10 signs that prove you’re on Ethiopian Transportation…

To: People Back Home,
10 signs that prove you’re on Ethiopian Transportation…
1.         You are sitting 3 people to… 2 seats
2.         All windows are closed on the bus…for fear of Tuberculosis
3.         The lady that’s sitting next to you has butter in her hair (Yes, they do this and it smells awful)
4.         Your bus driver is taking a blind curve, wide.
5.         Only the thump, thump beat of Tigrinya music can be heard through blown out speakers.
6.         The bus driver only slows down for all cattle, donkeys and sheep…Humans don’t count!
7.         The bus boy promptly doubles the price because your white. Luckily you know what the real price is so you hand him the exact amount and claim you have no more money as you show him the insides of your pockets.
8.         There is a goat on top of the mini bus and a lamb at your feet.
9.         The person next to you is throwing up because of motion sickness.
10.       A full mini bus to any bus driver consists of no less than 20-25 people when it only actually seats 12 …
            True Statement!  
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Sham
"Life is tough wear a helmet"

Work, School and the Little Pleasures in Life that I Miss!

Well doing well here in Ethiopia. Starting to get busy with work, as mom has probably told you I am going to try and start an internet café in my town. The people badly need it.

Taught my first English Lesson to my co-workers the other day. It was funny to see their faces light up when I explained to them that the saying “How do you see Adigudom?” is not a proper question and that the correct answer to that question is “I see Adigudom with my eyes.”  This is a question that all foreigners get asked and is taught incorrectly in the schools. While we all know what this means it still is not very proper English. So we discussed How is Adigudom? And what are your likes and dislikes about the town? Also went into the prepatory school in my town (which is grades 11-12 public education) not required by the government and also you must take a test and pass it to even continue on to grades 11-12. Just so you know most individuals do not pass these tests and only make it to grade 10. A teacher had stopped me on the street and had asked that I come and do a question and answer session with his students. It was kind of fun to field American cultural questions. Questions ranged from politics, to education, to marriage, to trying to compare and contrast Ethiopia to America. Which by the way is not possible because they are so vastly different.

Got started re-vamping the patient data collections on the computers in the Health Center.

 I started with the A’s and there were so many mistakes with spelling it was unbelievable. Its hard because from my understanding spelling in Tigrinia doesn’t count as long as someone can decipher it, its spelled correctly and then your trying to translate it from Tigrina to English. So I’m trying at least standardize the most common names. This is rather important because Habasha names are all so similar its amazing.  Its going to take me about a year to get through the whole system with the people who work in that office, mainly cause I can really only work on it for about 2 days a week and I never know if these people are even going to be at work and then you have to consider the 2 hour lunch breaks everyday and the 2 coffee breaks at 10 and 4 each day. OMG! The joys of working in this country. 

So I think the reason I loved that box so much was the fact that I hadn’t received one in a while and I was missing some stuff from home.  I really appreciate the spices as well. Those are all things I can not find here in country. I loved the T-shirt Tom and Jerry is awesome.  Pistatos are my favorite so who ever threw those in the box did a good job. I also really appreciated the sticky tack to hang stuff on my walls. My walls are made out of cement and hammering a nail into them is rather funny to watch sham try and do.  I have recently discovered I can buy roasted peanuts on the streets of my town and they are amazing. I don’t know if it’s the bags O’Peanut in America but a freshly roasted peanut tastes wonderful.

A few things I could use in the next box you send:

I had a little accident with my ear phones to my i-pod so can someone pack me some ear phones. I prefer the ones I stick all the way into my ears (I think their called ear buds) I also don’t like the foam ear

buds I like the rubber ones. These are typically going to run you about 30-35 dollars.

Tea (You can send me most of the stuff I left in my room if its still there)…I love green teas!   I can get black teas here but nothing else and have really been missing the green and white teas.

Butter…I know weird, but if I tried to explain you wouldn’t understand. Mary’s mom sent her butter sticks in like a glad wear container and it came fine no mishaps. Maybe wrap it in a ziplock bag to if your going to put my ear phones in that box too.

More fun sized chocolate (mary requests coconut m&ms)

Smore materials (ie, marshmellows, hershy chocolate bars, and gram crackers) buy a bunch when it goes on sale (Maybe you can talk the grandmas into helping you with sending/buying me these items) Sometime in May or June I’m going to have you send me a whole box of just smore materials

More Ziplock bags (quart and gallon sized)

Velveeta cheese (as always, a couple boxes of just the cheese sauce would be awesome)

Slivered almonds

Granola

Oatmeal (old fashioned oats)

Trail mixes (try the bulk section at WINCO)

Vitamins (If they are not coming in other shoe box)

Cheeze its or Gold Fishies (there is not a lot of crunch here in my diet and I do miss it)

*Mom no more rock pops or chewy sour lizards

Another big bottle of hand sanitizer

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Sham

"Life is tough wear a helmet"