lucky if you think of it as home.

It's been a few days since I've been home, and it's not as weird as I'd imagined. I think I spent so much time thinking about what would be different and challenging that I over hyped the entire "re-entry" concept.

The only truly odd thing about coming back has been the little things I've noticed. In the Frankfurt airport (while enjoying my wheat beer and pretzel!), I was enthralled watching the interactions between the twenty-something waitress and the middle-aged male customers. It wasn't flirting, per se, but more of a friendly banter that made me realize how long it's been since I've seen men and women interact without awkwardness. Now I'm seeing it everywhere and realizing how incomplete life is when you feel uncomfortable around half the population. This relates back to my desire to take salsa or hip-hop classes - after three years, I'm tired of the idea that a woman's sexuality is something to be repressed or feared. Perhaps the novelty will soon wear off and I'll experience the disillusionment with Western consumerism that most volunteers experience. But for now, I'm enjoying the ride.

Now that I've left Ethiopia, if you're craving more stories from the birthplace of humanity, I've linked to several of the more active PCV blogs to the right.

home is where the heart is.

Gazing out over the scenery while riding the dawn bus from Assela to Adama, I found myself humming a vaguely familiar tune. As we rounded the curve and the full vista of shimmering gold wheat fields in front of distant mountains came into view, I recognized the opening bars of "America the Beautiful," a traditional American song.

"O beautiful, for spacious skies
O'er amber waves of grain
For purple mountains, majesties
Above the fruited plains"

In that moment, Ethiopia looked just like the vast plains of the American midwest where I was born and I realized that Ethiopia had become a second home to me. Looking back, I hardly remember my first frightened trips to the market, testing my fledgling Amharic as I bought a kilo of onions or found the grinding mill for the first time. Today, it all feels like second nature to me.

While my time here has been filled with challenges as I adjusted to living far from home in a new culture, now, just days before my departure, my mind is filled with only the joyous moments of the last two years. The young woman who stood up in an English class full of men and said she wanted to dedicate her life to campaigning for the rights of women around the world. The boy who shyly thanked me and told me that every Ethiopian he knew wanted to go to America, but I was the only American he'd ever seen in Ethiopia. The old woman who passionately taught her daughters that respect is a universal human right. The prisoners overjoyed to discover they deserved the same opportunities as anyone else. The teacher who said he can identify an American because we are always smiling and treat everyone the same. The bus passengers and cafe patrons with whom I shared countless humorous cultural exchanges. The list is endless.

My heart is torn as I alternate between excitement about going back to America and sadness for this new home that I'll be leaving behind. I believe that more unites us than divides us, and never has that been more true than after my time in Ethiopia. When I first arrived here, all I could see was how different Ethiopia was from America. But in time, I realized that deep down, we are all citizens of the world; we all want the same things - the opportunity to improve our lives and leave the world a little better for the next generation. The comfort and love of a family. I'll miss the Ethiopian family I've created here. I'll miss catching my breath every time I look up at the beauty of Chilalo Mountain silhouetted against the crystal blue sky. I'll miss being welcomed like a long lost friend in my local cafes and restaurants. I'll miss introducing dozens of Ethiopians to American chocolate cake and falling asleep to the sound of rain crashing on a tin roof.

In America, we say that "home is where the heart is." If that's true, then my home is scattered around the world, but there's now a little piece of my heart snugly nestled in the Ethiopian highlands. One day, I'll come back to find it again.

-my submission to Peace Corps/Ethiopia's program newsletter and my last post from Ethiopia.

freedom hangs like heaven.

I finally read The Poisonwood Bible, and although Kingsolver is much too flowery a writer for my taste, I still couldn't put it down. Perhaps because I'm here, but it turned out to be one of those books that will probably forever stay with me. Part of me wishes the preacher had tripped coming off the plane and sustained a brain injury that would leave him forever mute, but I'm sure anyone else who's read the book could have predicted I'd react in that way. There are passages throughout the novel that I felt like were stolen from my own thoughts. About trying to make sense of your own culture, lifestyle, and beliefs in a world where they're frankly absurd. The daughters' reactions to the lives and behaviors of the villagers. Reconciling yourself to the reality that you must live under every assumption based on everyone who's ever looked like you while knowing full well you'll be lambasted for venturing any assumptions of your own. The child-like fascination with the local food, dress, culture, lifestyle - everything. The odd things you find yourself missing from home. Your tiniest, most mundane action being fascinating, every single day for months on end. Feeling like a regular in an establishment to which you've never actually been. The notion that no amount of time or language ability is enough to allow a white person to truly fit in and be accepted. It's comforting to know that you're never the only
one.

As I come down to my final weeks here, I'm starting to think about what Ethiopia will mean to me - how do I take this experience home with me? How have I changed? The five-person narrator style of the book did a lot to set me reflecting on how people allow Africa to affect them. (This will be one of the few times I willingly refer to "Africa" in the broad sense - culturally, each country is drastically different, but the overall effect on Western mores is similar, and that's the only context in which I'll ever use the term). Some people end up feeling forever guilty for the privilege in which they were raised - I don't want to be that girl. There are aspects of America that I'm sure I'll find overwhelmingly gluttonous - we probably don't need twenty varieties of canned soup, but all I can see is the other side of that equation. With rampant consumerism comes choice, and the belief that all of those choices are equally (or at least marginally) valid. I'd rather have twenty soups I don't have to eat than have to justify my job, love life, children or lack thereof, eating habits, what I do or don't do on Sunday mornings, or anything else to anyone else. I now appreciate those choices more than I ever would have if I'd never lived without them. I'll probably also forever appreciate the tiny details of my privileged life that I've historically taken for granted - running water, electricity, parents who allow me to live my own life, friends who appreciate that I form my own opinions, a government that allows me to publicly disagree with it. I'd like to fall somewhere in the middle, not renouncing my own background to become "African," but not also writing off the entire experience as a closed chapter in my life, never to be revisited.

Less than four weeks left. I just can't believe it's been this long already and I don't even know how I feel about leaving. There are reasons here for which I'd stay, not forever but for a time. But there are also reasons at home for which I'd leave tomorrow. People join the Peace Corps to "find themselves," but after life here, everything seems feasible, so how do I weigh those reasons and figure out how I'll carry Ethiopia with my for the rest of my life?

photos finally posted.

The links in the last post should actually work now - I finally
finished posting photos from the trip. Hope you enjoy!

victory is sweet, even deep in the cheap seats.

Photos:

Uganda: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2892561&id=2001205&l=a8e8ff8849
Rwanda: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2892547&id=2001205&l=bc92401ce9

As the photos suggest, the trip was incredible. I've never met so many ridiculously friendly people as I did in Uganda. Even the immigration officials had enormous grins on their faces. When we stumbled into the rioting in Kampala, people went out of their way to make sure we weren't involved. Our bus driver warned us about streets to avoid, and a woman ended up walking us a kilometer out of her way to show us to a bus station we were trying to find. And this wasn't limited to saving the mzungus from chaos - on Bushara Island, a stunningly beautiful camp on Lake Bunyonyi (thanks Will for the recommendation!), the staff were equally attentive (apologizing for food being late? Inday?). Bushara was a Peace Corps Volunteer's dream - sustainable, eco-friendly camp (composting toilets!) staffed by the local community and where all profits go back into the community. Scholarships for students, orphan caregiver businesses, handicraft cooperatives, vegetable garden on the premises, dance troupes, dugout canoe trips - the works. We further proved our theory that if you're willing to make a fool of yourself, people will love you forever. Ugandan dance is not beginner-friendly. Lots of spirited leaping high into the air - exhausting. But more more free and uninhibited than most Ethiopian dances, so it was refreshing to move something besides our shoulders. We definitely felt it the next day though! We stayed in a sweet little "treehouse" (although not actually in a tree) with a balcony overlooking the lake and a gorgeous outdoor shower. Glorious. I'm going back if I ever find myself in Uganda again.

Rafting the Nile is better described in photos (we successfully navigated our way down a 12 foot waterfall!), but I'm now considering abandoning all my academic plans and getting certified as a raft guide. That would be the life, for a few years at least. One of our fellow rafters was a Kiwi working for a charity that funds, among other things, an NGO in Somaliland (not Somalia!) working on education and rehabilitation for former Islamic militants. He found my excitement rather odd, to say the least, but is putting me in touch with the directors to see about possible teaching jobs. You meet the most fascinating people wandering through Africa.

And the mountain gorillas. Yes, it's worth it. A 400-pound silverback walked within a meter of me. They're such breathtaking animals, it's easy to see how Dian Fossey ended up spending her life with them. I've never felt so poor in all my life though - we were surrounded by middle age, high-end travelers decked out in all the fancy trekking gear and wearing several thousand dollars worth of camera equipment dangling off their belts, and there we were, the backpackers in ratty clothes, staying at the ten-dollar a night hostel and fretting over the cost of hiring a car to the park entrance. I think the park staff noticed and took pity on us though, because we ended up trekking the Susa family, the largest of them all (41 members when most have 10-15) and also the family that Fossey studied. After scrambling up wet undergrowth on a 45 degree incline at 2500 meters for three hours, we walked up to a sleeping silverback, the family matriarch, and her six-month-old baby. And it just gets better - we ended up seeing at least 24 members of the family, including the playful five-year-old twins who seemed to love posing for our cameras. You're so close that a telephoto lens is actually a handicap. Incredible.

Within our group, we also had a very amusing travel companion, who apparently had "the worst shower of his life" at a $500 per night resort overlooking the volcanoes. We amused our fellow trekkers with stories of Ethiopia, which was simply beyond comprehension for most. Peter frightened them all describing how excited Karen and I got when we discovered that sliced bread abounds in Uganda (seriously - people walk around the bus station selling it! I haven't seen sliced bread in two years!). Note the number of photos we took of us eating basic grocery store food. And then there were the crisp green apples on every street corner. We had a mild breakdown in a supermarket in Entebbe trying to decided between three kinds of equally priced cheese (it took us close to ten minutes to reason it out), then a similar incident when faced with six varieties of sliced bread. We won't even discuss our reactions to finding such a glorious supermarket. Just a precursor to the odd creatures we're going to be when we come home. Consider yourself warned.

We also spent a few nights in Gisenyi, on Lake Kivu, a quiet little lake town that has actually been slightly ruined for me since I learned that it served as the HQ for the interim government/genocidaires when the rebel army captured Kigali. But it boasts a quiet lakefront beach, where we had picnics and made friends with random Rwandan wanderers who asked us for, in order, a book, lotion, and to take his photo with all of us. Plus a couple of teenage boys who proved unable to speak directly to women, diverting all their questions about Karen and I through Peter ("What book is Jessica reading? How old is Karen?"). We spent our evenings at a beach front bar enjoying the local Primus (served in 720 cl bottles!) and playing with the resident dog and her seven (!) puppies. That's an impressive litter anywhere, but to have that many survive in Africa? Wow. I had to be restrained from taking one or more home with us.

All in all, an amazing trip, riots and all. Both countries are highly recommended. Peace Corps officially booked my flight and I'll be home November 15. Crazy. New VSO volunteers arrived last week and the new PCVs arrive in Assela on Saturday (can't wait to meet you all!), so I have plenty of distractions for these final months.

never again.

For a lot of people, Rwanda exists as the genocide and nothing more. In a way, that's true - it's impossible to be there without thinking about it. But the country shows an incredible recovery. Kigali feels virtually like a first-world capital - paved roads, shiny glass buildings, and some of the cleanest streets I've ever seen. (Perhaps the nationwide ban on plastic bags - in favor of paper - has something to do with that). After the genocide museum and memorials, the country's development seems that much more impressive. The museum is one of the most moving places I've ever seen - the final room is filled with enormous photographs of child victims, complete with information about their lives before the war. Things like their favorite toys or foods and personalities...and then how they died. The one that made me lose it was a little six year old boy who liked helping people, wanted to be a doctor, and who's last words were "UNAMIR will save us." He was hacked to death by a machete. How? Why?

In only fifteen years, the visible signs of a violent civil war have disappeared. But I don't believe the memory ever will. Eight hundred thousand people - ten percent of the population - gone forever. Walking down the street, you can't help but look at everyone and wonder "Where were you?" Did you watch your family slaughtered in front of you? Did a stroke of luck or the generosity of a stranger save you? Did you betray a neighbor? Or worse yet, did you hack your friends and neighbors to death? With every child over the age of fifteen, you can't stop yourself from imagining what they saw. I just finished reading Romeo Dallaire's (the Canadian general who headed the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda before and during the genocide) Shake Hands with the Devil (a book everyone should read) and I've never been so horrified by anything in my life. Rivers choked with bodies, rats the size of dogs, dogs that had to be shot because they'd developed a taste for human flesh and were no longer satisfied with carrion. Trying to remove a moving person from a pile of bodies only to discover that the maggots inside created the illusion of life. The mission didn't have pens and paper, let alone troops and supplies, yet they stayed, constantly urging the Security Council that they could stop the killings with 5,000 troops. The inaction of the world was shameful, and all the more so because it seems we've learned nothing.

But what struck me more was the incongruity of it all. Rwanda is one of the most naturally beautiful places I've ever seen. Lush green hills, rust red dirt - it's the Africa a child would paint. There's nothing impressively beautiful in the way the Grand Canyon or a flawless beach is gorgeous, but more of a calm tranquility that makes what happened even more unbelievable. More shocking is how much a part of life the genocide reminders still are. In one of the most densely populated countries in the world, where even steep hills are intensely cultivated, there's simply no room to move away. We visited a genocide memorial in a church outside of Kigali. You walk down a residential road to reach it, which is difficult enough, only to find that the gates face a school. Walking through the church, with the stifling odor of death and decay and pews piled with a nauseating volume of rags that were once someone's clothes, you can hear the shouts of children in the schoolyard. In the back are underground graves with piles of skulls and bones. They look the same at first, then you notice the smaller skulls or the gashes or the shattered eye sockets. A lone man silently leads you around the grounds and all you can think about is that he has to have a reason to be there. You don't want to ask in case it's guilt, but then what kind of person are you for hoping it's "only" to remain close to the memory of those he lost?

What happened in Rwanda needs to be remembered, but it's unfortunate that the reminders haunt those who can never forget instead of those who stood by and condoned the atrocities. That church belongs in Washington, DC, in Brussels, in Paris, in London, or on the grounds of the UN building, not in the backyards of the survivors. Never again.

life is what happens when you're making other plans.

"Insensate cruelty to those you can whip, and groveling submission to those you can't...It was inevitable that she should accept any inconsistency and cruelty from her deity as all good worshippers do from theirs. All gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise they would not be worshipped. Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear and fear is the most divine emotion. It is the stones for altars and the beginning of wisdom. Half gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood...The physical impossibilities in no way injured faith. That was the mystery and mysteries are the chores of gods. Beyond her faith was a fanaticism to defend the altars of her god. " - Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

I think I've recovered from my Toni Morrison-induced disdain for an entire genre of literature. I've recently finished both Hurston (above) and A Raisin in the Sun, both of which were excellent. Eyes was set in Depression-era Florida, which was entertaining. I also finished the Old Testament (!). Traumatized is a rather gentle word. Read it cover to cover, not just the inspirational quotable bits you'd get in a sermon, and I think you get a better picture of why I can't believe. The indiscriminate punishments, the inconsistencies, the violence (and let's not even get into the frequent rape and gender issues), the holding of grudges and punishing the many for the sins of the few. What's the use of worshiping primarily (or solely, one might argue) out of fear? How is that a god in which anyone could find solace, his non-existence notwithstanding? On a side note, I was rather disappointed that all the allusions I was hoping to better understand turned out to be only a few verses long.

In less contentious news, I recently experienced the joy and efficiency that is the Assela police station. When my wallet was stolen earlier this summer, it seems I was right to think it was too good to be true that someone would be returning it to me. It never showed up and I can't get in touch with the guy who supposedly had it. Alas. Anyway, without an Ethiopian resident ID, I can't get discounted airfare and there are rumors that we have to return the ID in order to leave the country, so I figured I should have that replaced. Unfortunately, you need a sealed police report in order to get a new one, which strikes me a rather silly, since I highly doubt there's much of a market for a resident (not citizen) ID with a white girl's photo on it. But I digress.

I anticipated the process being torturous, so I went with our security officer when he was in town. The "chief investigator," who I sincerely hope is downsized tomorrow, refused to help us because we said it was "lost on a bus" and there was no way of knowing if it actually happened in Assela (never mind that we just wanted the piece of paper, we weren't going so far as to actually request he investigate the crime or anything crazy like that). Fikre (our security officer) happens to be friends with the chief, so he went over his head and talked the chief into forcing a report for us. Fikre was angry enough to not even shake the investigator's hand when we left, which is probably closest to the American equivalent of defecating on someone's desk. I was told to call in a week to see if it was ready. I did so. It wasn't, but would be the following week. I went back. The chief was gone and no one knew what I was talking about. I called Fikre to get the chief to share the situation with his underlings. A week later, I was assured the report and chief would be there the next day, so I showed up again. Chief was gone and no one knew what I was talking about. Three calls to the chief established that my ID had been stolen, but nothing else. While refusing to sit in protest, I managed to make it clear that the report was finished and I just wanted to pick it up. A fourth call to the chief determined this was not the case.

At this point, my standing was making people nervous (we were rapidly approaching the hour mark), so the guy in charge ordered someone to write the report for me. After verifying the name of the country (The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia) in which he was born and has never left, he embarked upon the task. By hand writing on a piece of double-wide notebook paper, with a sheet of carbon paper in the middle so they could have a copy (I suppose I should be grateful I didn't have to wait for someone to write a second one). Three stamps were applied, someone signed it, and tore the sheet in half (not even cut). At the last moment, someone was sent across the street to buy an envelope. An hour and twenty minutes after walking in, I was solemnly presented with a torn piece of notebook paper in an airmail envelope with another symphony of stamps across the flap. How many people would you guess it takes to reach this state of affairs? I'll give you a hint. A normal person wouldn't have enough fingers to tell this story with dramatic hand gestures for emphasis. We peaked at 11 officers, plus four random people in there for their own reasons (all of whom arrived after and left before me, furthering my frustration). Remind me to never be robbed again.

I wish I wasn't such a slacker at staying in touch with old professors. I'm going to have such horribly mediocre letters of recommendation while applying for graduate school and a means of funding it that doesn't entail black market organ donation. I had also not opened my CV file since before leaving Jordan, which was an unfortunate mess to clean up and update. I haven't brought myself to start the even more excruciating process of personal statements and the like. Baby steps.

Funny how nothing ever seems to go according to plan and we always end up better for the things and people that stumble across us. You'd think we'd learn to just stop planning and live.

Wishlist:
-Cheese in any form
-Original cheddar goldfish crackers
-Hollandaise sauce
-Sourdough pretzel nuggets
-Fritos

in your world my feet are out of step.

It occurs to me that group 3 of the PC Ethiopia program has probably received all of their invitations by now and are panicking as they attempt to fit their entire life into 80lbs in the next two months. If you've stumbled across this blog googling "peace corps ethiopia," feel free to email me if you have any questions, concerns, whatever. That's what we're here for. You'll all be training in and around my lovely town of Assela, 2600-ish meters above sea level in the shadow of Mt. Chilalo (4139m), where the weather and scenery are gorgeous and there's no oxygen. A great place to start running, if you're given to such silly notions - Assela is the capital of Arsi Zone, birthplace of all of Ethiopia's marathoners. One lap around the stadium track and you'll understand why. A free word of advice - don't bother with solar anything. Your house will have power, and electricity cuts are most common in the rainy season, when there's no sun anyway (13 months of sunshine, the national tourism board slogan, is a misnomer at best).

I've been reading Huxley's Point Counter Point and find myself thoroughly entertained by that generation of literature's assumption that readers speak several languages. Latin and French references are never translated, and although I don't actually speak either language, I enjoy the nostalgia for a time when English speakers weren't necessarily monolingual. Ditto for references to classic literature - one brief line, and the reader is just expected to understand all that Morley or Proust encapsulates (if wishing made it so). Those were the days. I also love the way he talks about sex and love in a poetic, roundabout way - somehow it's sexier than the more explicit, direct descriptions of modern literature.

On that topic, I recently had a fascinating discussion with Eshetu about homosexuality (and sex in general - after all, I AM an HIV educator). Like all Ethiopians I've met, he's repulsed by the idea, although less condemning than most. For him, it's more of a lack of experience than anything else. Anyway, we've danced around this topic a few times in the past, so this time he took the plunge and asked about the mechanics and purpose of homosexuality. I made the argument that in today's world (well, in non-genitally mutilating cultures at least), sex is more about pleasure than procreation (and hence penetration). Why else would we need and have bothered to invent contraception? If it was only about babies, then there'd be no need to prevent pregnancy. Eshetu himself admitted that he and his wife have had sex more than their two children would require. From there, I think it's a small step to suggest that homosexuality isn't any less "normal" than foreplay or sex with no goal of procreation. Not to mention that it's absurd to suggest that it's a choice - even in the most liberal cultures of the world, who would honestly choose to be treated that way by parts of society? Eshetu pointed out that my explanation ignores all religious opinions, but that's hardly new for me. Religion doesn't have to account for the opinions of non-believers, so why should I?

This led into a discussion of the wrath of the God of the Old Testament (I'm into Lamentations now - I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!) and my belief (I won't say "faith," because I have evidence) in science eventually providing an explanation for all of life's little mysteries. Historically, mankind invented a god with a chariot to explain the sunrise and a few seeds of a pomegranate in the underworld to explain winter, so I think it's only a matter of time before other things follow suit. I was also halfway through Dawkins's The Selfish Gene, so maybe that explains it (highly recommended). I think hanging out with three science-loving atheists is really pushing Eshetu to question blind faith and decide if he truly believes in his religion or if he's merely following what his parents taught him.

Wishlist:
-Cheese in any form
-Hollandaise sauce
-Sourdough pretzel nuggets
-Fritos
-Mac and cheese