ashleysayque: October 2014

My new home: Wollisso

Adjusting to change can be challenging for most people, I have always know this..what I didn't know was that I was “most people”. Not to toot my own horn, but I have always thought of myself as very easy going, chill and an adaptable person, and I thought that it took a lot to shake me, and even more to break me down.

But count on Peace Corps and life in a completely different world to stretch me thin and test my adaptability.

My time living in Woliso has been challenging to say the least.

I started the first week full of excitement at the prospect of having my own place, my own space and more time to workout and the freedom to cook my own meals. I walked into my one bedroom, pink, concrete house and smiled to myself. I can do this, there is no furniture but by the end of the week that will change.

I unpacked all my luggage into my cozy room and laid down the foam mattress I had just bought. Surprised by how much space my belongings took up on the cold concrete floor.

Dont judge me for the mess lol

It was a little cluttered and very messy, but I knew that wouldn't last too long. During my site visit last month I proactively decided to talk to the wood worker in town and gave him a down payment on kitchen shelving and a table he was going to make for me…and that should be done by now. So I left my little home and decided to pay him a visit.

“Salam now? Indet Neh? Dehna Neh? Dehna aderk” Peace be with you? How are you? Are you good? Good morning?

(typical greeting in Amharic)

“I am fine, thanks be to God”
“Good, so did you finish my furniture?”
“Oh no, I will finish next week”
“Next week?”
“Yes next week, give me more money and I will finish next week”
“No, im sorry but you said you would be done now. I gave you money last month”
“Yes but I need more money.”
“No, I will pay you when you finish”
“Why dont you pay now?”
“Because you said you would be done, but you are not. I will not pay you again. I will pay when you finish”
“fine. I finish next week”

After this conversation I decided to take a look at what he had completed so far and he lead me to the back of his workshop and pointed to a pile of wood laying on the floor. A PILE OF WOOD ON THE FLOOR! Unbelievable and Im being overcharged for this furniture too… I had half a mind to just cancel the entire thing. I highly doubt he will be finished in a weeks time.

(A week later, he still hadn’t even started on my furniture so I canceled the order and lost out on my downpayment)

I guess my things will be lying on the floor for just a little bit longer than I thought. I decide to walk back home for the day, when it begins to rain. Small soft droplets turn into stinging bullet speeding rain drops and I end up soaking wet, and running into a nearby shop for cover.

Kaylee (another volunteer) and I stuck in a shop in the rain.

I wait in the shop for 10 min, until the rain slows down and I proceed to make my way home. as soon as I enter my house I notice a huge puddle of rain water spreading across the floor. I look at my belongings in horror to see what suffered the most water damage and am quickly relieved to see that my computer and other electronics are ok.

The landlady on my compound stands at the entrance of my door and peaks in to see the mess.

“There must be a leak in the house”
“Chigger yellum” No problem she says
and she points to my things and makes a huge sweeping gesture to the dry side of the room

“Alga beinyum” I dont understand, I say to her and she does the sweeping gesture again
… is she telling me to move my things?

a second later and my landladies niece, Kadisee, who is also another tenant in our compound comes in the room to translate.

“Shes saying you should keep all your things on that side of the room where the water will not reach.”

“oh ok…. yeah I will put them there for now, but this needs to be fixed.”

Kadisee just smiles and they both leave my soggy home.

Annoyed at my misfortune, I decide to rant to my PC friends and check up on them and how their first day in their new sites are going.
I grab my phone to make a call and notice that no calls are going through. NO calls, NO text, NO internet. Nothing is working. The system must be down. Whatever, its not a big deal.

instead I grab my kindle and begin reading Book 4 of The Game of Thrones. After an hour or so, I notice the battery charge on my kindle is low and so I plug it into the wall.

But nothing happens.

I plug my phone charger into the wall. Still no lightening sign to tell me that its charging.
I try my laptop. Still no luck

Maybe the rain knocked out the power too, I think to myself. This happened all the time in Butajira, when it rained you expected the lights to go out, the internet to go down. Everything stops working in the rain.

I get up to check out the light switch in my room, a little proof for my theory of the power being out.

*click*

Light fills my wet little house.
*sigh* so the power is working.. its just my electrical outlet that's not.

I call my landlady and Kadisee back into my room to show them the problem.

“See the power is on, the outlet just doesn't work!”
“ohh wow” Kadisee says

“Chigger yellum! NO PROBLEM. You will work at the highschool yes? Just charge your things there!" she says

“Uhm.. ok, but I need this to get fixed.”
“You can charge your things in the main house too” she says with a smile

ok am I missing something here? Is she telling me that for the next 2 years I should use the outlets at my school and in their house, or does she just mean for now?

I was reaching a boiling point. My little house and its pink walls were soo pretty, but why the heck is everything going wrong with it! A leak, no working outlets! I mean gosh what was next!

The next day I go into town to buy a basic bed frame, some pots, pans, buckets, a small electric stove and other things to help me settle into my house.

the Gabaye... A Taxi like service but on a horse drawn cart. They help with bringing your furniture across town.

As I'm setting up my room, Kadisee wanders into my place without knocking.

“Hi, let me help you” she says as she begins unpacking my items and moving things around
“uhm no thats ok”
“Lagazish” Let me help you. she repeats again, as she picks up my items one by one

At this point I do not want to be rude, but she is kind of in my way and I don't feel comfortable with her going through all my things. I trust her, but I honestly think she's just being nosy and trying to see what I own.

“You know what, I think I will do this later. I want to set up my bed for now.” I say
“Ok, you will sleep over there” she points to the far side of the room
“So you dont get wet when it rains”

Wait what…does this mean they aren't fixing this leak?! I start to panic. I cant deal with this anymore or take a chance. So I call Peace Corps to complain

“Daniel, there's a leak in my house and my outlet isn't working and I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think my landlady intends to fix it….”

The conversation with Daniel is pleasant, he says he will handle everything and call my landlady himself. Feeling a little better about it all, I decide to cook dinner. Spaghetti seems like an easy enough first meal. I begin boiling the water, adding the noodles and salt when the power goes out.

oh well, it will come back on. ill just wait.
After 15 min, it comes back on and I resume cooking.
8 min later, it goes back out.

UGH this has to be a joke! I try to call one of my PC friends again, but everything is down apparently. There is no connection.

I end the night eating very undercooked noodles. Sitting in silence and going to bed at 740pm because there is no power, all my electronics have died and I got tired of sulking.

BUUUUZZZZZZZZ

Something flys by my ear

BUUUUZZZZZZZZ

The sound wakes me up and I swing to kill the monstrous insect flying by my face.

BUUUUZZZZZZZZ

I hear the sound again and slap wildly into the dark, hoping I didn't miss this time.

BUUUUZZZZZZZZ
BUUUUZZZZZZZZ
BUUUUZZZZZZZZ

The sound of this thing flying by my ear is killing me! I can not go back to sleep. I check my phone and it is 830pm. I haven't even been asleep for a full hour. I can not believe this!
My mind begins reeling with thoughts about everything that has gone wrong up until this point. All these little annoyances just adding up and I don't even have someone to talk to!

I lay in bed angry. frustrated. hungry. lonely. depressed and…. itchy?
I find myself scratching my arms every 5 min.
Then later scratching my legs and my back.

Something is biting me on this bed, I soon realize and I grab my little blanket and pillow and lay on the cold concrete floor. Hoping that whatever was trying to eat me alive isn't in my blanket or pillow.

The next morning I wake up to find at least 30+ bug bites on my arms alone. What on Gods green earth did this to me ?!

I look around my room and see 6 baby mosquitoes on the wall. Where are they COMING FROM!?!?

These things have to go.

I spend the next hour in annihilation mode. I swear I was like rambo in there, slowly scanning the walls for baby mosquitoes, sneaking up on them and striking before they can fly away.

Me in Rambo mode lol

After getting rid of them I spray my entire house down with insecticide and go for a walk around town to avoid the fumes.

I run into my site mate Caitlin and we decide to run some errands together. We begin walking through town and after 2 minutes there are about 20 kids loudly walking and talking behind us.

“Wait are these kids following us?” I ask Cait
“I dont know…”
“Lets test it to see if they are…” I say.

I grab Caitlin and we walk over to the side of the road and stop.
The mob of kids stop too, then begin surrounding us, yelling out things in English and Amharic

“What is your name!”
Money money money
“Ferenji! China China Africa"
"My name is"
"Africa"
"Money money Give money!"

I begin to laugh, wow I cant believe this.
“ ok, No, my name is not “money”, its Ashley and this is Caitlin”

"Ashley! Ashley! Caitlin"
"Give money"
"Africa Ferenji"

I shake my head and we decide to continue walking.

"What is your name!”
"Money money money"
“Ferenji! China China  Africa"

"Ok stop!” Caitlin says in Amharic

The kids start laughing at her.
“balage!” Rude I say

The kids start laughing more and begin imitating the Amharic words that Caitlin and myself tired to say.

Photo of Caitlin, one of my sitemates!(I have 2!) Caitlin next to one of the monkeys in our town.

They follow us laughing and joking and calling out “Africa” and “Ferenji” for about 5 min, until an adult comes by and begins scolding them

We thank him and continue running errands.
Buying things in Ethiopia, when you aren't a pro in the language and you look like an outsider, can make things difficult. Its hard to get across what you want to buy, and because price tags do no exist in these smaller towns you are oftentimes overcharged by the seller. Sometimes I fight, and argue about paying the “foreigner” price and other times I just dont even care.

Today with Caitlin, I tried to fight the prices but ultimately got lucky because a man in town decided to help us out….or so I thought.

This guy spoke some English and decided to help explain to the store owner what we wanted. He took us to one store and did this, so by the end of it, I gave him a sincere thank you and I had decided to give him $10 birr as well. (which is ALOT to just offer freely)

“Ahmasayguhnahlow” Thank you I said, as I handed him the bill
“Silsa” sixty He replied

Wait what….I thought and I paused for a second
“Silsa” He says again and grabs my extended hand holding the 10 birr bill
“Aye. Ahsiir, ishie.” No, 10 ok. I say

but he stares blankly at me and refuses to let go of my hand.

This guy is crazy if he thinks Im going to give him 60birr for no reason. He helped us a little but I never agreed to pay him anything. I was just giving him money to be kind and now hes demanding 60birr… 60birr will by you an entire dinner in this town.

“Silsa.” he says again, and I see his eyes roam over to the small clutch purse I am holding.
by this time a small crowd has gathered, watching this man and the 2 foreigners having a dispute.

I pull my arm free, say “No” and a police officer approaches.

The police officer is looking at me and speaking in Amharic, asking questions. I cant understand a word he is saying, but I turn my head to look around and the guy who was demanding money has disappeared

“Algabeinyum, aznalow, tinish Amarinya” I dont understand, Im sorry, little amharic, I say to the officer

“You have problem?” he replies
“Chigger Yellum” No problem Caitlin says

The police officer smiles, nods his head and leaves.

I head home and enter my 1 bedroom house. All my belonging spread out on the floor. The place is a mess, my arms still itch, my electronics still have not been charged and I'm just over life in Ethiopia.

I'm annoyed at the world. I miss my PC friends. I wish I were home and clean and had hot water and working outlets and power that never goes out!

I feel like screaming. I feel like praying. I feel like crying.
but I do nothing but sit there grumpy and upset.

And this is my very honest account of the first few days at my site. It hasn't been easy, I am not always smiling and happy and actually during the rest of the week I spent most of my time hiding inside my room. Every trip outside of my house is a bit of an adventure, there are always people staring, people trying to cheat me out of money and days where I just dont want to even try and speak in Amharic. Integrating into my community will be more difficult than I thought. Even the idea of integration exhausts me. Sometimes my town seems more fascinated by me than by my white site mates!

“black foreigner! black foreigner!”

 “she is habesha ferengi”

“she only speaks english!”
“obama obama obama!”

It gets a little annoying knowing everyone in town is watching you and knows who you are. But I just keep trying to remind myself that

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.”

-Ecclesiates 3:1

This is my time to adapt and adjust to my new home. To get used to this half of my Peace Corps service and find my place in this new world. Through all this newness, uncertainty and change I only pray that I am resilient. That I remember why I am here. Its only the first week after all, this time and season of change will pass and I realize that there is something to be learned from it. I've realized that during the times when I'm feeling downtrodden, lonely and I just don't want to smell the inside of another shint bet, Gods grace pours over me in overwhelming amounts. I'm reminded that I am His and cared for by the smiles of children I see on the streets. I wake up in the morning and see His grace in the beauty of the world around me, and during this particularly difficult week I experienced His love through the body of Christ made up of members of my family and friends from my church. An unexpected care package, a joke told by a friend, or a talk with an Aunt and cousin brought a smile to my face and a light in my heart, as I know my Lord is reminding me that I'm not alone. That although I'm in Africa He is with me, and I see him everyday through the actions of family and friends when I need it the most. I have the most amazing family and friends, and with all that by my side, I am more than ready to tackle the remainder of my 2 years in Ethiopia.
“One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother”

-Proverbs 18:24