Ethiopia Part II

I was typing up some of my journals tonight and came across something I forgot to share about our church experience in Moga- a couple of chiefs were there and they spoke. It was interesting because they said their government does not do much if anything to help them, yet these people came all the way from America for a few weeks and "they care more for us and do more for us than our own government". This was pretty encouraging for me to hear but sad that they feel abandoned by their government.

Here's what I wrote in my journal returning back to Tulegit after our long weekend in Moga:

"This morning was pretty typical- I peeled and diced veggies. Barkaka did dishes and I tried to teach him some English. Then I had the idea of actually putting some time/effort into teaching English. Asked Gwen and she said it’s a need so I started making some basic materials/learning sheets (Colors, numbers, alphabet, body parts, etc.) I’m really excited about this project, feel like I can make more of an impact and offer some real skills!"

Barkaka is a 12-year-old Suri boy who does the dishes at Gwen's house every morning. I started speaking some English with him and then it turned into more of a tutoring relationship. The next day after I made these materials- 3 more boys showed up wanting English lessons.

Bar Kaka is one cool kid- I miss him!

 

 

Practice identifying and writing the names of colors!

Bar Tu (14), Bar Kaka (12) and David (9)

These are some of the materials I made that can be copied for the students at school.

I spent a lot of time drawing animals for vocabulary sheets!

Bar Tu, Bar Didi (22), Bar Kaka, and Bar Sera (11).

 Teaching English was really fun. It was rather challenging at times since I did not speak their language but we made it work with lots of gesturing and help from Gwen :)
The other challenging part was the different abilities of the students. David (the 9-year-old) was quite good at English, while one teenager I had (not pictured) couldn't even say the alphabet. I had to be creative in group lessons so each boy got something out of it. I would often ask simpler questions to the beginners (What color is the grass?) and more complicated ones to the advanced students (Name an animal that runs fast and spell the name of the animal).

I like to think that worked well. At the very least, I know that the boys had a lot of fun and they were able to take some study materials home with them!


I have to hand it to them, though. English is TOUGH. and incredibly different from their native language. I asked Bar Modo to teach me a couple of Suri words (red and blue) and I SUCKED. It took me like four times just to pronounce it correctly and then I would forget it 2 minutes later. 


Another fun thing I did in Suri-land was make injera! David's mom has a little bakery of sorts in the village and she let me help her (well, I wasn't really helpful but she let me experiment) cook the injera!

Kite (keetay) made me tilla! it's made from corn, water and flour. kind of like polenta.

Roasting coffee!

Yummy bananas!

One night, the guys went back to Moga to keep working on the house but I stayed back with Gwen in Tulegit. We played Rummikub and then a girl name Nadine came to chat. Nadine is from Luxemburg and works as a European Union representative in Addis Ababa (capitol of Ethiopia). She was with a group of government officials learning about resettlement issues so that they can be effective in government conversations about that. She wanted to get Gwen's perspective on issues related to resettlement. Honestly, most of the conversation was a little over my head so I'm afraid I can't accurately convey much to you. However, it made me very aware of how freaking complicated everything is. By building roads to these remote places, great opportunities arise to improve healthcare, education, farm practices, etc. Yet there are many negatives at the same time. Alcohol, disease, guns, etc. Gwen has had 2 close female friends die from AIDS because their husbands left during the dry season and contracted the virus from other women.Nadine made a comment about "sometimes you wonder if building the roads was a good thing after all". 

Ok, so my description probably wasn't great but hopefully you understand what I'm getting at: there's always a tradeoff, there's more than meets the eye. Sometimes ideas sound really great as ideas and then it gets a little messy when you actually implement them. I think that's part of what I learned on this trip. We as outsiders may think that we have the answers to all of the problems, but often those "answers" have to be tweaked and modified and adopted by the people we're trying to reach.  Example: You can give a woman a tractor to work her land, but if she doesn't know how to maintain it or repair it, or if she doesn't WANT to know those things, it will probably just create more stress for her. That's why we have to be careful in our "service efforts" that we are actually TEACHING people things that they WANT to learn and that will WORK for them.

Thanks for reading part 2 of my Ethiopian Adventure! More to come soon!

Ethiopia!!

I'm back! After a very long hiatus....sorry it's taken me so long to write again.

So, how was my trip?! It's a valid question, but not an easy one to answer. I've been getting this same question in regards to my Chicago experience, which is even more difficult to answer.

I feel like everyone is expecting me to enthusiastically say "It was great! One of the best experiences of my life! Everyone should do it!" but I can't really say that about either experience just yet. I want to be truthful and say that both journeys were very difficult and heartbreaking, but not everyone really wants to hear that. However, I don't want to dissuade people from doing things like this either, which makes me hesitant to give a "Debbie Downer" response.

Sooo, my typical response so far has been  "Gooood, hard but good." or "really awesome and really horrible". Most people understand and respect the answer, thank goodness. Honestly, it's still hard to talk about Chicago and Ethiopia (especially Chicago) since it seems that no one else reeeeally gets it. Words can only go so far when I'm trying to convey my experiences to someone.

Anyway, at the end of September I had the awesome privilege of going to a Transition Retreat with my other fellow YAVs at Ghost Ranch (a beautiful camp in Northern New Mexico, where O’Keeffe was inspired and painted!). The weekend was really helpful in many ways, but it was mostly awesome just to reconnect with nature and the other YAVs who shared similar joys and challenges.

I'm on the very far left...I look a little funny because I had to sneeze! haha

Alright, now I will attempt to summarize the Ethiopia trip. I went with my dad and brother Aaron to work with some PC(USA) missionaries, John & Gwen Haspels. We flew into Addis Ababa, where John picked us up. We stayed in Addis a few days, hung out with their daughter Heather and her family, ran errands, prepared for our journey to Tulegit. We drove to Tulegit (a 14 hour drive) to where the Haspels have lived and worked among the Suri people for about 20 years. John and Gwen have brought the gospel to these people and now there is a thriving church there with an average attendance of 100 people every week. Pretty cool.

The first couple days, Dad and Aaron worked on a tractor, which I was absolutely no help with, so I tagged along with Gwen. Gwen is a nurse, so we made several house calls to sick patients. We also prepared all of the meals, and I made bread almost every day to supplement.

One quick story that was pretty cool: I got to go to a funeral with Gwen our first day in Tulegit. She was very apprehensive about going since their funerals are pretty intense. Basically it’s a 4-5 period of grieving with the family. People will go to the family’s hut and just sit outside. The first 1-2 days are pretty intense- weeping and wailing (why Gwen was apprehensive). Fortunately we went on day 3 ish, in which everyone sat outside in silence. Occasionally, someone would come by with a tobacco leaf- he would put it in your hand and you would pass it back to him; It’s a symbolic way of saying “I share your grief”.  I think Day 4 & 5 are like Day 3. After that, the grieving is over, and everyone tries to go back to life as usual.

The funeral was for a 28-year-old man. There were several different stories going around, but we think that his wife’s brothers killed him because he didn’t pay enough cows to marry her. Harsh is a bit of an understatement. Unfortunately this is not incredibly uncommon for young men to be murdered (for one reason or another). {Sidebar: there were 4 teenage boys working with us in Moga, and ALL of their fathers had died. 2 by guns, 1 by a snake bite, and 1 by disease.}

Anyway, I really admired how the Suri people are so open about grief. People there aren’t afraid to cry, while people in the US will usually cover their faces and try to stifle their sniffles. Crying is good for us! I think we could learn something from the Suri about grief!

Oranges, lemons, peppers and red bananas

Making REAL lemonade!

After being in Tulegit a few days, we traveled to an other village called Moga, where we would be working on a house for a Wycliffe bible translator. The journey to Moga was pretty interesting...

Dodging cattle

Fixing a wobbly wheel on the trailer

People really liked staring at us

Oh and this is the road.... grass as tall as the vehicle

Upon arriving in Moga, we set up our cots and then got ready for supper- beef stew in a pressure cooker. We were in Moga 2 full days- the guys and Suri workers worked on the house (I helped a little bit but not much). Gwen and I mostly worked on meal prep and seeing patients. Word spreads quickly when the Haspels are coming so people will be lining up all day to see Gwen. Most patients received shots for something. We saw a lot of patients with Tuberculosis or Malaria.

The Moga lifestyle is also rather different...

There isn't a water source nearby so all of our water was collected in big barrels. This is a sample of our water...Needless to say we boiled it before drinking! There was also a dead lizard in one of the barrels.

Squatty Potty

Shower! You could fill the bag with water in the morning, let it sit in the sun all afternoon, and then it would be warm!!!

Playing Soccer. 

On Sunday, we had a church service in Moga. About 100 people came which was pretty awesome. My brother gave a testimony.

Mixing cement.

Simon (translator wearing yellow) was walking from visiting his parents in Ethiopia, back to his school in Sudan.
I believe it was a 3 day journey.

We had to leave Moga in a bit of a rush since it had rained all night and more was coming. The Suri boys put chains on our vehicle and fortunately we didn't every get stuck very bad. We did go over some crazy bumps, and there were times when I didn't think we'd make it, but we did! Gwen made a joke later about how driving in crazy conditions "improves your prayer life" and I had to give her a big "amen" on that one!

That concludes phase 1 of the Ethiopian Adventure....stay tuned for more!!