You want me to go where???.... And do what???

4- the number of cups of shay

(Tea) I drank.

14- the number of cups of buna (coffee) I drank.

33- the number of times I introduced myself formally. 

4- also the number of marriage people's I received.

6- the number of phone calls I received from people I don't know that I think stole my phone number from my bank records.

The number of times I was laughed at when I spoke oramifa?

Unquantifable.

These numbers represent a fraction of my two days at site for site visit. The town that I will be living in is called Chituu. Everytime I see the spelling it is different therefore everytime I write the name it will be different.

My new home is a small town about 20 minutes by bus from Woliso a larger town in Ormoia regin Ethiopia. I am the first volunteer that this town will have. It is also one if the smaller sites in Peace corps Ethiopia. So far I am extremely excited to move to Ciituu to begin working. All of the organizations and sectors of government at the woreda level seem to be extremely excited to work with me and have ideas of ways I can help the community. They all seem to understand that I am poor and in fact there to share knowledge and technical training which is fan-freaking tastic.

The woreda that I am living in is known to be one of the most beautiful places in all of Ethiopia. There is a crater lake near me that I will get the chance to visit when I return. I did however snap some photos of the views that I am forced to see everyday for the next two years:

My life sucks right?

God look at that terrible endless blue skies and land of trees. Rough.

If that isn't bad enough I have to play with baby trees. 

If you didn't pick up on the sarcasm of the previous statements this blog is not one you should be reading. 

Reality is I got extremely lucky and will be hugging my PCLV as soon as I see him. Not only is my site amazing but my counterpart is great and really excited to work with me. He spend a afternoon introducing me to his family and making sure I knew that they were now my family. He also has what is quite possibly the cutest 5 month old baby girl that I have ever seen. 

Moral of this story is that when you put good energy out you get good energy back. I cannot wait to begin working with the community on projects. 

In Amharic there is a saying " ichaloau" ... Which I most likely just butchared the spelling of... That means anything is possible. 

Ichaloau. It's the truth people.

Heres the mail it never fails it makes me want to wag my tail.

So I have gotten many questions about care packages and what I would like sent to me.
I would like to start this off by saying I am beyond grateful for anything that is send my way. Letters, packages, love, positive thoughts they are all appreciated.
As far as packages go please include a list of what you put in it. When filling out a customs form being general is not a bad thing. Also dont say that the package is worth a lot of money because it will get searched.

Things that would be great to get:
-cheese...if possible
-mexican food of every kind
-seeds
-spices (spice packages like ranch are also great)
-toms (size 11...ethiopia eats shoes)
-dried fruit
-veggies of anykind that can be send (freeze dried ect)( cough kale chips cough)
-protein powder
- lotions/soaps/shampoo/conditioner that smell good (for my weekly shower... and yes i mean i shower once a week these days)
-soccer balls
-chocolate chips
-Gatorade powder (dehydration happens. daily)
-mixed nuts
-mustard/bbq sauce things of that nature
-new music/ movies on flash drives
-holiday boxes that are themed are always fun


Please please please do not send the following. I can get them in country:
-toilet paper
-dish soap
-peanut butter


If you happen to send me anything even if it is a letter that just says hello I will be responding with a letter. Sending mail is not super expensive here but it will take a while to get to you. I will not have a post office in my town but it will only be 20 minutes away so I can easily receive and send things .

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...

Let's start at the very beginning.

Pinch me. 

Somebody freaking pinch me.

I am currently sitting in Addis Ababa the capital of Ethiopia writing about my first week in the Peace Corps.

Is this real life? 

Seriously though I cannot believe this is my life right now.

So lets start at the beginning. I landed right around a week ago in this beautiful country. The first few days were spent drinking copious amounts of buna (coffee for those who didn’t become fluent in Amharic over night….aka me) and learning the framework for our projects. The majority of the time we spend in lecture at the hotel. The first venture out was to walk to the Peace Corps office but it wasn’t too noteworthy. Friday night was the first night we were given the chance to go out to dinner with a few of the current volunteers. We were broken down into groups and given a choice where we wanted to go. Naturally I picked the group that when the farthest and required the use of public transportation. Now let me just clarify something real fast for you. Public transportation has no comparison in the states. The only way I can think to describe it is 20 people piled into a minivan that was made to seat 8-9 people at most. In Ethiopia it is an urban legend that opening the windows in a moving vehicle spreads TB. In the western world we know the opposite to be true. So just imagine your first time riding a bus where someone is sitting on your lap, its 70+ degrees, you only know how to say the word for coffee in the language, and the bus driver is yelling at the only Amharic speaking member of your group trying to charge her 3x the amount it should cost for the trip because we are all Ferenji. It was just a situation that you have to sit back and laugh. To make this trip even more adventurous the restaurant where a reservation was made for the group of us to eat decided to do a Valentines day special, meaning we couldn't eat there. So we moved on and got some food. The next morning we had to be up at the crack of dawn. THE CRACK OF DAWN is not an understatement. around 4:30 am we were eating and getting ready to head off to our demistification trip.

My group was one of the lucky groups that were sent to a region that was far enough away that we had to fly. A 45 minute plane ride got us to the city of Bahar Dar. In Bahar Dar we meet up with the girl whose site we would be visiting. We stopped for lunch at a local restaurant. 

This is where we will pause for a slight lesson on things that could happen in Ethiopia.

Although the people of Ethiopia are extremely kind and generous they also tend to be a bit shale we say..explosive. It wasn't until Kirsten (whose site we were visiting) was blocking my head from a chair that almost smacked me that I truly understood this. Our waitress had gotten in a fight with her boyfriend that went from yelling to a chair being picked up and swung in a matter of 45 seconds. Shortly after this fight broke out it was over and everything was normal again.  A short 3 hour bus trip later and we were in the city of Gimjabet. This is the town that we would be demistified about the Peace Corps experience in. Shortly upon arriving in the town I quickly grew to love it. The people were kind and there was virtually zero harassment. After eating some dinner we walked to the top of this hill side to watch the sunset. It was absolutely breath taking. 

The next morning we woke up and had some delicious pancakes. After that we ventured off to Lake Zengena for a hike. Lake Zangena is said to have the devil living in the water. All I can say is damn the devil picked an amazing spot. 

The first picture is of the lake that we hiked around. The second picture is the view from the hill of the lake looking into town. We spent the rest of the day returning to town eating some dinner, drink some Ethiopian beer and sleep. Breakfast the next morning was an interesting start to the day. We had breakfast at the restaurant next to our hotel. The owner came out and insisted on taking our picture. After taking a group picture of the 6 of us he insisted that he be in a picture and then walked around and room individual pictures of each of us. In Ethiopia ferenjis are movie stars. All ferenjis.

The last day of demist was spent visitng the ag office and a small NGO the was increasing fruit production in farms by means of using plants that will not only benefit the farmer but also the soil. After visiting the ag office it was interesting to see the effects or lack there of that NGOs have on a community. They often drop off expensive equipment without training anyone in the community to use it. After these quick visits we returned to Bahar dar. Spent the afternoon sitting by the famous Lake Tana with other voluteers from the area. 

This coming weekend we will meet our host families and prepare to move on with them.

We did it, we did it, we did it hooray!

This is real life.

I'm sitting here eating breakfast at the King hotel in Addis Ababa with 70 other Peace Corps Trainees. We will not be offical volunteers until we are sworn in three months form now. 

This is our group known as G10. After our safe arrival at the Addis airport. I am so incredibly impressed with the talent and travels that this group is made up of. Everyone holds such a different story but at the same time has a very similar mindset. I guess you have to in order to do this. Were all a special kind of crazy.

The hotel that we are staying at is absolutely beautiful and the staff is incredible. I can already see a glimps of the spirit of the Ethiopian people and it makes my excitement grow.

I woke up this morning with a smile on my face knowing that today I imbark on the greatest journey of my life this far.

This is a picture of the view from my room.

This blog post isn't my best writing but I am still kind of out of it from a lack of sleep. 

I will post more before we leave Addis for training :)

One sleep people.

So I officially leave for Philadelphia for staging tomorrow.
That is one sleep.
Not that I will be sleeping tonight.
If there were a math equation sleep would be an imaginary (i) number between now and the time I leave.

So what whitty and insightful things do I have to say about tomorrow?

Ummm I should start to pack.....

Yes, you guessed it I have yet to pack.
I'm moving to a different country you think I would have my ducks in a line.
I do feel however that any doubts or nervous energy I have, have passed.
I am in the "OMG IM MOVING TO AFRICA" phase again.

Now that the nervous energy is gone I am pushing good juju into the universe.
This has already begun to be one of the best years of my life and I am hoping to continue
the trend.

This is the final countdown

Picture this: 

Rocky, never feeling more on top of his game comes to that final staircase.

The staircase that had defieted him so many times.

He begins to make his way up the stairs and before he knows it he is standing at the top thrusting his fists into the air.

He was ready for the fight of his life.

In my story my suitcase is the stairs. 

With every item I pack I am making my way to the top of the stairs. In just a few short days I will reach the top. With fists thrown in the air I will complete a victory dance that will someday be a vital scene in the movie of my life. I am preparing for the biggest fight of my life, and I too will be victorious. 

T-minus 6 days and counting.