I was gonna clean my room but then I got shay.

I was gonna clean my room but then I got shay.

My room is still messed up and I know why. 

Because I got shay, because I got shay, because I got shay.

For those of you who do not and never have lived in Ethiopia then let me explain the concept of shay buna to you. Shay is the Amharic work for tea and buna the Amharic word for coffee. To say that here in Ethiopia shay buna is taken very seriously is an understatment. I don't think a single day has passed  that I have not been invited for shay buna at least once if not multiple times.  Often  while I am on my way to the office someone will stop me and ask me to join them. I will then get derailed spend an hour discussing nothing and end up going somewhere that is not the office.  In Ethiopia all true business is done over shay buna.  You can spend hours in meetings or simply invite people to join you and have something taken care of in a matter of minutes.  I can probably blame most things that I have not completed or done when I wanted to on the fact that I was pulled away from what I was doing ( sometimes quite literally pulled) and made to drink shay or buna. Now don't get me wrong these are usually great experiences. Yes there are times when I really just want to sit at my desk and work on a training or lesson plans but usually I am always up for free coffee. Really who wouldn't be? Especially if you have ever had Ethiopian coffee made in the traditional jibena.

 

On a side note this is my 4 year old friend Koki. I call him Koki monster.

 

Hey hey hey goodbye...PST.

Three months,
countless hours of language training,
countless hours of cultural training,
countless rolls of injera,
countless moments spent laughing because you said urinefall instead of waterfall,
and countless conversations awkward conversations with our host families have come to an end.
PST is over.
Last week I swore in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer.
Now after a week of consolidation due to unforeseen issues I am finally going to site.
Living in a town of 2,500 people, where a fridge is not a thing, its a good day if the power is on, and I hope access to water is constant.
Never have I felt more ready to start this chapter of my experience.

My goals going into this:
-improve my language skills
-make true relationships with community members
-make a lasting impression in my community
-learn as much as possible from those around me
-teach one person something that will better their life
-help one person better others lives through shared knowledge

I understand that I am not here to change the world.
But if I can change one persons world, then I have change their world.

Home is where the heart is...or your backpack.

Are ya ready for this?
My site has been announced this past week. We were told the name of our town and given a little bit of information.
Whats in a name you ask?
Well not a whole lot.
The name of my town is Chitu. Go ahead try to google it.
You will not find a thing.
But thats okay let me tell you a little about it.
It is just over 2 hours west of Addis close to a town called Woliso.
With just around 2,500 people in the town it is one of the smaller sites.
The woreda that it is located in has a lake, hotsprings (can you say hot tub??), waterfalls, and trees.
That is pretty much all I know at this time but I will be visiting next week via our site visit.
Hopefully I will be able to post my new address shortly.

How is Ethiopia you ask?
Well Ethiopia is a roller coaster of greatness.
Even the days that seem down hill are not so bad after a beer or two....but never three...
Each day is full of  new acronyms and the words ferenji and china being yelled as you walk down the street.
When we arent sitting through 10 hour language days or peace corps powerpoints (PCP) we are often sitting around playing MASH, why yes we are 16 years old again, or making sport.

When learning another language your native language happens to greatly decrease within a week or two. I now speak about three paragraphs worth of Oromifa and broken english.

Hopefully while I am in Addis this weekend I will be able to do a post with the pictures I have been trying to upload for a month now.

PS: receiving letters is great... just sayin...