1st week of December
Wow, 5 months in country! That’s crazy!!!! I know
it’s been awhile since I’ve updated on anything that happening in my town of
Injibara. I really haven’t been doing much, going to school almost 5 days a
week for a few hours (2-4). I haven’t started doing anything in the school, but
I go and show my face. It’s nice when a teacher or student walks into my office
or says hi to me as I walk on campus.
I did move houses, not sure if I mentioned that in
my last post or even when my last post was. I’m still getting settled in. I
don’t have any furniture to sit on in my main room. So for now I sit on my yoga
mat and do all my work. It’s not ideal, but it works for now. Now that I have a
house I like and feel comfortable in, I spend a great deal of time at home.
Within the first couple of days of living on this compound, I was invited to
coffee three times, once at another renter’s home. The compound family is nice
and the renters are nice. So far I have only met two, but there is a third
room, but I never see anyone coming in or out of it. The gentleman to the left
of me (or between me and the shint-bet) seems nice, I’ve only had short
conversations with him, he does speak decent English, so I could potentially
have a good conversation with him. The female tenant is a teacher (at I’m not
sure which school, the same school as my landlady), she teaches Amharic. My
landlady is a geography teacher. The landlord works in for the administration.
There are two children, Samuel who is 4 and Eldona who is 8 months.
Sammy comes in my room all the time. I laid out
crayons and paper hoping to get him to write and draw, but it took over a week
for him to do that. He likes to run in and run out. He laughs all the time and
is a ball full of energy, just like any 4 year old. I try to watch movies with
him, but he isn’t interested. He likes to draw and sort of write his ABC’s. We
are working on those. He attends KG, which is like kindergarten and pre-school,
so he is learning. If there is anything lying around with letters, he tells me
the letters, he knows them very well. I don’t see the baby much; she’s normally
on either her moms back or the worker girls back. Which reminds me, I forgot to
mention her, the worker girl. She is really nice, the first week I was here and
the water came on she got water and carried my buckets for me to my house, it’s
not a long way, but it was very nice of her.
Last Saturday a few of us G9ers (like 6) got
together and celebrated Thanksgiving. We had chicken, mashed potatoes, coleslaw,
pumpkin soup, rice, pineapple salsa with carrots, bread, wine, and yellow cake.
It was a nice afternoon with great company.
I’ve been having Amharic tutoring, but I don’t know
if it’s helping. I get frustrated. My tutor was teaching me something that I
had to clue what it was, a different way to say verbs, like a command, but PC
didn’t teach us that way. So I got frustrated and explained I had no idea what
he was saying. Also tutoring is at night from 6-8pm and then I miss dinner or
eat at like 8:30, so that makes me grumpy. I told my friend and my tutor I
needed to find someone who could work with me during the day time, I have lots
of free time during the day, but at night not so much. So hopefully I can find
someone, maybe a high school or college teacher, who can work with me during
the day time. I speak to a lot of people who speak a little English, but I do
get frustrated sometimes when I don’t know what someone is saying. Language
does not come easy for me. It is my biggest struggle most days.
Harassment has gotten better, ever since PC came and
gave a little speech at my school. I now get “Chaye, Chaye” instead of “frenji,
frenji” or “you, you”. Occasionally there is still that, but overall the kids
have gotten better. There are still days I don’t want to travel a certain way
because I know there may or may not be someone who says something and there are
days were all I want to do is stay in my compound or close by because everyone
knows me. I think that’s a PC thing though, to have days were all you want to
do is stay in your house all day.
Well, I guess that’s a quick or not so quick update
on me. I know holiday season will be rough, seeing how Black Friday was rough
for me, all I wanted to do was cry and I’m not sure why. I plan to spend
Christmas and New Years with other PCVs so it shouldn’t be too bad. Then I’ll
spend 2 weeks in Addis Ababa in January. So there’s plenty to look forward to
or at least hope to look forward to!
Until next time, love and miss y’all!!!
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