Well, its been officially 2 years since I’ve left the great
US of A, May 26, 2013 to be exact. Quite an accomplishment as I’ve
dodged crazy towns people, made some very close Ethiopian friends, taught a few
co-works about American culture and ate, ate, ate. In the past two years I’ve made great strides in adaptation, flexibility and learned to overcome
adversity. Two years in Ethiopia is a once in a life time experience and one
many people can’t relate too. I truly do
enjoy my allies here (aka white people) whom understand the types of situations
we deal with on a daily basis. In the past month or so I took a trip to Arba Minch, attended/facilitated two trainings and participated in 1 COS (Close of Service)
Conference. I’ve been on the road lately and am definitely ready to get back to
site.
Arba Minch was a fabulous trip, we saw lots crocodiles, hippos and zebras. I was traveling
with a group that consisted of PCVs and a couple British individuals. I have
never seen Ethiopia so green it was like traveling to a whole new world even with in the small country of Ethiopia. We also saw a few people from the different tribes at a market, which was very interesting. For those
of you who do not know a whole lot about Ethiopia there are 80 different tribes
each with its own language living within this small little country Almost all of the tribes live
in the deep south of Ethiopia on small plots of land.
 |
| Arba Minch Croc |
 |
| Arba Minch Hippos |
 |
| Compare this Southern Ethiopia picture to the one at the very top of this page, Ethiopia is a very diverse place! |
The first training I attended was a week-long training on
Quality Improvement in the health system, more specifically the immunization
sector. This was a rough training with well over 300 power point slides but it
did include some important information. The final training was an experience
share about work related issues in health for the new health PCVs in country.
Finally, Peace Corps held our completion of service
conference, discussing our readjustment back to America, job opportunities,
resumes, and saying our goodbyes to Ethiopia. This was definitely a bitter
sweet conference because many of us are sad to leave our new homes but happy to
be returning back to America.
In my two years here I have been doing some networking with a
few NGO “Non-governmental organizations and had a great relationship with a
particularly high functioning NGO in my town. I took this opportunity to work
with this learning NGO on systems my county has implemented in the health
sector and helped in documenting these practices. In my time with the NGO I was
offered a 3rd year extension opportunity in Ethiopia with this NGO.
Everything fell in place and I will be returning to Ethiopia for a 3rd
year PCV/NGO prospect.
The NGO is called John Snow Inc. and the project I will be
working most closely with is called Universal Immunizations through family
Health Services (UI-FHS). This is a very unique NGO as all work must be
implemented through the government offices and no additional funding can be used to improve supplies or increase salaries. So this means the NGO is really looking to improve the
knowledge base of the already existing structures, again most specifically as
it relates to immunization services.
 |
| Work with the immunization NGO |
 |
| This poor child is going to help in documenting immunization coverage in Ethiopia via a little blood draw |
I will be living in 3 areas of Ethiopia so I anticipate
several moves in the next year “I will be living out of a suit case.” The 3
areas of Ethiopia I will be in are Mekele, Tigray (not far from my current
site), lake side in Hawassa southern Ethiopia, and finally the first volunteer
in the Afar region in a city called Assaieta. Most of my work will be
researching “best practices” being implement in these areas and also sharing
some my already gathered information with the government staff of the other two
areas. This is a fantastic extension opportunity and am looking forward to my
third year in country.
