The British Group

August 12, 2013

….so the English high school group…funny how things can fade from the mind so quickly. It’s been two weeks since they were here and reflecting back I wonder why I was so anxious and stressed at the time. Probably because I didn’t know it would all work out so well.

So a little background info- the Bale Beauty Nature Club is a local club that has some land (2.5 hectare) along the Tagona river, as well as a building in town that is used by students as a study hall and library. The club is largely run by a guy named Ayoub, who sadly has disappeared to America for the last month. (He had a two week visa, but has been there for over a month now…hum…). Fortunately his 2^nd in command guy Esmeal really stepped up and helped make the week a success, even while fasting during the day for Ramadam. The British group came with the assistance of a company that organizes “environment working vacations”, and this was a first time trial run for coming to Ethiopia. In total it was 7 high school girls, 2 teachers and a guy representing the company.

They showed up on a Saturday, the first real rainy day of the rain season. The original plan was for them to camp at the site but after sitting inside all day waiting for the rain to stop it was decided to have them stay in the class rooms at the club office. Lucky for them this was an option! Sunday we headed up to the site carrying paint, tools and a bag of compost (made by yours truly) ready to get to work. First I had one group work on finishing the compost toilet by splitting bamboo for siding, while the other group painted rocks yellow and made cairns to demarcate a trail. The day went smoothly and we all got a lot of work done.

The rest of the week was filled with pouring cement into molds to make fuel efficient stoves, shopping at the Wednesday market, picking Eucalyptus leaves for an essential oil processing plant, a tour of the medicinal plant seed bank, digging a garden at the club office, painting a mural and planting trees seeds to later give the community as an alternative fuel source (using the compost as an fertilizer). And to top it off on Friday a group of women came and performed some cultural dances and we had a big meat and veggie cookout over a fire as we continued to dance to the many different cultural songs. The group had a great time and I learned that I can be a good leader and organizer. I was with the group for the majority of the of the week and felt like a tour guide but also learned a lot and got some good work done.

In talking with them I learned that doing environment based working vacations is a hugely popular thing in England, especially for high school students and that it is a growing business. It was interesting for me to reflect on because, in truth, we did more work in this one week than I have done in the past six months. Idealistically it sounds great to come to a developing country to do volunteer work, but as I am learning, it’s not so simple. It takes a lot of time to organize and to identify what is really helpful and sustainable. Ethiopia is in the state it is due to many complicated reasons that a band aid and shovel won’t fix overnight.

For example a while ago I had the idea to plant trees along the main road in Goba. That idea stalled when I the town officials realized I didn’t have money to buy the trees and that they had some sort of plan to do it already. Now last week a crew of students were out digging holes all geared up to plant trees on the main road. Yesterday I spoke with the town official in charge and he said they might have some trees to plant, but not of the right species, and that next year they might have money to put fences around the trees….so we will see. I’m in the precarious position of being highly skeptical this will work, and not quite sure how to step in and assist. Yet another example of good intentions but misguided actions. Hum. I guess that’s part of my role here is to try to guide the actions to sustainable success.

Fortunately after weeks of doing other activities I feel like I am finally able to focus on some of my project ideas and feel like other doors keep opening. I will follow the momentum as long as it lasts.

On a side note I made the most amazing huckleberry coconut scones yesterday with berries provided by my dear friend Heather that she dried last year before I left Sandpoint, and I also received a lovely package of art and chocolate from the dear Emily Baker. Thank you dear friends and to my family for providing much appreciated mental support! Love to all!!!

Highlights

Hum where to begin…its been a few weeks on the rollercoaster but I will start with a high. One Monday everything came together- Frankfurt Zoological Society delivered all the materials I requested to make a composting toilet along with some extra money to buy the bamboo. In one swift moment I had everything needed to make the project happen. Yay! Then moments later a PCV friend called to say she was coming through Goba with some tourist friends from Norway headed up the Senetti plateau and did I want to join them. Heck yeah! An hour later I got picked up and we headed up into the beautiful mountains. It was great to have the freedom to stop where we wanted and see the unique landscape that I live so close to but is so hard to access. On the plateau it was really cold but fortunately not rainy and we went for a nice long stroll. The landscape is like the moon- flat and sparse. White lichen covered rocks blend in with white sagebrush plants, pock marked by shallow pools of water. A highlight was seeing the beautiful enormous endangered wattle crane. Only a few pairs fly all the way up from South Africa to breed on the cold plateau. Also by the end of the day we had spotted 6 Ethiopian wolves! One we watched stalk and finally pounce on a rodent only 30 meters away from the car! It’s amazing to see such an endangered species so easily and how they are unfazed by seeing cars. It was a much needed soul inspiring afternoon so close to Goba, only 1 hour drive. The evening was fun eating some cheese the  Norwegians had brought and drinking a few beers.

Wednesday fellow PCV’s Devin and Matt and I headed up to the nature club site and started work on the compost toilet. I went to the bamboo market, a big field full of mud and freshly cut bamboo and bartered to buy 8 bundles. The day was full of working hard carrying the bamboo and playing carpenter and by the end we had a useable beautiful shint bet….ready for a group of 10 English high school students and teachers arriving on Saturday. Stay tuned to find out how that all went…

New calf I named "Pearl" that lives on my compound

My new buddy!

Blooming Lobelia!

Underground spring flowing among Lobelia

Ethiopian Wolf stalking

Ethiopian Wolf not happy being watched

Waiting for the rodents to move

Digging! Persistence! 

Success!

Working with bamboo

The Compost Toilet Crew in front of the nicest toilet in Ethiopia

Tafatch

July 20, 2013

Well hello there! As I commonly hear in Ethiopia  “tafach”, meaning “you disappeared”.  My response “allow”, “I have”. And for many good reasons. But before I get into the past I want to talk about today. For the past week I have been sick with a nasty chest cold that left me drained with no energy, which always brings the added challenge of staying positive and out of my head. In the “Peace Corps Life Cycle” this is the slump period. But today I was finally feeling a little better and made myself strawberry crepes! My kind landlord gave me the strawberries, so I made the crepes and gave him some “ferengi cake” as I called it. This afternoon I finally made it out to my favorite river spot and sat watching the newly formed rapids and dark clouds pass in the distance.  Being outside always helps me find perspective and peace. I feel so lucky to have a beautiful spot to go to that is so close to my home.

After sitting a while a youngish man walked by singing a lovely song. I said hello and we started talking. It turns out he is really passionate about the environment and volunteering and helps to run a youth club in the summer time. We had a nice talk and then as we walked back he wanted to show me the location of the club. It was in a building I have been curious about for a while- from the outside it looks run down and abandoned but inside there were several rooms all with different “programs” going on. Randomly we went into one room where there was a meeting with the local HIV club. It had just begun and they were serving buna, popcorn and bread. As a fun fundraiser they had a game of passing a loop over a wire without touching the wire. If the loop touched the wire a light turned on. It cost 1 birr per try so of course I had to try. Then (as far as I could tell) the rest of the meeting was people reading poems, telling jokes or little stories. It was a beautiful sharing experience and inspiring to see people spending their Saturday afternoon in this way. It is always the random interactions that lead to wonderful new discoveries.

So now to back up to where I disappeared to. First I went to Addis for  a few days, mostly to eat good food, but also for a short meeting of the “Peer Support Network” group to talk about helping to train the newly arrived Group 9 volunteers. On the 4^th of July we had watermelon and lit sparklers and talked with the new trainees. It was neat seeing their enthusiasm and realizing how far I have come in the last 9 months. I am starting to feel confident in navigating around Addis; hoping on the Blue donkeys (line taxis) and arriving at my intended destination, finding the ferengi grocery stores, etc. Even travelling the 9 hour bus ride is fairly enjoyable. I love seeing the country and remembering that I live in Africa as I see classic mud huts, acacia trees and kids playing in the rivers. One image that stuck in my head was a group of colorfully dressed women in skirts and head scarves working at a cement factory carrying cinder blocks on their heads. So beautiful and hard working.Africa in a nutshell.

After my quick trip to Addis I turned around and headed to the all girls camp in Bekoji with my two campers. At the last minute I was able to pull together a contract taxi to take all 11 people from the Bale area to Bekoji, saving a big headache in travelling. The camp was a great success with 21 girls, 10 PCV’s, 4 Ethiopian counterparts and 2 junior helpers. It was held at the Agricultural College, which is closed for the summer, so we stayed in dorm style rooms and had the campus to ourselves. I was in a room with 4 girls and a lovely Ethiopian woman. At first the girls were very shy but over the week they opened up and quickly formed many new friendships and self confidence.

A success for me was at the last minute for the opening ceremony I had to fill in for the person who was supposed to lead it. I had no time to prepare but was able to wing it and lead the girls in an activity of writing on papers their “I can’ts”,  things they think they can’t do. (My example was saying before I came to Ethiopia I would have said I can’t speak in front of 30 people which I was doing at that moment). They then put them in an envelope and at the end of the week we burned them in a ceremonial closing bon fire.

I also led a session on meditation which I think went well. Another highlight was hiking to the top of a local mountain which was a big challenge for many of the girls in their skirts and little plastic slipper shoes. But they all made it and the sun even came out! It was a beautiful area with many different plants. The return part of the hike was through a maze of heather that was over our heads! Other activitiesof the week focused on nutrition, team building, peer pressure, and safe sex (where I learned that a common believe is rigorous exercise after sex will prevent pregnancy!). The closing ceremony was a touching and memorable experience. We made smores (oh yum!) and the girls taught us many great traditional African songs. Imagine chanting, drumming, and dancing around a fire and you get the idea. Classic Africa experience.

At the beginning of the week I was able to sneak out and visit my host family. It was great seeing them all, especially Abi the little 4 year old boy. In “talking” with them I was finally able to see an improvement in my language skills, something I don’t see on a daily basis. Sadly I was not able to connect with Tsion, the 9 year old girl because, as always, she was busy with chores. The rest of the week went quickly and by the time we got home to Goba I was exhausted. Luckily we again were able to contract a taxi and cruised home quickly and comfortably.

Now I continue to rest and recover, gearing up for building a composting toilet and other adventures…

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!