Well if any of you have not heard I have arrived safely in Ethiopia.  It was a crazy trip involving a flight to Charlotte NC, Philadelphia PA, New York City, Frankfurt Germany, a city in Saudi Arabia (I don't remember the name), and FINALLY Addis Ababa Ethiopia.  After 21 hours of traveling on the last day, we arrived at the airport, we went through the customs office and they kept telling us to go straight ahead, so 65 confused volunteers walked straight through customs, trying to figure out where we were supposed to stop, and stumbled straight into the immigration line without a single one of our bags being xrayed, checked or anything.  To say it was the easiest trip through customs would be an understatement.  While standing in the line for immigration a PC staff started waving and shouting to get our attention.  Apparently since he saw the first PCV (me) he won a bet.  We got on the busses to the hotel and had a quick dinner, which was very unimpressive and I am glad that was a poor example of the food to come.  The next day was the start of our training.  There was registration, along with a few safety and security classes.  From there we had rushed, completely booked days that left us completely exhausted.  On the third day we had our first trip into the real city, it was a crazy adventure through busy streets, and two line taxi drivers, the second one the PCV escorting us got into a shouting match because he was trying to charge us more that he should.  We ended up paying the fair price and walking away from him as he was fussing that we were supposed to pay more.  In the capital city there is a lot of forenji (foreigner) food, so we ate at the cupcake house and I got some ravioli.  This city is kind of overwhelming, and underwhelming at the same time.  It is a weird experience, seeing the homeless and beggars, the (dung)river, litter, and lack of anything living and green, but then you see the hotels with suits that could rival many in the u.s., the forenji restaurants, and Mercedes cars being driven.
On Saturday we left for De-mystification, we traveled to a small town called Durbeta (sp), it was nice because some of the other volunteers were bussed 12 hours, we however took a 40 minute plane ride, then a 45 minute buss ride, and arrived with plenty of time for lunch.  We all had something called special foul, it was basically a vegetarian chili and all of the volunteers loved it!  Since the first day of food here I have been very impressed, the food has been awesome; I am sorry to say though that our version of Injera was not ANYTHING like the real thing, sorry guys.  De-mystification was meant to allow us to see what service is going to actually be like.  Since we are going to be in training for the next three months still, we will have a sheltered view of what it is going to be like here in country.  It was a very de-mystifying trip, I guess that means they did a good job, and I feel like I really know what to expect.  I didn't take many pictures before you ask, but once I get to an area and get used to it I will start taking pictures.  But having cameras out can draw a lot of un-wanted attention.  When we got to the town we first stopped off at the market, it was basically a series of stick coverings with straw roofs, and a lot of people sitting around selling things on tarps laid out.  Walking around we collected quite a crowd following us trying to figure out why there were 6 ferenji in there city.  Honestly it was weird that I didn't find it weird.  It honestly didn't bother me even a little to be stared at and followed, I think that is probably a good sign for the rest of my service though!
After seeing the community we went to see the current volunteers Farmer Training Center (FTC) and got to see what kind of work he is doing right now.  Then we went to see the the local irrigation damn that a lot of the local framers use to water their lands.  Even though there was an aqueduct system, all of the land surrounding the irrigated land was completely desolate.  There were few trees there, everything that grows gets cut down and used for charcoal, about 90% of the trees we saw were eucalyptus trees.  They plant it because it grows quickly and in poor conditions, unfortunately though it also strips the land of all it nutrients, not even grass will grow under them.  That means during the rainy season it quickly becomes a huge erosion problem.  Looking across the land from a hill all you can see is a lot of cattle (cows, sheep, donkeys, and the occasional group of pigs) free grazing, brown grass that you would think could hardly support the amount of animals on it, and large furrows dug out by the torrential downpours of the rainy season.  Before you get a picture of just brown everywhere I want to make sure I give the other side of the story too.  With the brown also comes the green, around the water sources there was plenty of green, there were also many tree farms (again, eucalyptus), and a tree nursery.  Other than the dust (which is still making me cough after leaving the city yesterday morning, the city has it's charm.  The people for the most part knew the PCV and were excited to see him.
I feel like I am getting really long winded, so I am going to try and finish up.  I just want to finish on a fun note.  In general the Ethiopian people are not time constricted at all.  It gets to the point where the PCVs are stressed just because it takes so long to get simple tasks done, it is definitely something that will take some getting used to on my part.  Apparently though that is not true about the airlines.  We were warned to be at least 2 hours early for flights, today we found out why.  On our flight back to the capital we got to the airport early, checked in, and were waiting on the flight.  Once past security we waited about an hour and then started boarding.  I was shocked to find that we were boarding and in fact left 45 minutes early.  Apparently every one had checked in so they decided to wait.  Anther PCV told us that he had been called once to say that they were about to leave an hour and a half early and to get to the airport ASAP if he didn't want to get left behind.  So again, this country is kind of a contradiction, there is good with the bad, fast with the slow, and you never know what you are going to get until you have it.
I hope I didn't bore you with this.  I hope to check in again soon.  Miss you all and can't wait to see you.

Shipping out

Well guys, as most of you know I have been in Philadelphia since yesterday.  It has been fun being here, I got to see the sights, walked around and had good food.  During my layover in Charlotte I ran into two Ethiopian nationals who thanked me and shook my had for going to volunteer in their country.  Once in Philly I ran into some volunteers going to Tanzania, although we were not at the same hotel we talked on the shuttle ride over and it was great meeting them.  After they got off at their hotel the driver spoke up that he was from Sudan, especially since I am currently reading an incredible (very sad) book called What is the What, I was very excited to talk to him and get a more current and real life perspective from him.  Once I got to the hotel I met up with some volunteer going to Madagascar, we went and had dinner, I finally met some volunteers going to Ethiopia late last night and we stayed up past 2am talking and getting to know each other.  It was just an incredible experience getting to meet the people who are going through the exact same thing I am and worry and excited and all the other motions I am feeling right now.  So today we got up and did staging briefings for most of the afternoon, my group is actually larger than I thought with 64 volunteers.  It was a lot of review from information they had already provided us, but there was a very strong participation from the volunteers so we got to know each other, our backgrounds, and what we were all worried/excited about.  It was good to know that just about everyone had the same anxieties as I do.  So tonight the Ethiopia/Madagascar volunteers are going to dinner for one last time in the US.  Then tomorrow we ship off, after 21 hours of travel we will land in Ethiopia Wed. afternoon, then the real fun begins.
So for one last time I want to thank all of you for your thoughts and support.  I hope to be able to keep up with all of you on a regular basis, but please remember we will be going through 8 hour a day training sessions for the next 3 months.  All accounts say it is a tough, strict regiment, so the updates might be scattered.  Thank you for your patients with the response/update time.  Know I already miss all of you, and I can't wait till I get to see all of you again.

P.S. for those of you have asked.  Ship things to.
Eugene Foerster/PCT
U.S. Peace Corps/Ethiopia P.O. Box 7788
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia