Camping and update

Jan 10-

So I apologize to all of you who are following this blog.  I had a Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays post scheduled to go up on Xmas, but for some reason the program decided it wasn't really ready to go and never posted it.  However, my mother just got it up so it should be viewable now.

So I just spent a week in Addis celebrating the New Year, and getting some good internet time in.  It is hard to believe that I am down to my last three months of PC service, then I will be off to India.  I have been spending a lot of time researching India, and i think I am ready to go, I am really excited to get into a new and unique culture.  Close of Service conference is right around the corner.  I will actually be spending a lot of time in Addis this month due to New Year, COS, and the new volunteers coming in.  I am also hoping that PC is going to call me in to Holeta to help teach the new volunteers about bee keeping, the last training I did with G12 went really well and was super enjoyable.  All in all the last three months should be interesting, if not hectic.

I FINALLY managed to make it out to part of Bale National Park...well sort of.  My fellow G10 is doing her Masters International and asked for me to be a research assistant for her.  So I went out to the mountains and hiked to the camps that are set up for tourists.  It is not technically a preserved area, but the government has it set up with the local people to encourage ecotourism.  Because of that the people have a vested interest in preserving the forest and wildlife.  Hiking up was almost straight up hill for about an hour and a half.  We were lucky enough that the park provided us a car to get us to the highest accessible area by car before the rest of the hike.  While in the park honestly I felt that I had left Ethiopia. We walked through the Juniper forest almost in silence just enjoying the nature and beauty of the area.  After that we came to the deciduous forest with two types of trees growing prolifically that the bees love.  Once you got into that part of the forest it was unmistakable.  The buzz from the bees and other pollinators was unmistakable and unceasing.  You would think that it would be annoying, or that you wouldn't be able to concentrate with that kind of droning, but honestly it was almost soothing to hear and you found yourself noticing its absence at night time. 

Once we got to the first camp we had a look around, it was nice for even a lot of houses in Ethiopia.  It was well stocked and even had a kerosene stove to cook with.  While waiting for the participants in the program to show up I took a look around the area and found a beautiful rock wall that I almost couldn't resist climbing, as well as a little house that you had to stand directly in front of to even know it was there.  The whole building with the only exception being the door was covered in vines.  I am guessing it probably helps with insulation because of how cold it is there.  Regardless it was rather beautiful, and a unique find.  Along the walk I found an impressive view of the mountain side from a perch on the edge of a rock.  From there I could see farmers working, cattle grazing, and among all the normal things in Ethiopia also a troop of Colubus monkeys, they however were less than happy to see me and were keeping a close eye on me the whole time I was there. 

Once the participants in the survey arrived it was quite cold, so a fire was started and roasted barley was handed out as snacks.  The survey itself was interested, but the most interesting response in my opinion was when they were asked what "the negative social impacts of ecotourism" were.  The response for both groups of participants was that women were seeing foreigners dress styles and wanted to emulate them.  They wanted to start wearing "trousers and jackets" and it was eroding their culture. 

After cooking diner on the fire it was time for bed.  Here I want to thank Jill and Devin, if not for their ultra warm sleeping bag, I am not sure I would have survived the cold night.  As it was just washing my face with the air temperature (COLD) water was bad enough.  The next day it was time for the real hike.  Thirteen kilometers across the mountains, going through the scrubland forest, down back to the deciduous zone, all the way back to the juniper forest, then back up again to the scrubland.  It was a pretty intense, but beautiful trek across some of the most beautiful areas of Ethiopia I have visited.  All of that in only three hours might have been a record for our guide who was more than happy for the fast pace.  Another group of people made the same trek in six hours the same day to put it into perspective.  From there, after a cold beer to relax the survey was repeated, along with dinner and another freezing night made ok by my thick sleeping bag. 

Finally it was time for the walk down.  This time with the other hikers in tow it took significantly longer, but as we were in no rush it was quite alright.  After a good four hour hike down the side of the mountain we were once again picked up by a car to skip walking through all the larger towns. 

Getting back to my friends site might have been one of the largest culture shocks of my whole PC experience.  Having spent two days away from all the typical harassment and being yelled out, and returning was a shock.  It really brought to light what can be changed through a little training and exposure. 

Being up in the natural forest gave me an idea of what Ethiopia could and did look like before years of over deforestation and terrible overgrazing.  It reinforced the wish to be able to go back in time and see what Ethiopia really was like in as little as a hundred years ago.  I hope the trend of preserving the forest for people to enjoy will be kept up in this beautiful forest, and I hope one day that it might even turn into a reforestation project that spreads across the country to bring Ethiopia back to its beautiful origins. 

1/17

Travel.  It feels like that is all I have been doing, well probably because it is all I have been doing.  Starting with consolidations, then going to Addis for New Year, heading to the mountains, with only three days at site before heading back to Addis I have spent almost no time in site.  I can't say I am super disappointed as I haven't had any work at site since September.  The trend is only going to be kept up to with the coming Epiphany holiday I will be spending with my Ethiopian friends family, and the COS conference.  The one thing I will say is that my bank account is taking a beating.  PC will be reimbursing me for most of the travelling I have been doing, but as it takes about a month to get the money in my account it is a slow trickle instead of an actually replenishment. 

New Year was spent with some of my favorite people though volunteers!  I love these people and heading out it is one of the things I will miss most about returning to the States.  One of the good things about being in Ethiopia is that you also get to celebrate two Christmas, the American, and the Ethiopian one.  For me that meant visiting my PC friends Ethiopian friends, eating food, and drinking home brewed alcohol.  Not a bad way to spend Xmas honestly.  Still, nothing will replace spending Christmas with family.

It is hard to even believe that two years have already gone by, only three months left till India. Reading my friends posts and seeing his posts coming from India right now is so exciting I can hardly believe I am getting to fulfill my lifelong wish to visit India.  Also, the FOOOOOOOOD!  Then it is back to America for my sister’s wedding.  

Backpacking into the forest

Red Hot Poker

Rural area at first campsite

The people of the first survey

This girl loves her some qolo (roasted barely snack)

The trek to the second camp

Up one mountain and down another

So lush and green!

Maggie and I

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all my friends, family, and PCVs all across the world.  

I miss all of you very much and think about you frequently.  I hope you enjoy the holiday wherever you may be and whoever you are with.  Even though Thanksgiving is already past please remember to take a moment and think about all the friends, and family who you have in your life, and remember how lucky you are to have them. 

Enjoy the rest of the Holidays, I can't wait to celebrate the next round in America!

(Note: We made the sign from PlayDoh)

Stuck in Hawassa

12/15-

     Well, as many of you know there has been another round of protesting from the New Deal that the government is trying to push through.  I am not able to go into details as anything I write here would be considered journalism and could land me in trouble.  All I can say is that despite some harrowing experiences all of the volunteers have remained safe.  

     Currently many of the volunteers in the problem areas are consolidated. This includes all the people who currently live on the Dodola-Goba road.  We are in Hawassa keeping up with people in our site as best as we can, and monitoring the situation with PC.  Currently the earliest we are expected to go back to site would be Thursday.  Until then it is nice hotels paid for my the PC, per diem, American food, a lake, and plenty of partying.  If you couldn't tell from my last post, the monotony of site was really beginning to get to me.  Being in this city has done a lot to relieve my boredom and stir craziness.  

    For those of you who are interested, there is an interesting article on NewsVice about what is happening.  Please keep our friends and coworkers in mind as they have to navigate this dangerous time where they live.  Truly we are much more worried about them than we could possibly be about ourselves.  

    On a different note it is a bittersweet time for many of us as some fellow PCVs are finishing their service.  The last of the G8 volunteers are on their way out, with one exception, and we wish them all the best.  It is exciting for them to move on and get to the next phase of their life, but they will be missed from our PC family.  

P.S. I want to say to Danny's family, thank you for the Christmas card.  It was so nice of you to think of me, and I am glad you have been reading my blog.  I got it the day before we were removed from site so I have not had a chance to send anything back to you.  But, know I appreciate the thought and I wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.  

Bored, Bored and More!

12/4
Well, what can I say, I am bored.  I have really had no significant work since I have been back from the States.  There has been a few beekeeping things to do, but really that amounts to two or three afternoons.  It is really annoying how little I have accomplished recently.  I did have a farmer field day where my office took the farmer and development agents around to show them the work they were doing.  I wouldn't really call that work though since I understood none of what they were saying and really just walked around in the demonstration fields.  The other day PC came out here to figure out if they were going to put another volunteer in the area.  They selected one of my rural kabeles and I think it is going to be nice for the new volunteer.  The farmer training center is well cared for and the development agent in charge of it is really smart.  Finally there was thanksgiving; I went to Hawassa where they have opened a new office for us.  It was really nice and the internet was great.  Just being in Hawassa made me regret not extending a little.  It is a beautiful town with wildlife everywhere, the people are used to white people so the harassment isn't too bad, and it is on the lake so just so relaxing.  To celebrate the holiday we had a potluck at the office.  There was mashed potatoes, curry, coleslaw, chicken, desserts, and much more.  It was so delicious, and getting to see so many people I haven't seen in a while was great.  I am really going to miss the friends I have made here.  PCVs are just the best people (myself excluded of course). 
COS (Close of service) is coming up, although now that I am so aware of it it seems time has slowed down.  But, I know sooner rather than later it will come and I will be out of here.  I got a taste of what it is going to be like when I leave the other day;  one of my coworkers got a job elsewhere and there was an office party for him.  We got together at a restaurant for food and drinks, but a good thirty minutes was taken up just with speeches.  I knew Ethiopians like to have their meetings, but apparently they love giving speeches, everyone talked about how they will miss him, and gave advice.  I even was even asked to say something, but I kept it "short and sweet."  They all told me that I was their brother, and that when I leave they will be doing the same thing for me.  It will be interesting to see how they deal with the translation issue, I feel like it is just going to mean a translator so thirty minutes of speech translated will mean an hour.  But, It is nice to know that they will miss me and I know I will miss the friends I have made in my town as well. 
I realize that I only have this month to use my remaining vacation days, so what to do.  I know I should go somewhere new, but I really think I might just go back to Harar.  It was such a good time, and I would love to just have to time in a place I can wear shorts...yes, planning a vacation has come down to picking a place specifically to wear "skimpy clothing."
It is almost time to start applying for jobs.  I am afraid of what that even means for me.  I feel like I am unqualified for anything that I would really want to do (also, I really don't know what I want to do), but I also am totally against going back to school unless I have no alternatives.  What that is going to mean for my future I really have no idea.  I am really hoping that this PC experience will get me farther than I think it will.  Everyone please keep me in mind if you hear about any NGO, conservation, and/or wildlife related jobs. 
But hey, not to fear, I have four and a half months of PC, plus a month vacation in India before I really have to worry to much about any of that!

Happy Thanksgiving

11/23
Happy Thanksgiving, I am really going to miss the holiday this year as I am not going to participate in the Embassy dinner.  It was really nice last year, but all the travel and having to find housing etc. to go this year just didn't seem practical.  I am still going to celebrate his year, but I am going to go to the local(ish) PC office and do it with my fellow volunteers on Saturday.  That way I can spend a few days relaxing and enjoying with them, plus going to the pool is always a plus.  We are doing a potluck so should be lots of good, if not themed, food to stuff my face with.
I have really not had any work for about two weeks now.  To say I am going stir crazy would be an understatement.  Thankfully there has been power relatively consistently which means I have been wasting my days away watching movies.  But, if there had been no power on top of it I would probably have already lost my mind.  My site mate is trying to start up some clubs, but I am letting him do the footwork this time.  After having to take weeks getting them going last time I had no desire to be the one to initiate them.  If they get up and going I have a few ideas that we may try to get the kids interested. 
Bee keeping season is now in swing.  Sadly, there aren't as many flowers as I would like to see, so I am not expecting a huge honey harvest this year.  I have talked to a few people about how we won't get a lot of honey without trees, they seem to understand but not really care.  It is hard to get across conservation ideas here because there really is no such thing as environmental awareness here.  I am saddened when less than a hundred years ago people came to Ethiopia and described it as a beautiful oasis with wildlife and flora abounding.  Now the only flora you really see is Eucalyptus (a non-native) trees, and the animal life is non-existent excluding cattle.  I worry, that one day, this is what the rest of the world will soon look like if we aren't careful. 
I have been told I am going to help with a dairy processing training soon, but I will hold my breath.  If it even happens, it is likely it won't be for several months, just because that is how scheduling goes here.  I did try to do a training for the livestock office on how to do stool sample testing on the cattle and livestock. They seemed a little interested in the beginning, but quickly were distracted  It could be helpful for them here because there is no sort of regular deworming schedule or anything of that sort. To be able to better diagnose problems would be a huge benefit, but I will be surprised if they implement it at all. 
I have started writing my description of service for when I COS.  It is interesting looking back, I had so many ideas, plans, and things I wanted to do while living here.  It actually makes me a little sad just thinking about what I have actually accomplished and not just dreamed of.  I wonder what I could have done differently that would have helped me have a higher project rate, or a better impact.  I wonder what I am leaving behind in just the few short months I have left.  Did I make a difference?  Did I help someone without even knowing it?  Did one of those students decide to use a condom, or did one of the farmers decide that they should do some techniques a little different and improve their livelihood?  I don't really know, and in all likelihood I never will.  So what do I want to take away from service?  Well I guess I have five months left to figure that out!  Then it is off to India, Dubai, and who knows where else! 

Happy Halloween!

10/30
Happy Halloween!!!  Sadly missing another holiday, but I have been invited to a party in Bale Goba in order to celebrate Halloween.  I have also found some pumpkins and been cooking with that.  I am pretty happy how my cooking skills have progressed while being in Ethiopia.  Not only have I learned to make breads and pastries, but I have done it while using a dutch oven to cook.  I can't wait to get back to modern appliances and seeing what I can make.  I have just made some pumpkin pies, while not exactly what you think of when you say pumpkin pie in America, they were rather tasty and incredibly easy to make.  Today I will be making pumpkin bread to take to the party. 
We have really gotten into the rhythm of having a horse, it is rather time consuming and I can image it being hard to deal with in America with such a hectic lifestyle (at least compared to here). Most of the time is really taken by the fact that we have to take him to and from where he stays to my office every day in order to let him graze.  Still, it is a welcome distraction in spite of the fact that it means every day I have to be up and going by eight A.M. rain or shine, week day or weekend.  Spending the time brushing and cleaning him every day gives me something to do even if I have nothing else for the rest of the day.  I also have embarrassed the bareback riding.  It isn't really practical to carry the saddle to him every day, just to ride him the ten minutes to my office so once a day, assuming he isn't wet from the rain, I ride him up to the office without the saddle.  I feel almost more comfortable, not physically of course, riding without the saddle now.  It also doesn't really help that the saddle in Ethiopia are pretty terrible.  Then of course there is the time we ride him just for fun.  It is really relaxing and enjoyable.  Yesterday some friends and I took him up to the reforestation area around the gorge. It was beautiful, and when we got to the end we stopped and drank a bottle of honey wine.  We also got invited to a celebration of one of the bee cooperatives who has their hives in the forest.  They graciously offered us the sheep they were cooking as well as some gin.  Getting into the swing of everything, finding him a house, getting the food and such taken care of may have been a huge headache, but so worth it in the end.
On a less fun note, I can't even believe I complained at my midnight curfew as a teen.  Living in a compound in Ethiopia means you have certain rules.  You have to respect your landlord and their property of course, regardless of if their baby comes into your house, picks up and plays with everything, and occasionally pees on your floor.  You have to get permission for everything, even if that means that you do not get permission for things like making a garden.  But, I think the worst is a curfew.  It is an unspoken rule in Ethiopia that you have to be home at a reasonable time.  If you are not then the landlord will lock the gate and you are out of luck.  This means I have, for the last year and a half, been living with a nine P.M. curfew.  I honestly feel like a child again having to watch the clock and make sure I get home in time.  It is one of the bigger things I am looking forward to being done with. 
Seeing how today was the deadline for submitting the paperwork to extend my stay in Ethiopia, and I did not figure anything out, it looks like I will be leaving Ethiopia in five and a half months.   I am looking forward to starting the next phase of my life despite the fact that I have absolutely no idea what I will be doing.  Looks like I have a lot of research to do in order to find my next calling.

Six Months Left

Only six months left!!!  It is hard to believe we have already been here twenty-one months, it has gone by really fast.  I am considering extending in a few places for different reasons.  But, the closer to the deadline the more I am leaning towards finishing my service and moving onto the next stage of my life, whatever that may be.  It is also hard to imagine all the things that are going on in the states.  People getting engaged, having babies, and of course getting really drunk on GOOD alcohol. 
Looking ahead I am trying to prioritize what I need to get done, what I want to get done, and what probably won't get done.  I am still going to play with my bees, but with this little time left and them not doing as well as I would like, due to the lack of trees for food I think, I am not thinking that I will be able to do all the stuff I wanted to.  Still I have learned a LOT since working on them here and I still have plenty to continue learning.  I have been able recently to work more directly with farmers which is one of the things I always wanted.  They seem to be realizing the resource I can be to help them, I just wish it had happened sooner.  Still I have made all the mistakes that they are making now and I am happy to get in there with them and help them avoid making my mistakes. 
I haven't started working with the schools this year.  I should have if I had wanted to but, I can't decide.  In many aspects working with the school was one of the most rewarding things I did, and in others it was by far the most frustrating.  I am happy to say that I met some kids that really were awesome and I was happy to work with and I hope in one way or another I helped them, but trying to get the clubs started, getting kids to attend, getting translators and counterparts, is all very difficult and time consuming.  Not like I have any lack of time on my hands.  Finally camps, as many of you know I just directed a small community camp at my site, I think it went really well but of course could be improved upon.  But I am torn on if I want to try and do one more before the end of my service.  There are two big barriers I see being difficult to overcome.  First is translators, while I can get community members to fascilitate some of the sessions we would need someone there to help us for the sessions we lead, as well as the general instructions etc.  The person that helped us last time just went to university and is one of the students I was so happy to work with.  The second is finances, due to recent rule changes in the way PC Ethiopia does grants it is very hard for us to get small amounts of money, like what I need to pay for snacks, this rule change comes to the dismay of many of us as we are in fact being encouraged to do small community camps by PC but unable to get support.  If I can overcome these two big difficulties though I may very well try to do one more small camp. 
In recent personal news I FINALLY have a horse.  And by I, I mean we.  My site mate and I finally took the plunge to get the horse together.  That way when I leave he will have a home and I don't have to worry about trying to get him to a good home.  I think technically he is actually a pony though, the horses in Ethiopia are really small.  He is about average for the area and still only 13 hands and 276kg (608lbs).  We named him Sargaent Shriver after the first director of PC.  Thankfully he is really patient, while I have ridden a horse a very few times, my site mate had never before he came here so there has been a bit of a learning curve.  But, we are learning, and enjoying having him.  I would be willing to bet he is happy to be with us seeing has he has put on over 25lbs in the week we have had him.  When we first bought him we were unable to buy a saddle since all the materials weren't available at the market.  So for the first week we were riding bareback.  It was the first time in my life riding bareback and I am not sad at all to have a saddle now.  I also am not sure I will ever be able to have children after this...  I also did my first jump on a horse.  It was just a tiny ditch and not much to speak of, the somewhat impressive part was that I did it at a canter, riding bareback, and stayed seated even though I didn't realize Sarge had decided to jump it till mid jump.  It did earn me the applause of the people watching which was pretty funny though.  I don't know if you still read this Donna, but if you do thank you for letting me tag along with you riding, without the stuff I learned from you I probably wouldn't have been able to even get this far. 
The next few months are going to be interesting, I am going to addis this week for a Gender and Development (GAD) committee meeting.  Then there is Halloween, then some good beekeeping time, then  the holidays really get started.  The new volunteers will be incoming, we will have our Close of Service conference, then we will be outbound.  I have to remember to breathe in November, because after that I won't be able to.