An Aykel Tale

Last week I headed to Aykel for a combination helping Peace Corps do site identification, visiting Morgan, and running into my counterpart who was at a training (if he’s there, it means it’s work right?).

Doing site identification interviews with Peace Corps – buna break!

Aykel is the site of the other G8 volunteer in the North Gondar Zone, the lovely Morgan Davison, check out her blog here. It’s about 1.5 hours southwest of Gondar on the road to Metema (border of Sudan 120km away) and the capital of the Chilga region.

In Aykel- awful soil erosion, but cool photo

A sizeable town of about 45,000 Morgan is the only volunteer in her site. There are plenty of connections between her town and “the big city” that I live in. Many of her friends have family in Gondar, and the owners of my favorite juice place are cousins of her landlady.

Aykel also has many connections to the US. There are pockets of Aykel Diaspora all over the country, and talking to some of the people, they knew exactly where everyone from that town was living (a rundown of 10 in Denver, 30 in Seattle etc. ensued).

But the history of those immigrants is unique for this city. While people leave for many different reasons, a large group came through refugee camps in Sudan in the 1980s and 1990s during squirmishes on the Ethiopian-Sudan border. On a hike outside of the town, Teddy, the tourism officer, took us to a cave on the outskirts that a couple hundred people used as shelter during the conflict for about 3 months.

During the rainy season, the entrance to the cave becomes a roaring waterfall and the water at the bottom is believed to have holy healing powers since it sheltered so many refugees during the war.

The cave becomes a Holy Site

Had to take our shoes off because of Holy Ground

Washing clothes in the “holy water”… drained to a trickle during dry season

Some walked from Aykel all the way to the border (about 120 kilometers) to safety. One such guy lived in America for years before coming back to invest in his small town, and now owns one of the best cafes we visited. An example of Diaspora development, returned investment and America’s role in refugee support finds a success story in this small town.

This One Time, In Tikel Dingay…

I went to a town called Tikel Dingay last week… ok, get the jokes out now.

As Peace Corps prepares for 70 G9ers to come in this summer all in the education sector, staff are looking to new towns to place volunteers. As a nearby volunteer I got to help with the site selection interviews, and learn a bit about of the education system in the process.

Tikel Dingay is a small town of about 11,000 half an hour north west of Gondar. It’s pretty average as a site- small town, farming community, high dropout rates, exhausted teachers, willingness for a volunteer, but buzzword answers about what they would do there.

And what’s with the name? Apparently this is a Tikel Dingay:

So the scenery isn’t too bad. There’s a crazy rock formation around every corner. This area is well known for its sesame seed production, and it’s only an hour or so from the border with Sudan on the road to Humera and ultimately Khartoum.

It has a cluster of primary schools, a high school (non-prep) and a preparatory school (grades 11 and 12). The site selection process is a combination of sector specific interviews (with education offices, school directors etc.) town interviews (police office, mayor etc.) and general impression taking. The reality is that each site depends on the volunteer that gets placed there. A great volunteer can get a crappy site, an unmotivated volunteer can get a fantastic site and they can produce the same change (minimal). But every once in a while you get a motivated town, filled with motivated people, working with a motivated volunteer and cool things can happen.

Here’s hoping for Tikel Dingay! And a new North Gondar Zone volunteer for family dinners : )

Day and Weekend Trips of Gondar – Part 1

So what is a girl to do when she lives in a hub town? I can’t get out of site to do my “banking” or “buy vegetables” or “insert other excuse to leave your village here.” Of course these are all real reasons people leave site, and I’m very lucky to have these amenities in Gondar, but when I want to get outta town for a bit there are plenty of day and weekend trips of the adventure and rejuvenation variety around.

#1: Bahar Dar

Bahar Dar is a lake town about 3.5 hours by minibus away. It sits on the southern end of Lake Tana surrounded by monasteries on islands. The city is the regional headquarters for the Amhara Peace Corps Office, and boasts some nice lakeside resorts. It also has an abundance of fruit and vegetables I can’t get in Gondar (read- strawberries!). The Kuriftu resort is the favorite spot for Peace Corps volunteers to get some sun and ice cream. Just don’t tell them I’m not a member!

The Kuriftu pool

#2: Gorgora

Gorgora is a small village on the north side of Lake Tana about a two hour drive from Gondar. And by two hour drive I mean a two hour span of “road” made out of what I can only assume to be cow paths, water erosion paths, and giant holes. Should have worn a sports bra.

But once you get there, there is a lovely little resort (Tim and Kim’s Village) run by two Dutch expats with some of the best cooking in the West Amhara region. There is also a monastery on the nearest island—thought it’s males only. However, we ladies were able to take out some canoes and meet some of the local fishermen. Fresh fish for dinner!

Canoe adventure

Sunning on Lake Tana

Tim and Kim’s Village in Gorgora

Papyrus fishing boats

Buying some fresh fish for dinner from the local guy in the middle of the lake

A Bit About Gondar

So I’ve been living at site for just over two weeks now, and I’m getting a lot of questions about what it’s like. Hold your horses people, let me get to know the town first!

Ok, I stepped outside my house for two seconds. Here’s what I gather so far:

Skyline of Gondar

Gondar is a big city of about 350,000 (very rough guestimate) that is steeped in Ethiopian history. It was established as the capital of Ethiopia in the 1660s, though no longer is (what up Addis Ababa and Menelik II!). It was the seat of power for Emperor Falisides way back when, and he built a bunch a castles here. Thus, the city is known as “the Camelot of Africa.”

A close up of the castle

The city is built on a hill. The castles and the ancient city are located at the top of the hill (like every ancient city ever). There is a market area and a “piazza” roundabout (another volunteer) and the area is near my work. I live mid way down the hill, and further down is a teacher’s college (and another education volunteer) and the University of Gondar (another health/ICT volunteer).  So a total of four volunteers and one giant hill.

Part of the ancient city walls near my office

In addition to the castles, there are seven ancient churches built by subsequent rulers. One such ruler was Tewedros II, who one Ethiopian told me was “the right man at the wrong time.” His major contribution is basically destroying Gondar’s economy in an attempt at modernizing the army (but yay for roads!), but then saving the city from the Italians in the 1800s. He was ultimately defeated by the British and actually committed suicide with the gun Queen Victoria had given him as a token of friendship years earlier. For his efforts he gets a statue in piazza.

Tewodros on a rainy afternoon in Piazza

Father down the hill is my house- about a 15 min walk to my work at the AIDS Resource Center. It’s a nice neighborhood with a primary school that has some sort of chant over the loudspeaker in the mornings with the kids… 80% cute, 20% creepy. A bit further down my road is a stadium that sounds like a good time on Sunday afternoons. My compound is nice and quiet (cue Kudjo the guard dog barking as we speak).

Not a bad view- the mountains, not the junkyard tires

Traveling further down the hill, passing “expat row” where all the hospital doctors and medical student researchers live (in fancy apartments and where the “rich ferenji” stereotype comes from), and continuing on out of the city is the major volunteer tourist attraction- the Dashen Brewery.

Dashen Cellar on tap

All you Denver microbrew lovers, keep your pants on, it’s nothing special, but it’s one of the more solid beers of Ethiopia- think Blue Moon. I know, Peace Corps is so hard.

And that’s a little overview of my site for the next two years. As cool as all of these things are, and as excited I am about my work (more on that later), I think the number one reason I like living in Gondar is the 300% increase of Lord of the Rings jokes there are in my life now. Keep ‘em coming!

The Drive to Desie and Back: Settling In

Happy New Year!
(and belated Merry Christmas!)

2012 has been crazy! And moving in to my site right at the end of it was the perfect summation of the huge amount of change, adventure and starting over I have done this year. This past week has been a whirlwind of meeting people for work and in my neighborhood, setting up my house, and hosting other traveling volunteers. Because my site is a big cultural and historical city for Ethiopia, many volunteers (and volunteer’s families- wahoo free meals!) come through at some point in their 2 years to check it out. Looks like I will have a much fuller social schedule than the average volunteer (not a problem for me!)

But before I even arrived in Gonder, I got to travel across northern Amhara through the Ethiopian countryside, moving from lowlands to highlands and into the Great Rift Valley to close up shop in my previous site, Dessie. Traveling across Ethiopia is simply breathtaking. Imagine driving through 5 Grand Canyons, past a few Devil’s Towers, into the Rockies while passing some Nebraskan farm fields along the way, but all in the space of New England, or half of Colorado. There is no way to describe it and photos cannot do it justice, but I put together a short video anyway. This is just North Amhara- the Oromia Region (Ethiopia’s breadbasket) Tigray (Sub-Saharan Desert) and Southern Nations (Hammer Tribe and more typically “African” tribes) offer an even wider array of scenery! Enjoy!

Ethiopia Travel video

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Nooks and Crannies

This update is going to sound like an advertisement for Thomas’s English muffins. And maybe this is because about 70% of my thoughts are about food, but I promise there is a point, bear with me.

This past week I visited the town that will be my work site and home for the next two years. So I went in with a “you will like it or die trying” attitude. I think the mantra helped.

My site, Dessie, is large town of about 200,000 nestled between/on/in/around/under/through Mount Tossa (thyme in Amharic). They say it was designed by a blind man if that gives you any clue to how very nestled we are. The walk up to my house from my work is literally a 45 degree angle hike up a mountain. I highly doubt Peace Corps will be able to get a car up there with my luggage… I will be the fittest volunteer in Ethiopia. The pro to this, besides the exercise, is that nobody would bother walking up that way unless they lived there so I won’t have any strangers hanging around. And of course the view. I live above the clouds.

The eight hour drive from Addis Ababa to Dessie is breathtaking. A road through flatlands, mountains, valleys, cliffs, and farms, the only way I can describe the topography of Ethiopia is as a Thomas’s English muffin. The sheer cliffs and mountains drop so suddenly into valleys and steppes that it literally looks like the pastry’s nooks and crannies. I apologize for the lack of photos in this blog so far, my internet access has always been shorter than I want.

On the road from Addis to Dessie, an attempt to capture the landscape

But this week also produced some other realizations about culture, physical space and my place here that fit oh so nicely into the nooks and crannies theme. Moving into my house and beginning to meet my landlord’s family I started to understand the spaces, both big and small that I would be occupying in the compound and their lives. Right now I am the new exciting thing, but all I want is to be boring and ordinary. I never realized how much we prize privacy in my culture until I had none at all. I take my private moments in fits and starts- on a walk to work, sitting in café, the few minutes before I fall asleep. Squeezing my personal preferences and idiosyncrasies around the already established norm, I will settle into new routines and develop relationships that compromise the halves of a mismatched muffin.

While I am still dipping in and out of cultural nooks and crannies, I will also need to find my place and purpose in work and with my site specific reasons for volunteering here. It was nice to meet my coworkers and possible partners over the next two years, but it is clear I will be in and out of projects and organizations, providing bridges and weaving relationships, navigating the mountains and valleys of the professional bureaucracy.

The view from my office at the Aids Resource Center in Dessie

Finally I need to literally fit in the physical nooks and crannies. Attempting to return to my training site on my own yielded a very harsh lesson in safety and physical space. I already know that I am just about four inches too tall for any bus in Ethiopia. When my knees are hitting my chin, my elbow is behind my head, and there are five people in a seat made for three, a three hour bus ride feels like five. But when this is preceded by fights at the bus station (typical) where I am grabbed and shoved away from boarding (atypical) I do sometimes wish I was 4’2”.

But the best part of an English muffin is the juxtaposition of a crunchy toasted peak next to a buttery pool in the cranny. What makes this experience worth it is both the highs and the lows, the mistakes and the education, to form a more complete delicious whole. I probably could have made the same analogy with the bubbles in injera, but I eat so much of that I wanted to leave it alone for a while.

One Week to Go

As of this time next Tuesday I will be just about here:

On my way to Ethiopia!

That “X” is my most accurate drawing of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Ya, get jealous. Ethiopian Airlines knows how to do it in style. So this is the week before I leave for a 27 month commitment to serve in the Peace Corps as a Health/NGO Development volunteer in Ethiopia.

The most common questions I have gotten this week are as follows:

1. How are you feeling?

- How vague of a question in that?? I am nervous, excited, stressed, jittery, anxious, butterflies in my stomach, SO happy, and a bunch of other cliched but very real emotions for someone about to move to a new continent for two years.

2. What are you packing?

- Ha! I think the worst thing for my sanity was reading other Peace Corps volunteer’s blogs to death about what they packed. And then their very next post was to say- Don’t bring any of it! So I won’t give any advice whatsoever about packing… until I get there and discover what I definitely should have left at home (I predict the 10lbs worth of peanut butter) and the things I’m sure I forgot (always the toothbrush). I think one of the best things I am packing though is a photo album with notes from friends (useful info for future volunteers, I know).

3. Have you been stocking up on American culture before you go?

- If round-housing a double bacon cheeseburger counts, then yes, yes I have.

4. Will you have internet?

- We shall see I suppose. But this would be the place to keep up with me!

5. What does your mom think?

- Ummm… you should ask her. She’s really nice. In fact, if you set up an email chain with her about my possible whereabouts over the next two years, you could make a fun game out of it. Like where in the world is Carmen SanDiego, but with more coffee and less red hats.

So check back in every once and while over the next couple years to see what I’ve been up to, learn a bit about Ethiopia, and maybe laugh a little.