It's been a month already?

I've decided that the two best things that I brought with me from the United States are my camping solar shower and a sharp paring knife. I used both today, and both were a treat (particularly because the knife was cutting some apple, brought from Addis at considerable cost, into slices).

 

All is well here. I've been in Bahir Dar nearly 4 weeks, and I'm finally beginning to feel more at home here. My neighbors recognize me and wave hello. The shoeshine boys I pass every morning on my way to work have stopped shouting "money, money!" at me… at least most of the time (now it's usually "hello, hello!" which is remarkably better). The kids on my street yell my name at me as I walk past. Sometimes they ask me if I want for them to find a kitten or a puppy for me. I'm considering it.

 

It's amazing how quickly people start to know you. I was waiting for a motorcycle taxi to Beth's new house (on the other side of town from mine), and when I tried to get into it, the driver said, "no, no, you go toward the hospital." Indeed, I usually do. Another taxi driver wouldn't let me get out 100m from my stop when another woman was getting off, because he knew where I usually end up. A man at a café reminded me which kebele (neighborhood) I live in. About once a day, someone asks me if I remember them; they remember me! It doesn't feel menacing, particularly because my house feels so safe, behind a big wall in a quiet neighborhood, but it is kind of incredible. Since Day One of Staging in Washington DC, we've been told about the "fishbowl effect." I guess I hadn't quite internalized it until now—people really know a lot about me already here, and there really isn't any stopping it. Next step is to spread the word that I'm a volunteer and therefore don't have much money to spare; the presumption is that any foreigner here is loaded. I've also made a resolution to be polite and make conversation with people who are polite to me, even if I don't feel like talking to them, and to try to just ignore the rude folks. We'll see how it goes.

 

Yesterday, I got a lovely package from a group of my grad school friends who are back in Seattle, which will keep me well stocked with books to read and puzzles to solve for quite some time. The post office is really something. Usually, we have to lean through the window of the "Parcels—Foreign and Domestic" office and point out large bags of mail which haven't been opened to inspect whether there might in fact be something in there for one of us. This time, though, I actually got a slip in my box notifying me: amazing. It had only taken 3 weeks for the package from Seattle to arrive, but another box from Denver had been in transit since December 3 ^rd. The Christmas cookies in that one were a little worse for the wear. Meanwhile, attempting to mail a small box to the States was a 45-minute-long, prohibitively expensive hassle; so, sorry, don't expect gifts until someone comes to visit and can haul them back to the States!

 

I've met a number of great Ethiopians here in town, as well as a couple of interesting ex-pats. Clinton Foundation, MSF, and the Carter Foundation are all here, and the University also hires visiting professors, so there are a number of foreigners wandering around. I think that Bahir Dar will be a nice little community to live in.

 

I've been working on record-keeping, particularly the charting system, at work. A colleague and I went searching for the charts of people who had missed their November appointments yesterday. Of 78 charts, 44 were missing. People have some idea of where they might be, but it requires a long, manual search of unsorted piles in order to find them. And of those we did find, only one had really missed his appointment; the rest just hadn't been recorded right in the system (probably because the charts never made it to the data entry clerk). Hmmm.

 

I'm also working on putting together a couple of talks about burnout, management skills, and teambuilding for the HIV team at the hospital. The work environment here really doesn't incorporate much in terms of continuing education or support for the employees. I hope that it will be appreciated.

 

I'm getting used to living by myself, and am trying to get into some sort of routine. It definitely takes time to feel comfortable in a new spot, and adding a new language and culture means that this is taking even longer. I'm trying to keep the Peace Corps' favorite virtues, patience and flexibility, in mind.