Dehan doe!
SO I know I haven't blogged in a while, but hopefully this blog is awesome enough to make up for it. I have a few more blog entries I didn't have a chance to post that will be posted at a later date, so sorry that stuff may be out of order for a bit. Either way I wanted to tell you about my amazing site visit!
If you've been reading my Facebook statuses then you know that for the past week I have been visiting the town of Maychew in the northern Ethiopia state of Tigray. This medium sized town is going to be my home for the next two years (starting in December) and I had the opportunity to go there last Saturday.
The town is AMAZING. It's about 34,000 people (best estimate) and it is the capital of the Endamehoni woreda (similar to counties in the U.S.). It is surrounded by mountains, and the tallest mountain in Tigray and second tallest in the country is right by the town! The top of it is covered by clouds when it's cloudy and some of the volunteers may make a trip up there in January. Most of the people here speak Tigrena (though many can speak Amharic too), so the day before we left I had to switch language classes and begin my Tigrena training.... I thought Amharic was hard? I wish I could go back! There are even more conjugations (14 instead of the 10 we had before) for each verb and the pronunciations are more in the back of the throat. In addition, most of the words are VERY similar to Amharic, so I keep mixing them up. It was a rough first day. But it's an amazing language, and even fun at times because it legitimately sounds like the cookie monster speaking Amharic.
My house in Maychew consists of two decent sized rooms that are part of a compound. There's one family that lives in the compound and they are AMAZING. They were so nice throughout my visit and helped me in any way they could. They have already adopted me into their family, encouraging me to eat with them whenever I wanted and calling me their brother, son, etc. The family consists of Tilahun (dad), Hadas (mom), Danny (oldest boy), Berhan and Alefu (next two girls), the fraternal twins Yared (boy) and Lydia (girl), and Christy (youngest girl). I could not believe how quickly I got attached to them, and I'm so happy I already have TWO families here in Ethiopia (my other family is the family I have been living with during these first few training months... they are discussed in the skipped blog post I will put up later).
My family aren't the only nice people in Maychew either. So many of my future friends and coworkers have shown me around the city, bought me meals or bunna (coffee), or just had a conversation with me to make sure I'm doing ok. The first day in Maychew was the craziest. The mayor of the city personally drove me around Maychew and the surrounding communities in his car, showing me the coolest spots and the important places. In the middle of our tour, we got a call that a woman in one of the nearby villages was having trouble giving birth and needed a ride to the hospital in our town. We hurried to help, but we didn't make it back to the hospital in time and she gave birth right there in the bed of the truck! I like to pretend I helped deliver the baby... but that's not really true. The mother was covered the whole time and a midwife was there who helped her. Still a crazy welcome for my soon to be new home!
Well time is running up at this cafe, but I hope everyone is doing great! I really miss everyone at home, but this experience is indeed incredible. I hope I'll have another chance to post soon, but until I move to Maychew my internet will be quite sporadic. Still, keep an eye out for more crazy adventures from this side of the globe!
Love,
Biggie Smalls
SO I know I haven't blogged in a while, but hopefully this blog is awesome enough to make up for it. I have a few more blog entries I didn't have a chance to post that will be posted at a later date, so sorry that stuff may be out of order for a bit. Either way I wanted to tell you about my amazing site visit!
If you've been reading my Facebook statuses then you know that for the past week I have been visiting the town of Maychew in the northern Ethiopia state of Tigray. This medium sized town is going to be my home for the next two years (starting in December) and I had the opportunity to go there last Saturday.
The town is AMAZING. It's about 34,000 people (best estimate) and it is the capital of the Endamehoni woreda (similar to counties in the U.S.). It is surrounded by mountains, and the tallest mountain in Tigray and second tallest in the country is right by the town! The top of it is covered by clouds when it's cloudy and some of the volunteers may make a trip up there in January. Most of the people here speak Tigrena (though many can speak Amharic too), so the day before we left I had to switch language classes and begin my Tigrena training.... I thought Amharic was hard? I wish I could go back! There are even more conjugations (14 instead of the 10 we had before) for each verb and the pronunciations are more in the back of the throat. In addition, most of the words are VERY similar to Amharic, so I keep mixing them up. It was a rough first day. But it's an amazing language, and even fun at times because it legitimately sounds like the cookie monster speaking Amharic.
My house in Maychew consists of two decent sized rooms that are part of a compound. There's one family that lives in the compound and they are AMAZING. They were so nice throughout my visit and helped me in any way they could. They have already adopted me into their family, encouraging me to eat with them whenever I wanted and calling me their brother, son, etc. The family consists of Tilahun (dad), Hadas (mom), Danny (oldest boy), Berhan and Alefu (next two girls), the fraternal twins Yared (boy) and Lydia (girl), and Christy (youngest girl). I could not believe how quickly I got attached to them, and I'm so happy I already have TWO families here in Ethiopia (my other family is the family I have been living with during these first few training months... they are discussed in the skipped blog post I will put up later).
My family aren't the only nice people in Maychew either. So many of my future friends and coworkers have shown me around the city, bought me meals or bunna (coffee), or just had a conversation with me to make sure I'm doing ok. The first day in Maychew was the craziest. The mayor of the city personally drove me around Maychew and the surrounding communities in his car, showing me the coolest spots and the important places. In the middle of our tour, we got a call that a woman in one of the nearby villages was having trouble giving birth and needed a ride to the hospital in our town. We hurried to help, but we didn't make it back to the hospital in time and she gave birth right there in the bed of the truck! I like to pretend I helped deliver the baby... but that's not really true. The mother was covered the whole time and a midwife was there who helped her. Still a crazy welcome for my soon to be new home!
Well time is running up at this cafe, but I hope everyone is doing great! I really miss everyone at home, but this experience is indeed incredible. I hope I'll have another chance to post soon, but until I move to Maychew my internet will be quite sporadic. Still, keep an eye out for more crazy adventures from this side of the globe!
Love,
Biggie Smalls
