Tuesday, July 14, 2009

The World's a Small Place

Two coincidences this week. It makes the world seem like a pretty tiny
place (funny to be saying that when I'm so many thousands of miles
away from home...). Oddly, they both involve University of Washington.

It turns out that there's a former Fellow from the UW who's now [back]
living and working in Bahir Dar. It was odd to talk about the Ave,
about professors from the Department of Global Health, to reminisce
about classes. It was lovely to chat with this guy. I wish I had met
him earlier. For one, he mentioned how generous and kind people in
Seattle had been to him when he first arrived, and how he wanted to
repay the favor. I feel like I need to do the same when I get back to
Seattle--people have been so lovely to me here, as well.

And then on Friday, Kyle and I had dinner with some visiting PCVs from
Cameroon. We were sitting around chatting, and I asked where in the US
the five of them were from. And of course, one was from Seattle. And
was, like me, a Master's student. And, get this, we had been in a
class together in the winter of 2007. Who would ever have dreamed, in
a classroom in Seattle on a rainy winter evening, that two and a half
years later, this forestry Master's student would be living in
Cameroon, would be coming to Ethiopia on vacation, and would come to
visit my very site. Crazy.

I'm beginning to think that these UW connections may be pretty
important. Maybe for finding a job?

Monday, July 6, 2009

What's New?

I've been a bit MIA. Sorry for the long delay in posting. There hasn't
been much to tell, these past few weeks. Life goes on as usual in
Ethiopia. It was reassuring, somehow, to visit the US and to realize
that not that much had changed at home. It's equally reassuring (and
yet at the same time depressing) to see the sameness of the day-to-day
routine here. Not much has changed since before I left for the States.
In fact, not all that much has changed since I arrived here in 2007.

So what is new?

There has been a large military presence in town this week, apparently
because of the coincidental overlap of a huge convoy of UN trucks,
equipment, tanks, etc., making their way between Addis Ababa and
Darfur, and a country-wide meeting of generals to discuss the
Ethiopian Army's successes in the past year.

What this means for us is that there are lots of people in camouflage
meandering around town, that two of the main streets are blocked off,
and that there are a lot of scary tanks lurking around. I've been
assured that no one is going to war (at least not in the immediate
future), but it is a bit intimidating.

There is one charming side effect of all this military presence,
however. Ethiopian men are very physical with each other about showing
their affection for one another. Friends drape their arms over each
other's shoulders, even sit on each other's laps, and it means nothing
whatsoever about sexuality (homosexuality is, in fact, still illegal
here, but that's another post...). So the fact that there are a lot of
soldiers in town, and a lot of soldiers who are friends with each
other, means that there are a lot of pairs of camouflaged men walking
down the street holding hands. I'd love to get a picture. If I wasn't
scared of what the consequences of taking pictures of soldiers were...

Otherwise, the rainy season has (thankfully) finally arrived, only
about 6 weeks late. When I got back to Bahir Dar in early June, the
lack of rain was already the focus of almost every conversation.
Really only in the last week have we gotten proper soaking rainstorms.
The sound of rainfall on a tin roof is seriously one of my favorites.
It makes for great sleeping. Lake Tana is slowly beginning to refill
(it had been so low that the ferry hadn't been running), and I'm
hoping that the reservoirs are all being to fill back up. We're still
on an electricity-rationing program of one day on, one day off. This
routine is tiresome (especially for businesses!), but it's at least
predictable--I've been planning meetings around when there will be
power.

I just started teaching a "Life Skills" and health education class for
seventh, eighth, and ninth grade girls. I think that it's going to be
great, and really useful for them, but I'm also paralyzed with fear of
teenagers. They just have the potential to be so mean. The one saving
grace is that these girls are pretty shy, and aren't likely to be
overtly obnoxious. I've decided that my strategy is going to be to
make an absolute fool of myself at every opportunity and to just allow
them to laugh at me. This is the first attempt I've made at direct
service-provision--everything else I've done here has really been
about systems, so it'll be fun (and terrifying!) to actually get to do
something with "beneficiaries." It's also an opportunity to practice
some Amharic (I'm teaching mostly in English, with an Ethiopian
co-teacher, but the girls howl with surprised laughter every time I
say anything in Amharic, so I think I'll keep pushing myself to try
more).

I pass the 21-month mark in country this week. It's hard to believe
that I've been here that long, and that time is moving this fast. I
got my official date for "close of service" (checking out of the Peace
Corps); I think that it will be November 25th. I'm planning a few
weeks of travel (more on that soon...), and then on being back in the
States before Christmas. It's crazy that I'll be home in less than
five months.

That does mean that I have to start cracking down a bit on some of my
projects. If projects are as slow to wind-down as they were to
start-up in the first place, it means that I need to start shutting
things down, soon. I also still have all of my Master's thesis
research to complete in the next months (a minor hold-up with the
Public Health Association here aside, I'm just about ready to go on
data collection). I have a feeling that these last few months are
going to fly. Another crop of dear friends are finishing their
contracts in the next few weeks and are heading back to wherever home
is, and it reminds me of how transient this life here is (at least for
most farenjis), and also about my own departure. I'm beginning to
imagine what the process of saying goodbye will be like. It's
certainly not going to be easy.

One more thing: I'm searching for easy reading material for the 7th,
8th, and 9th graders at the after-school center where I'm teaching
life skills. The kids are at the level of reading easy chapter books
in English, but the issue is that it's difficult to find material with
subject matter that's complex or exciting enough to engage 13-16 year
olds, written in English that's simple enough that they don't get
overwhelmed. Those of you with kids or with experience teaching--I'd
love ideas!