J-Funny Thing #1: The Junior Horse Thief
We were sitting at our favorite Mana-Jussii (juice bar) enjoying some papaya/papaya & avocado juice when a garri (horse drawn cart) pulled up to deliver water to the shop. There is a particularly adorable little kid who hangs out at this shop. Either his father is the owner or his mother is one of the waitresses. He’s about 4 years old, if I were to guess, and he’s one of the cutest little kids I’ve seen here. He likes to play a waving version of peek-a-boo with me whenever I’m in the shop. Well, when the cart pulled up, the man driving it and the woman waitressing both start to unload the barrels of water from it. Not missing a beat, the little kid jumps up on the cart, grabs the reigns, and uses the reigns to “mush” the horse so that it starts to pull out onto the road. He only got about 3 feet before the cart’s owner grabbed the horse to stop him and the waitress pulled the kid off the cart, but it was funny enough that everyone in Mana-Jussii was busting a gut over it. The kid looked pretty darn proud of himself as he ran past us into the back of the shop, and I couldn’t help but think, “This is what kids do when they can’t play Grand Theft Auto on a gaming consol.” I will forevermore think of him as the pint-sized horse thief.
Funny Thing #2: Cows Going out for Coffee
It is common practice here that coffee shops cover the floors of their restaurants with fresh-cut, long green grass. It’s an old-fashioned symbol of welcome here, and I personally love it because it means all the coffee shops smell like freshly mowed grass. However, it appears that I’m not the only one who enjoys this smell. Today when we were walking by one of the coffee shops (which had apparently been temporarily been abandoned by its owner), there were three very large, black cows wedged into the doorway of the shop. It was such a bizarre site that it took me a second to realize that they were eating the grass off the floor. The truth is, the coffee here is so good that even the cows need to go out for a shayii-buna break!
Funny Thing #3: The Wheelbarrow Sheep
Just when I thought my odd day was over, I saw something that really, REALLY made me wish that I had my camera. As we were sitting down to enjoy some dinner and a draft, we spotted a man walking down the main road with a fairly large sheep. Now, seeing someone walking with a herd animal is hardly newsworthy here, but it was the manner in which he was walking that had us both in stitches. Normally people either have their sheep tied to a rope either by their neck or by their horns. Sometimes you’ll notice a person taking the sheep by its front legs and pulling it in the direction that they want it to go. Not this man. No, instead he had taken both of the sheep’s hind legs and was jogging behind it at a rather brisk pace. I mean it sincerely when I say that it looked like he was engaging in a one-man wheelbarrow race with the sheep as his partner. I’m not sure if I will ever see this brave soul with his trusty sheep partner again, but I genuinely hope that I do, because words will never do justice to this particular comedy act.
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Fiche is Fabulous!
J-Before we were assigned to our permanent sites, our director told us that “90% of PCVs think that they have the best site in their country.” I honestly believe that we do. Back before they had our sites assigned, we were asked what we were looking for in a site. Our specs were: 1) Cold if that’s possible, 2) Green, 3) Rainy, 4) Clean air, 5) Strong enough internet connection that we can access at least once every week or two, 6) Not too big, not too small. Boy, did they ever deliver!
Fiche is perfect for us climate wise. It really reminds me of Oregon in terms of that, though as a general rule when it rains here it tends to be for part of the day instead of for days on end. We also get a decent amount of thunderstorms, our favorite type of stay-home weather. Unlike a few of the other places I’ve been in country, the air smells so fresh and clean that you enjoy every breath of it. Granted, the air’s a little thin this high up, but we tend to be fully adjusted to it within a day or two of getting here.
It’s green, green, green as far as the eye can see here. When you take the 2-ish hour drive up from Addis, part of you would swear that you’re driving through the shire, except that you see little clusters of grass huts instead of Tolkienian hill houses. There are rolling fields, plenty of pasture land for the abundant sheep, goats, and cows to graze on, and the town is surrounded by tall hills. So far, our favorite geographic feature is the massive gorge that surrounds our town. We haven’t managed to get a picture that does it justice yet, but I promise we will post one as soon as we do. It actually looks quite similar to the Grand Canyon, only it’s green instead of red. Beautiful.
I cannot wait to start teaching classes! I will be teaching 3 classes a day at the Prep School in my town. All of my 3 classes are going to be 11th grade, and I will meet with them 5 days a week. I’m hoping that means I will be able to see them improving and growing over the year I teach them. Class sizes are supposed to be around 45 which is actually pretty small here. Some of my friends who I was training with were told that they would probably have classes of about 90. The school itself is lovely. It’s covered in trees, which of course makes the Oregonian in me feel right at home. The classrooms are relatively modern; they even have plasma-screen TVs in them. Now, how exactly those TVs get used in my classes could be a slight point of contention in the coming months, but I’m really hoping that I can use them to incorporate PowerPoint into my classes.
From a technology and electricity standpoint, this place is pretty darn good. The power only went out 1 time during our site visit, which is impressive considering what we’ve experienced elsewhere. On our street alone there are 4 internet cafes with a good connection and fair prices. That means that, in addition to Facebook stalking all my friends here and abroad, I will be able to keep the blog relatively well updated. This is turn means fewer mass-postings and better updated information. Maybe it even means that my blog could be a contender for the PC blog contest that would get me sent home for a few weeks to see friends and family (more on that later when the voting opens up)!
Last but not least, we have a lovely home. Unlike a lot of PCVs, we get a two room house. That might sound small to people reading back home, but it’s more than enough room for us. We’ve already ordered a bed, 3 chairs, a table, and a counter for it that should be ready around the time we move in. We even got a little front porch. The compound is grassy and green (again), and I’m hoping that my landlord will let me dig some of it up to plant a little veggie/spice garden in. The epitome of awesome comes in the form of our detached bathroom. We have a western style toilet. I’ll say that again, we have a throne toilet and will not be spending the next 2 years squatting over a hole. I can’t really put words to how disproportionately happy that makes me. Granted, it’s tankless and that means that you have to bring a bucket of water in to flush it, but I really don’t care about that detail. The only downside is that our “shower” is a faucet head that spews water so icey-cold that it makes the one back in Butajira feel like a spa. All that means is that we’re going to buy a couple of buckets and an instant water boiler and take bucket baths for the next 2 years.
All in all, I think you can tell how happy I am with this site placement. :-D
Fiche is perfect for us climate wise. It really reminds me of Oregon in terms of that, though as a general rule when it rains here it tends to be for part of the day instead of for days on end. We also get a decent amount of thunderstorms, our favorite type of stay-home weather. Unlike a few of the other places I’ve been in country, the air smells so fresh and clean that you enjoy every breath of it. Granted, the air’s a little thin this high up, but we tend to be fully adjusted to it within a day or two of getting here.
It’s green, green, green as far as the eye can see here. When you take the 2-ish hour drive up from Addis, part of you would swear that you’re driving through the shire, except that you see little clusters of grass huts instead of Tolkienian hill houses. There are rolling fields, plenty of pasture land for the abundant sheep, goats, and cows to graze on, and the town is surrounded by tall hills. So far, our favorite geographic feature is the massive gorge that surrounds our town. We haven’t managed to get a picture that does it justice yet, but I promise we will post one as soon as we do. It actually looks quite similar to the Grand Canyon, only it’s green instead of red. Beautiful.
I cannot wait to start teaching classes! I will be teaching 3 classes a day at the Prep School in my town. All of my 3 classes are going to be 11th grade, and I will meet with them 5 days a week. I’m hoping that means I will be able to see them improving and growing over the year I teach them. Class sizes are supposed to be around 45 which is actually pretty small here. Some of my friends who I was training with were told that they would probably have classes of about 90. The school itself is lovely. It’s covered in trees, which of course makes the Oregonian in me feel right at home. The classrooms are relatively modern; they even have plasma-screen TVs in them. Now, how exactly those TVs get used in my classes could be a slight point of contention in the coming months, but I’m really hoping that I can use them to incorporate PowerPoint into my classes.
From a technology and electricity standpoint, this place is pretty darn good. The power only went out 1 time during our site visit, which is impressive considering what we’ve experienced elsewhere. On our street alone there are 4 internet cafes with a good connection and fair prices. That means that, in addition to Facebook stalking all my friends here and abroad, I will be able to keep the blog relatively well updated. This is turn means fewer mass-postings and better updated information. Maybe it even means that my blog could be a contender for the PC blog contest that would get me sent home for a few weeks to see friends and family (more on that later when the voting opens up)!
Last but not least, we have a lovely home. Unlike a lot of PCVs, we get a two room house. That might sound small to people reading back home, but it’s more than enough room for us. We’ve already ordered a bed, 3 chairs, a table, and a counter for it that should be ready around the time we move in. We even got a little front porch. The compound is grassy and green (again), and I’m hoping that my landlord will let me dig some of it up to plant a little veggie/spice garden in. The epitome of awesome comes in the form of our detached bathroom. We have a western style toilet. I’ll say that again, we have a throne toilet and will not be spending the next 2 years squatting over a hole. I can’t really put words to how disproportionately happy that makes me. Granted, it’s tankless and that means that you have to bring a bucket of water in to flush it, but I really don’t care about that detail. The only downside is that our “shower” is a faucet head that spews water so icey-cold that it makes the one back in Butajira feel like a spa. All that means is that we’re going to buy a couple of buckets and an instant water boiler and take bucket baths for the next 2 years.
All in all, I think you can tell how happy I am with this site placement. :-D
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