12/9/09

This is a week of feasts in our small town.  It is the final week that we are here before we move on to our permanent sites and all the host families seem to want us over for a meal.  Last night we had a huge meal of doro (chicken), injera, gomen (various greens), dabo (bread), rice, carrots, misr wat (a spicy sauce), quinoa wat (I'm not really sure what this is, but it's similar to couscous), soft drinks, muz (bananas), and bunna (coffee).  It was a fantastic meal and the chicken was the best meat I've had here in country outside of a restaurant.
 

Saturday, Peace Corp is holding an appreciation dinner for the host families and volunteers.  Sunday, another host family is having us over for lunch and we are having pasta and some arabian dish.  For supper we are going to another house, then for supper on Monday night we are going to one other house.  It's crazy, but it makes me feel so good that they want to do something so nice for us.  We will definitely miss this place that we have lived for the last 8 weeks, but we are looking forward to our next location.

12/6/09

Today was the best day I've had here in country so far.  I woke up at 4:45 this morning because our group was going on a hike to see the sunrise.  At 5, when I was still brushing my teeth, my family called me to tell me that Alabama beat the daylights out of Florida to win the SEC Championship and put them in the National Championship game.  After that I was literally floating on cloud nine all day long.
 

Our hike was a success and we had quite a bit of fun, even though it was pretty chilly.  Later that day, we went with our entire group to an area that has several lakes for a field trip that PC treated us to.  We had lunch and just hung out by the lake, it was a very nice day.
Also, this week I typed up my first entry into the PC Ethiopia newsletter.  It's a sports column as many could have guessed.  I'm not much of a writer, but I really enjoyed it and I hope I can continue to do it.  Well that's all for now, hopefully I'll have more to write later.

11/27/2009

Today, in the muslim community, is a big holiday called Arafa. Basically, the muslims celebrate the obedience of Abraham in taking Isaac up to the mountaintop to sacrifice him. As a Christian, I'm a little confused by this, but I plan on finding out a little more about it. Either way, it's a big celebration with lots of food. Our host family is muslim, so almost the entire family was here for the feast. They had bought a cow 2 weeks ago specifically for this celebration and even offered to show Kimberly when they slaughtered it. She very quickly declined that invitation. She said if she saw that, she probably would never be able to eat beef again.

Our host mother invited our entire group over for some food from the celebration. Unfortunately, we were not able to eat much of the beef. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this yet in my posts, but a very popular dish here is called kitfo. It's basically raw beef, finely
chopped and soaked in butter. When we were going around the table, my host brother from out of town said, "this is beef, do not be scared of it." I asked him, "cooked or not cooked" because the lights were off. Right at that moment someone cut the lights on and I could see the
pinkness...sadly, I had to pass. The rest of the food was delicious though, including some beef in which they had cut it into small chunks and charred it. I've come to the conclusion that they eat meat in two forms...raw and charred beyond recognition. The beef though was really good, it had the taste of unsalted fatback, hmmmmm.

This has been quite the week for feasts here in Ethiopia.

**Update 11/29/2009
It has been raining quite a bit since yesterday. We are very thankful
for this. hopefully, it will cause the river to swell and bring water
to the whole community.

11/26/2009

So, everything Thursday the entire group of PCT's all get together at
a hotel in a nearby town for what is called hub day. Basically, we
have training sessions all day long on our job or health or saftey and
security. It was perfect then that we were all together on
Thanksgiving day. Every week the Peace Corp assigns 2 current PCV's
to come to our training sessions and help out. This week these 2
girls wanted to make sure that we got a good Thanksgiving meal to have
since we were away from home...they succeeded.

We had garlic mashed potatoes, roasted chicken, corn on the cob,
chicken gravy, 3 kinds of jello, chocolate cake, and funfetti cake.
Granted the food still had the taste of Ethiopian food and it wasn't
exactly the feast we would have at home, but it was still incredible.

Also, the PCT's are divided up into 4 towns and so we had 2 of the
towns dress up as Indians and 2 of the towns dress up as pilgrims.
Our town drew the pilgram town and we went crazy with that, complete
with hats, belt buckles, aprons, ties, and muskets. If you get my
emails maybe I can send some pictures of the event. I'm sorry that I
couldn't be with my family in Tennessee watching Alabama beat up on
Auburn, but this was the absolute best alternative.

11/22/2009

So there's a drought in our town right now...sort of. It's not that
it hasn't rained in forever or anything, but even a short period
without rain causes problems here, and they don't exactly have water
resevoirs like we do in the states. The power is hydroelectric, so it
goes off and on when there's little rain. If there's little rain then
the pump at the river doesn't work as often and the families in the
town can't get very much water. This means that Kimberly and I can't
wash clothes here at the compound, so today we trekked down to the
river to do that. It was a long walk, and it was a little difficult
because people were staring at us the entire time, but it was actually
faster than washing them at the compound. I never thought I'd say
this, but I like washing my clothes at the river. It was an
interesting experience.

Later today we went to a party that we were invited to at a fellow
PCT's host family's house. So apparently, the heads of the households
from the town all get together at someone's house once a month for a
feast. It's on a rotating basis, and this month it happened to be at
this family's house. We were invited because the family wanted to do
something for Thanksgiving for us, since it was coming up. It was
quite the feast, complete with injera, bag (sheep) wat, dinnich
(potato) wat, misr wat, talla (a homemade alcoholic drink), and arake
(another homemade alcoholic drink).

A quick note about talla and arake and also tej (another homemade
alcoholic drink). These are very popular almost everywhere you go in
Ethiopia, but our small little town has its fair share of tallabets
(basically houses where they just sell talla). It's kind of like
Canon, GA with their liquor stores and bars. I'm not sure exactly
what's in talla, but it looks the color of sludge and the consistency
of murky water. I've been told by people who like alcohol that it's
pretty disgusting. Tej is some mix of alcohol and honey and I've
heard from some it's awful and from some that it's pretty good. I
think it probably depends on where it's made. Arake I haven't heard
much about the taste. It looks like vodka and I've been told it has
close to the alcoholic content of vodka.

Well, that's all for now, but we are looking forward to Thanksgiving
here as we have a big feast planned.

11/20/2009

Tonight, I was noticing the stars here in our small town. It's kind
of hard not to notice them here, they are so brilliant. You just find
yourself staring and you look very strange. One of the volunteers has
been asked on multiple occaisions if we have stars in America. In
America, it always fascinates me to look at the stars because it's
pretty stunning how many there are. Here in our small town in
Ethiopia, you can probably see twice as many as you can in most places
in America. Even out in rural Georgia, where Kimberly and I went to
school, there was more light pollution than here.

In my town, when the sun goes down, it's dark. There are no street
lights in our town, the shops and restaurants aren't open after dark,
so it is really dark here. It's one of those things that I wish I
could take a picture of it and send it back to my family and friends,
but it wouldn't do it justice. It reminds me of the John Mayer song
"3x5" where he's singing about how he didn't take any pictures because
he would rather tell the person about what he saw rather than just
show a picture. Maybe one day I can bring someone back to Ethiopia
with me and I can show them what I've seen. It's one of the most
gorgeous things I have ever seen.

11/19/2009

Today, we spent the day at our training site and actually got back to
our town pretty late (around 7). It started off bad because we
couldn't use the internet at lunch because the power was out in the
city, and then we hadn't gotten our mail yet. But then we got our
mail and Kimberly and I had not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 pieces of mail.
A card from her family, a card from her grandmother, a package from
her family, and a package from my family. The packages were filled
with soap, hand sanitizer, baby wipes, summer sausage, cheese, candy,
peanut butter, Relevant Magazine, a puzzle book, Cheez-Its, beef
jerky, Vicks Vaporub, and a few other things. The soap and hand
sanitizer couldn't have come at a better time as we ran out today.
Also, Kimberly has a cold now so the Vicks is extremely beneficial as
well.

Also, after we got back to our site, we went over the house of a
fellow trainee to celebrate her 23rd birthday. It was probably the
best birthday party I have ever been to. Her host family had
literally gone all out and made cake, juice, french fries, and
cookies. They even had these flare looking fireworks for her to hold
while we sang Happy Birthday. For all of this to be accomplished in
some small town in Ethiopia literally shows how awesome her family is
and how much effort they put into it. I know if I were spending my
birthday on the other side of the world without any family or close
friends it would be incredibly hard, but they really went above and
beyond to make her feel like part of their family.

For Care Packeges

We really appreciate all that we have recieved so far, as does our
group of friends here. Kim's mom sent Hickory Farm summer sausage and
cheddar cheese. We shared this with our group here in Gonde, and
everyone was very excited! It was nice to get some "comfort foods".
(We all REALLY MISS cheese! It's probably the one food we talk about
the most.) Anyways, this is just list of things we would like recieve
from time to time while we are living overseas. It is not stuff to
send every month or every package--just if you think about it send it
once or twice.

Peppered Beef Jerky (or some good homemade jerky **hint hint kim's mom
and dad**)
Cheez Itz (original flavor only)
Taco kit or Tortillas
Canned tuna or chicken
Vacuum-sealed cheese or Laughing Cow cheese
Frank's Red Hot (Original)
Febreeze Fabric Spray
Pringles--Blazin' Buffalo, Cheddar, Sour Cream and Onion
Candy--Tootsie Rolls, Wild Berry Gummi Savers, Peanut M&Ms

**This list is things we will always need and please send whenever you
can as they are not available here or really expensive.

Baby Wipes
Hand Sanitizer
Dr Bronner's Castile Soap (we use this for everything--washing
veggies, hands, bodies, clothes, and cleaning)

Thank you all again for keeping us in your prayers and thoughts. We
constantly think about you all and wish we could be both places at
once. And don't forget to write!! It only cost $0.98 to mail a
letter or card.

11/14/09

The week has gotten much better, not that it had anywhere else to go but up.  The town we are in is gorgeous, but very hot.  It's down in a valley, so we don't enjoy the temperate, mountain climates we are experiencing where we currently live.  It's not that it's any hotter than in the states (probably low 90s), but because we are almost on the equator the sun is very intense, especially in the afternoon.  Fortunately, with it being warmer, fruits are very popular and easily accesible here.  Bonus for me as I will eat just about any kind of fruit.  The compound that we are going to be living on has 3 mango trees and 2 papaya trees.  We had a mango, but I'm interested to try a papaya for the first time.  I also bought bananas from the market that looked like they were steriod injected.

Speaking of our living situation.  It is a row of 3 rooms all about 8 by 8 in size.  One will be our bedroom, one the kitchen, and one the living room.  There is a guy who is renting a room next to ours, and he is really friendly and speaks pretty good english.  I found out that my counterpart, whom I mentioned a couple posts ago, is our landlords 22 year old daughter and lives on the compound as well, so that's kind of interesting.

Our ride back to Addis today was much better than on the way down the previous Saturday, but it was still 13 hours.  Also, when we were walking from the bus station to the hotel we were staying at for the night, we experienced our first theft.  Somebody grabbed at the bookbag that Kim had on and managed to get our iPod out of it.  We were pretty upset about it, but grateful that it was just the iPod and not money or our passports.  Also, we did insure it before we left, so we should be able to replace it.  We are looking forward to returning to our little mountain village tomorrow afternoon, after being gone for almost 2 weeks.

11/9/09

So, we've now been at site for a day and a half now and so far, so bad, ha ha ha!  It's not all bad, but it seems like anything that can go wrong has so far.  Saturday, we left the bus station 2 hours late and arrived in our town 13 hours later at 9 pm.  It was uncomfortable, hot, and smelly; and a little bit scary.  Kim's counterpart had arranged for us to stay in this strange hotel in town for 120 birr (roughly $9.50).  It was uncomfortable, hot, and smelly; fortunately, we were exhausted.  The next morning we found some pretty good breakfast at this nicer hotel.  After that, the hotel tried to charge us an extra 120 birr because it was now 10:20 and we were apparently supposed to be out by 10.

We then went and saw our place we would be living, but it was being painted so we wouldn't be able to move in that day.  We decided to stay at the nicer hotel, which was only 158 birr and a world better.  However, while the hotel was better, Kim realized in the middle of the night that she had food poisoning.  At 2 in the morning I harrassed the hotel manager, who was sleeping in the hotel office, for some bottled water.  He told it was impossible and offered me Koka-Kola instead.  I told him that was no good and explained that my wife was very, very sick and needed water...immediately.  After much haggling, he managed to appear with a cold bottle of water.  Sometime around 8, I went out to the pharmacy and bought her some ORS (Oral Rehydration Salts), which is disgusting, but helped.

I'm sure the rest of the week will only get better.

11/7/09

For the past 3 days we have been in Addis Ababa (the capital) participating in the counterpart workshops.  Basically, the respective host organizations we will be working for send someone to meet us and be our counterpart.  This person will help us get settled in, introduce us around the community, and basically help us with any problems we might have at our site.  The workshop is the chance for us to meet our counterpart and also learn some difficulties they face in their jobs in their communities.  Kim's counterpart was from the local health center and mine was from the Red Cross.  Unfortunately, mine was busy in meetings the entire time and didn't come.

Apart from the workshop, these 3 days were a chance for us to hang out with the entire group of volunteers as well.  Currently, during training, the volunteers are staying in 4 separate towns.  It's really good because we know the other people in our town very well since it's a small group, but the people in the other towns we only see for short periods.  We also were able to get some "international" food while we were in the capital.  I put international in quotes because it still tastes vaguely Ethiopian.

The first night we had cheeseburgers, which were really thin and a little sweet, but overall it was better than anything we had had up to that point.  Our standards are really starting to drop for various things.  A favorite phrase is, "I wouldn't order it back in America, but it was pretty good."  That being said, the next night we went with a group to "New York, New York", which is a pizza place.  The pizza was actually really good and better than some I've had in America.

11/1/2009

11/01/09

Yesterday we found out our site placement for the next two years. It was pretty cool to learn where everyone in our group was going to be living after we leave our respective towns. It's going to be sad to leave the other 7 people that live in our town with us, but we'll be happy to have a little more freedom once we get to our permanent site.

Kimberly and I will be living in a cool place in the southern part of Ethiopia. It's a city of about 75,000 people and is actually known pretty well as a tourist stop. Apparently, it has a crocodile farm which is interesting. The guide book we read said it is several thousand bored looking crocodiles, all in cages. Sounds like a recipe for disaster if you ask me, and you can guarantee that I'll be going there on a regular basis! It is also near a nature preserve, in which we supposedly will be able to see hippos and zebras in their natural habitat. Just thinking about that makes me want to sing, "Oh, I Want a Hippopotomus for Christmas". If you don't know the song, look it up. You'll probably later wish you didn't, but it's pretty entertaining anyway.

Next week we get to visit our new home for an entire week to start setting it up. We are definitely looking forward to that. We won't officially move in until after we swear into the Peace Corps in the middle of December, but it will be good to see it anyway.

I didn't mention the name of the town, because Peace Corps is pretty big on us not really giving too many details over blogs and such. You never know who might be reading, but if you get our emails, you'll be able to know exactly where we are living.

10/28/09

This past weekend was kind of rough for me and Kimberly. We were just
feeling very overwhelmed with everything Ethiopian. The language, the
food, the culture, etc. It was just getting to be too much and we
were almost at the breaking point. Actually, we were probably past
the breaking point, but we sucked it up and stayed anyway. This week
has been considerably better than last week and the weekend.

On Monday, we got to go to the big city near our town to visit an
Anti-AIDS club and a Women's Support Group. This was helpful because
we got to actually do work instead of just learning language. Plus,
we got out with the other people in our group. Also, going to the big
city is nice because we get to use the internet and occaisionally get
good food. Monday we checked our email and found out we have a
package or two coming to us, so that is nice. We also got actual cake
from a hotel there, which was incredible. Then, for supper we had
halushki, a recipe Kimberly gave to the family. They won't let her do
the cooking because there is no actual kitchen or stove, but they did
a fantastic job. It was buttery and garlicky, which was different
than most of their pasta which is just oily.

On Tuesday, we took a hike with the group after class. We got to see
some of the beautiful Ethiopian countryside that I hope to show
pictures of eventually. The pictures will probably have to be emailed
and not posted on here, because it's just a little too hard. That
night we had vegetable soup made with ramen noodles. Normally, this
is not a dish I would necessarily write home about, but here in
Ethiopia, any semblance of American food is awesome.

Tuesday night, one of the sisters from our host family was visiting
from a bigger city and she brought a gift for us. For breakfast this
morning we had sliced loaf bread with strawberry preserves and
nutella. It was the closest thing to PB&J I've had since I got here.
For lunch, I had sukwar dinnich (sweet potatoes), homemade potato
chips, fried eggs, and Koka Kola. Kimberly got salad instead of the
sweet potato. The sweet potato was not like at home though. It was
the same color of regular potatoes and just slightly sweeter. The
potato chips and Koka Kola though was awesome!

Things are better, but still hard. Please continue to pray for us and
anything sent to us, even just a simple letter, is a wonderful thing.

10/25/09

So, I decided that today I'm going to talk about the people of
Ethiopia. As I mentioned already they are incredibly friendly, but
their friendliness can be a bit of a shock to Americans. We are used
to walking down the street without anyone saying anything or even so
much as looking in our direction. This does not happen here in
Ethiopia, especially when you are one of only 9 white people in the
entire village. Ethiopians love to stare, they love to yell out your
name (or if they don't know it, they yell "ferengi" or "china"), they
love to introduce themselves, and the kids will honestly follow you
for miles, not caring where you are going.

Last week, we decided to go on a hike and there were probably 20 kids
who walked with us for the entire hike. The children holding your
hand for the entire walk is not out of the ordinary either. Also, men
with arms around each other or holding hands is not uncommon here in
Ethiopia, but homosexuality is actually against the law. Yesterday, I
had an elderly man grab my hand in the market and he would not let go
the entire time. Ethiopia is definitely the place you want to go if
you are trying to step out of your comfort zone.

10/24/09

So, we've now been in Ethiopia officially for 11 days, it feels like
it's been much longer. That's partly because we have experienced so
much in a short amount of time and also because time doesn't move very
fast here. There have been some great experiences and some not so
great experiences. I'm going to be up front and say that it's been
the hardest thing that I've ever done and it so far is much more
difficult than I ever could have imagined. It's mostly because of the
culture shock of living in a country about as different from America
as you can get, and then having to learn a language in hyperspeed on
top of that. There have been at least 3 days already where one or
both of us entertained the idea of ditching and going back home. I
believe it's only the grace of God that has prevented us from
following through, that and there really are great things here in
Ethiopia.

The culture is so different that it's almost exotic to us "ferengi" or
foreigners. This is constantly yelled at us as we walk down the road,
that or "China." Some great things are the hospitality of the people,
who are overjoyed to have us here. The coffee, which flows like water
does in America and tastes better than any coffee I've ever had. They
have a little ceremony every night in which they roast, ground, and
make the coffee right before your eyes. Tea or chay is delicious as
well and we usually have that at breakfast and then again at 10:30 am.

The food is one of the not so great experiences. There is something
called injera, which is some kind of soured bread similar in shape to
a tortilla and not similar in flavor to anything I've ever had. I've
only eaten it 3 times and struggled to keep it down each time,
therefore we just don't eat it. Since this is their national food and
something they eat with each meal, and they know we don't like it, we
usually get the same meals over and over. Pasta, rice, carrots,
potatoes, bread, and eggs. This stuff is good, but not as good as at
home, and it gets old fast. One good thing is the fresh fruits and
vegetables in the market.

That's all I have for now, but I promise to post more later when I can.

Here we go again...

So, the government of Turkmenistan apparently didn't want our group so we got sent back home. Now, it appears that Kimberly and I will be joining the group going to Ethiopia. Unfortunately, they leave today for staging and we won't be joining them until about a week from now. All the paperwork that we filled out for Turkmenistan must be filled out all over again for Ethiopia, including the Visa application. So, that's why our departure is being delayed. Hopefully we won't be too far behind the rest of the group in the learning process.

On the positive, we knew about Turkmenistan for about 7 months and never really got too excited about it. We have known about Ethiopia for 4 days now and are really, really looking forward to going there. Africa is where Kimberly originally wanted to go when we signed up for the Peace Corp anyway, so we feel like things are really being corrected here.

Ethiopia here we come!

Packing

I know when Kimberly and I were preparing for the Peace Corp we searched everywhere for some information on what to pack and what to pack it in. We weren't very successful so I hope that this might help some future Peace Corp volunteer...at least a little bit.

I can't tell anyone what to pack since I haven't actually gone, but I have been told that many people over pack. You can get many items you take in the country that you are going to. We chose to get one hiking pack and one backpack for each of us. Eventually, we ended up using one more bag to pack some additional items. So, the first picture is the backpacks that we are carrying on, and the second picture is the 3 bags that we are checking.

Another thing we did was get Compression Sacs (like vacuum bags, but you roll the air out yourself) to put some of our items in. It saves a good bit of space.

You'll see in the picture that we actually have a hiking pack and then an army duffel bag. Well, we were advised by someone at REI to get cheap army duffel bags to put the hiking pack in for checking it at the airport. Apparently, this is so that TSA doesn't cut the straps on your hiking pack. The army duffel bag is actually a good bag in itself, but it doesn't have as good of support for carrying as the hiking pack. I would recommend it as a good cheap bag alternative.

I hope this was helpful to someone. If you have any questions feel free to leave a message here with an email address and I'll try to respond as soon as possible.

Things I'll Miss, Things I Won't...

I'll miss:

• My family
• Duke basketball
• Alabama football
• Baseball
• Chick-fil-A
• Indoor bathrooms
• Durham, NC
• My church
• Lost

I won't miss:

• A 9-5 job
• Traffic
• Buying gas for my car
• Bills
• Commercialism
• Humid summers

Our Story

I've realized one thing, everyone has a different story about how they came to be in the Peace Corp, so I thought I would post ours.

Kimberly and I had been looking for something exciting to do, something more than just a regular 9-5 job, but were unsatisfied with everything we had found. Either it cost too much or it wasn't what we were looking for. Sometime in July of 2007, Kimberly's mom had emailed her information about the Peace Corp because the daughter of a lady she worked with had just returned and she thought we might be interested.

August '07 - I read the information and was instantly sold. We went to an informational meeting and knew it was for us. We immediately filled out an application, and it was accepted within a couple of weeks.

September '07 - Met with our regional representative for an interview and she later nominated us.

February '08 - We learned that we had been nominated for North Africa and the Middle East for Health Extension.

March '08 - We began getting medical and dental check-ups.

May '08 - Medical and dental information was sent into the Peace Corps office and we were just waiting for clearance.

December '08 - We had been told that if we hadn't received an invitation by the end of the year to contact the Peace Corp's office. Since we hadn't heard anything up to that point, we assumed that no news was good news. In the middle of December we learned that the Peace Corp did not have a piece of our paperwork. Our Medical Officer had left his job and the position had since been filled with two other people. Because of this, notifying us had been lost in the shuffle.

January '09 - We learned that even though we had turned in our paperwork all of the invitations for our country were now gone.

February '09 - Recieved our second nomination, this time for Central Asia. Later in the month received an invitation to serve as Health Education Volunteers for Turkmenistan.

July '09 - We redid our dental check-up since it expires after a year.

August '09 - We finally were fully cleared to enter as volunteers into Turkmenistan.

September 29th - We fly out for Philadelphia for staging and then finally on to Turkmenistan!!

So, that's our story. It's been a long process, but we are now only 2 weeks away and soooooo excited!

About the blog

So, this blog is the chance for me and my wife (Kimberly) to keep track of our experiences during our time in Turkmenistan with the Peace Corp. The title for the blog came from the coordinates of Turkmenistan. It is located just north of Iran and Afghanistan and just south of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and was a part of the former Soviet Union.

We leave here on September 30th and are scheduled to arrive sometime early on October 1st. During our training, which is the first 3 months, we will not be able to call or send email at all. Internet access won't be very accessible after that either, but we hope to update as often as possible. Most times we'll type up posts on our computer and post later when we get the chance.