Mmmm...Taste Like Home!

I’ve been in Ethiopia for one year now… I’ll blog about that later.  During the past year I’ve been able to spend a significant amount of time with other Peace Corps volunteers in my region.  My town is fairly sizable by Ethiopian standards, has a solid selection of stores, & is in the middle of a cluster of PCVs.  All those factors lead to regular visits from PCV friends in the area.  So, what is the main topic of conversation when we “save the world” PCVs congregate?... Politics? Community relations? Projects?  Nope, none of the above, it’s food!  We talk about food we like, food we hate, food we have, food we want, food we miss from home, food we cooked, and on and on and on. So, why do we talk about food so much?  I can’t speak for everyone, but for me there are two main reasons.  The first is that since there isn’t much food variety in Ethiopia, there are a lot of foods we miss from home.  Volunteers tend to talk a lot about what they miss, and food is at the top of the list.  It may be bacon, milk shakes, burritos, barbequed anything, or whatever.  The second, and biggest reason for me, is food reminds you of home.  Talking about food, cooking food, and especially eating American food can provide a brief escape back to America.  The best comparison is a scene in the Disney animated movie “Ratatouille.”  In the scene, the harshest food critic in Paris comes to evaluate the cooking rat’s restaurant.  Of course at the time he doesn’t know that a rat is preparing his meal.  Anyway, they serve the critic a peasant dish called Ratatouille.  The critic takes one bite and instantly flashes back to his childhood, sitting in his mother’s kitchen, smelling the aroma in the room while she cooks, and the feeling when taking that first bite of her home cooked Ratatouille.  Needless to say, he gave it a great review.  My mom wasn’t really that good a cook, so unless I eat a chicken pot pie that someone forgot to put chicken in, I won’t flash back to her kitchen when I’m eating a great tasting meal.  I do taste home when I bite into a zebra cake.  It sends me back to my apartment, sitting on my couch eating a zebra cake w/ a cold glass of milk, while watching college basketball.  Sometimes you don’t realize how beautiful a simple moment is, until it’s unavailable.  That brief moment of nostalgia can get me through a bad day, or week.  That’s also why PCVs love food packed care packages so much.  Good food can help you through a bad time.  Some of my best moments in Ethiopia have been times spent w/ PCVs and my site mates eating a well prepared volunteer cooked meal.  The food in Ethiopia isn’t bad, and contrary to popular belief, everyone here isn’t starving.  There are plenty of dishes I like, but the variety is limited.  It’s difficult to find American dishes, and if you do, the quality isn’t that good usually.  I’m fortunate enough to be in a town w/ solid restaurants, and stores.  I can actually buy snickers and twix candy bars.  Also, a large town is only a 45 minute bus ride away w/ burgers, pizza, doughnuts, ice cream, and other foods.  I have it better than most.  Even with that, there are still limitations.  Foreign foods are always only pizza, burgers, & pasta for the most part, even in bigger towns.  The only city is Ethiopia where you can get Mexican, Chinese, or any other nationality food is Addis Ababa.  The problem is unless your site is near there, or you’re one of Peace Corps preferred volunteers that spends time there frequently, you only go there a few times after being sworn in.  So for the normal PCVs who toil in obscurity, every bite counts.  Any taste of home is a moment to be savored.  A home cooked meal, especially for me since I’m a horrible cook, is a major victory… and if you’re reading this blog, it’s been a good while since I’ve received a care package ;-)

Happiness Rediscovered in Ethiopia!

What’s up guys!  To quote the great philosopher Jay Z, “Allow me to re-introduce myself!”  I know it’s been FOREVER since my last post, so I want to sincerely apologize for my long hiatus.  I’ve been through a lot the past 6 months since I’ve moved to my site, emotionally & physically.  I’m not even going to attempt to write about all my experiences over that period of time.  I think it will be best to use this post to explain why I’ve neglected my blog for so long.

 I have encountered countless challenges while living at my site.  There really haven’t been any more than I expected, just the challenges have been a lot different than I anticipated.  Some I have been able to overcome & some I will probably deal w/ until the day I go home.  The biggest challenge for me has been staying busy.  All the other challenges I can isolate & they don’t really have a debilitating effect on my mental state.  The water shortages, power outages, or low food variety aren’t that big a deal to me.  Maybe since I grew up in poor & humbling living conditions, it doesn’t faze me that much.  Not being busy, having a lot of free time w/ no way to fill it leads to a bored, idle mind, weird thoughts, & if you’re not careful, sadness & depression.  You would be amazed at some of the thoughts that go through your mind when you’ve been sitting around in your room for hours w/ no power & your I-pod is out of juice... If all a zombie does is eat flesh, shouldn’t they have to go to the bathroom?...Yes, I actually contemplated this.  You just think a lot, good, bad, & weird.  I haven’t hit depression, but there have been extended periods of joylessness.  I never could have imagined going days w/ out laughing, but I have.  Anyone who knows me well knows that although I’m a quiet person, I’m always carefree, joking, & upbeat.  I’ve also had issues staying motivated.  Things move so slowly, a feeling of hopelessness can wash over you.  The weeks & months have actually gone by fast, but the days can last forever. 

I think it’ll be good to explain how we, as Peace Corps Volunteers, work in our community.  This will help illustrate how light our schedules can be.  We don’t work your prototypical 8-5 shifts.  Education volunteers work regular days in designated schools in their towns, so they have a more regimented schedule.  Volunteers in other fields, like the environment sector that I’m in, work on projects they develop on their own.  This can be a slow, grueling, & frustrating process.  You depend so much on your Ethiopian counterpart, as well as other associates at your site, that control of what you want to do is limited.  For instance, a water bottle recycling project I’m working on has been held up for months waiting on a contract to be finalized w/ the local water bottle distributor in my town.  What’s the hold up?  The supervisor is NEVER in town.  There isn’t much I can do.  The contract is a must to ensure payment for the bottles.  That’s just one example, so most of my work consists of strategy meetings w/ my counterpart 2 to 4 times a week.  I do activities to integrate myself into my community, like basketball w/ the guys in town.  I also help out w/ some environmental projects other groups in town have, like tree watering & compost making.  On a good week this may take 15 hours of my time, so I have a lot of free time.

So Rashad, How do you manage your free time?...I’m glad you asked!  There have been pluses & minuses to all this time.  I talked about the minuses earlier, so to keep this post from being horribly depressing I’ll talk about pluses.

I’m probably in the best physical shape I’ve been in since I was in college.  I work out every day.  I HAVE to work out every day to maintain my sanity.  Which is ironic since I was doing the “insanity” work outs.  Between the work outs, cooling down, & bathing, that would kill 2 hours a day. I got to the point where I was exercising twice a day, doing strength work in the evenings, AND doing basketball practice 3 days a week.  Due to the fact that I lost over 15 pounds & at one point was less than 160 pounds, I had to cut out “insanity” & just do strength work, playing basketball occasionally.  I have since bulked up to a robust 165 pounds.  Since my cooking is limited to oatmeal, pancakes, & eggs, I rely on Ethiopian cuisine to pack on the pounds.  This aint easy.  How many huge Ethiopians have you seen?  I live here & can’t find any.  In fact, when my 165 pounds soaking wet ass is playing basketball in my tank top, they’ll say “STRONG MAN!”….”BIG MAN!”  That usually comes from a guy w/ broomsticks for arms.  I’m cut though; muscles have more definition than a dictionary, unfortunately, I’m about as thick was one too.  Another good habit I’ve picked up is reading more.  I read a 450 page book in 3 days, & I am a VERY slow reader.  I read at the speed I talk, yes, THAT slow.  I was basically reading all day for 3 straight days.  I read the Hunger Games trilogy in a little over a week, which was over 1,000 pages total.  I’m surprised I didn’t get bed sores.

Ok, so I’m blogging now, so something obviously had to change.  I actually went back & read my Aspiration Statement from when I was applying for PC.  I realized I had totally lost focus on why I was here, which is to help people in need, absorb & share culture, and the life experience.  I’ve been wallowing in self pity too much, prioritizing the wrong things, and being overly self absorbed & self indulgent.  I’m upset about eating at the same restaurant 3 days in a row, while I’m walking past someone who doesn’t know where their next meal is coming from.  Being homesick & counting days wasn’t doing anyone any good either.  Keeping one eye on home & the other on the calendar will not only drive me crazy, but keep me from being productive.  When you put it in perspective, 27 months is not that long.  I only have 18 to go, it’s not like I’m in federal prison.  After all this, I will get to go home, & it’s not like there aren’t issues to worry about there either.  Another experience that kind of gave me an epiphany & woke me up was some people I met last weekend.  I met a PCV who was probably in his late 60s to early 70s & I couldn’t help but be impressed by the life he’s carved out for himself here.  He’s not in a ton of PC committees or anything, he just works on projects w/ the connections he’s made on his own & does all he can to help the community he’s in.  He's done so well & is so comfortable w/ his place here, he's extended for a 3rd & 4th year.  That’s where I want to be (except for maybe the extending part.)  I met another man who’s American, but has lived in Ethiopia for the past 40 years w/ his wife.  He seemed so genuinely happy it couldn’t help but rub off.  It taught me two things.  The 1^st is happy is what you are, not where, & you control it.  I can only be as happy as I let myself be.  The 2^nd is that moods can be infectious.  It’s not fair to those around me to be miserable & finding joy within me may also pass along to others.

So there you go.  I’m blogging again (weekly now, I hope) & I’ve had a great week so far & feel like I’m settling in & finally figuring things out.  Hopefully that includes cooking.

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!

Site Announcement

Coffee ceremony before site announcement

Our language instructors doing the native regional dances



The PCVs joining in the fun...not me!



My site info...my town is listed, whoops!! Wasn't supposed to show you that



Where my town is located in the Tigray region of Ethiopia



A couple of PCVs that trained w/ me in Menagesha (Kathryn & Bridget)



My counterpart & supervisor. The taller one is my counterpart Gebremedeem. Kiflom is my supervisor



My friend Wayne having fun in Addis

What’s up guys! I know it’s been forever since my last post, sorry about that. I had no internet access the last 6 weeks of training. Then the 1st few weeks after training were very hectic, so I didn’t have time to post. I currently have wireless internet, so I can post anytime I want now. At least I thought. I had no luck for over a month trying to post on blogspot. I did keep a journal the past few months, which I’ll just copy & paste the next few days w/ the corresponding photos until the blog is caught back up to current. I hope you enjoy it, I’ve experienced a lot the past few months.

Before I start on the post topic I want to acknowledge a few things from my last post that have improved.  My host mom FINALLY started serving me more than cold shiro & potatoes for lunch & dinner.  It happened by accident, the last time she served it I ate just a little & told her I wasn’t hungry.  She thought I was sick & started preparing different dishes the next day.  The meals are still cold, but at least it aint shiro.  They cook outside w/ a very primitive coal stove, & it’s cold at night & in the mornings, so by the time I get the food it’s cooled off.  I get hot tea & macchiato every day, so that makes up for the food a little bit. Also, I’ve found a solution to taking ice cold baths…sponges.  I soap up water in a pitcher, dip a sponge in & lather, then I use another sponge & dip it in clear water & rinse.  It’s still cold, but no where near as bad as pouring ice water directly on me.  I can now officially wash my whole body w/ 2 very small pitchers of water.  I can wash more than twice a week now, which is good since I play soccer every afternoon after language training.  Menagesha is a nice town for the most part.  It’s rocky & on the side of a mountain, which is rough on your feet and ankles, but the residents have been fairly nice so far.  Some of the other PCVs had a few harassment issues in one of the other training sites that is more than twice the size of ours.  Menagesha has a little less than 15,000 people, so it’s fairly rural.  They don’t see foreigners much so we get a good amount of attention.  Especially the white volunteers.  Children will holler “FERENGIE!!” all the time, which means foreigner.  They say “you, you, you” or sometimes they call them “china, china” as well. A good amount of Asians are in Ethiopia doing construction, so it’s a blanket name for foreigners. In our case they’re just trying to get our attention & want to meet us & shake hands. When you shake hands here you shake w/ your right & hold your right elbow w/ your left hand as a sign of respect. When you get to know someone well, you shake w/ the right & bump right shoulders lightly. It’s the Ethiopian version of the American bro-hug, where we shake & hug w/ the opposite arm. Really, there are TONS of cultural things I can talk about, but I feel like if I keep writing about my experiences so far, they will gradually come out & after a while this fully formed picture of Ethiopia will develop. One more quick note on hand shakes. Children want to shake & hold our hands ALL the time. Which is cool, until you look at their faces & they all have mucus mustaches & snot bubbles permanently lodged in their noses. The elders aren’t much better. Nose picking is an art form here, & they don’t just hit the front tip of the nose, they go knuckle deep. I watched my host sister scratch her brain the other day, which turned my stomach b/c she also prepares my meals. Anyway, all that being said, the other volunteers & I have incorporated fist bumps instead of hand shakes, to keep our hands clean. It’s actually taken on quite well.

OK, now on to the post topic.  The PCVs were excited & on edge all week b/c of site announcement.  It’s when they tell each volunteer what town in Ethiopia they are going to serve for the next 2 years after our training is completed.  I didn’t stress it at all.  My strategy was to not have any expectations, that way I wouldn’t be disappointed. I didn’t even study up on any of the regions, so I wouldn’t develop a preference for any particular area.  The landscape, climate, & environment of Ethiopia is very different depending on the region.  I’m currently in central Ethiopia just outside of the big city, Addis Ababa.  It’s warm during the day, mid 70’s, and cold at night, mid 40’s.  There is a lot of agricultural & cattle farming in my area.  My host family has cows & chickens of their own.  The main crop, not counting coffee, is teft, which is used to make the injera that’s served w/ every meal. It looks a lot like wheat, which is grown here as well. Another difference in the regions is language.  The national language is Amharic, but in the southern region of Ethiopia Oramifa is spoken most, while in the Tigray region up north, Tigrinya is the common language.  This means that depending on where we get placed, we may have to learn ANOTHER language as well as Amharic. This was one of the main concerns of the other PCVs b/c Amharic is already tough.  On the language scale of 1 to 5, 1 being the easiest & 5 the most difficult, Amharic was rated a 4.  Oramifa is supposed to be easier, while Tigrain is tougher than Amharic.  The site announcement process was pretty cool. All the PCVs were brought into Holeta, which is where we all meet for group training, since the 20 of us are spread across 3 towns.  It’s only about 10km from Menagasha.  Seven of the PCVs are already staying there w/ host families, while the last seven are staying in a town called Addis Salym. Before the announcements we had popcorn w/ tea/cofee, or in Ahmaric, shai/bunna.  Then the language instructors played music from each region of Ethiopia & did that regions native dances. The PCVs joined in, which was cool. We actually had a crowd of Ethiopians peeking in the windows checking us out. They were laughing w/ a “wow, these are some no rhythm having ferengies” look on their faces. After the dancing our sites were announced.  I was assigned to, drum roll please… ok, here‘s the deal. I recently discovered I can‘t actually list my site location on a public blog for security reasons. Sorry guys, Peace Corps rules. I‘ll email the town name to whoever wants to know. For now, we‘ll just say town T! Which is in the Tigray region. It’s a midsized town by Ethiopian standards, about 34,000 residents. That also means I have to learn another language. I have since found that Tigrinya & Amharic are fairly similar, w/ a lot of the same words & alphabet. They say Tigrinya sounds like the cookie monster speaking Amharic. It’s definitely not a romance language. The sounds are in many ways similar to Arabic, which is cool since I have some experience w/ that language. I also will only learn Tigrinya from now on, which is a relief that I don’t have to study 2 languages at once.  The only issue is I’ll be living in Menegesha for the next 2 months where everyone speaks Amharic. My host family speaks Amharic & Oramifa, so I had to explain to them as best I could that I was finished w/ Amharic & now moving to Tigrinya. That was tough b/c I currently speak Amharic like a caveman, “ME AMHARIC DONE, SCHOOL TIGRINYA NOW!” I think they got the point though. Since Tigray is up north, it’s a warmer & dryer climate, similar to Arizona or Texas in the states, which is cool w/ me b/c I like warm weather. Not far east of my town is the Danakil Depression. I was told it’s the lowest elevated & hottest land on earth. There is an active ground level volcano there as well. That should give you an idea of how warm the climate is. T is a little cooler b/c it’s over 6,000 feet above sea level. Since this post is running long I’m going to talk about my site visit in another post.  After the announcements, 2 days later we were sent to Addis Ababa for training w/ our site counterparts…our counterparts are local residents in our sites that are basically going to be are coworkers for the next 2 years.  I’ll get more into them in the next post too. We stayed in Addis for 4 days, then went to visit out sites for a week to get acclimated to our new homes. I'll post that experience soon. Buhala! (later)