How is Africa?

Ethiopia= a country.

Africa= a continent.

Africa is to North America

as

Ethiopia is to________.

If you can complete this word problem then you my friend batam gobez ( very clever).

But I'm guessing your confused why I started a blog post with a grammar question.

It goes without fail that when people ask how I'm doing they start with

"How is Africa?"

I live in Ethiopia which yes is on the continent of Africa. 

But asking me "How is Africa?" is like me asking you "How is North America?".

Most people outside of Africa don't realize how diverse the continent really is. I am not claiming to be an expert in anything Africa since I have only been to three countries here, but I have seen enough to realize that answering "Hows Africa" isn't possible. Shoot I couldn't tell you what is happening in the North of Ethiopia half the time let alone Botswana. 

Americans tend to have a perception that Africa is all the same and all facing the same problems but that just isn't the case. One country might be facing civil war while right next door is the fastest developing country in the continent. But like I said I don't claim to be an expert but I just want to encourage people to expand their way of thinking outside of America. Maybe take some time to Google news that will show you problems that are happening outside of your bubble.

In case you didn't know just how big Africa is I'll just leave this here.... 

 

Giving of The Thanks

After spending 7 months now in my small Ethiopian village there are many things in my life that have been brought to light. This might be due to all the sunshine I am experiencing or the copious amounts of time I have to think about things.  With Thanksgiving already here I really want to take this time to share with you how truly thankful I am for my education. You don’t realize in the states just how good your education is even if you grow up in not the nicest of neighborhoods.  Comparing the resources that are available to students and teachers in America to what they have in Ethiopia is not even possible. Teachers in the high school earn around 2,500 birr, or 125$ USD, each month.  Class rooms here are made up of desks and a white board. Teachers often time have to bring their own chalk to class. Class sizes range from 60-80 students and some teachers have to teach more than 6 sessions of their class. The school library consists of four bookshelves with books. This library is for all the students in both the high school and primary school. There are no children’s books and very few novels. As someone who reads at least one book a week this is heart breaking.  How can we expect students to do well in school when most of them cannot afford the textbooks they need for class? How do you encourage students to think critically when many of them don’t have food to eat at home?  

So this my friends is where I make a plea for you.  This holiday season while you are online shopping, purchasing that perfect gift for your loved ones can you take a second to think of the children of Chitu, Ethiopia? If you visit Betterworldbooks.com you can purchase a book and have it send anywhere in the world for free shipping and handling. Whats even better is that the books are extremely affordable. Take $5 and send me a book to have donated in your name to our school library. The process is simple. Pick out your favorite book, be it a childrens book or a novel, add it to your shopping card and when you go to check out enter my address as the address to have it sent to.  Can we solve all the world’s problems?  Not in one day. But we can take a small step in helping the education of students. This holiday season spread the love all the way to Ethiopia!

My address:

Andrea Spake

PO Box 306

Woliso, Ethiopia

Peace Corps Baby!

 I have now been in Itiioopyia for 9 months.

That my friend is in fact a Peace Corps Baby.

I have been attempting to think of a name for this beautiful experience thus far.

I think I shale name this Peace Corps baby Patience.

I also feel this is an important time to reveal my analytical, scientific, totally awesome theory on the similarities of Peace Corps service and pregnancy. Have I ever been pregnant? Well no. But I have Wikipedia (when there’s network) and that is a credible source right? So here it is ladies and gentlemen.

A Comparative Analysis of Pregnancy and Peace Corps Service.

Written By the Future Dr. Andrea Spake. Dr. Dre for short.

Peace Corps is described as the toughest job you will ever love. The person who coined this phrase was not lying. Service however is not difficult for some of the reasons you may think. Sure it is difficult to have to wash clothes by hand, and sometimes it would be nice to have electricity. But through this paragraph or so I will attempt to prove that the difficulties in Peace Corps service are similar to those difficulties that are experienced by one half the population of the world; Pregnancy. You are now thinking Dr. Dre how in the world are you going to compare your dirty hippy Peace Corps service to the beautiful gift of bringing life into the world? Also you’ve never been pregnant so how can you speak on its behalf? It’s true they seem very different at the surface level, but the similarities will surprise you. Yes, I have never been pregnant but I have seen pregnant women. Scientists often write about animals they have never been right? Trust me I studied biology. 

The first example in this super scientific paper is strange cravings. This is common knowledge about pregnant women they crave strange food. The same is true for Peace Corps volunteers. The difference is we PCV’s cant always cure this craving. Speaking from experience I even have dreams about food. Really vivid, wake up tasting it, dreams. This is something I never experienced in my life. I find myself having to physically close my eyes while watching TV shows or movies because the sight of food I can’t eat makes the cravings worse.

My second example is the constant mood swings of a Peace Corps Volunteer. I have been around plenty of pregnant women so this one I can say in confidence as well. Pregnant women change their moods just as often as I do. One day you are on cloud nine enjoying life and the next minute you are screaming in your house cursing every person you saw that day.

What other outrageous connections can I think of? Let’s see there is the constant change in weight, both loss and gain depending on the volunteer and the fact you can’t always control your bodily functions.

So to conclude this super dooper scientific paper I just want to say this: don’t judge yo.

#realtalk

The longer I am in service I realize how much we, as PCV’s, contort our journey in social media.   Don’t get me wrong some things that we post really do showcase the work we do. But the honest truth is that our daily thoughts may not be as interesting or profound as we make them out to be. This post is dedicated to the daily thoughts of a PCV.

Just killed three flies #lordoftheflies #killinem

9 months in service and I still haven’t shit my pants #shithappens #nottome

Retract that last status #shitmypants

Missing my one true love #chesseplease

I financially support my town post office with how much mail I send #hoesindifferentareacodes

Two weeks no water? Its cool I didn’t want to shower anyway #whatsthatsmell #ohthatsme

Best advice since arriving in country? Never trust a fart #preachit

Day 3 since I have left my house #doireallyneedit

Today I watched two seasons of Orange Is The New Black #prison #iunderstand

Its been a week since I shit my pants #onedayatatime

I admit it, sometimes I flirt with the fruit suuk guy to get a discount on my oranges #ballinonabudget

I love it when people forget my name so they call me foreigner in the local language #saymyname #saymyname

*For the record I, Andrea Spake, have not yet joined the cool kids club of shitting my pants. But it is a constant fear for many of us PCVs. No one should live a life of fear. I would like to ask you to take a moment of silence for all PCVs who have experienced this tragedy.