What a full Friday!
on New Adventures in Ethiopia (Ethiopia), 13/Feb/2009 03:46, 34 days ago
Wow…Friday was a full day…our training classes were all pretty intense. We had language classes as per usual and we had a one hour lecture by a Dr. Constantinos who is apparently an authority in development knowledge. Patricia, the Country Director sang his praises and then he lectured and he was super intelligent however, he spoke so quickly and dished such intense information that everyone was lost. It was way too much too fast and to an inappropriate audience. .Today was my day allocated to sit on a table with the Country Director and have lunch. I totally forgot that was supposed to happen and I sat elsewhere until she came and got me. It was very awkward but I didn’t realize it was even Friday. My days are still a bit jumbled so I just remained quiet throughout the rest of the lunch. .After that, we had area-specific presentations by our Program area managers. For HIV/AIDS it was Tinebeb. She did a good job. Once our day of training was done, our newly formed crew (comprised of Silvester (Ugandan volunteer), Vishwa (Indian volunteer), Reisa (Filipino volunteer) and I)– went for a long walk. We went down the main street from the Red Cross center and walked to a bridge area where we got to see a side view of a slum type area above a stream that was heavily polluted. The view nonetheless was beautiful. We walked up and down the hill and saw so many things to observe including cute children looking at us coyly, younger adolescents following us and trying to listen to what we say or do, we stopped to look at what a lady was selling in bowls. We bought some roasted chick peas from her for 50 santeems and munched as we walked. In the process of buying we captured an audience who thought it was really amusing that we had no idea what we were saying or buying. .On the way back, we walked past the mud dwellings. We saw people living in mud houses, children running around, sheets laid out with beautiful red peppers drying in the sun. I found out later that this will be used to make berbere– an Ethiopian cooking spice. We actually saw a man building a mud wall. He was knee deep in mud and was mixing the straw and mud together to smear over a formation of rocks to solidify a wall. It was very interesting. On the way back up the hill, we stopped and entered a bar/café…it was quitedark inside so we sat in a lighter part and much to the amusement of the wait staff, tried to order beer in broken Amharic. It was fun; we talked about all the funny characters in our group. It was a good release to see that I wasn’t the only one to see that some of the people are a little weird…I’m happy with the friends I’ve made though, they’re really cool. .We walked back for dinner and talked about relationships over our meal and laughed profusely. It was fun. After dinner, Andrew accompanied me to the little shop on the corner to buy a phone card. I called it a day at that point. .