A day in the life...

June 26th, 2013

Ah the intricacies of learning about a different culture. Today I taught my little English class (8 students) words relating to family. What I thought would be an easy peezy class turned into a comical interesting discussion. We ran out of time talking about the complexities relating to the word “step” (step-mother, step-father, step-brother etc.) due to the fact that though divorce is not too common here, marrying again or having multiple wives is. What do you call the child of your fathers’ 3^rd wives grandchild? Naively I thought teaching them to do a family tree would be a fun easy activity. Yeesh, not when you have 8 brothers and sisters who are married and your parents came from families of more than 6 siblings each! Complicated trees! But we all had fun and enjoyed learning the differences. They couldn't believe how tiny my family is compared to theirs! I feel good that I am getting better at teaching and can see that they are learning and enjoying it.

Next I am gearing up to take two 9^th grade girls to our summer camp in Bekoji. It is called camp GLOW- Girls Leading Our World and all about promoting leadership and self-confidence in young women. It was tough selecting only two girls and I finally narrowed down the 20 essays to 5 and interviewed the top girls.  I then met with their parents and explained how it would be safe and they could trust this ferengi to take their daughters away from them for the first time ever. Again luckily they spoke enough English to communicate all the details.

I’v spent the last several days working on a handbook for the camp that has all the lessons, schedule, and activities listed. It should be a lot of fun. Today I went to get it printed and was very glad to have a bike. My regular printing “dembenya” (favored shop keeper), was having printing troubles so I rode up to another shop. There they would not accept flash drives due to the rampant computer viruses here so I bought a CD from them and rode back to my dembenya where I put the document on the CD. Then I rode back to the 2^nd shop and had it printed out. For some reason he printed it out one page at a time, so 51 pages later I finally had my document. Next I had to make 25 copies so I rode to another print shop where for some reason (my language skills failed me) she printed one copy then took it next door to have them print the rest. I knew it would take forever so I told them I would come back tomorrow so cross yer fingers that the handbooks turn out as intended. Nothing is easy here….but thank goodness for my bike!

Well I take that back. Another success of the day was that my landlord helped me immensely by having a driver friend of his take my empty propane tank to Addis to have it exchanged for a full one. This would have been a hugely pain in the ass process of lugging it on 3 different buses, paying extra each time to change it in Hawassa, then lugging it back to Goba. But all I had to do was give it to him, wait a few days and whalla new propane tank! Now I can happily keep baking and cooking for at least the next six months. So yay for kind, helpful people! They abound in this country! 

Lost Post from mid May...

Phew what a whirlwind. Life in Ethiopia goes from slow as molasses to a blur of activity and this past week was packed. I’m not even sure where to begin so I think I’ll start backwards with what is most fresh on my mind. This morning my unofficial new counterpart Gobezie called me asking if I wanted to participate on a tree planting day, happening today, so I should come now. Typical. Since these opportunities are rare I grabbed my things together and headed out the door. We ended up walking quite a ways, maybe 1 ½ hours, up towards the base of the Bale Mountains. On an open field sloping into a stream we planted little native Juniper seedlings into pre dug holes alongside several local men. Once the planting was finished we headed back to Goba, me using the excuse that I needed water (which I had forgot to bring). Half way back we ran into all the “heads” of the Agriculture Office and other officials driving up in a truck. They sent a guy on horseback to go buy me water and we hopped in the truck and drove back to the site. When we got there the number of people had tripled including women who had brought ceremonial food. Like the last tree planting, after several long speeches, we all ate chicko (barley powder and butter) and drank milk out of woven leather pouches. I didn’t eat much but thoroughly enjoyed myself. I really enjoy being out in the rural areas hacking my way through with speaking Oromifa and seeing how the people live in these tough conditions. Hopefully the trees survive and provide an alternative source of fuel in the future. Today not only did I have fun but I earned major brownie points with some important people I want to work with in the future. Often my most “successful” days are the random unplanned ones where I meet just the right people.

Ok now to backtrack a bit… so two weeks ago I had some silly drama with the Agriculture office and my counterpart Alemu. I had decided to bring a different person to a Peace Corps training on Project Design because I had been having a hard time getting a hold of Alemu, and I saw more potential in working with Gobezie (which means smart by the way). My project idea is to plant trees along the main road of Goba and Gobezie is the Natural Resource expert and a good forester (and a very kind, motivated, older father type figure). To put it in a nutshell Alemu did not take this too well and in a way threw a fit telling the head Ag Office boss (Hirpa) all sorts of lies about Gobezie. In the end I had to decide to stick to my decision and potentially risk burning my bridge with Alemu and Hirpa. (Side note- trainings are a big deal in Ethiopia because people get paid a lot of money for per diem. Sadly it has created a culture of wanting training for the money not the knowledge).

So I left Goba with my fingers crossed. First stop was my favorite resort town Hawassa, four hours away. There I had a fun weekend of hanging out with many other PCV’s and ran a 7km race for the “Save the Children” campaign. Monday was the start of our week long training in the paradisiacal site of Wando Ganet. It is a University for Natural Resources set on 10,000 hectares of virgin forest mixed with plantations and research crops. Every morning I woke up to monkeys and baboons eating avocados out my window (and sometimes clanging on the roof). The campus is filled with huge Ficus trees and other lush vegetation. One day we came across a huge tortoise and in the evenings we would walk in the forest seeing lots of beautiful birds, warthogs and monkeys.

The training was very good with the first two day focused on the Project Design Management. Gobezie provided a lot of good information and we took the first steps in planning the road tree project. It felt really good to finally get started on a formal project. The training was a small regional one so it was a nice small group of 6 other environment volunteers from my group. The other three days were for just us volunteers and we learned how to build a different mud stove, talked about the bio briquettes,  got a tour of the medicinal plant gardens, learned about fish aquaculture (growing fish for food), and beekeeping. One day we took a tour of one particularly gobez farmer who was raising fish and feeding them by means of a chicken coop suspended over the water. The poop from the chickens fed the fish, then the water from the pond fertilized the surrounding crops. He was growing a variety of cash crops including coffee, corn, beans, and chat (a stimulant plant that people chew to get high). His investment was low and his output was high. If every farmer in Ethiopia did something like this it would be a different world. Needless to say it was very inspiring to see.

Friday afternoon we had the luxury of going to a nearby hot springs pool and relaxing. A class of about 30 students from the university showed up and it was hilarious to see them in their swimming lessons. (Most Ethiopians never get the chance to learn how to swim). We gave a few pointers and had a blast playing in the warm water under the tropical trees. On Saturday I left the little green oasis and made my way solo back to Goba, stopping in Sashamene to eat some tasty rice and beans at the Rastafarian community. Often I get overwhelmed with too much social contact so I enjoyed being on my own again. Now I’m back in good ole Goba ready to jump into my project and try out some of the things I learned.

Big hugs and best wishes to all! (As always I would love an email or letter from everyone (or anyone)! 

Gender Mind Bender

June 18, 2013

What a thought provoking day. Today I attended a training for teachers at the local university in Robe, talking about gender. I was invited as the token ferengi who, as a woman could offer a different perspective. In total there were about 50 teachers, 2 being female. We worked in groups of about 8 teachers talking about a variety of gender issues. Gender inequality is a huge issue here and it becomes very obvious at the university level. Only about 10% of the students are female and 70% drop out in the first year. Of those that remain many receive poor grades.  The reasons are varied and complex, but NOT because women are simply slow learners as many of the male teachers were telling me. (WTF!)

The cultural view of women is that their role is to stay home, cook, clean and make and raise babies. This is taught to the young girls who are made to do chores at night rather than doing their homework like their brothers. And so the pattern of doing poorly in school begins. That combined with being told you are dumb, facing sexual harassment at every angle (especially from your 20 year old male professor who will exchange sex for grades), and being the suppressed minority in the class room all lead to where we are today- an extremely male dominated society. Yikes! But the facilitator of the training was a very gobez, uniquely motivated teacher who had us discuss everything from the impacts of having nasty shint bets without doors (females get urinary infections, or harassed), to the need to highlight more female role models.

For me this was a very eye opening day to really think about the impact of gender inequality, something that I have not really paid much attention to. I found myself pondering how I could help and how I can help teach confidence to the young women in my town. Good food for thought. It also made me excited for our girls summer camp coming up in 3 weeks. The camp is all about inspiring young girls to become leaders and to help build self esteem. It is titled camp GLOW- Girls Leading Our World which is an international program in the Peace Corps. I will be teaching a class on meditation and the use of positive affirmations- right up my alley. But in the meantime I have to put together a proposal for a composting toilet for the nature club. So ishi baka (ok, enough) for now! Chao! 

Life in the Slow Lane

Thursday June 6, 2013

Life in the slow lane can be quite enjoyable once it has been accepted. I continue to alternate between enjoying it and wanting to do more. Achieve more, help more. For example today I met with the manager of the local farmer and technical skills training center. A huge 40 hectare center with lots of new tools for woodworking, gardening, weaving and at least 10 brand new, old fashion foot operated Singer sewing machines. There were a few women using them learning how to make embroidery pillow cases, a popular home decoration. In a way it was inspiring and sad at the same time. So much potential but they were at a loss of what to do. Wanting to develop skills to generate income but not knowing how to do it. I was happy to see them also making Mert stoves, a fuel efficient stove commonly used for making injera. Now this is something I hope to help develop further. As so many other project ideas, I’m not quite sure how but hope inspiration and ideas come at some point.

It is so interesting being in a culture that has developed such an ingrained sense of dependency on foreign money. It sounds harsh but that is the impression I get. I am foreign therefore I have money to give away and that will be the answer to all the problems. Sadly I have seen many projects that got a big chunk of money that failed. And if there is no money there is no reason to try to do anything. That’s what I hear a lot. Discouraging. It’s a constant practice in staying motivated and overcoming obstacles.

 But I am learning that once little obstacles are overcome it feels great!  Like going to the bank. For the last week the bank has been out of commission due to a failure in the network, but for the last few day’s its been working, along with a huge swarm of people trying to access their accounts. So today I waded into the swarm, shoved my bank book to the bottom of the stack and sat and waited, and waited.  I enjoyed playing with a little girl, wrote a letter and eventually got my money. Yay!

 For the days when there really isn’t much going on I’m enjoying meditating, playing in my garden, exploring along the Tagona river and cooking. Simple, enjoyable, peaceful, life.  Oh and the occasional zipping around on my new bike! Well actually it is old and squeaky and clunky but it is so fun to be on a bike again. And to see the faces of everyone as I ride by. I might be the first female to ride a bike in Goba, certainly the first foreigner, and it’s a blast! I just have to be careful dodging donkeys, chickens, kids, garies (horse drawn carts), and other random obstacles. But it is a great sense of freedom and good exercise as well.

Now it’s time to pack as I get ready to go back to good ol Bekoji to visit my host family and do some planning for an upcoming girls summer camp with several other PCV’s. Let the good times roll! (Or should I say I’ll enjoy the high of the rollercoaster while it lasts.) Chao!