Ballots, Bananas and Buna Season

I voted today! It was a weird experience, walking the dirt path to my little post office to participate in American democracy. I sat in a chair and filled in the little bubbles, then sealed it in three different envelopes and handed it over to a smiling Ethiopian postal worker. That’s it. One small gesture, and I felt American again. (Also, I noticed my uncle’s name under re-election for County Commissioner. Go Uncle Robert (Bob) Olean!)

The rest of my day was very much Ethiopian. I went to market. On the way, I passed the school. Passing the school is like setting off an alarm system. “You, you, you! Katie! Farenj!” The kids all yell. Anyone within a kilometer radius can tell when I’m coming, so I stop several times for greetings. And twice for coffee.

At the market, I found carrots, ginger, tomatoes and a few friendly faces I hadn’t seen in a while. “Tefash!” they say. You’ve been lost. “Allow,” I tell them. I’m here.

I walk back home, stopping for bananas along the way. “You!” a man says. “Give me one banana.” His broken English makes the request sound demanding. “You!” I reply back. “Buy one yourself.” And I laugh, because if you don’t laugh sometimes, it just feels irritating.

At home, our compound guard is laying the big tarp out for drying coffee. The green berries are just starting to turn red on the trees, which means it’s almost time for buna season. People will soon flock from all over the rural areas to make money picking coffee. The town fills with people heavy in the pockets with birr. Prices for everything go up and transportation gets crowded. Such is life in a cash-crop area.

 

This is the doc, preparing needles for my face.

Last month I left to Addis for what was supposed to be our mid-service conference. Instead, I spent the entire week sick in my room. 

Despite my belief I was dying, my immune system eventually kicked ass. Unfortunately it left behind congestion and a splitting headache. Enter: Ear, Nose and Throat doctor.

Dr. Ryu is from Korea and has been in Ethiopia for one year.  He speaks a little English, so I explained my problem. He listened, made sounds, wrote down a few things, then stared off into space.

Not quite sure what was happening, he moved me to another chair. He put on a round hat with a mirror, and stuck a giant pair of tweezers up my nose. “Ohhh,” he said. “Big problem.”

He continued on, looking in my nose, making sounds and repeating, “big problem.”

(Big problem? What does that mean?)

A whole string of wierd communication later and he pulled out a book with a picture of the inside of a nose, and a long needle sticking though. A few choice words went throught my head. Holy shit.

Luckily, that was a worst-case scenario photo. Instead, he shot a fluid up my nose (called it “irrigation”) and motioned for me to put my head down and snot-rocket. This was somewhere between hilarious and disgusting. It continued for quite awhile.

When that was all finished, he pulled out two large needles and filled them with tubes of more fluid. (Whaaat?! )  A little panic went on inside. “Don’t worry, k?” He said in broken English with a smile.

I clenched my fists and thought of happy places while he stuck the needles into my face, six times. Then he sent me home with a note to come back for the next couple days.

(More of this? I can’t wait.)

Conclusion is, I have a maxillary sinus infection and this treatment is supposed to clear it up. If it doesn’t we have to resort to the long nose needle. I’m mostly terrified…slightly curious.

If it comes to that, I promise to share some pictures.

What time?

Last night I was feeling cozy in my bed with a book, and I decided to have a glass of local wine. Gouder, it’s called. Sometimes it can be almost pleasant, and sometimes it’s sort of like a purple acid. Not the hallucinating kind. The kind that makes you wake up at 1 in the morning with a burning stomach ache and a strong desire to take it all back.

I laid there awhile listening to the chants of the local mosque. 2 a.m… 3 a.m… it’s still going.  Who is praying right now?

I put in my earplugs, which only slightly muffles the sound. At some point I fall back asleep, and wake up again at 8. The mosque is still going. Something in me today does not feel like getting up. Two years feels like an eternity.

In a few days I’ll be leaving to Addis for our mid-service conference. Our group of health volunteers are getting together to reflect on the year of service already behind us. All of the training, teaching, traveling, holidays… We’ve been here for over a year now.

Two years will be over so fast.

Teaching Girls to GLOW

Camp GLOW, Nekemte, Ethiopia

Last week, 34 girls came together from seven different communities for a life-changing experience I will never forget.Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) is a camp for girls organized by Peace Corps volunteers  all over the world. This year, I worked with 10 other volunteers to create a Camp GLOW in  Nekemte, Ethiopia. This camp comprised of 9th and 10th grade girls from the southwest regions of the country. For most of them, it was their first time ever leaving home.

The camp started Sunday when we all gathered at the university. It took many of us several hours by bus to arrive. As the girls began meeting, they were mostly silent. They simply stared, uncertain and shy.

The first day, we organized them all into rooms and assigned each an animal group: Eagles, Elephants, Lions and Monkeys. A few counslers were assigned to each group and the process of getting to know each other began.

Sunday night was a lot of figuring out logistics and setting the ground rules. The girls got pink tote bags with journals and a few toiletries. They were given journal prompts every night and wrote in them just before bed.

During journal time, counslers met to discuss the upcoming day. We had programming all planned out weeks ahead of time. Still, life throws out obstacles and plans change. We hung giant charts on the wall for each day and had cards with each session taped on. Cards were switched around like a puzzle as we discussed what was working, what wasn’t, and what the realities of our time were. Contingincies were planned on top of contingincies. And even those changed.

Camp days started early and ended late, and each was filled with different events. There were skits on peer pressure, “girl talk” about sexual health, games to teach about HIV and some games just for fun. We had sessions to practice leadership and how to build teamwork. We taught about fuel-efficient cooking methods and learned how to plant trees. We had crafts to make useful items, and crafts that were just for fun. We had a day to visualize the future, created goals and planned out how to take lessons from camp back home. The last night was a giant bonfire, where the girls had their first taste of s’mores and wrote inspiring messages to each other in their journals. We sang songs, gave awards and recognized everyone for their hard work.

There is so much that can be said about this camp. The girls who started out so silent and shy were raising their hands to be leaders by the end. Girls who could mindlessly recite the use of condoms in HIV prevention actually saw one for the first time, and learned how to properly use it. They discovered first-hand the power of believing in yourself and had an opportunity to ask questions they never could before. It was overwhelming to see the transformation in every single one of them.

With all of the great things that came out of this camp, you’d think it went off without a hitch. That, however, could not be further from the truth. The latrines we had to use were up a muddy hill and covered in filth, our meal plans fell through, it rained at all the wrong times and we were out of running water for three days. I fell in the mud, twice, and got locked in a room for over an hour.  There were three different languages being spoken and time was consistantly misjudged.

Yet despite the setbacks, every counsler remained calm, optomistic and helpful. Problem-solving was an ongoing skill and everyone pulled together with enthusiasm. Honestly, the patient teamwork of every counsler was inspiring. And we couldn’t have done alone. Four Ethiopian counterparts, as well as three junior counslers, were indespensible. It was one miraculous team putting on one miraculous event. And it was truely unforgettable.

If you’d like to see the camp in action, here’s a link to some photos:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100298431338561.2388771.56008677&type=1&l=e3b11fe1cb

Where I are go

View from the other end of town

Yesterday, on my nightly walk, I decided to switch things up and go toward the opposite end of town. (Gettin’ wild and crazy over here, I know.) What I failed to realize, was how my routine was related to everyone else’s routine. This new end of town was not use to the farenji walking aimlessly toward the villiage. “You! Where are you go!?” they called out. Vehicals stopped to offer me rides. Kids came running from every direction yelling, “Farenji!”

To a degree, you get this everywhere you go in Ethiopia. But I had gone on enough walks through the other end of town to essentially bore them with my presence. People there usually greet me by name and then go on their way. This new influx of attention was overwhelming and a little stressful. Not exactly what I set out for on a leisurely evening walk. I noticed my mind immediatley recoiling, ‘big mistake.. you should have gone the other way.. big mistake.’

Then a quote (from Abe Lincoln) came to mind: “I do not like that man, I must get to know him better.”

This situation wasn’t about a particular person, but it was about a reaction. I felt uncomfortable and my immediate reaction was to retreat. What I should do, and what I’ve been doing since I got here, is think about why it makes me uncomfortable. When you learn the reasons behind it, you can get yourself to face it and eventually overcome it. I know that the added attention I get makes me feel like an outsider here. But the only way to get past that is to keep walking, and keep putting myself out there. Eventually they’ll stop seeing me as an outsider, or else I’ll get use to the attention. Either way, I won’t be letting the discomfort limit me. So tonight, I’ll go for a walk that way again…and teach some kids my name on the way.

Bless the rains

Rainy season has been in full force for a few weeks now. After a few months of non-stop travel, I finally made it back to site long enough to do some laundry. The thing about rainy season is though, it rains. And rains. And rains. So it took a few good days of hanging my clothes out, watching the clouds, bringing them in, waiting for the rain to stop, hanging them out, etc. before I eventually had clean clothes to wear.

The other thing about rainy season is mud. Lucky for me, Agaro has a paved road through town that makes walking less of a slip-and-slide goo fest. The dirt road to the market, however, requires my giant mud boots and a patience for getting dirty.

Aside from wet clothes and mud, I kind of like this season. The sun cools down behind the clouds and I actually feel kind of cold. (Fully realizing I’m screwed if I ever plan on re-visiting a Minnesota winter.)

I also love that the rain brings fresh everything. Almost everything is in season right now. Most abundantly are the mangoes that drip from every tree. The trees are rather huge, so the people on my compound have fashioned a giant wooden pole with a nail sticking from the end. Every morning the compound guard and a neighbor take turns finding the ripe mangoes and  leaving  them in my window. They certainly make me smile.

Ten Bits of Traveling Fun

This is Dave, waiting for our bus (way back there on the right) to be fixed.

1. Hotel beds have bugs. (Fleas? Mosquitoes? I don’t know!) They itch.

2. Sometimes you have to be up at 5 a.m. to fight for a bus, and sometimes you have to wait hours for it to leave. And sometimes when you’re 20 minutes outside your destination, it will break down for 2 and a half hours.

3. People throw up on the buses. If you’re lucky, they’ll ask for a bag.

4. Drivers like to pack the bus as full as possible, often past the legal limit. When traffic cops stop them, they’ll argue over the ticket for hours. Everyone waits.

5. Windows only open to buy things off the road.

6. Headphones are good in theory. In reality the loudspeaker of Ethiopian bus music will always win.

7. There are no rest stops. There are multiple stops to rest. It’s best to find a nice bush, and never be in a hurry.

8. Personal space is a western concept.  Here: Laps, arms and shoulders are fair game.

9. If someone next to you has fruit, snacks or gum, they’ll offer to share. As should you.

10. Even when you’re traveling alone, you’re never alone. People will always be there talking to you, offering you help and inviting you to lunch with them.