It is weird how time passes in this place. The long days of language and lessons seem to pass painfully slowly while the weeks fly by. It is hard to believe that tomorrow I will be learning where I am going to spend the next two years of my life. I am so anxious, will it be what I asked for, or will I be completely shocked. I have tried to keep my expectations to a minimal, I am hoping to be happily surprised. Before we get assigned a location we have an interview (a few weeks back), while they already have us assigned roughly, it may change due to requested conditions, or our skill as observed by the teachers and LCFs. I asked for it to be an area with wildlife, preferably somewhere that I could work with animals, even if it was just bees; but there are few options with animals. And somewhere where it isn't cold. I could have listed a million things I would have liked. But I know that the more you ask for, the less specific you are likely to get. So by limiting what I asked for I hope I will come out on top. Regardless of where I get, on Monday all the trainees are going to meet their temporary counterparts, then on Tuesday we will travel to our respective sites. After nearly a week we will return to Addis on our own. Believe it or not, this is the part I am most excited about. Will I get lost, or go straight there, I will have little to no assistance so it should be quite the adventure. After that we will return to Butajira for the remainder of our training. We have hit the over one month mark in country. As we get ready for tomorrow we also have to keep in mind that on Friday we have the "mock LPI" to determine our advances, strengths, and weakness in the language. While not a test it still has many of the trainees worried. We also have our interview with Dan the country training coordinator. Finally we also have the soccer game between the trainees and the staff tomorrow. From what I understand it is at the soccer stadium and the teachers have been practicing. There is even a rumor that there is a teacher who almost went pro. The ag group beat the health 5/0 two weeks ago. I am not so sure they are going to do so well this week. It promises to be an interesting day to say the least.
It seems like yesterday we arrived in Addis, the time we have spent since then has been a blur, but without a doubt the adventure of a life time. I look forward to the two years and two months remaining of my service her. I know it will be a roller coaster, some days I will be dying to go home. I will want to call PC and early terminate right then, and at other times I will be at complete awe of the country, people, and culture. I have seen and heard the effects of peace corps service and I know no one is immune. But I also know that the friendships and family I have back in the states, and the ones I am making now will be the only thing that keeps my sanity.
3/21
Yesterday was exactly what I expected. Hectic and nerves were high. We had language lessons in he morning. We went over transportation. I am glad we got to that because next Sunday I will be traveling back from my site on my own. I am still excited to see how that part goes. But I got my big news, where I will be going! It is a new site, there has never been a volunteer there before, they really don't even know what Peace Corps is. They are apparently excited for me to be coming though. I am a little worried about the lack of expectations. Especially if they have ever dealt with an NGO. Some organisations like to come into a town or wareda and give handouts. This is about the opposite of how PC operates. I am hoping they are not expecting me to come in and start giving them things. It will be an interesting experience trying to communicate the gaols and methods of PC in broken language. I am excited to travel to Addis on Sunday. We already have plans to go get some good forenji food. The Ethiopian food is good, but VERY repetitive. I am still being fed more than I can possibly eat, but the repetition gets a bit old.
After our sites were announced we got packets of information, usually about four pages of details about what the site is like, a little information about our houses, and what we should expect to be doing once we reach site. I am not sure how big my site is, the woreda (county) has about 87,000 people in it. The language is strongly slanted towards Afan Oromo (what I have been learning) but about 20% speak Amharic so there should be some opportunity for me to learn that as well. It is about a 11-12 hour bus ride from the capital to my site. I am not looking forward to that at all, but I expected it since I asked for a rural community. I will be given money to buy a bicycle though so the area should be nice enough that bikes are not abnormal. I am going to be staying in a singe bed room, I do not know how large it is though so I am not sure what it will accommodate. There is some conflicting information about what I should expect about Internet. One place it says that at my office I will have Internet, but in another it says the nearest Internet is two hours away. Regardless I will find out on Tuesday, well maybe Wednesday since I will be on a bus all day, and will update either while I am there or when I get back to Addis. Oh, and I guess you probably want to know the actual site. I am going to Gasera, it is relatively close to the Bali mountains, and in the middle of the Southern Oromia region.
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