4/15
Melkam Fasica (Happy Easter) everyone. I hope you had a great holiday and
that all of my friends and family get fat on all the forenji food while I am
gone. Fasica has come and gone, but I am still dealing with the after
effects. Easter here is celebrated a week after American Easter, and even
though it was on this last Sunday, now even on Wednesday many of the shops are
closed, the school isn't in session, and friends are still away visiting
family. I thankfully passed this holiday with much less discomfort than
last year (I had an amoeba on Fasica last year), and I was able to enjoy
Mexican food with great friends!
These past few weeks have gone pretty well. My site mate has come and we
have been enjoying living in Gassera. Water has still been off, except
for two days, for two months. Along with water issues, power has
been off more than on, and the cell network has been pretty terrible.
Otherwise, it has been good though. I am supposed to start new work next
week (will believe it when I see it), and as soon as my saddle is finished
being built I will be buying my horse. I also have been asked to come
support a volunteer near Hawassa with providing beekeeping training for the
college. I am hoping I will be able to get that going soon.
On Monday I am supposed to go out to some of my rural kabeles and start helping
them develop monitoring strategies to determine if they are being successful
and profitable. Then, depending on the information try to help them
improve. It will be a difficult task since people in this country have a
very hard time changing. But, I am going to give it a go at least.
I am going to try to work on seed multiplication, pump irrigation, poultry
production, and honey production (continuing this work).
I keep getting asked how my bees are doing so I am going to put a little in
here about them. Bee keeping is a project where I feel I could continue
to learn for as long as I keep. I have bought more bees and I intend to
try and transfer them in a few months. But, I have also been seeing a lot
of bees around town. When bees outgrow their home they create a new queen
and approximetly half of the bees leave with the old queen to find a new
hive. I have been able to catch one of these swarms, but sadly the bees
did not stay in the hive. But, just from that experience I learned
several things. I have also been asked to clear some bees out of an
office. The health post in one of the rural kabeles has two rooms, as
well as the whole ceiling infested with bees. I went out to see them, but
sadly the office was closed and I could not. Since the bees have invaded
one of the offices has been sealed, and another is on the verge of not being
able to be used. I guess when people come to the health post they don't
enjoy being stung, go figure. So as soon as I can figure out the details
I am going to go and try to collect all the bees, then add them to my hives so
I can use them as examples. Now is the small rainy season, so the bees
have a few plants and trees that are flowering so they have some food.
But, soon the rains will stop for a few months, and then the real beekeeping
season will start. I am anxious for it to come, because this season is
the last chance I will have for getting people to actually improve what they
are doing and make some real changes. I hope I can help them graduate to
real beekeeping and maybe actually be able to improve their livelihood!
Moving on to my clubs, they are...complicated. I currently am trying to
work on the same four clubs I had before the break. But, so far I have
had two individual meetings of the clubs in about two months. It is very
frustrating because either the teachers don't come, or the students don't come,
or there is a holiday no one ever told me about. I am really not sure what
I am going to do with these. But, on top of all that, the older students
are preparing for their national exams. So, the kids I really enjoyed
working with are studying for the most important test of their lives and,
understandably, are not coming to club. But, if I can get my gender club
to come back, the next two lessons are sexual reproductive anatomy, then condom
olympics. I noticed during my last meeting that the kids didn't have a
good understanding of many common sexual practices, and even my adult friends
do not know how to properly use a condom. It is interesting to me that so
much emphasis is placed on HIV and STI prevention, but there is no
understanding of how these things are passed, or what activities are more
dangerous for STI transmission. Last week I tried to teach the anatomy
lesson, but the students didn't come, so I sat at my coffee shop and we did the
lesson with my adult friends and one of the students that I had enlisted to
help me. Then, sitting in front of the main roads, we did condom
demonstrations. You would be surprised at how little you care about
attention after you have spent a year being stared at walking down the street,
eating, going to the market, or pretty much anything.
In general though it has been life as usual. For instance I have nothing
to do right now, well a few things I COULD do but don't want to, and I am
just trying to decide if I want to read a book, or take a nap. Let me
tell you, it is a hard decision.
