And while maybe that’s not the reality that people like to hear about Peace Corps, that’s what it is. It’s hard. Peace Corps is really hard. And no matter how many times I’d heard that or read that before I headed off on this great adventure, it can be difficult to imagine exactly how hard it can be.

Some days I’m exhausted. Most days, really. Some mornings it takes a monumental effort to get out of bed to my landlord banging on my door shouting, “LORA! THE WATER HAS COME!!” Other mornings, I leap out at first light to practice yoga and get to an early morning meeting at a school, and it feels wonderful.

Peace Corps is up. Peace Corps is down. Daily life is nothing like you’ve ever known before and nothing one can simply imagine. Lately I feel like things have been really negative… as much as I dislike that that, I want there to be a fairly accurate representation of my emotions during my service, and recently, it’s been really hard. So there it is, but I know it’ll swing the other way soon.

Regional IST

Next week G8s regional In-Service Training will begin, which (thankfully) is being held in Bahir Dar. After spending the better part of two months out of site between IST and family/friends visiting, it’s a relief to stay somewhat nearby my site, even if it’s still 150 km away.

We are also having a Gondar Camp GLOW meeting the Sunday prior to IST. Along with my awesome finance and logistics people, we have been working hard to get this meeting going and it’s hard to believe camp is only about 2 months out!

Everything Else

Really IST is the main thing going on in my life right now, along with the English Club (who is still doing awesome things, as always), and trying to get some projects underway. Since school will be out soon, we have a little bit of a hiatus to try and work with teachers returning next year.

Rainy Season?
It seems that rainy season is well on it’s way. Despite the water still being out a lot (and sometimes for multiple days at a time), about once a week it absolutely pours for hours and I’m able to collect rainwater for my container gardens. Have I mentioned my container gardens?

Container Gardens
Since I haven’t mentioned it before, here is a short rundown: I have 2 jerry cans that I cut up, one horizontally and one vertically, to use as planters, as well five small containers (cut up water bottles and a M&Ms bag) that I am using for seed starters. The horizontal container has swiss chard and spinach (and some catnip… heard it’s good to keep mosquitoes away so trying it out) growing. The vertical container will have some peas as well as tomatoes and lavender growing in it. This is mostly just an experiment until I am able to get a larger garden underway…

Propane Stove
I am also finally the proud and very happy owner of a propane stove!! It’s really nice to be able to cook when the power is out. My good friend brought me the stove that his site mate had offered me and picked up the tank from the propane store in Bahir Dar, and got to me right before Fasika (Ethiopian Easter). Just in time for power to be out! I love it… things cook SO FAST compared to electric. And like I mentioned, if the power is out I can still eat cooked food now. Happily, if I use it smart the tank should last me the remainder of my service.

So there is my update for my fifth month at site and in my eighth (!!) month in Ethiopia , leaving me only twenty months until my service is over. Not that I’m counting or anything, it really is hard to believe it’s been that long when it seems like PST ended not that long ago…

We spent a pleasant day in Addis for Jessica’s birthday, visiting some of my favorite restaurants (okay, I’m in Addis, sometimes you just want farengi food!), got ice cream and saw Lucy at the National Museum, met up with my friend Tewelde and in general, had a good time.

Jessica caught a late flight back to America and the following morning, a really great driver picked us up at the hotel and off we went to Hawassa via Butajira. Hawassa was great, as I’ve heard, and we stayed at a nice resort (the Lewi Hotel) where monkeys were staring curiously into our room and stealing our bread at breakfast. We also had a fantastic dinner at the Venezia restaurant nearby—Ethiopia really does have amazing Italian food!

After a morning boat tour around the lake, we headed off to Sagure to visit my host family and have my American parents meet my Ethiopian parents. They made us doro wat (and during fasting!! But it’s because they are Protestant and not Orthodox) and we had a great conversation while the boys played with their new One World soccer balls that my parents brought as gifts.

We made Nazaret/Adama that night, and with a very early start headed through Addis and the Blue Nile Gorge (pictures to come at some point in the future!) and all the way to Bure by nightfall. After a little mix up on the times the next day, we headed to Bahir Dar for four days of fun in the sun—more to come in the next post and photos to come over the following weeks!

With malaria being one of the top health issues in my town, and rainy season right around the corner (the time when malaria incidents peak), it was important to get the message out to the community. The kids did a great job of creating a variety of poems, monologues, songs and skit/dramas in both English and Amharic. Their performance was entertaining and engaging, and they shared their message with over 650 students.

It was an awesome event that I am excited to share with everyone! Below is a video that Corey put together, as well as several photos that I took (you can see more in the video).

Since I have spent the better part of the past two months out of site between IST/AVC and travelling with friends/family, and as I just finished travelling around with my parents, more updates are in the works.

On the emotional front, there have been a lot of ups and downs over the past two months—some days I feel incredibly happy and in love with Ethiopia, other days are really, really hard. When I got back to site after IST, some kids on my street ran all the way up the street when they saw me coming, just to say “AMERICA!” Other kids yelled out “Lindsey, Lindsey!” or “Leah, Leah!” I was also able to have a conversation, in Amharic, with my landlord and compound neighbors about the compost I started. When I left for IST I could barely understand when they asked me the most basic questions.

On the Peace Corps front, I applied for and was selected to be on the Cross Culture Committee! I will be working with the Peace Corps staff and language/cross culture facilitators as well as with PCVs on bringing both American culture to Ethiopia and Ethiopian culture to Americans.

Additionally with Peace Corps, I am the camp director for the 2013 Gondar Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) and have been working with an awesome team to get to budget approved and planning underway for a mid-July camp. The Gondar camp has an awesome legacy and I’m excited to be a part of it this year!

So that’s where things are for me. Good days, bad days, but a lot of awesome things in the works.

The compound calf hanging out on my front patio, after attempting to walk in my front door.

While I really loved the towns of Dire Dawa and Harar, the people there did not make the experience enjoyable overall.

I am a young female living in Ethiopia. Harassment is, unfortunately, a part of daily life. But the men and children of Dire Dawa and Harar took it to an entirely new level. My friend and I could not walk more than two minutes without someone commenting that we are “a beauty,” inviting us for coffee or asking for something, or just making annoying comments that all Peace Corps Volunteers deal with daily such as “YOU YOU YOU,” “MONEY MONEY MONEY,” and “FAREEEEEEEENGI!!!” We also got farengi waga-ed (foreigner pricing) at every single turn–the minibus drivers between the two cities wanted to charge us twenty birr for our bags to sit ON OUR LAPS. I almost blew it at that… in Amhara they don’t even charge me to put the bags up top, and Bahir Dar is a fairly touristy area! Every day it was completely exhausting to be out in public, and more than once we had to seek refuge in our hotel room just to be left alone for a few hours. I wanted to love the two cities because I’d heard so many positive things about them, however, I feel like now that I’ve seen it there’s no reason for me to ever go back… and the people are a huge deterrent to me ever wanting to go back.

Anyway, rant over. A fairly decent guide found us on the bus to Harar and followed us around until I got his card. We decided to call him, since I’d heard you really needed a guide in Harar. Although we didn’t do much with him, he did end up being really helpful, showing us cool sites around the city one morning.

So there were three tremendously awesome parts of the trip:

1. Feeding the hyenas in Harar
2. Harar Brewery
3. Dire Dawa Railway Station

Feeding the Hyenas

Easily one of the coolest things I’ve done. We went to the hyena man outside the Erer and Sanga gates near the Aw Anser Ahmed Shrine. He is the grandson of the “original” hyena man. The night we arrived, one of the hyenas stole the basket of meat that they would be fed. It took a while for them to track down the basket, which they found on the main road near the city wall. Once the basket was recovered, the show got underway–my friend and I both fed the hyenas by hand. There were about 12 hyenas hanging around over all, and they more often then not seemed more afraid of us! Our guide told us later that the hyenas clean the city at up at night (I had actually remarked at one point that Harar was the cleanest Ethiopian city I’d been in), yet they are also afraid of the dogs!! We paid 100 birr to feed and take photos of the hyenas, it was definitely an experience well worth it.

Harar Brewery

We had the bright idea to walk to the Harar Brewery from our hotel. Unfortunately, there are no signs and no clear directions in any guidebook on how to get there. But walk we did, occasionally stopping to ask the random person, “Harar birra yet no?” It took about an hour of wrong turns and uphill climbs, but we made it, and it was well worth it! We found tibs during fasting and had Hakim Stout (one of the best beers in Ethiopia) on draft for 10 birr each (about 50 cents USD).

Dire Dawa Railway Station

This station houses what’s left of the Djibouti-Ethiopia railway that ceased operations several years ago and is currently being revitalized. We started wandering around the back and a nice, older man came and took us to a small caboose that is the start of the museum tour (I’m assuming). A nice, much older man that spoke French and some English took us around, showing us the different behind the scenes of the rail station, the railway cars and even the railway station and offices. It was incredible and a wonderful afternoon wandering around the aging buildings and cars of the unused railway.

Anyway, there is a quick rundown of the highlights (although obviously, seeing Jessica was pretty much the best thing!) of vacation part 1. Stay tuned for more from the parents visit to Ethiopia!