A Word from Our Correspondents in the Field

Walking to my last English Club meeting at Soloda School, I pulled my cautious don’t-want-to-trip eyes away from the rocky soil to enjoy what was happening around me. The wind was making it the perfect day, after months of 90+ degree weather; I was surrounded by green visions, green smells; our ever-present friend whom I was walking toward—Soloda Mountain—seemed to be straightening her back for me, like she was posing for a photo. And crossing the wet stones across the creek, I thought, “Is this really my route to work? I don’t have to drive 20 minutes down 615 or take the freeway—I get to cross over a creek.” So I wrote this haiku:

Days like these: the breeze

Pulls the eucalyptus trees

Down like taut sling-shots

and I was regretting that haikus, by nature, can’t be longer. Otherwise I would’ve extended it to read this way:

It’s—

Days like these: the breeze

Pulls the eucalyptus trees

Down like taut sling-shots

That I’m ashamed to count the hours until I’m back in America.

Truth is, Peace Corps volunteers have lots of days like this. Days where we feel mighty silly to have longed for a grandmother’s pot roast or Mom’s home-baked cookies (it has officially been one year since we’ve eaten home-baked cookies; consider this a few moments—then please plan accordingly for our approaching arrival). To long for home when we’re surrounded by beauty and newness and culture as old as you can find. Raw coffee beans, our favorite Ethiopian dishes, cows trudging through dusty market, old people calling us my sugar, my honey in this mysterious language we’ve grown to love—and we wonder, Can we just appreciate what we have? We’ve been given the experience of a lifetime, and some days we know it.

Other days we miss loved ones a bit too much, the infection we got from that meal took too big of a toll, the ceaseless harassment over-reached its monthly quota, or the delicious new batch of lemon-guava-ade my husband made had a little squirmy worm in it.

Why was I even in haiku mode on Monday? Because I realized Daniel really wasn’t too fond of my poorly-pitched, non-rhyming 10-minute-long odes to Taco Bell. This song series has been three-years-running, but it’s somehow even more annoying when the nearest Taco Bell is thousands of miles away and you’re not on the freeway looking for those food signs. Things that are amusing for every road trip aren’t as amusing in real stationary life. So I tried a new media and wrote a haiku to Taco Bell. I was so satisfied with the whole experience that I created a Word document called Taco Bell haikus, and plan to revisit this activity indagana, indagana. Again and again.

Several PCVs have said how unbalanced they feel—in a single day, their moods are all over the place. They can go from immensely delighted (watching the donkey bray and run from his master) to immensely ticked (watching the master catch up with the donkey and kick him in the face) in a split-second. We can be immersed in observing something glorious in front of us (old Tigrayan women with the most fantastic clothes, hair and tattoos, walking to market) that we don’t hear the kids calling to us from behind (to get our attention, they throw rocks or curse at us in English). If our moods are rollercoasterish in the span of a few hours, you can imagine what a week, or a month, looks like. Heart monitors: that’s what it looks like.

Peace Corps even has an official drawn life cycle of the volunteer. When our biggest plummets of morale seem to be common—like the 3-month mark, the half-way-through mark, etc.—they actually plan conferences for us, so we can have a long break among friends. Forces regroup.

To give you an idea of the things that run through our minds on a constant, wavering basis—we thought, what better venue is there for saying exactly what you think, than Facebook? We’ve compiled below some of our favorite recent Facebook posts from fellow Ethiopia volunteers, who will remain anonymous. We love our 200-some peers who have been reckless enough to embark on this same adventure. Simply knowing that our ranks are not two, but two hundred, somehow makes it all easier on those worms-in-your-lemonade days.

We’ve titled each entry, adding some thoughts of our own.

You wouldn’t believe the dreams we have here.

I miss running water so much that last night I dreamed I was sneaking into friends’ bathrooms back home & taking hot showers....

We quickly grow out of touch with American culture and trends. (Peter and Lindsay are preparing a You Tube queue of all the videos we’ve missed.)

ATTN people in america, #what'swith #peopleusing #80million #hashtags #intheir #facebookstatuses #lately #????? #catchmeup #byZway #babygoats #emily'shipsterglasses #frozenyogurt # Emily # Lauren

You need to keep your balance when toilets are actually holes in the ground—the walls help. (Disgustingly, in public restrooms it is common to see feces smeared all over the walls of the stall, because toilet paper is not often used here. Some Ethiopians use their hands, then wash them. Some use old homework; some use rocks: ouch!)

you're hilarious, latrine-door spiders. yes, i put my hands THERE on the door sometimes. yes, and also there. you've got it covered.

Bajaj flair is amusing. Whether it’s stickers of Jesus and Mary, or the pink fuzz hanging from the ceiling, or the mudflap that reads Shakira in the local alphabet, it is always amusing.

One of the bajajes in my town has "I hate you" painted in big letters on the side. Hoping I can snap a photo.

If only we had this problem in dry dry Tigray.

The upside to rainy season is that I don't have to go fetch my water from the stream. It floods in from under my door.

The cheapest U.S. motel instantly becomes Paradise. Just ask Debbie Luttrull.

Note how this Mekele hotel only crossed out a previous customer’s warning, rather than printing a new page or whiting it out: “Room 207 infested with bed bugs! Have a good day…”

nothing like coming back to your hotel room, turning on the lights, and seeing one thousand roaches scurrying around on your bed. Sweet dreams! At least it's not bed bugs, but then again, I won't know about that 'till tomorrow...

If only mosquito nets kept out those fleas and bed bugs.

While sleeping over at a fellow PCV's house my left eyelid was attacked! Yes attacked by an army of fleas! My eyelid is so swollen it looks like I ran into a door-knob...

Oh, the many uses of butter in Ethiopia. Our favorite: seeing Ethiopians with slabs of it on their heads, and a large leaf on top of it. Ironically, one year in and we’re still not sure where to find some ourselves.

So... It's popular to make coffee with butter here. I'm sitting that part out.

Is this Ethiopia’s version of sky-diving? If so, should I do it? Twice? This is a famous tourist attraction in Harar, Ethiopia, involving raw meat dangling from a small stick  between your teeth.

I fed a hyena with my mouth.

There is no OSHA here. Or any safety rules for anything. We have to sometimes dodge falling rocks that construction workers throw from the tops of buildings.

A good while back I was having tea w/ a friend, when he told me he was trying to get a job testing explosives for a company in Ethiopia. I said "Wow, that sounds like really dangerous work." He said "Yes, but it pays really good." .... And that was the last time I ever saw my friend Solomon. I guess he got the job.

We rarely have a clue of what’s going on in our communities. The bicycle man plays his foghorn siren every week, screaming angry Tigrigna down every street, and I still want to run for cover. It sounds like, “Run to your underground shelters!” but he’s really just announcing when we will and when we won’t have water this week. Valuable info we’ll never get.

It is not okay when your program manager calls you from the capital to tell you his brother-in-law called from your village to inform you that you should stay inside your house. There is turmoil in Aman as my PM put it and "Aman is treating the violence from yesterday again. Please stay inside." This would be a good time to know Amharic. oops! Livin la vida loca!! 14 months to go!

Rainy season in the south—where roads are blocked with mud for months, preventing travel—sounds ungodly.

"you will be taken to the dune sea and cast into the pit of harpoon, the nesting place of zarlac. In his belly, you will find a new definition of pain and suffering, as you are slowly digested over 1000 years." sounds familiar to my current situation

We feel most like we’re living in the Bible when people throw rocks at each other—and us.

So has anyone ever noticed on Beyonce's I am...tour dvd...when she's in Ethiopia she's crying...huh makes you wonder who threw a rock at her...lol j/k!

The Plight of the Ethiopian Female.  American women, we have no idea. Thank God every day that we’re considered at least close to equal with men—and are never regarded as workhorses.

Had my first parent/teacher conference today to talk a worried father into letting his daughter go to summer camp in July. I thought all was fine until my counterpart started yelling at him. After he left, I was told I would have to choose another student. The father was 'afraid' and said that his daughter is a girl and must stay at home and work. She was almost in tears while we were all talking. Poor girl. I think the father is lucky I can't speak fluent Amharic because I probably would have ripped him a new one.

Final words from our beloved sitemate.

Monkey!!! I may or may not have almost adopted a monkey...so I was almost home and I see this young guy with a baby monkey on a leash...mind u monkeys are not common in Adwa, Tigray. The guy said the monkey was hurt by the mountain? and he cared for it. Then I was trying to figure out what he was going to do with it. He wants to keep it, yay some people love animals here! I told him if he ever has to get rid of it I totally would raise it! But in the meantime he said I can come and play with the monkey whenever! He walks the monkey too. Good thing he is like a compound over. Crazy how I can be in the worst mood ever and hours later be in the best mood!

Ex-actly.