Hello again!
Is it really time for another blog post? The weeks seem to be flying by faster and faster for me the longer I am here. Two years seems like forever, but I’m starting to realize that my time here will be up before I know it!
Now where were we? Last Tuesday I believe, in the middle of a pretty slow week. The rest of the week went just as slow for me to be honest, but it was an enjoyable slow. My counterpart was in the field for the rest of the week, unfortunately, so I didn’t get as much work done as I would have liked. Nevertheless it was not an entire waste. I was able to interview my best Ethiopian friend Getachew, who works as an English teacher at the local preparatory school. His English is great, so I was able to interview him without my counterpart acting as a translator. In addition, Getachew, in his infinite kindness, offered to translate my interview into Tigrena so that I could at least ask the questions in a way my interviewees could understand. I took him up on his offer, and he did a marvelous job. On the third interview I had today, the questions really helped my interviewee to open up! Of course, I couldn’t exactly understand what he was saying, but that’s why my counterpart was there to help.
Other than that the week was mostly relaxing. Friday was an interesting day. Ever have those days where you wake up and you just KNOW that it was going to be a terrible day. That was Friday for me. I woke up on the complete wrong side of the bed, both figuratively and literally (I almost fell out of my bed). For no apparent reason, I dreaded the coming day and really wanted to just throw the covers back over my head and go back to sleep. But, I dragged myself out of bed, dressed, plastered a smile on my face and got out there… and it actually turned out to be a GREAT day. I got some work done, went for a hike in the nursery where I got some beautiful pictures, had lunch with the Canadian VSO volunteer, finally met the German volunteer in my town, got paid, had some delicious cake, and had a coke so cold it had ice in it (one of the rare times I’ve seen ice). Just goes to show you that the emotional roller coaster of Peace Corps has yet to even out completely.
The rest of the weekend was relatively uneventful. I hung out with the compound and with friends, cooked a little, and just relaxed overall. I am happy to report that both my tigrena and my cooking are starting to slowly improve. I’m not sure when it happened, but it seems that sometime in the past week or so my ears FINALLY got accustomed to the crazy accent of this area. I’m really starting to understand what’s going on at times, and it’s exciting that my conversations are starting to extend past the ridiculously long 30 second greetings that begin every exchange. In addition, my meals have graduated from bland to decent. Nothing too exciting yet (besides fries and chips which aren’t real meals), but after eating I’m actually a little wistful that I’m done. A definite improvement from before, where I usually struggled through the last few bites.
One thing that continues to surprise me about Ethiopians is their overall lack of experience with foreigners. I’ve mentioned before the harassment foreigners get from local children (and sometimes adults) who rarely see anyone not Ethiopian. The cries of “ferenji,” “you,” and “china,” are enough to drive even the most patient volunteer crazy, let alone a visiting tourist. Many of the Peace Corps volunteers, including myself, spend a lot of time talking to random Ethiopian children, introducing ourselves and explaining to them that these comments are disconcerting and a little rude to foreigners and should be substituted with comments such as “Hello” or “How are you”.
I guess I can’t complain too much since I receive much less harassment than my fellow volunteers. Being darker in color let’s me get by with mere double takes and stares from a lot of strangers. But being darker comes with its own set of problems as well, the most awkward of which is the fact most Ethiopians are convinced I have Ethiopian ancestry. I am constantly asked which of my parents are Ethiopian, and it is very difficult to explain to them that my mother is definitely not (since she’s from Germany) and that I have no idea about my dad or his ancestors due to the way slaves were brought to America (though it is unlikely considering that most of the slaves were brought from West Africa). This confuses most Ethiopians, who almost all know the history of several generations of family members back, and I usually just conclude the conversation with a “Sure, I’m probably Ethiopian” in order to satisfy the interrogator.
I finally got the chance to fully explain my ancestral situation to an advanced English class on Monday while visiting volunteers in a neighboring town. I explained to them about the slave trade, the troubled history African-Americans have had over the past several hundred years, and how we got to where we are today. I was surprised to find that they knew a lot more about slaves and civil rights in America than I had previously imagined. They understood fairly well that I had very little chance of ever finding out exactly where my ancestors came from in Africa, that even if I could it probably included several different nations mixed over the past few hundred years, and that instead I identified as an American because that was where I was from. Nevertheless, one of my first questions was from a skeptic who asked why I still looked so Ethiopian then. I told him that it was probably just by luck that my parent’s genes mixed in a way that made me look so awesome and they were finally satisfied.
This upcoming week is going to pretty exciting! I am going to busy with work, the regional Olympics is coming to my town, and there may be a way for me to watch the Superbowl from here. Excited is an understatement. So make sure you tune in next week to see how everything turns out!
See ya later!
No comments:
Post a Comment