Stuck in Addis

4/8
Why is there so much forenji food!  But seriously I enjoy a lot of Ethiopian food, but having the selection of so much variety is really nice.  In fact yesterday was the first time I have had traditional food since being in Addis Abab and I proceeded to vomit it all up shortly after.  For those of you who don't know all of the new volunteers who were supposed to go to the Oromia region (think state) were held in Addis due to protests and riots happening.  While the volunteers from SNNPR, Tigray, and Amhara regions were (all but a few along the borders) allowed to go to site.  I can not go into detail about why they are protesting, but it has caused several volunteers to be recalled from site for safety concerns.  Before you all get worried, Peace Corps is being cautious and not letting us go to site until they are sure everything has died down.  I have heard of no volunteers being in unsafe conditions and everyone is ok and accounted for.  Those of us in Addis are going a little crazy though.  There is only so many restaurants to go to, only a few movies are in the theater, and we have been asked not to be so loud when a lot of us hang out in the rooms.  So for most of us we are about to pull our hair out we are so anxious to be able to go to site.    But being in Addis gets expensive quickly, a lot of people have had to pull from their moving in allowance to pay for being in Addis and all the money I have saved up until now is gone.  I will admit that some of it is due to excessive luxuries though.  Two days ago a couple of us went to the Sheratan and spend the day at the pool.  I personally spent 6 hours straight in the water, BUT it did cost almost an entire days pay just to get into the pool.  It was worth it though, being able to sit in heated water that is not infested with shitosoma is an amazing feeling.  So for now we will sit at the hotel, or find things to do as much as we can.  There is still one museum I have yet to go to so that is on the agenda for the next couple of days.
Just for those of you who are interested I will touch on the swearing in ceremony quickly.  Last week we swore in as official volunteers (the next day a lot of us were told we didn't get to go to site), we went to the US embassy, although we were only allowed in the ambassadors garden the whole time we were there.  The PC director Greg Engle gave a speech, then the US ambassador, finally the heads of the two programs PC is working with.  We then were called individually to receive our certificates from Greg and the ambassador, and when it was all finished there was a small buffet.  All together the whole thing took probably 4 hours including eating time, but in the end we finally got to drop the trainees title.
That is about all I can think of, I am not sure when I will be able to upload this, but I have yet to receive any questions or anything, so please feel free to ask.  At least right now it would give me something to do.
4/10
So latest news is that we will likely be moving out on Monday/Tuesday.  We are waiting on the assessment from the PC East African security head to give the OK.  But some people in the Amhara region are already being able to go back to site so it is looking good for us.  Everything recently seems pretty calm.  There have been a few more protests but everything seems to be going peacefully.  PC is of course going to be on the look out for a while, but it looks like everything is calming down again.
On a side note I want to wish my grandma a happy birthday!  I love and miss you!  And to all the mothers reading this blog happy mothers day from all of your PC kids.  We will all be thinking about you tomorrow even if we don't get to speak to you.

BTW my new address is:
Trey Foerster
PO box #12
Gassera town, Bale Zone
Ethiopia