Site Visit

Lunch with our counterparts

Ethiopian Air...actually pretty nice airline

Mekele airport...not very big

Walking through Mekele w/ counterparts after leaving the airport

Mekele

My current hometown...Wukro

Streets of Wukro

My landlord's wife Roma & his son Mosa

Women packing soil at a tree nursery in Wukro

Tree nursery

Nursery

Some sort of rodent, looks like a squarrel

The people make the best pictures

The muslim church...or a mosque

One of the caretakers

As you can see the caretakers are exited to be in a picture

Me posing a little too seriously

Ethiopia has some of the coolest, oldest trees

A rural primary school

A different tree nursery...cool entrance

Beautiful open country

Kids love the camera

Yet another tree nursery...the more the better. Trees are scarese

Now that's good water

My site mate Kevin doing his thing in his "kitchen"

My bath

After Barak Obama, the most popular American in Ethiopia is WWF wrestler John Cena..."You can't see me!"

My other sitemate Bailey doing magic in the kitchen as usual

I love camels

Bye camels!

Mekele from the roof of a hotel

Me in my tour guide pose

I know I’m not supposed to say my town, but the hell with it. It’s too awkward saying “my town” every time I mention it. Plus other PCV blogs list their towns anyway.

I guess I should start off by saying my site visit was awesome. I absolutely love my site! Before I talk about Wukro, I’ll start from the beginning of the site visit process. After our site locations were announced we went back to our training sites & packed up for our week at site & 4 days in Addis Ababa. Everyone was excited & anxious to see their homes for the next 2 years, including me. I was nervous as well b/c if there are any issues, depending on what they are, I would have to potentially deal w/ them for 2 years. On the bright side, Peace Corps is really good about working w/ volunteers on any concerns they may have about their site. We went to Addis first for training & to meet our counterparts. We go through training w/ our counterparts to help break the ice & build a rapport w/ them before we start working together. They’re basically local volunteers from our sites who have experience in our field of work, which in our case is environmental. They will be our guides & coworkers for the next 2 years, helping us organize meetings, translating our presentations for classes or local groups, & assisting us w/ developing projects for our towns. During our site visits our counterparts are supposed to help us get settled in our new homes. They’ll basically show us the town for a week, help us w/ buying beds for our homes, starting our bank accounts, opening up P.O. boxes, introduce us to the important people we need to meet in town (police chief, mayor, etc), take us to market, & show us how to get around town. We’re going to depend on them for a lot, so it’s really important to have a good counterpart that’s easy to get along w/. My counterpart’s name is Gabrielmedeeme. He’s an older man, probably in his late 50’s. He’s also fairly tall for an Ethiopian, about 6’2”, which in Ethiopia is like being 6’8” in America. I‘m like Shaquel O‘Neal here, the people are so short. I actually have to duck my head going through doors sometimes. I bumped my head on the shint bet door in our compound at least 10 times my 1^st week in Menegesha. Anyway, Gabriel speaks English at a reasonable level. He actually used to be a high school English teacher. I’ve since learned that there are some really crappy English teachers here, so just b/c someone taught English doesn’t mean they speak it well. I think I was lucky w/ my counterpart that he was one of the better English speakers. Some of the other volunteers had some major communication issues w/ theirs. We’ve only been learning language for a few weeks, so there is only so much we can say, not to mention for those of us that are switching languages, we won’t start training until after site visit. My counterpart speaks English, Ahmaric, & Tigrinya, which is very convenient. Gabriel is cool for the most part. He’s very task oriented, which will help me get stuff done. He’s also a bit on the aggressive, headstrong & demanding side, which is probably due to him being a little older, but may cause some issues down to road when it comes to allowing me the freedom to be creative w/ my projects & just having space in general. As of right now, I wouldn’t trade him for any of the other counterparts though. It’s easier to tone someone down, than motivate them to action. It was good to meet my counterpart in Addis before site visit even though training was a little awkward due to the language barrier w/ some of the other counterparts. I also was having my first battle w/ health. My body was like a big balloon that kept leaking air, & it was coming out of both directions. Even my burps tasted nasty, so what was coming out the other end could level buildings & destroy plant life for a 2 mile radius. I was fortunate that it only lasted a couple of days. The best part about being in Addis was some of the other PCV’s that have been in Ethiopia for a while took us to some places where we could get some descent American food. It felt so good to have a burger & fries. You really appreciate the little things after being here for a while, hot showers, flushing toilets, cold beverages, napkins, trash cans(surprisingly difficult to find), & all your favorite foods. Ethiopian food is ok, it just lacks variety. I’ll get into that in a later post, but just the food & hot showers alone made it a worthwhile stay in Addis. After completing the training in Addis, me & the rest of the volunteers in the Tigray region flew to the city of Mekele w/ our counterparts. Some of the counterparts did some shopping while in Addis, so they had some interesting items to check in at the airport. One of the counterparts actually checked in a satellite dish, so our plane had great reception. We flew Ethiopian Air, which is one of the better airlines in Africa. There were 9 volunteers total that flew to Mekele, 4 will be in southern Tigray & the other 5, including me, will be in northern Tigray. Mekele has a fairly small airport, so we exited the plane via stairs instead of the normal ramp. I believe there are over 200,000 residents in the city (don‘t quote me on that), so it’s fairly large by Ethiopian standards. Wukro is only about 35-40km from Mekele, but since you have to go through some very curvy roads through the mountains, & it’s primarily up hill, it takes almost an hour by minibus. The drive is very scenic, though sometimes a little too scenic for my taste when you’re looking out the passenger window over the edge of a cliff w/ no railing. It doesn’t help that the minibus drivers tend to drive like we’re hostages more than passengers. Every minibus ride is an adventure of it’s own. It’s not abnormal to see 20 Ethiopians packed in a van. Add the fact that a lot of the passengers haven’t bathed in over a week, for them deodorant is an ideology not a necessity, it’s hot, and there’s no AC; it’s like the middle passage on wheels. The area of Tigray that Wukro is in is mountainous & has a hot, dry climate. It’s very similar to Arizona, Nevada, or Southern California. That’s fine w/ me b/c I prefer warm weather. The town itself is in a valley of flatland w/ a beautiful view of mountains all around. It felt like I was in the Phoenix or San Diego of Ethiopia. It was quiet for the most part w/ a relaxed atmosphere. I thought I was on vacation, which makes sense since it has it’s share of tourist come through. It’s also a training/seminar hot spot, so there are a good number of hotels & restaurants. There are also a ton of Bajaj taxis in town. A lot of them are tricked out, which is hilarious. If you’ve never seen a Bajaj w/ rims, Jesus mud flaps, Jamaican bumper stickers, tinted windows, and fur on the mirror & dashboard, you’re missing one of the modern day wonders of the world. I’m also lucky in that I can get most of my household supplies, food, appliances, and other necessities in town. Another added bonus is there are already 2 other volunteers in Wukro, & they’re awesome people. They helped me take care of most of the tasks I was supposed to do w/ my counterpart. My counterpart did help me get my bed, which I got a great price on b/c they thought I was Ethiopian. Unfortunately, a lot of shop owners think all Americans are rich, so they’ll price gauge foreigners any chance they get. For example, I bought my bed frame, mattress, pillow, bed sheets, comforter, & had it delivered for $1,600 birr. Another volunteer bought just a bed frame at the same shop for $1,100 birr. My counterpart is a pretty shrewd negotiator too, which didn’t hurt. Besides helping me w/ my bed, he also took me to my home & helped me get settled in, & introduced me to my landlord. I’m very lucky that my landlord & his family are great people. He teaches history & his wife teaches English. They speak English even better than my counterpart, & have offered to tutor me in Tigrinya when I move in. They have a 15 year old son as well that lives w/ them in the compound. Since everyone is older it’s quiet, which is lovely. I have plenty of space in my room too. It’s almost like a studio apartment. They call me their new son. They were always waiting on me when I came in at night w/ coffee & popcorn (common snack here). I felt very embraced while I was there. Another good thing my counterpart did was take me to the local environment office & to visit some of the tree nurseries in the area. While we were out we also stopped at a historical mosque, that is alleged by the locals to be the 1^st Islamic mosque ever built in Africa. The scenery is really remarkable. I took a lot of pictures that give a good view of the area. After spending most of my first 2 days w/ my counterpart, I spent most of the rest of my time w/ the Wukro volunteers, as well as some from the neighboring towns. Of the 5 volunteers in northern Tigray, I’m kind of located in the center of them. A few have to come to my town to use the post office or do their banking, so I’m going to see them a lot. Being near so many other volunteers makes the experience so much easier. My last night in town one of the Wukro PCVs made chicken soft tacos & cookies & then had pancakes for us the following morning. I really didn’t want to leave after that! The last 7 weeks of language in Menegesha are going to be rough b/c I’m going to be looking forward to getting back to site the whole time. Since I’m going to be living at my site for the next 2 years I’m going to save some info for later posts. Talk to you soon!