Parting is such sweet sorrow...

It really is. I know it’s a cheesy, overused line from one of the greatest love stories ever told (at least in some people’s opinions… or maybe just in mine), but the line is used so much because of the truth it has to it. This past week I had to part with two very good friends, and though I was incredibly sad to see them go (and losing them both in the same week REALLY sucked), I couldn’t help but reflect on the time we had together and be grateful. Today I want to dedicate this post to these two outstanding individuals and the difference they have made to my Peace Corps experience.

Last Monday, I had to say good-bye to my best friend and tutor, Getachew. I met Getachew during site visit way back in October. He was already best friends with Mike, the awesome Canadian VSO volunteer in town, and it was only natural that Mike would introduce us. I liked Getachew from the start: he was smart, kind, and just as excited to have me in Maichew as I was to be there. Of all the Ethiopians I’d met in country, he was the first one I automatically hit it off with. Ethiopian culture is so different than our own, that it makes it difficult to make great friends. The obvious language barrier combined with the overfriendliness, lack of similar interests, and completely different sense of humor (Ethiopians really do laugh at the strangest things) makes Ethiopians fun to hang out with, but only for a little while before things get awkward. Getachew was different, partially because he has met and befriended many foreigners in his life but mostly because he’s just so dang awesome. He’s funny, smart and hard-working, understands that foreigners are not that touchy-feely, and knows that when we politely decline kolo (a delicious snack of roasted grains) it’s because we really don’t want any and asking 568 more times will not change our mind.

Once I moved to site for good, Getachew was instrumental in my acclimation to Maichew. He helped me out so much in the beginning, going to market with me, teaching me Tigrena, introducing me to people, and just showing me around in general. We hung out so much over the past few months, and really got to be close friends. What impressed me so much about Getachew was his kindness: he would drop whatever he was doing and help me whenever I needed it. An English teacher at the local preparatory school, he even invited me to class to help out, an activity I enjoyed tremendously. So when Getachew told me he wanted to apply to be an LCF (language and culture facilitator, the people who taught us PCV's the language and culture during our first three months of training) and that he wanted me to write him a recommendation letter, I was only more than happy to. When Getachew got the job about a month later, I was ecstatic! I was sad because this meant he would move and I would lose a good friend, but I was more happy than anything that this kind and clever friend of mine was finally getting the opportunity to see new places and do something great. He was a hard worker, and deserved this amazing opportunity he got.

Christina I met about a month after I’d been living in Maichew, during the Tigray Olympics. She was a young, 19 year old German who just finished school and wanted to do something amazing before starting college. Through connections her godfather had in the Catholic church, she came here in October (eerily, only a day before we arrived) to be an English teacher at the local Catholic primary school. Over the last 8 months, she’s been teaching English and helping out with other projects in the community, volunteering her time and money to help out. It’s quite amazing some of the projects she’s been able to help with (including a seed distribution project in the community), and even more amazing how well she incorporated into the community. Christina loves kids, and was so awesome with them even though some of these kids are nasty. I’m sorry but it’s true (the 5 year old in my compound has blown snot rockets bigger than I ever could). Yet Christina would always shake their hands and play with them, no matter how dirty they were. She knew so many people in Maichew, and was another instrumental person in helping me meet and incorporate into my community.

And, of course, she was also a great friend. Since we became friends we hung out almost every day. Life in Ethiopia is rough (remember the emotional roller coaster?), and it was great to be able to have someone to talk, joke, and just relax with when things weren’t going great. It was such a relief to have a good friend in town who understood the frustrations of living in a culture so unlike your own. And she was just cool in general. We spent a lot of time together hanging out, talking about the future, practicing my German, and discussing what was going to happen next on One Tree Hill… Not that we watched it every Monday thru Friday when it came on at 5:30pm on FoxMovies. I mean she would, but I would go outside and do push-ups (which is why I did so well in the push-up competition). She left Friday morning, and I was definitely very sad to see her go.

Sometimes I feel like life is just a series of good-byes. You meet someone, you become friends, and before you know it you’re saying good-bye to them, whether it be temporary or for an unknown length of time. It has especially felt that way to me lately, what with how much I moved as a kid, then leaving for college, and then four years later leaving for here. Every time I meet someone really awesome, it seems our time is up before we really even started being friends. This really bothered me at first, but then I came to realize the blessing it was because of an important revelation I had. Though I’ve said a lot of goodbyes, I’ve also been able to meet and learn a lot from quite a variety of people. Meeting all these different people from different cultures has really made me better as a person, because it was what taught me how important it is to look at the world through a different pair of eyes other than your own. I’m grateful for everyone that’s been in my life, no matter how short, because all of them taught me or gave me something important. Getachew showed me the best part of Ethiopian culture, which is its kindness. During my hardest, most frustrating moments when I’m sick of Ethiopia and annoyed with every person here, I reflect on the overabundant kindness and genuine love those like Getachew have shown me and remember how good these people ultimately are. Christina was what helped keep me sane: she was that person I could have fun with, vent to every once in a while, and talk with about life outside of the Peace Corps when you just need a break. And even more, her love and helping attitude was a constant reaffirmation of my own goal here, which was to help others and be a part of something bigger than yourself.

It sucks to see people go, but in the end you have to be grateful for the time you were given. Christina and Getachew made my first few months here in Ethiopia easier and more fun than I could have ever imagined. I love them both for it, and will miss them every day they’re out exploring and making the world a better place to live.

"Fishikta" means "Smile" in Tigrena

The past week has been a VERY busy week for me; probably one of the busiest I’ve had in country yet. That’s because this past week I had the amazing opportunity to volunteer for one of the coolest NGO’s out there: Operation Smile.

For those who don’t know what Operation Smile does, they go all around the world fixing cleft lips and cleft palates. Cleft lips and palates are deformities of the lip and palate, and can range anywhere from a very slightly misshapen lip to a person missing their palate altogether. While not usually life threatening (except in the case of missing palates), they often create severe speech problems and can even make it difficult for these people to be accepted by their community. The problems can usually be fixed by surgery, and so Operation Smile is currently working in dozens of countries to help people with these problems. These “missions” last on average about 10 days, and during that time a team of surgeons, pediatricians, nurses, dentists, volunteers, and locals work as hard as they can to help as many people as possible. In some countries, the operation smile missions have become sustainable and are run completely by local doctors and volunteers. More often than not, however, people from all over the world volunteer not only their time but also their money to be a part of this. Yes, even the surgeons actually PAY to help others!

So how did I fit into this amazing organization? My job as a Peace Corps volunteer on this mission was simple: help out wherever was needed. And boy did we work. We helped with paperwork, running errands, moving stuff, and even translation! The first two days were screening days, where we screened over 200 patients about their medical history and speech abilities in order to determine if they were a candidate for surgery. Patients that were malnourished or sick were turned away the same day, because putting them under anesthesia would be too dangerous and might result in their death. They were asked to return in October for the next mission, giving them another chance to be helped. Unfortunately, there were still only a limited number of surgery slots available and too many potential candidates. The third day was all about telling those people who couldn’t be helped to come back in October. One case in particular was tough, when a young child who was missing his palate entirely had bad results from his blood tests and was determined too risky to operate. When we told the dad that his child was too sick to be helped at that time, he broke down in front of us in one of the most heart-wrenching things I’ve seen. Even though we encouraged him to come back in October, he wasn’t sure he could afford to come all the way back across the country (as he was from the south). Operation Smile helped him out as much as they could and sent him on his way, but it was a rough day for all involved.

Nevertheless, surgeries began on the fourth day and continued for five or six days after that, and what an amazing time that was. As a Peace Corps Volunteer, we often have to spend a lot of time putting projects together. They can take months or even years of work before completion, and even then projects can still fail or may take several years after the volunteer has left to fully come into fruition. This can be tough, because we’re constantly frustrated by how little results we see. Operation Smile was amazing in that we saw how much it helped people right away. So many kids were being helped every day, and it was such a wonderful thing to see the reactions to their new faces. I was even allowed to go into the operating room and watch the operations underway! The recovery after surgeries was painful and would take a while, but overall there was a great feeling of happiness and accomplishment for all involved.

Overall, the week was exactly the boost I needed. Times can get tough here, and sometimes in our most frustrated moments we tend to lose sight of the fact that we’re here to help people. Although I was extremely exhausted after my week in Mekele (we joked that we went from 30 minute days to 12 hour days overnight), I’m so, so, so grateful to Operation Smile for the opportunity to see the difference they made in people’s lives. This is a great organization, and if you ever get the chance you should check them out at www.operationsmile.org today. This experience will literally change your life forever.

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

Hey again!

Over the past 7 months I’ve been keeping pretty regular blogs. The topics vary greatly, but in all of them I constantly mention about how much I’m learning about myself… without actually talking much about what I’ve learned. And when my parents asked me about this the other day, I didn’t really give a great answer. So I decided to dedicate this post to talking about myself and trying to put into words what I’ve learned about me. Wait, really?  A blog post all about you Bernard? Isn’t that kind of…. Egotistical? It very well may be, but I think it will really help me in the journey of self-discovery I’ve embarked on here in Ethiopia. Especially because I won’t just be talking about the good things. I’ll be talking about the bad and the ugly things too.

The Good: I can be a really patient person. You need a lot of patience and flexibilty in Ethiopia, because you’re dealing with a culture that is very, very different from your own. Work is much, much slower, people have completely different social etiquette (that includes lots of staring and no personal bubble), and neither of us can understand each other about 75% of the time. Dealing with that takes a lot of patience, not only with others but with yourself as well. Going from America to Europe is a slight culture shock, but going from America to Ethiopia is a shock equivalent to a lightning strike. You’re not ready, you didn’t know it was coming, and oftentimes you find yourself babbling incoherently while everyone stares at you.

The Bad: I’m not a good housekeeper. Cleaning, cooking, and maintaining the house was never something I had to do all by myself before (I always had roommates or family), so I didn’t realize how much work it was. I knew how to do all these things (though clearly I didn’t know how to cook well), but to have to do them every day by yourself kinda sucks. I always loved my mom and I knew she worked hard, but this has definitely allowed me to see mothers everywhere in a new light.

The Ugly: The patience I mentioned earlier does not exist when little children are around. I’m getting better, but for the first 6 months I occasionally wanted to go on a Halo-esque killing spree when the little kids in the town annoyed me. Every time the 5 year old in my compound so much as looked at me wrong, I considered accidentally locking her out of the compound one night and hoping the hyenas found her before her mom did.

The Good: I’m pretty good at learning languages and adjusting to other cultures. Learning Tigrena has been tough, but I am incredibly proud of the progress I’ve made since I got here in October. A year ago, I didn’t even know this language existed, and yet today I can actually tell people that in Tigrena. Plus, I’ve really adapted well to Ethiopian culture, and can even handle the things I’m not super comfortable with. I do have to say that this is probably no real testament to my skill. I was really lucky in that I was raised in a bilingual house and moved a lot when I was little. I was exposed to these things from an early age, which probably helped me considerably.

The Bad: I’m really good at doing nothing. I’m not sure what it is, but I just can’t seem to do productive things with my time (outside of work). I have SO much free time here in Ethiopia that you would think after four months I would have picked up a constructive hobby or two. But that’s not the case. Sometimes at the end of the day when I look back trying to figure out what I did all day, I realize the only accomplishment I can really chalk up is that I finished another season of Friends.

The Ugly: I’m really out of shape. Now, Ethiopia is much higher up than where I lived in Texas, so I was going to lose some endurance regardless. But even so my condition is ridiculous. Since I’ve been here I’ve had a number of things point out how bad it really is. During IST, I got last place in a push-up contest. Before that, I helped push a horse cart about 100 feet up a hill and had a cough the rest of the day because of it. And to top it all off, I tried to start Insanity once, a really intensive workout program that’s all about keeping track of how much you’ve improved… In a lot of the exercises, the people in the video’s improvements were higher than what I could do in the first place!!! It’s sad really. But you know what the absolute worst part is? Ask me if this pitiful display has actually inspired me to work out yet. Because it hasn’t.

The Good: I am not a quitter. I never noticed this before, but when I commit myself to something I do it. I have committed the next two years of my life to Peace Corps and it is simply not an option for me to quit. Even on my worst days, when I’m annoyed with people here, bored out of my mind, and really, really missing my family and friends back in the states, the thought never crosses my mind that I should quit. I wanted to come here, and I am going to see it to the finish. And of the things within my control, there’s nothing that will prevent me from doing it big.

The Bad and The Ugly: Frankly, I could go on forever in these two categories. In the interest of staying positive (and also for my own self esteem), let’s just end on a good note, eh?

So that’s just a few of the major lessons I’ve learned since I’ve been here. The list could go on and on, but I just wanted to give you some insight on how Peace Corps has enlightened me. I feel so much more in tune with myself and confident in who I am here, and I’m so grateful that I decided to embark on this grand adventure. It’s been one of the greatest decisions of my life.