Sham in Ethiopia: August 2011

KEY!!! PC= Peace Corps
PCT= Peace Corps Trainee
PCV=Peace Corps Volunteer
Habasha=Ethiopian Person (Not derogatory)
Ferengi=Foreigner (literally) I think it means white person and can be
derogatory depending on context.
Counterpart= person I will be working with up in Tigray (PC set us up)
Boona=Coffee in Amharic
Boona Ceremony = Coffee Ceremony (includes 3 mini cups of coffee and
all is hand made over fire usually lasting approximately 2 hours)
Shint Bet=bathroom (Ethiopian Style)

To Everyone:

So here is an update on my life here in Ethiopia. These last couple of months have been pretty amazing! Last time we talked I was heading up to Tigray for my site visit. And OMG what a visit it was. I can officially say that I have had the full on Peace Corps experience with that trip. My host family has been amazing and I will never forget them, they were wonderful.

Let's start with my Tigray trip because it really is a great story! I found out in Ethiopia there are volcanoes because there was an ash cloud that was covering most of northern Ethiopia and PC could not fly us up there. So PC decided that the new PCTs needed a crash course Experience in Ethiopian Public Transportation in the biggest city in Ethiopia which has well over 8 million people living in it. At 4:00am in the morning all PCTs were picked up from the hotel and shuttled over to an unknown location where we met up with our counter parts in the cover of night. (oh by the way there are no street lamps in Ethiopia (ha what a joke that was ). By 5:00am we were heading to Merkado (Bus station). Where we were literally pushed away from the front gates unless we had a ticket…Luckily we did! But there was definitely still some pushing and shoving. We make it past the gate man and into a bus holding area with me and about a million other of my closest Habasha Friends trying to find one bus. OMG the best descriptive words I have for public transportation in Addis is a catastrophe, calamity, also could imply a group of monkey wrenches have been thrown into the situation by a bunch of knuckleheads. The word I would really like to use is not appropriate for the public viewing.

Me and my counter part who I met the day before and who has my life in his hands, finds our bus up to Tigray. Trust … hahahah!!! Did I still mention it is pitch black outside and there is minimal lighting in this area. We get my bag on top of the bus and we find our seats. Little did I know what was in store for me. I sat for 15 hours on a bus in the very back where there were 5 seats and 6 people sitting there. I sat on a crack and in between 4 Habasha men and one other Ferengi. A bathroom break comes at the leisure of the bus driver and is an area with enough bushes for about a 100 people or so. Luckily I was a little constipated at the time so no issue on my end. However, I did find out it is way more socially acceptable to throw up on a bus than in America. When you wave at the bus boy, he will quickly pass you back a plastic bag to throw up in and then it gets tossed out the window. I did not have this problem but I watched it happen on multiple occasions.

Oh, just a side note so there are varying levels of transportation in Ethiopia. This means quality of care or ride. A salam bus ticket is the most expensive and is probably similar to greyhound transport in America. Then it is broken down into levels 1-3… 1 being better than 3. A Level 1 bus is comparable to about a very old school bus with the exception of everyone having an individual seat except the people in the back row. Also on a level 1 there are only about 8 people sitting in the isles on little wooden stools. After a level 1 there more people in the isles and the quality of the bus diminishes significantly like rusted out roofs, bald tires etc. All Ethiopians believe you can get Tuberculosis from moving air. So you ride with all windows closed and its about 85 degrees outside and about 90-95 in the bus. That’s probably generous on how hot it was. I was on a level one bus…and I will never again travel by any level again especially if its long distance.

Back to the story…
The bus stops in a little truck stop in a town just inside of the Tigray border for the night (11 hours later). By this time I had been traveling for about 12 hours. The counter parts go and get the 8 Ferengi our rooms. The agreed price was 40birr however when the hotel staff sees we are white our hotel price doubles almost instantly. There was about an hour and a half of arguing and debates that occurred, with multiple
counter parts and multiple hotel management. Our counter parts get our room prices back down to 40 birr. There was also much debate by the hotel staff about who was sleeping with whom and in which room. In Ethiopia a woman can not share a room with another woman. So all the ferengi women had to become married to the ferengi men we were traveling with. Hahaha! We all ended up moving around in our rooms…

I slept in a full sized bed with 2 other of my closest white female friends. (In American dollars we paid approximately $4.00). I will let your mind wonder what a $4.00 a night hotel looks like. The next day, I make it to Audi-gudim its about 8:00am…oh by the way the bus left at 3:30am that morning. My counterpart and I go to my compound and drop my stuff off, he then proceeds to take me to have boona at his house. After Boona he takes me back to my compound and pretty much leaves me for the day. At this time I should let you know my counterpart speaks almost no English and I speak 2 days worth of Tigrinian. Luckily I had packed some food with me for the trip, that was dinner and breakfast the next morning, No idea where to get water or how to buy it. I was able to find my shint bet. Success!

Where I will be living in Tigray is not bad. Each room is about 6 Shamara steps by 6 Shamara steps. I do have 2 rooms that consist of 4 walls a roof and a floor. In Tigray everything is made out of stone (similar to slate). I do have electricity one light bulb and one outlet in each room. I’m thinking the plan for room set up will be a bedroom and the other a kitchen/dining room. The whole compound is probably about 3 acres. There is a large main house on the compound where the owners live, and then in a separate building that has 4 rooms in a row. I will be renting 2 of the rooms. There are 4 cows, 3 donkeys and some chickens that also live with me on the compound. I’m thinking the compound family has 4 children all of whom I hung out with during my time in Tigray. Because I spoke no Tigrinian and they spoke again no English the kids taught me the barn yard animals, how to count, and what the bugs were called. It was awesome.

My Counterpart picked me up the next day around 9am we wandered all around Audi-gudim meeting different officials, where I was going to be working (2miles from my house). I got a bank account but of course there was issues and a process. Audi-gudim has about 8,000 people living in it however everything is just really spread out. There are no cars so everyone walks everywhere. I would say from one side of the town to the other is about 8 miles by 8 miles on the main drag. So I will be walking a lot these next couple of years. Thank God I brought my walking shoes. I have upgraded to one Asphault road though. The following day consisted of similar type items. By day 3 of my trip in Tigray I was finally able to meet up with the current PCV (Brian) in Audi-gudum. He was stuck in Addis because of the ash cloud. Thank god he was there! He showed me were I could get real food and how to buy a few needed essentials. The Café that will
be my second home is owned by a guy named Gary who speaks English pretty well. Day 4 of my trip was Thursday and Brian took me to Mekele where I met up with the other Tigray PCT. We spent the night in Mekele because the next morning PC was flying us back to Addis. I hope I fly every time I have to travel. It was great!!! Never again will I do a 15 hour bus ride.

PC picked us up at the airport and decided again that the new PCTs needed another experience with public transport. Our bus driver drives up into the bus station which is just a dirt landing block for buses and mini buses. He realizes these fereng do not have enough knowledge to bargain for a bus and get to Assela. So he finds us a bus to Assela including cost. All of us ferengi get our bags loaded on the mini bus we get in and the bus driver says, “I take you to Nazerith then you find another bus to Assela.” Ha!!! What a mess that was. Luckily the PC Bus driver had enough sense to make a phone call to PC headquarters and he got us a chartered bus by PC.

We arrive at the Raz Hotel in Addis where the chartered bus is waiting for us and they want us to instantly get on the road to Assela. However, the 8 Ferengi had been going since 6am and we needed a lunch break, perhaps a shint bet and even some water. So we told them we needed one hour to eat and get our needs met and then we were on our way.

Spent the night in Assela. It was probably the first night in one week that I felt truly at ease and slept soundly. Again the Ferengi women had to become married to a Ferengi man in order to get a room. New adaptations around every bend. Made it back to Haruta the next day with a new found appreciation for my host mothers cooking and the comforts of my host family’s home.

So I talked to my sister in Boise and she asked me a very valid question that I thought you all might be interested in. She asked "What is my daily routine in Haruta."I wake up every morning at 5:30am to “Call to Prayer” which is music from the mosks around town. Usually most people only wake up to one however because my house is in the middle of town I hear 2 “Call to Prayers” one from each mosk. Thankfully “Call to Prayer” only lasts about 30min unless it is Sunday or Friday…In which “Call to Prayer” lasts several hours. I now know how all this works in the morning so I plug in my head phones when I wake up and then fall back to sleep until about 7:00am. I usually role out of bed and start the getting ready process. Which is very similar to camping in America. My Shint bet and sink are outside. There is a shower but it is such a process that I only shower occasionally. Everything is literally made out of dried mud. So when you get it wet it really is just a mess. My host family has 60 chickens on there compound that they get eggs from so they let me make scrabbled eggs every morning for breakfast, I also get to make homemade salsa to go along with it. I have Tigrinian Language class from 8:30a-5:00p every day. There are 2 breaks and 1 lunch break that occurs each day. All Ethiopians take these breaks and everything in town closes down, including banks post offices and any shop during these times. You go home for lunch because it is an hour and a half. After school I usually do some studying, I eat dinner and then have a two hour boona ceremony. So by the time all this occurs it is around 10pm and time for bed.

I lucked out because Haruta has a very temperate climate and is constantly between 65-80 degrees even at night. This is not the case in all training sites. On the weekends the Haruta PCT have what we call Haruta Programs where we go hiking around Haruta and then cook food. Usually American type food, So far we have had hamburgers and French Fries, Pulled BBQ Chicken Sandwiches, & Chicken Tacos. One weekend we had sheep fest at Jean's host parents house. They killed a sheep and we ate it with rosemary. It was very good. I was not around for the killing but showed up later for the food. I was very thankful for this. Pretty sure the Haruta PCTs are some of the most tight knit people in Ethiopia.

I can wash my clothes by hand now. I hate doing it! Mom just so you know my shirts are still white. One last note most Ethiopians become vegans every Wednesday and Friday… They call these fasting days. So I eat no animal product on those days except for my eggs. Also during my training my host family fasted for about 1 month. Other than religious beliefs I’m not really sure why. So Ethiopians pretty much eat the same things daily and they really do “Eat to live.” And I feel I fully understand the meaning of that statement now. And unless you have lived in another country for a period of time and lived with the locals an American does not truely understand the meaning of this statement.

I am in Addis getting ready to swear in as an actual Peace Corps Volunteer tomorrow. I made it past my Language test and survived PC Training.

2011 Peace Corp

A Happy Group, Peace Corp Members Ethiopia 8-2011

Also known as the hardest part of Peace Corps usually it involves bed bugs, fleas, food poisoning & many intestinal issues. So I think I’m going to make it. On a side note I did not have all of these ailments but I did have a few.

After being her for a while I realized I have a cheese addiction problem. I found out that most Peace Corps volunteer who come into Addis, all want cheese and or Ferengi food. So a group of us treck across Addis on foot to find some of the best Ferengi food. It is at a restaurant called Island Breeze. We are sitting there waiting for our food and a couple people get up and walk away. They left literally whole plates of untouched food and us being the most deprived ferengis in Ethiopia get up and steal a couple of their chicken strips and the most amazing honey mustard. We did eventually get our food but I'm not going to lie that was the first chicken strip I have had in many a months it feels like.

Great Eye Opening experiences around every corner. I love it!!! I really do Love Ethiopia and how stuff works here. It has been great learning how other countries function. Hope all is well at home...Keep in touch with me as I do love hearing stories from home even though I'm so far away.

I really am trying to get you all some photos I have so many I want to share. I am just having technical difficulties here...So please be patient.
--
Sham
"Life is tough wear a helmet"