Bale Brits

Yay for another full circle. This time I had nothing to do with actually helping it come about but feel happy that I was able to observe. First, a little background refresher. Since I have been in Goba I have been trying to work with the Bale Beauty Nature Club which consists of 2.4 hectare of pristine land and a library/study room in town. Ayoub, the original leader and inspiration for the club “disappeared” in America last year and has yet to return. I have spent the past year, unsuccessfully, trying to find a way to keep the club going in a sustainable way that doesn’t just depend on dwindling local NGO donations. The main thing that is lacking is a person who will take leadership for the club and reinvigorate the community members. Or so I think.

But today I learned that the Ethiopian way of last minute planning can work out. A week ago Ayoub randomly called me saying that another group of students from England would be arriving soon to do a “volunteer vacation” to work with the club. (The same company that organizes this trip came last year and the work largely fell onto my sitemates and I, (see old blog post)). As much as I want to see this club survive I decided to not change my plans but to simply observe and help out a few days into the trip.

So I stuck with my plans and had a fabulous weekend climbing a mountain outside of Goba that I have been looking at since living here. I went with my friends Marit and Jan from Holland who work in Robe and who, like me, love outdoor adventures. The mountain had stunning views and it was so nice to camp, relax and hang out viewing Goba from a new perspective.

Anyway, back to today when I finally met the group from England and helped them plant some trees at the club property. The rest of the day I mostly just chatted with the leaders and helped them buy food, preparing for a trek into the Senetti and Bale Park. For me it was so refreshing to hear their positive views on Ethiopians and in particular the club members who stepped up and made their visit such a success. Out of thin air emerged three smart, motivated, English speaking Ethiopians who were very kind and were great guides in organizing good activities. I say emerged because like I said I have been trying to find guys like this for the past year to work with.

But long story short it was great to see how successful they pulled off this trip for the “Brits” and now I have some hope that the future of the club will continue due to this short one week event that will hopefully bring in enough foreign money to keep the club running. The “Brits” had a great visit and will encourage their company to continue bringing school groups to Goba and working with the nature club. For me it was also nice to see Ethiopia through their eyes for a day. They were so positive about the kindness of Ethiopians and how well they were treated by strangers. It’s sad that sometimes I forget to see this quality on a daily basis.

So again I am happy and humbled to see that things do work out without me. Life prevails and continues in ever unfolding and mysterious ways. Maybe not as planned or intended but nonetheless it moves forward.  

A few Bekoji Camp photos...

My homeroom girls "team Nigeria!"

Guiding the group through crazy tall bushes

My Goba "girls"

Jib bet, INDE!!! (Hyena den, oh my)

Team Nigeria classroom!

Glad to be home safe- this is such a sad common scene- supposedly everyone survived....

The finally finished doro bet- nice fence and happy chickens= yay!

Bekoji Camp GLOW - Year 2

Bekoji Camp GLOW year 2- check, finished, baka. Phew. This year was much different from last year’s camp even though it was in the same location, the Agricultural College in Bekoji. The big difference was that I was in a much more positive, confident head space (and not fighting a nasty head cold), and I took a much more active role in teaching. This year I also brought three girls, quiet but the only girls who spoke up during the 8^th grade English class that my new dear friend Tewabech teaches. Camp was also 6 full days with a very packed teaching schedule. Last year at the end of camp all us PCV’s commented at how amazed we were that nothing went majorly wrong. This year was not like that.

Well I take that back, nothing went majorly wrong but we had a lot of little fires to put out- like one of the girls fathers wanting to essentially kid nap her, another girl breaking out in hives from an infection and covering her lips with buna (coffee) grounds as a local “medicine”, no water for 4 days, a very gross shint bet (why do people poop on the ground 2 feet from the hole?), and a useless guide on our hike to a mountain. But despite all the chaos I can say that this was by far one of my most rewarding weeks here in Ethiopia.

Every morning I started out the day by teaching thirty 14-17 year old girls and a handful of female Ethiopia “counterparts” yoga. The first few days we were packed into the dining hall but got through without anyone getting kicked or stepped on. The second day I had to catch a rat that was running around freaking out the girls before the class could continue. But by the end of the week they all knew how to balance in Eagle Pose and loved saying “Namaste” at the end of class. They didn’t get the whole breathing part of yoga but they sure loved it nonetheless. Yay! For my first time teaching yoga it was a lot of fun.

My other big success was teaching salve making. Working with Tewabech who helped translate I talked about the different locally available medicinal herbs and their benefits. Next I showed them how to make salve – melting bees wax with oil and adding rosemary and Eucalyptus oil. It went really well and they hung onto every word!   I am now re-inspired to hopefully teach some women in Goba how to do this so they can start a small business for themselves. It really is a cool, simple way to make good natural medicines, that actually work (way better than buna or butter- the common treatments).

Finally each day for two hours I taught four girls “homeroom”, which was focused on English but soon morphed into doing fun art projects. At first I was terrified- I don’t know how to teach English- but I got creative and with the help of some teaching aids I ended up loving spending that time with the girls. As I got to know them I learned how eager they were to learn and how hard their lives are at home. One girl was the 10^th of 11 children, one was a seratenia (servant for another family), and another girl has only her mother (her Dad works in America). I totally fell in love with them- their innocence and motivation to learn, absorbing every word I said.

For our closing ceremony, a bonfire where each girl held a candle and spoke about what they appreciated, I told them how this had been one of the best, most rewarding and inspiring weeks in my two years of service in Ethiopia. Despite all the struggles I see in the country working with these girls gave me hope. Breaking and opening my heart at the same time.

Now I am back home, enjoying the simple life of washing clothes and drinking tea. Tomorrow I will treat myself to an adventure hike in the national park – its warthog and baboon season! Babies galore!

A few photos of my latest activities...

 Selfie on top of my local view spot with lovely storm clouds in the distance

Classic Peace Corps moment- riding a gari out to the monastery with my doro bet materials

The almost finished doro bet one week after bringing the supplies

Aba Kenfa showing how they make the wooden crosses that every Orthodox Christian wears as a necklace

Posing inside the 2nd portable doro bet with my dear friend Elsabet (who is my exact age but looks 50)

You never know what the day will bring...

(I posted this at the end of April but was advised by Peace Corps to remove it, I think now that things have settled down I will post it, but know that I am not adding more information due to the lack of freedom of speech in this country and for my own safety...)
Phew what a day. And as it ends I am grateful to be alive and in such a beautiful place with so many kind people. Today I ate breakfast with my site mate Nora, who has one month before the end of her service. We shared ambasha (a delicious fresh flat bread) and “special fool” (a spicy bean and egg dish) and drank some bun aba watet (coffee with milk), and loz chai (tea with peanut butter). I then went up to the Ag office and was happily informed that Tenadesta, Salomon and I were scheduled to do a garden training with some local farmers for this Friday. Finally! With enough patience and persistence the Ag office folks are finally realizing I have something to offer them. So next I went around town gathering odd things like used coffee grounds, wood ash and charcoal powder from local shops that will be used for the soil amendments in the training.

After quickly going to the big muddy Wednesday market to buy onions, carrots, chard, and bananas I ate lunch and hopped on a mini bus to go to Robe hoping to use some fast internet. I am trying to take an online Buddhism philosophy class but its turning out to be very frustrating trying to download audio files. (Funny in trying to learn to be more patient through Buddhism I get very frustrated with the computers).

In Robe I said hello to my mini bus driver friend then walked around the corner to get a bajaj (motorcycle taxi) into the main part of town. I realized something was wrong when none of the drivers wanted to go to town. I finally found one that would take me part way and when I got out of the bajaj I saw a lot of people standing around looking down the road towards a huge mass of people about 200 meters away. In that moment I also saw that the internet shop was closed, along with every other shop on the road. A kind man spoke to me saying the university students were protesting and a moment later the mass broke out and started running towards us. That triggered everyone else to run, turning off onto side streets to avoid getting caught up into the mass of people.

 I started running/speed walking down the road back to the bus station when I heard gun shots. At that point I darted off the main road and waited for a moment with my heart racing. During that scary moment when everyone was running several people were very kind to me in inviting me into their shops to hide, or to go down the side street. I could have hid but I wanted to be out of there so I walked as fast as I could away from the crowd to go back to Goba. As I got farther away I still heard gun shots and the women had fear on their faces, while the young men seemed excited. Go figure.  The phone network stopped working (potentially the government blocking it) and I was glad to get a bus out of there quickly. Phew!

Evidently in the last few days there have been country wide protests at many universities about how the government suppresses the Oromo people which account for more than 30% of the population. It goes much deeper than that but people here are very hesitant to talk about it. I’m curious to see the news on TV but am guessing none of this is being reported (the government owns the TV network). Online I read that several people have died- police and students. Two months ago, in Addis Erik and I visited the “Red Terror” Museum telling the story of the military government that controlled Ethiopia in the 70’s and 80’s. Over 500,000 people were killed during that time to a brutally suppressive regime. In my time here I have often reflected on how much that affects the way people behave today.  History can be so very haunting.

Overall the longer I live in Ethiopia the safer I feel but today I just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Now I’m happily safe in my little cozy home drinking tea and about to prepare for an environment/ English class I will teach tomorrow. Stay tuned for my post on Italy, I’m slowly working on it. Things have been surprisingly busy in Goba since I returned last week.

As always- send emails, letters and love if you have a moment! 

Return of the Doro

Why hello internet world. It’s been a long time! Tafach! (Amharic for “you disappeared”, which I hear often when I haven’t seen someone for a while)

I’ve been trying to think of something to write for a while but I guess I’m having writers block. (Or feel that my life here in Ethiopia is “normal” without much to report). Not anymore because I want to share my day with ya’ll. It is a part II story from my last “doro bet” fiasco. So now 3 months later the chickens are alive (minus two), and starting to lay eggs. Last week I bought a dozen big brown eggs from the monastery. A nice full circle feeling. But I was concerned because they are still in the tiny no air or light room that they were originally placed in. The doro bet I was building lay in the same state it was when I left it two months ago. But two weeks ago I devised a simple design using the remaining money I had from my grant to buy a few basic materials (metal roofing and chicken wire). So I got a gari ride from my friend Masai and delivered the materials and talked with the carpenter monk to explain my plan. I’m pretty darn sure he understood with the picture I had drawn what I had planned and by his smiling positive response. I left feeling up beat and that I hadn’t abandoned the project and that the chickens might just survive.

Last week I went back to check up with my new acquaintance Hasan (a Muslim guy who was happy to help the Orthodox Christian church, which was very nice) works for the Agricultural Office with rural co-op groups. Upon arrival I was happy and dismayed to see that they had done a ton of work- but made it to the original 3 x 6 meter size- huge and with lots more expensive roofing. Just when I think I have something figured out it turns out to be completely different from I you thought. Always. But I couldn’t be too frustrated because it was almost finished, mud walls and everything.

Hasan had been talking about building a simple triangle shaped fence system to keep the chickens in during the day while they foraged on grass and bugs and we decided to come back the next week to try to build it, which leads me to today. My dear friend at the monastery Elsabet (who is my exact age but looks over 50) greeted us and helped us get to work by introducing us to the “doro bet” crew- all women who in all truth are the ones who really do the work at the monastery while the men sit around and have visitors kiss their wooden crosses (slightly cynical tone but the truth).  First we had to find some wood which involved going into the woods and cutting down some pole size Eucalyptus trees. I really enjoyed working in the woods again hauling wood and cutting with my fancy ferengi saw.

The four women that worked with us were all very sweet and quickly warmed up to me and we really enjoyed “talking” and interacting. We worked all day, barely pausing for lunch, which on a funny side note shows the generosity of Ethiopians. I mentioned I was hungry then in the next 30 minutes 3 different people showed up with food and we soon had a little feast (of lots of dabi – a bread similar to injera and shiro- chickpea powder and spices). They served me a new type of tea that was made from roasted barley and was delicious! The day went fast and we actually finished building the project just as the sun was setting (beautiful pink clouds against the green fields and distant mountains). Of course we couldn’t leave until they then served us more food with a “desert” of fresh hot milk and sugar from one of their ten dairy cows.

Today was truly a delightful “Peace Corps” day largely because it was not me trying to convince others to work but another Ethiopian (who at one point was grumbling about the lazy work ethic of Ethiopians- ha so it’s not just me!). Now I also have more projects to look forward to in the future – Hasan wants to duplicate the easy doro bet design and teaching it to families in rural areas and who need a steady source of income. He might just be one of those rare people that are truly motivated to work and help other which is invaluable to making a project work here. Praise Allah! 

The chickens have flown the coop!

This post is to document, reflect and capture the steps and lessons learned from my latest endeavor- the doro bet project. It all started with casually mentioning to my kind Ethiopian friend Dr. an idea I had seen for placing a chicken coop over a fish pond. I wrote about this in a past blog but for my own internal processing will lay out what happened. Thank goodness I decided to go with the simple doro bet once recognizing that the science did not support an integrated chicken/fish pond. Probably one of the biggest things that got this project off kilter was me going on the recommendation and advice of my acquaintances to buy the 15 chickens from the Ag office under their improved breed doro program. The day I asked about buying chickens they said, yes today is the only day to buy the chicken, you must do it now. Usually I have run into the opposite- “oh you are too late, that should have happened a month ago, now you have to wait a year”. So by going off my best information at the moment I paid for 15 chickens out of my own money, 1500 birr.

This triggered my needing to apply for a grant to get reimbursed and I quickly filled out a “mini” grant – the smallest and fastest grant available. My second hindsight mistake (ie. lesson learned), was to take the word of Getachew of the NGO Farm Africa seriously in believing he would help pay for the building materials (like roofing and fencing). I estimated the supplies would cost about 2000 birr and submitted the grant. For a few weeks I had been trying to get a hold of Getachew, calling, stalking his office, leaving text messages but to no avail.

The first day back in Goba after being in Addis to pick up Erik (yay, he’s here for a month!) I went to the Ag office and someone casually said “oh the chickens arrived yesterday, you need to pick them up today”. Thank goodness Gobezie saved the day by helping me go buy chicken feed, get some basic building supplies and with the help of a few monks carry the 15 chickens out to the monastery. It was one of those classic unexpected but it all works out kind of days. At one moment I was feeling the high of feeling competent in successfully buying chicken corn from the market and taking a gari out to the monastery, all negotiated by myself in Amharic.

Upon arrival at the monastery I learned that the chickens could be stored in the small class room made for the few kids living at the monastery, a good “temporary” solution. The next day Erik and I showed up ready to bust out a chicken coop. After waiting for an hour to gather some basic tools we started work along with a carpenter and a slew of kids and bystanders. Several hours later we stopped working after a long discussion that digging post holes 60 cm deep was totally unnecessary. But concluded that if they insisted, then they could do it, and we would return the next day to continue building.

Of course the next day the holes were not finished but since the head carpenter wasn’t feeling well we started placing the poles and frame. Despite the huge language barrier we all managed to have fun and to work pretty well together. The kids were fun and helpful and one barefoot monk was thoroughly enjoying watching the scene and chatting.  After five days of work we were ready to put on the roofing…. which is where the project stalled. I had finally managed to talk to Getachew and even after visiting the monastery he is stalling on buying any materials. Now it is a week later, the chickens are in their dark hole of a house and I am again trying to get a hold of Getachew who is playing the frustrating game of not giving a clear answer and being very elusive.

Today I went to the Ag office, prepared to give a training with the help of their chicken experts to several of the monks at Teklehaymanot. Before walking out there (its about a 30 minute walk), we called to reconfirm the training (which I had arranged with the head monk Aba Kenfe last week, repeatedly confirming that the date and time were suitable). And of course Aba Kenfe said the monks were in church and today was not a good day. Fortunately Tesfaye (my ag expert friend) was understanding and agreed to do the training on Saturday, which I wont be able to attend because I will be trekking in the Bale Mountains with Erik.

Tomorrow Erik and I will go back to the monastery, build a very rudimentary but healthy doro bet with the few supplies we have and call it good. It has been a very frustrating project largely due to the communication/language barrier along with many cultural differences and habits. The cultural habit of being polite and agreeing to things then not coming through got in the way several times. I’m glad I had a taste of trying a project but am now humbled by just how difficult and slow things can be. My biggest lesson learned is to do my best, especially with clear, repeated communication but in the end to accept that so many things are out of my hands and control. It’s not just up to me to make a project “successful”. Fortunately next week I am flying to Italy so it’s a lot easier to see the big picture right now.

Thanks for reading my latest endeavor. Ishi baka (ok, enough)!