down the road. KB and I shot each other perplexed glances, and my landlady cleared up minimal confusion by telling us, "He will bring to sister's store. We carry, no.” Presumably, the sister was able to find room for the eggs next to the overpriced ones we refused to buy from her.

We continued our walk further and further into the countryside, our surroundings growing greener and more serene with each step. It was a rejuvenating change of scenery from the garishly artificial colors and structures of Debremarkos town. I didn't realize how much I loved trees, or how starved I was to see one, until I saw a whole line of them, tall, emerald, and lush, dancing in the gentle breeze. Passing vast expenses of golden-green grassland, dotted sporadically by grazing cattle and assiduous farmers at work, we arrived finally at an Ethiopian Orthodox church secluded in a stand of evergreen trees. Gaudy decorations adorned the rooftops, round flying-saucers painted in proud Ethiopian green, yellow, and red, topped with metallic crosses and fringed with dangling tin bells that clamored in the wind. An old man entered the church compound, wearing a faded plum-colored overcoat and a neon, construction-site orange baseball cap. He solemnly approached the church's intricate doors and crossed himself repeatedly while standing on the shaded concrete porch. The printed paper icons hanging on the outside of the building stared expressionlessly back at him with their disproportionately large eyes, seemingly unmoved by his piety. We sat for some time beneath the cool shade of the evergreen trees, savoring the tranquility, before starting our journey back into town under the intensity of the late morning sun.

When we stopped back at the sister's store to pick up our eggs (which we refused to by from her), we were invited in for coffee. In honor of her unusual visitors, the sister went through all the pageantry of the full Ethiopian coffee ceremony: the scattering of grasses on the floor, the burning of incense, the hand-washing of the coffee beans and their slow roasting over the charcoal burner, the crushing of the roasted beans with persistent blows from a solid metal pestle inside a cylindrical mortar, the boiling in the gourd-shaped wooden jebena, and the drinking of the requisite three cups per person. At each step of the process, a small, tiger-striped, pointy-eared housecat interposed itself in the midst of the action. Bunkering down in each stage at exactly the point of greatest activity, it stared coolly at KB and me as if to remind us that, though the show and ceremony might be on behalf of us, the foreigners, IT was ultimately the owner of the house, the proud king of his domain, the real point of significance. I think I often see the same look in the eyes of people in Debremarkos.

16 December 2007

2007-12-18T06:07:00.000-08:00

I had begun to think it was only a myth, but now I have seen it with my own eyes: running water in Debremarkos. KB and I woke up at 6:00 this morning to shouting and commotion outside in the street. Shortly afterward, we heard insistent banging on the back door of the house. I dragged myself out of bed to answer the door and found my landlady, wrapped in a white netella against the morning chill, reporting to me excitedly, "Wuha alleh!" (There is water!). For the next 45 minutes, KB and I rushed around the house, filling up any empty container we could find: buckets, basins, barrels, pitchers, pots, and even my teakettle. Inside my bathroom was chaos. We turned on the shower faucet to fill our bathroom buckets, to find that doing so caused water to pour onto the floor from an open pipe exiting the opposite wall. We solved this quandary by positioning a laundry basin underneath the confusing new stream, but five minutes later a new cascade began from an open pipe in the wall to the right. It was like a cartoon. Thoroughly perplexed, we called in my landlady for assistance. She slid a lever on the shower faucet fixture from left to right, and the open pipes stopped running. Obviously, it was the flood-the-bathroom lever. Now that we know how to turn the bathroom flooding setting on and off, we should be much better at this whole process in the future.

15 December 2007

2007-12-18T06:05:00.000-08:00

Early this morning, we boarded our respective contract buses – some going north to Amhara, some going south to Oromiya – and headed out to our sites. As I have already written at length about the incredible ordeal of Ethiopian transportation, there is no need to relive those experiences here and now. As an exercise in laughing at myself, though, I feel I have to recount one incident from this most recent trip.

I was sitting on the next to last row of our Addis-to-Gonder bus, the last row being filled with our bags and miscellaneous items purchased from the capital. As we began the infamous descent into the Blue Nile Gorge and left the asphalt paving for the rough and painfully long stretch of gravel, a large shopping bag of mine, sitting on the seat behind me, toppled over in the consequent jostling. I turned around, kneeling on my seat, and leaned over the seat back to try to right the overturned bag and restore its contents. As I was in the process of doing so, however, the bus rolled over a particularly punishing patch of gravel. The back of the bus bounced wildly as the wheels hurtled over the rocks, and I bounced wildly with it. I was tossed upward, the back of my head slammed into the luggage rack above me, and then my face crashed into the back of my seat upon my landing. Blood poured from my nose. My head pounded, and my eyes watered from the pain and shock of the impact. After a cursory inspection found my nose unbroken and my skill still intact, though, it was the sort of thing I could only laugh at. My fellow PCVs sprang to my assistance, shoving precious toilet paper in my direction. (It was also a blessed coincidence that the row in front of me contained the three people on our bus with clinical experience.) Some offered to take pictures to capture the moment, but I politely declined. I knew the true extent my friends' love for me when the girls, half-jokingly, began offering tampons – an extremely rare commodity in Ethiopia – to stop the torrent of blood flowing from my nostrils. In the end, there was no permanent damage (apart from blood stains on my jeans that will hopefully come out with some vigorous scrubbing), and I earned a bit of Peace Corps immortality by being written into the chronicle we had been keeping of our ride:

7:42 AM – Departure from the hotel

7:53 AM – First stop

8:05 AM – Wrong turn in Addis Ababa Saturday morning merkato traffic

8:15 AM – Second stop

8:19 AM – Sideswiped a donkey

9:40 AM – Pulled over. Driver ticketed 40 birr for neglecting to wear a seatbelt.

9:42, 10:27, 10:58, and 11:16 AM – More stops. Reasons unknown.

11:27 AM – Entry into the gorge

11:49 AM – Violent bump in the unpaved road results in Smith's bloody nose. The gorge claims another victim.

The rest of the trip passed without major incident or injury until we arrived in Debremarkos, where the driver dropped KB and I at a random point along the road toward Bahirdar. The luggage men climbed up on top of the bus and began pointing out bags one-by-one in the large pile amassed from the 16 of us, asking if they belonged to KB and me. Growing tired of this tediously inefficient system, I climbed to the roof of the bus myself and began handing things down. Quite a crowd gathered to see the little blonde American girl throwing luggage around on top of an Ethiopian bus. By the time I got back down on the ground, at least twenty young Ethiopian men were waiting to offer their assistance in carrying things to my house – and to overcharge us afterward. At that point, KB's World Learning counterpart had arrived on the scene to help us, and he began excited negotiations with the gathered pack of males. I was so fed up with the traveling process and so ready to finally be settled in my house, that I strapped on my hiking backpack, shouldered a duffel on each side, picked up some shopping bags in my free hands, and began walking. We ended up shoving our luggage with KB in a bajaj (a little three-wheeled taxi, always painted blue) and sending it home, while I pedaled after on my sweet new ride: a bright green, Chinese-imported, Addis-purchased, 18-speed Alpine bicycle (wearing, of course, my required Peace Corps issued helmet). It was quite a homecoming.

13 December 2007

2007-12-18T06:04:00.000-08:00

We left early this morning from Welisso. My mama cried. It was probably a blessing that I was too frazzled over the ridiculous quantity of miscellaneous items I was trying to tote with me – acquired from Christmas packages, as well as my mama's attempts to provide her motherly support for the next two years – to feel sadness over leaving.

Upon arriving in Addis, we hit the ground running. We had just enough time to unload our luggage and carry it to our rooms before our scheduled meeting with the worldwide director of Peace Corps, who, due to the importance of Peace Corps' reentry to Ethiopia, would be attending our swearing-in ceremony later in the day. (And whose last name sounds exactly and tantalizingly similar to a certain kind of cheese, definitely unavailable in Ethiopia, which we have all been missing terribly.) It was a nice gathering in which we presented our training staff with certificates, spent time reminiscing by viewing a photo slideshow we compiled from our ten weeks together, and listened to some motivational pep-talks from Peace Corps administrators – which, while admittedly cheesy, are honestly reassuring here in a situation so full of uncertainty and so prone to doubts.

In the afternoon, we officially swore in as volunteers. Swear-in was a rather incredible affair. 120 invitations were sent out; 235 attendance confirmations were received. Attendees included Peace Corps administrators, our pre-service training staff, former PCVs in Ethiopia, the Ethiopian Minister of Health, representatives of local non-profit agencies, and press officials, both local and international. The American Embassy was astounding. Three different fortified, mechanized gates – along with a handful of armed guards – protected the compound. We entered into an oasis of manicured lawns and pristine white buildings; we were on American soil again. Many of we trainees-becoming-volunteers wore traditional Ethiopian dresses given to us by our Welisso host families. Mine was long and white, adorned in gold stitching on the skirt and brightly colored embroidery on the bodice. As I walked across the grassy lawn of the embassy, African afternoon sun shining on my long blonde hair worn down and uncovered for the first time in Ethiopia, white flowing dress swishing around me, I was told by several friends that I looked like a seventies flower child attending a peace rally. The ceremony itself went smoothly, aside from the fact that the Peace Corps flag, which had been set up in the background of the proceedings alongside the American and Ethiopian flags, fell over three times in the evening breeze. Our country director joked that it represented the three different times Peace Corps has entered Ethiopia. We all wondered if it was a portent of things to come.

Peace Corps makes a concerted effort to reserve the title of Peace Corps VOLUNTEER for those who have sworn in, and some people were very emotional at having made the significant step from Peace Corps Trainee. I have to admit personally feeling no different after swear-in from how I felt before, but then again, I've never really been one for ceremonies. Many people likened swear-in to their college graduation ceremonies. I wouldn't know; I didn't go to mine. In any case, there were warm congratulations all around. Partly, it made me realize how much we had accomplished in making it this far. (It should be noted that out of 43 of us accepting the invitation to serve on the project, 42 swore in, which is highly unusual. The returning PCVs on this project all report swear-in rates of around 75 percent in their previous assignments.) Mostly, though, it made me realize that this journey is only just beginning.

11 December 2007

2007-12-18T06:02:00.000-08:00

For the few days leading up to my site visit, my host mama couldn't speak to me without breaking into tears, so she would just sit and stare at me for extended periods with heart-wrenchingly despondent eyes and offer up an occasional "Igziabher yawkal" (God knows). Now, it seems she doesn't trust herself to STOP speaking. All through breakfast, she kept up a constant stream of mothering chatter about my impending departure: Here is the form I had to fill out for the Peace Corps. 'How is Christen?' Christen is a very, very, very good child. Christen is my child. There is no problem. I love her very, very, very much. 'Would you like to host another Peace Corps volunteer in the future?' I don't know. I only want Christen. You can take away the host stipend money if you want, but only let Christen stay in Welisso for her two years. Christen, you will have to leave us soon. But you will call us at the house, and we will write letters. Rebkah will give you our address. Will you have a post office box in Debremarkos? Maybe one day you will come back and visit us in Welisso. This is your house. You will come here for days when you need to rest. You can stay for a whole week, and you can rest here, and I will cook for you, and there will be no problem. And when your friends come to visit, you must bring them here, and they will meet your Ethiopian family and see that things are beautiful here with us. And you will bring your mother and father and sister and grandparents, and they will all stay here in the house, and you will have two families, an American family and an Ethiopian family. You are habesha [Ethiopian ethnicity] now. And I know that Debremarkos doesn't have much water, so you can bring your clothes here in a bag, and we will wash them. And I will make you shuro and berbere and tea cumim and dabo kolo to take with you to eat, and whenever you need anything in Debremarkos, you can call me and tell me, and I will send you whatever you need…

I eventually excused myself. I gathered my things and walked to language class. I entered the classroom (40 minutes late now), sat down, and broke down into the tears I had been fighting back throughout breakfast. My family is so incredibly good to me, giving out of their limited means and far above and beyond their Peace Corps dictated obligations. I entered their home as a stranger, and they have loved me like their own family. I cannot even begin to express how special they are to me, how much I have learned from them, and how much the unconditional and seemingly limitless love they have shown me during my ten weeks with them has impacted my life. And what absolutely breaks my heart about leaving is not so much the thought of how much I will miss them, though that certainly weighs heavily upon my mind. But I've moved around all my life, I've left more people behind than I can possible count…perhaps sadly, I have gotten used to this drill. No, what really breaks my heart about leaving is knowing what a positive thing I've shared here with this family, realizing how much they love me, and seeing all too clearly how much I am hurting them in going away. I am starting to get sick and tired of leaving people.

Lately, too, I can't shake this nagging feeling that the best thing I will accomplish in my two years here, the most meaningful and lasting change, the most untaintedly good work, has already been done here, with this family, in relating with them and sharing life with them. At this point, I just can't imagine anything else I encounter, experience, or do during my service to be as profoundly beautiful as the relationship we've built together over these ten weeks of training. On the one hand, what a testament this feeling is to the value of my time here and the good that has already come from this incredible journey. On the other hand, it is at the very least a peculiar way to be entering into two years of Peace Corps service, thinking it possible that the best has already come and gone.

5 December 2007

2007-12-18T06:01:00.000-08:00

One of my neighbors died today, a high school aged boy, in a car accident in Addis. Mourners filled the street outside his house throughout the day and night, wailing at the tops of their voices. My mama tells me that his family has no parents, both having died years ago from illness. It is likely that this boy was the main breadwinner for the family of five children – now four.

2 December 2007

2007-12-18T05:56:00.000-08:00

After spending a day of rest in Addis Ababa, we all returned back to Welisso from our respective assignment sites. We got off the bus and walked into the familiar compound of our training center. We entered the building and joyfully greeted our training director and the few language and culture instructors who were working inside. We collected all the mail that had accumulated for us over the course of two weeks without a mail call, and we sat down at the patio tables to commence the traditional mass opening and sharing of our new treasures. We ordered wetet be buna (coffee and milk). After the packing debris had settled, the letters laughed and cried over, and the packages plundered, I walked home down the familiar dirt road to my house. Along the way, I greeted all my neighborhood children, who, after my week-long absence, exuded even more enthusiasm than usual in yelling and running after me to shake my hand. I passed my bashful, grinning little boys next door as they stood in their doorway, the shorter one directly in front to create the visual effect of a gleeful Ethiopian totem pole. As they greeted me by name, I flashed them the broadest smile I could physically muster, trying desperately to match theirs. I opened my gate to see my beautiful little host siblings out in the yard (with new haircuts! I missed so much in just a week!). I entered the house to be embraced warmly by my mama and Rebkah, and I spent the rest of the evening sitting at the dining room table with the family, telling stories about Debremarkos, receiving their familial advice, and hearing soccer updates from Malike. It felt just like coming HOME.

29 November 2007

2007-12-17T20:23:00.000-08:00

We visited a school today that had recently benefited from five new classrooms gifted by a German donor couple. The missionary couple who provided the funds specified that the classrooms must be used only in the instruction of blind students. There are five blind students at the school and an unknown number of various ages in the larger woreda area. At the time we saw the new classrooms, one was packed full with a class of (seeing) students, and the other four were locked and vacant. The school has no materials to use in teaching blind students – though the German couple has promised to provide these at a later date. The school used to have a teacher trained in the education of blind and visually impaired students, but she won the lottery for an American diversity visa and now resides in the

U.S.

The school is waiting on a new teacher to complete training in Welisso. Until then, and likely for some time afterward, the classrooms sit idle outside the greatly overcrowded main school building.

28 November 2007

2007-12-05T07:01:00.000-08:00

(I feel I should warn readers that this post is rather depressing. It contains no fun stories and is mostly a technical and philosophical discussion of some of the many dilemmas inherent to working in international development. I debated as to whether or not to post this, but this blog would feel dishonest to me without it.)

Yesterday, KB and I met a young girl from Germany who is here in Debremarkos volunteering for the Mother Theresa Mission of Charity Sisters, an international nonprofit working with orphans and vulnerable children. Today we ran into her at the Red Cross café, and she told us that she is leaving, three weeks into her three-month commitment. She told us, “It’s terrible. The charity ‘hospital’ is not a hospital at all. There is no real doctor. Babies die in your arms. I can’t handle it.” It is a sobering moment on the brink of two years here.

It comes as no great surprise that the needs here are many, the challenges are complex, and the work is difficult. It is more than enough to send a young compassionate volunteer packing her bags. Theoretically, the difficulties and emotional strain should be offset by the satisfaction of having helped people and touched lives. This realm of international development and foreign assistance is especially demanding, though, and potentially depleting, because you rarely have full assurance of having done a good thing.

To begin with, the problems are multifaceted, involving innumerable closely intertwined issues. I have been told by my supervisor that I will be working especially with the local PLWHA group. When KB and I were introduced to this group two days ago, one man spoke up to relate to us what he considered their biggest problem: We have no money to buy the food we must have in order to take our antiretroviral drugs. It is a common challenge in administering ARVs in low-income countries. Food is needed in order to take ARVs. Money is needed in order to buy food. Without money (though the drugs themselves are free), ARVs cannot be taken. But without taking ARVs, HIV-positive people become too sick to work and earn money. The poor become sick; the sick become poor. It is a vicious cycle of illness and poverty that is not easily broken. And this doesn’t even include the political, legal, social, and environmental spheres in which this cycle exists. In the case of PLWHA, for example: Government policy may fail to make HIV/AIDS control and prevention a priority, possibly even denying its existence. Government leaders may squander, misallocate, or embezzle funds designated to address HIV/AIDS and support PLWHA. Unsound economic policy may stymie growth and limit opportunities for individual wealth accumulation. Legal structures (or lack thereof) may hinder entrepreneurship and reliable income generation. Social stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS may ostracize PLWHA and disallow them from holding stable jobs within the community. Furthermore, stigma may prevent people from coming forth for testing and treatment services altogether, making the ART-nutrition issue a moot point. Finally, a lack of natural resources, or a failure to properly take advantage of natural resources, may hinder the economic growth of a nation as a whole and limit options for income generation. And even THIS discussion fails to address how gender inequality, harmful cultural practices, and lack of economic opportunities contribute to the SPREAD of HIV/AIDS, thus adding to the number of PLWHA and perpetuating the problem. When faced with the immensity and complexity of this tangled web of issues, how do you even decide where to start? And how do you confidently address one aspect of the problem, knowing that roadblocks in other aspects may render your efforts ineffectual?

I have been asked by the PLWHA group to assist them with “income generation.” The term makes it sound as if I will wave my magical B.A. in Economics to conjure money out of thin air. The reality, though, is that most of the local business ventures I would help design would ultimately succeed in shuffling money from one group of people with greatly limited resources, to another group of people with greatly limited resources. Of course, the more accurate description of what I am expected to do is that I will wave my magical U.S. citizenship to call forth money from rich foreigners. While the concept of people who have too much giving to those who have too little sounds reasonable and good, this practice, too, is fraught with difficult questions.

The extent of foreign assistance in Debremarkos is absolutely astounding. If you inquire deeply enough into ANYTHING in this town, you will discover the hands of foreign donors. USAID stickers adorn copy machines, computers, overhead projectors, and covers of intimidating stacks of record books in local schools, NGO offices, and government administration buildings. Large trucks rattling down the Italian-funded paved road carry USAID-provided bags of wheat to market. The brand new eye center at the local hospital displays a plaque bearing the names of German Rotary members. Four new classrooms at a local school were funded by a rich German missionary couple. And this all discovered in just my first four days here – I am sure I have only scratched the surface. The remarkable extent of this foreign presence, while enabling noble results in the short run, leads me to wonder about the long run. What will this do for Ethiopia’s future? Will it provide the means by which a vibrant country and a proud people will lift themselves out of poverty, or will it only entrench a system of dependency that will prohibit the nation from ever standing on its own? Will I do well in helping to increase Debremarkos’ access to this system? And where does my very presence here fit into this system? I don’t have the answers.

I know these are not new questions, and I know I am not the only one to ask them. I suppose all of us stumble forward as best we can, but sometimes the uncertainty, for me, is enough to be crippling. Undecided as to the right course of action and knowing the potential for great harm resulting from a wrong course, I fear to take any action at all. I came here, though, which was an action in and of itself. Now I must choose what to do with it. Igziabher yat’inagn. (May God give me courage.)

26 November 2007

2007-12-05T06:57:00.000-08:00

It is too early to make any real judgments about Debremarkos. Our experience so far has been a series of vignettes that do not yet form a coherent anthology. Here, though, are a few of those vignettes:

As we search for housing for KB along with our supervisors, we meet Tirssaw, or “tooth man” as it translates to English. The name is impossible to forget once you see him, as his front four teeth protrude nearly perpendicularly from his gray gums, with enough space between them to drive an Ethiopian minibus. In our first sighting of him, he is sitting on the side of the road having his shoes shined. He sits on a small wooden stool underneath a tent made of bright blue tarp, looking much like a king surveying the passing peasants under his rule. When he sees us, he leaps up from his throne and chases us down, talking excitedly. KB’s bilingual supervisor is conspicuously not translating the Toothman’s words for our benefit, but judging from the slimy, snaggle-toothed, leering grin in my direction with which he punctuates his speech, I am better off left in ignorance.

We are introduced to 65 members of the local PLWHA (People Living With HIV/AIDS) association, all draped in white for the occasion of their Sunday morning Orthodox worship service. They tell us that they have no money to buy the nutritious diet necessary for taking ARVs. They want us to help them generate income. I wonder what miracles they expect me to work with my shiny American economics degree and how much I will disappoint them.

I chat with KB’s supervisor about soccer while we enjoy coffee and tea at a local café. When we ask him about his normal Sunday routine, he tells us, “If there is soccer on television, I must always watch it. Sometimes I go to church.”

KB and I learn a new English word: “respection”. It is a favorite of KB’s supervisor, who has used it at least four different times in translating his introductions of us to the community – as in, “I am telling them that you are professional who need respection.” We should probably correct him, but I think we will rather start using the word ourselves, as that is sure to be more amusing.

At each introduction, my supervisor pulls out his notebook and conveys to the community and organization leaders what he has gathered from the Peace Corps’ workshop on American office culture and communication. Translated though one of KB’s World Learning counterparts, this is: “Americans like privacy…Also, don’t touch them.”

KB and I discover a great restaurant in town that serves a wide selection of both Ethiopian and farenji food. It also offers satellite TV, which, at the time of our meal there, is showing a melodramatic made-for-TV American movie based on the Lacey Petersen trial, starring Dean Cain and Roy from “The Office”. We ask for an Amharic menu, and after some time spent interpreting the Ge’ez script, we realize that the prices are half those listed in the English menu. It comes as no surprise that farenji are overcharged, but it is funny to see how formalized the practice is.

It takes about 14 minutes, extended through bouts of laughter, for me to inquire in Amharic about the bed in my room and for my landlady to communicate that I may use the frame but should buy a new mattress. I learn the Amharic word for “mattress”.

KB and I eat dinner at the newest hotel in town, on its second night of business. Someone has tethered his sheep to the fence inside the front patio area.

As I walk down the main road in the evening, a young Ethiopian man approaches me and tells me, “I saw you this morning. You walked to the blue store and bought bananas, and then you went into the Shebel Hotel.” It is my first real (and rather unnerving) encounter with the reality that my every move is being watched.

KB and I, lacking the string and hook we need, hang my mosquito net above the bed using two nails, duct tape, and dental floss.

25 November 2007

2007-12-05T06:55:00.000-08:00

It is Sunday afternoon, and I am sitting in the living room of my new Ethiopian house in Debremarkos. KB is napping, our supervisors have gone home for the day, the stores are closed, and my landlady insists that I must not go walking on my own…so I will take this time to recount yesterday’s travels, a task that was far too daunting last night in my wearied state.

We arrived at the bus station in Addis Ababa at 5:00 in the morning, with our site supervisors and the bulk of our worldly possessions for the next two years. Even in the early morning, the bus station yard was already crawling with people. Buses traveling to destinations all over Ethiopia cleared their ways through a pulsing sea of people to line themselves up in one of four constantly shifting rows. As each bus parked, they closed in around it, with little swells closest to the vehicle. A ticket seller would emerge, shouting, “GonderGonderGonder!” or, “JimmaJimmaJimma!” or another one of seemingly infinite varieties of this chorus – and then take off RUNNING at a full clip as all of his would-be passengers shoved, grappled, and swarmed after him, too numerous by far for even three buses to hold. Each new call brought a new current swirling into existence, so that the entire station yard ebbed, flowed, and surged like an angry ocean in some terrible storm. In almost the exact center of this frenetic whirlpool, we stood, three light-skinned farenji, three blue-green eyed, straw-haired Americans, three Ch/Kristens headed up the main road toward Debremarkos and Finote Selam. We formed the one eddy in that churning sea, anchored down by our collective 240 pounds of luggage and three gigantic Peace Corps issued metal chests. Needless to say, we were quite a spectacle standing there with out site supervisors – KB and her no-nonsense director, who darted back and forth between neighboring groups trying to solicit information; Straw, usually standing alone as her timid counterpart was frequently swept away in current of nearby activity; and me with my gentle giant of a supervisor, his graying head towering nearly a foot and a half above mine.

Eventually, we heard our call: “MarkosMarkosMarkos!” At that cue, the three supervisors sprang into action, rushing in the direction of the beckoning voice. Shoving, grabbing, and all other manner of minor scuffling broke out as people fought for position in the semblance of a line that began to form. Our prizefighter, my towering giant, was sent into the fray. After an initial push to breach the perimeter, the scrambling mass swallowed him. For some time, we caught only glimpses of the silvery top of his head, but then our champion emerged victorious with six tickets. Having finally secured the right to enter the bus, we began the next ordeal of actually boarding. Our supervisors entered into heated negotiations with the luggage men over the fee for loading our mountain of unwieldy baggage. Not for the first time, I wondered if our future colleagues were beginning to thing that this whole Peace Corps volunteer thing was proving more trouble than it was worth. After a lengthy exchange – our supervisors repeatedly lifting my metal box (containing a pillow and an empty plastic bucket) to demonstrate its lightness, and the luggage men thumping KB’s (packed full) to indicate its cumbersome weight – the price was settled at 120 Ethiopian birr (about US$13). One by one, our massive bags and boxes ascended the metal ladder to the roof of the bus, perched precariously (and, I regret to say, probably rather painfully) on the neck and shoulders of the luggage men.

Once we were all seated on the bus – three Ch/Kristens to one bench seat – a new uproar arose when the passengers, having now had time to examine their tickets more closely, realized that they had each been overcharged by 15 birr. The whole crowded bus erupted into noise. Indignant passengers demanded change. The hassled ticket taker fetched some sort of managing authority figure, and arguments commenced in earnest. The engine was turned off. The power of the angry mob eventually prevailed, though, and the green-jacketted money man was forced to make his way slowly down the aisle, distributing birr to each of the bus’s 60 passengers.

The engines were restarted, and the bus finally lurched forward, leaving a cloud of rancid black exhaust in its wake. Passengers bought newspapers, tissues, and snacks through the windows from vendors running alongside the moving vehicle. We maneuvered our way through a now greatly depleted sea of waiting people, to the station gate, and out onto the main road. We were on our way.

The trip to Debremarkos was long and trying. We had laughed when the bus made its first pit stop just outside Addis, about 20 minutes into its journey. We were no longer laughing when, three hours later, bladders full and stomachs empty, we were told that the second stop would not be made until after we had passed through the Blue Nile Gorge stretching in front of us – a feat which, in and of itself, takes two to three hours by public bus. The Blue Nile Gorge is beautiful, cutting through the rugged Ethiopian terrain like a wide and verdant Grand Canyon. As we descended down into the gorge on the winding, now (thanks to the Japanese) partly paved road, we passed the circular, thatched-roof mud huts and the corn fields on the people who call the Abbay Gorge home. One home supported a satellite dish. We passed the people themselves, hauling grasses and herbs in large straw baskets on their backs, making the laborious climb uphill alongside their flocks of sheep and goats. We twisted and turned and snaked out way downward on the large public bus. The afternoon sun beat down mercilessly on the vehicle, which, windows closed against the dust billowing from the rolling tires, heated up quickly. Reaching the bottom, I had my first glimpse of the Nile, as well as the bridge that would carry me across it. There was a large construction project underway. KB’s supervisor informed us, “They are building a new bridge. This one is cracking.”

Our large public bus, with its 60 passengers and our 240 pounds of luggage, rattled its way safely across the bridge and began its ascent out of the gorge. If the way down was slow, the way up was excruciating. Once out, though, the bus made its way without incident. We finally made our long-sought stop in the town of Dejen, and an hour and a half later – six and a half hours after our departure from Addis – we were driving into Debremarkos. Tired, sweaty, and stiff, KB and I stepped off of the bus to greet our new home for the first time. Poor, exhausted Straw had yet another two hours to travel to Finote Selam.

20 November 2007

2007-12-05T06:49:00.000-08:00

The anticipated day has come, the day that has been boxed and highlighted in my calendar since the day we arrived here in Welisso, the day of site announcements. I have been assigned to work in Debremarkos, a large town of about 120,000 people located halfway between Addis Ababa and Bahirdar on the main highway. Debremarkos used to serve as the regional capital of Amhara and is now one of the four major cities in the region. Situated around the Choke Mountains and just beyond the Blue Nile Gorge, it sits at about 2300 meters elevation and enjoys relatively temperate weather.

I have been assigned to Debremarkos along with another volunteer named KB, a physical therapist with now ten years of clinical work experience. She will be placed with an organization called World Learning that works mainly to provide support to orphans and vulnerable children. Meanwhile (in theory, at least), I will be working with the regional and zonal HAPCOs (HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Offices), as well as local NGOs, to identify gaps and coordinate services for the creation of a seamless network of HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, and support.

And that’s all I have for the time being: a name, a map dot, and some basic site survey information collected by Peace Corps. I will spend next week in Debremarkos, however, making initial contacts and taking care of some housekeeping tasks, and I will be able to paint a better picture after that. Until that time, I cannot really know how to feel about my assignment, and so, as is always the drill in Peace Corps, I remain flexible.

12 November 2007

2007-11-23T19:22:00.000-08:00

Training is halfway over, and fortunately, I think I have successfully passed through what can only been described as midterm slump. It is almost amusing to see all the stereotypical stressors explained in the Peace Corps literature spring to reality in my daily life: the tedium of the training routine; the lack of control over my schedule; the regression back to a world of classrooms and curfews,and the yearning for all the freedoms of adulthood that I formerly enjoyed; the constant annoyance of children in the streets yelling,"Youyouyou!" and, "Moneymoneymoney!"; the feeling of isolation from family and friends and a former life; the frustration of language barriers; and the need to be socially and culturally "on" at all times. It all seemed to come to a head this past week for some reason– it's just that time, I suppose – but I suspect that a free weekend and a fairly relaxed week to come will do wonders.

The family continues to be wonderful, and we are growing closer everyday. I also find myself growing closer to the group of friends I have made within our training class, and as the weeks remaining in Welisso begin to dissolve, I realize how much I will miss having their company and support immediately at hand. The pre-service training process isa rather strange experience. You are taken to a foreign country with forty-some obviously somewhat like-minded people, placed together in a small community where you share common experiences and undergo common trials, given time to grow accustomed to relying on each other for support and encouragement, and then distributed individually all across the country for the next two years. It is a bizarre thing we are doing, you can't help but think sometimes.

Meanwhile, though, life in Welisso has settled into a comfortable routine. Days are spent in trying to survive hours upon hours inside the classroom. Nights are spent with the family. Saturday afternoons are spent hanging out with my little brother, playing or watching soccer. Sundays are spent with my girls. Free time distributed sporadically throughout the week is filled with errands and small housekeeping tasks, reading, writing, visiting the Internet café to check in on things at home, watching movies in groups of volunteers, and exploring Welisso. I have even started back up with my morning distance runs, with some of the other volunteers. As we run through the streets in the early morning, the few people out and about cheer us on, either in Amharic or in broken English phrases. My favorites so far have been, "Yes. Proud. Continue," and one morning, "No worry!You be happy-fat!" Many aspects of life in Welisso that initially seemed outlandish have become simply mundane: walking to class alongside cattle, donkeys, and goats; eating hot pepper first thing in the morning in my breakfast; relieving myself in basically a sheltered hole in the back yard… All have become part of our acculturation.

This second half of training will surely pass more quickly than the first. In the coming weeks, we will finally learn the answers to the questions that have dominated our thoughts: Where will I be for the next two years? What will I be doing? What will be my living conditions? Will I be near the people to whom I've grown the closest? Things are beginning to get more real for us. Some of our infinite list of "what ifs" are on the verge of becoming "what nows". I am excited to move on to the next step of this adventure, but it will also be difficult to leave this place and these people with which I have grown so very comfortable.

23 October 2007

2007-11-23T19:16:00.000-08:00

We have been training for the past two weeks in Welisso, a mid-sized town outside of Addis which will serve as our base for ten weeks of community-based pre-service training. We began the first day with a crash course in "survival Amharic," including such useful phrases as,"Where is the bathroom?" and, "I am full" (i.e. please stop your incessant efforts to force more food upon me). Then came the hilariously awkward and dramatic process of matching each of the 42 of us with our Ethiopian host families. The families sat crowded together in a covered pavilion as we were shuffled en masse in front of them. Each family representative, one by one, would come to the front of the pavilion, just at the top of the stairs leading down to the flock of waiting "farenji" (foreigners), and present to our training director the piece of paper that served as his or her PeaceCorps Volunteer claim ticket. The director would pause dramatically for effect before reading out the printed name, and the lucky volunteer would emerge from the crowd to thunderous applause. Newly adopted PCV and claimant Welissoan would meet at the foot of the stairs, embrace and exchange a seemingly ever-increasing number of cheek-kisses, and walk arm-in-arm down the aisle created by the parting of the crowd, eager to begin a beautiful new life together. It was a bizarre combination of game show, dog show, wedding, and adopt-a-thon, and the overall effect was incredibly amusing.

My host family consists of a grandmother, her 25-year-old daughter, her sister's 12-year-old son, and another sister's four-year-old daughter. They have been absolutely incredible to me; I honestly could not have asked for better. They took me in as a stranger and have loved me with an intensity that is demonstrated every single day in word and action.

The grandmother, my host mama, is a Protestant missionary. I am not sure what this means practically – except that, as she says, she was too old to and physically worn down to continue her former job making injera for a local hotel, and, as I surmise, she is almost entirely supported by money sent back from family living in the U.S. Her story becomes more complex and intriguing with every new discovery my improving Amharic allows me to make. She married in her twenties and had one child, my host sister Rebkah. Shortly afterward, her husband became Muslim, and she converted along with him. During that time, though, she gave birth to two sons who both died in infancy, and she became convinced that God was punishing her for a sort of unfaithfulness to Him. She divorced her husband and rejoined the Christian church, leaving herself largely without financial means. Her parents died very early in her life, and her two brothers died later in a motor vehicle accident, leaving only her and her sisters –one of whom is living in the States, and one of whom left Ethiopia to find work as a housemaid in "an Arab country" (the specific name of which my mama has forgotten). At one point in her missionary career, my mama spent time living with a host family in Germany, which I think helps her in understanding and being sensitive to my needs. She thanks God for everything, and she believes that He sent me to her as an answer to her prayers. I suppose this should make me feel special, but most of the time I just feel unworthy to be so considered. She loves me, though, undoubtedly.

Rebkah has also been incredible to me, constantly giving and serving. I love making her laugh – which is not difficult as a goofy and rather uninhibited American who speaks Amharic on the level of a two-year-old (and a rather slow one at that). My little host sister, Hannah, is one of the most beautiful little girls I have ever seen, and she adores me in that unquestioning way that only children are capable of. She has also become quite a ham, largely, I have observed, as a result of competing for attention with her comical brother. Malik has become my favorite in many ways. (Maybe it's some sort of "brother I never had" syndrome?) In addition to being outgoing and full of hysterical, off-the-wall antics, he is generous, kind, and caring. He is a bright student and a diligent son. His father died when he was younger, and it is obvious that he tries his hardest to fill that role of man of the house. My heart really goes out to him because as a twelve-year-old boy living in a household of females, I think he is absolutely desperate for someone to play with, for the chance to just be a little boy. I think I would do just about anything to make him happy. One evening, walking home from the local tourist lodge where we had spent the day watching English Premier League soccer and drinking Mirindas, he said to me, "Today – very,very, very good." I think I could have ended my Peace Corps service right then and been satisfied with having done good in the world.

9 October 2007

2007-11-23T19:12:00.000-08:00

I woke up early this morning to hear the call to prayer. I stood out on the balcony of my eighth-story hotel room and heard the chanted prayers rise up from the city to join the other choruses of Addis Ababa: the roar of jet engines, the rumbling of trucks, and the barking of dogs. When the prayers finished, even the dogs observed a brief moment of respectful silence. The engines, however, silence themselves for no one.

Our arrival in Ethiopia two days ago was a blur of jet lag, sleep deprivation, and bombardment with unfamiliar sights, sounds, and smells. Even four hours after landing – after passing through customs, checking into our hotel, and dragging eighty pounds of luggage up to my room – the reality of my finally being in Ethiopia still hadn't really made its impact. Until, that is, my roommate and I stepped out onto our balcony for the first time. We stood eight stories above the city sprawl in the mild October night, staring out at a scene so reminiscent of those nighttime cities we had observed at home and yet so distinctly and undeniably different. It was the same city through which we had driven on out way from the airport to the hotel; yet, only standing on that balcony, breathing in the cool albeit exhaust-laden air, looking out over a thousand city lights dotting a seemingly endless black canvas – only then did I truly realize the step I had taken and the place to which it had brought me. I felt a twinge of pity, just at that moment, for my friends working and studying back at home – then laughed at the irony that they will undoubtedly and often feel a very different sort of pity for me for the next two years.

Forty-two of us have come as volunteers to Ethiopia, and, if the motivational speakers can be believed, we have each been hand-selected to be a part of the Peace Corps group that will reenter the country after a ten-year hiatus. There are eight men and thirty-four women, including two married couples. There are seven Masters International volunteers (performing their Peace Corps service as the culmination to earning their masters degrees) and several others who already hold a graduate degree. There are two physical therapists, two nurses, one registered dietician, one dental hygienist, two former military servicewomen, and one aspiring Secret Service officer. There are six volunteers who are here serving their second Peace Corps tour in Africa. There are four Kristin/Kristen/Christens, two Christinas, and one Chris. We came from all across the States and draw from a diversity of backgrounds. Most are in the range of ages from twenty-four to thirty-five; three are older. Then, I am one of a handful of twenty-two-year-olds fresh out of undergraduate studies, shiny new degrees in hand, trying just to START a career, assigned to this program most likely to fill a quota for naïve, youthful optimism required by all Peace Corps projects.

Our introduction to Peace Corps training has thus far been intense. We are driven by a full-day schedule. We are exhausted from traveling, disoriented by a seven-hour time shift, and left depleted after frustrating nights of sleeplessness. We are suffering from the stresses and anxieties of cultural acclimation, compounded the neurological side effects of malaria prophylaxis. We are half a world away from family, friends, and all other usual sources of comfort.But we hold out hope that when we finally crest the hill of this initial adjustment, what we will see stretching out before us will have been well worth the arduous climb.

As for me, the greatest strain on my emotions and test of my mental toughness has come in dwelling on the immensity of TWO YEARS. Standing here at the beginning of it all with the end nowhere in sight, the slightest hardship brings insidious doubts creeping into my mind. I find it is better to fix my mind upon one day at a time, striving to gain all that is offered by the day just before me. I know that I will waste this opportunity if I live it like a countdown, rather than a brilliant daily adventure with boundless potential.

6 October 2007

2007-11-23T19:11:00.000-08:00

I am on the plane. I am sitting in row 27 of the plane that will bear me to Ethiopia, where I will spend the next 27 months of my life. I am surrounded by people – by a beautiful, foreign people speaking a beautiful and, for now, inscrutable language. Exotic music pours insistently from the plane's overhead speakers, harrying an already chaotic scene on a plane rapidly filling to capacity. An old Ethiopian woman with decorative tattoos on her chin and neck takes the seat to my left. We exchange a wordless greeting as I help her to sit down. I can say nothing. I know only a handful of meager phrases in her language. I search desperately for words that are simply not there. I can summon only an awkward smile.

The week that has brought me to this point has been one filled with emotion: the anxiety of entering into the unknown, the thrill of anticipated adventures, and the sadness of leaving behind the familiar and beloved. I cannot describe the excitement I feel for these next two years in Ethiopia. It is a breathless anticipation. I have high expectations for what will come out of this, for how I will come out of this. Being in a new country and a new culture is revealing. It strips away family, friends, church, community, popular society, and all other familiar influences formerly relied upon for identity and ideology, until all that is left is YOU. It points you toward who you really are and forces you to confront difficult questions about what you believe and what you value. The prospect, quite honestly, can be terrifying. But the opportunity shines forth like never before to,"First, know thyself," and so to live more truly, fully, and beautifully. Many people, commenting on my decision to join Peace Corps, have been compelled to use the word "sacrifice". I cannot deny now – and I am sure I will be reminded continually over the course of two years far from home – how much I have left behind in coming to Ethiopia. Far from laying these things upon the altar of sacrifice, however, I hold them close to me as I go, with every expectation that what I will experience and learn in Ethiopia will deepen my understanding of those things and thus enhance the life of which they are a part.

I have spent the past hour of the flight playing language games with the Ethiopian businessman sitting across the aisle from me. Mostly, these games consist of the gentleman trying to teach me Amharic phrases, me trying to decipher their meaning and mimic their pronunciation, and the old tattooed woman laughing at my clumsy attempts. I let the old woman borrow my headphones to watch the in-flight movie, and she laughs in surprise at the noise being channeled into her ears. She and I watch the rest of Mr. Bean's Holiday together, though I spend more time watching her giggle and shriek "Oy!" at Mr. Bean's antics. I think everything will be okay.

Finally online in Ethiopia!

2007-11-23T19:05:00.000-08:00

By the time this post makes it out to the information superhighway, I will have been in Ethiopia for almost two months. I've obviously got some catching up to do, so I've included below a few general, fairly representative journal entries from my time thus far.