Back Home

I don't really even know where to start this post. I've been back home for about four days, and it feels strange! Whenever I come back from long trips, it always feels bittersweet. But this time, it seems different. Sometimes, when I am not thinking about it, I feel like I never even went to Ethiopia. Like it was a dream or something. But then a sight or smell makes me feel like I am there again, and it's wonderful.

I feel so lucky to have met such passionate, amazing people. I learned so much from the teachers at my school, like how to build a community out of so many different personalities and how to stay positive through thick and thin. Even when they have to worry about things I could never fathom, like how they are going to pay for food for their students, which they so desperately need. And even though it makes me sad to think about how hard the students' lives are, I know deep down that they are SO beyond lucky to attend Kechene. And I was lucky to teach there.

Always,
Colleen

Solar Sytems and my Birthday

Teaching at Kechene school has been great lately! I am starting to get the hang of managing all the excited children…just in time for me to go home haha. The other day, I taught the older students about the solar system. They were really interested and slightly confused; I don’t think they knew that the earth is a planet moving around the sun and that there are other planets out there too. It was kind of cool to teach people that! After I taught the order of the planets and some information about them, I had the students get in groups for a fun (at least I hope) activity. Each person was a planet, and they had to order themselves from closest to the sun to farthest from the sun. After Asrat gave directions and told them to begin, they all started screaming and running around in their groups. It was one of the cutest things I have ever seen, and I really wish I could understand what they were saying (but they were speaking in Amharic). Anyway, it was a tough challenge but after about four minutes, we had a winner. The winning group was so happy that it made my day. Or maybe my week. And they learned something too!

            Along with my daily routine, I have had a lot of fun lately because it was my birthday! I woke up and was really excited because we had yogurt left in our fridge, and I knew it was a sign that my birthday would be wonderful! I went to school as usual, taught, and hung out with the kids. I tried to explain to some of the kids that it was my birthday by saying in Amharic, “yesterday, I was 22 years old, and today I am 23!” They were really confused for awhile, then all of the sudden one kid seemed to understand. Before I knew it, they were all singing me happy birthday and bringing me a plastic hamburger as a cake (which I think is actually supposed to be a dog toy) and a rock as a candle. It was so awesome. Then after school, the teachers made me coffee and sugar popcorn as a birthday celebration and a goodbye party. They sang me happy birthday and even brought me a beautiful piece of Ethiopian artwork to take back with me. Then I got home, and everyone at my house wished me happy birthday like 400 times. And our cook had made lemon bars, which are my absolute favorite things in the entire world. After dinner, we had a campfire and talked about random stuff while one of the guys in the house played the guitar. We were going to roast marshmallows, but I had accidentally eaten them all beforehand.After the campfire, we watched A Cinderella Story. It was one of the best birthdays I can remember. I'm gonna miss this place!

Kechene Interviews

Even though I am leaving soon, our work here is not done! Recently, another volunteer and I interviewed some women in the Kechene community that are hoping to send their children to school next year. Even though the interviews are to help the school find donors, they were really powerful, so I wanted to write about them here. I don’t think I will ever forget interviewing these women. We walked about 30 minutes up a mountain, through an incredibly poor community, and were welcomed into their homes. 

The first woman, Tigist, has two children, only one of which she can afford to send to school. Her husband died of HIV four years ago, which makes me worried that her and her children may have it as well. Tigist carries firewood at least five kilometers per day to sell in the local market. Her back is always hurting and she has twisted her ankle many times from falling in the mud. If Tigist is lucky, she makes almost a dollar a day. Her children eat two meals a day of corn and rice, which lacks substantial nutritional value, and she told us that her children cry every time they eat. Tigist was never able to attend school, and she doesn’t know how to read.

The second woman, Meseret, also has two children, neither of whom is in school. Meseret spins wool into string for weaving and her husband works in construction. Together they make about $.70 a day. Both Meseret and her husband started secondary school when they were younger, but had to stop because they didn’t have enough money to cover their basic needs. Mesert still hopes to get a high school diploma one day, so she can provide a better life for herself and her family.

The third woman, Meselech, moved to Addis Ababa from the countryside when she was 14 years old, because both of her parents died. She wanted to continue her education, but couldn’t afford to because she had to pay rent. She dropped out of school, got married, and started carrying firewood for a living. She has three children, and only one is able to attend school due to the cost of school supplies. Her mission is for all three of her children to graduate high school so they “can become competent citizens of their country.”

All of these women were absolutely beautiful both inside and out. All they want is for their children to attend school so they can have better lives. They work so hard and they are so selfless. Even though they have almost no material possessions, they are among the most dignified people I have ever met.

Small, wonderful things

There are a lot of small, wonderful things I like about Ethiopia that don’t need much explaining, so I though I would make a list! It sounds kind of strange, but these are the things I might remember the most. And I am leaving in less than one week!

1.     I will miss the absolutely delicious mango juice that I drink at Africa Coffee every day after work. I hated mangoes (mangos??) until this trip.

2.     I will miss saying hello with my eyebrows. It’s really much more convenient.

3.     I will miss being known for my beastly injera- eating skills. I love injera so much that I eat more than the 30 year-old male teachers at my school haha.

4.     I will miss beautiful moments like when the sponsor parents of Limya, a five year old boy with gigantic eyes, came to visit him. And they were adopting two babies too!

5.     I will miss when I yawn, because people then always ask me if I’m hungry.

6.     Speaking of hungry, I will miss popcorn with sugar on it! Sooooo good. Ethiopian people eat this with coffee when they have guests over.

7.     I will miss playing games with random kids I meet, including a dodgeball game with fruit! (One day while playing soccer, I was really excited because I realized I was left-footed. No wonder I have been so bad at soccer all my life!)

8.     I will miss being cared for so much by the students and teachers at Kechene. I think they would do anything if I needed help. In fact one day when I was walking through the neighborhood, a group of teenage boys started bothering me. Some kids from school saw and ran to tell the teachers, who called to make sure I was ok. I love them.

9.     I will miss the random rastafarians who always talk to me on my way home from work. They are funny.

10. I will miss walking to work dodging donkeys. Ethiopia has the second largest number of donkeys in the world. They are everywhere.

11. I will miss playing hand- clapping games with Yeru Salem, a girl at school, who has the cutest dimples and who looks like she’s been scared by a ghost whenever she messes up.

12. I will miss going outside and thinking I am in Alaska because it’s so cold. Sometimes you can see your breath! (I mean what the heck, I am in Africa, and it’s summer!).

13. I will miss riding the bus to work (which takes 1.5 hours to get across the city) and observing people going about their daily lives. Sometimes they do funny things, and we laugh together. One time we got in a small mini-bus fender bender and the police arrived after like 2 minutes! I was very impressed. Then they looked at the busses and were like “whatever” and walked away, hahahhahaha.

14. I will miss playing fruit ninja with the teachers at recess. I love that game! One teacher has a high score of 600 though, which I will never beat.

15. I will miss when my cute little students offer me their lunch, even though they probably don’t eat anything at home.

16. But most of all, I will miss the joy of everyone at school. These kids have really hard lives and almost no material possessions, but their time at school is filled with so much love, community, and happiness. I am lucky to be a part of it. 

Community Health and Asegedech

             After being at Kechene for awhile, I have started thinking about a lot of things besides education. The kids are learning so much there, and they have such a supportive environment, that I can tell they are really being set up for success. Now my mind keeps wondering to other areas of life for these students, especially relating to health and hygiene. The students essentially wear the same clothes to school every day, which look like they haven’t been washed in weeks, and I couldn’t guess the last time they took a bath. Many of them have been sick over the past month, and a few have totally rotten teeth. Kechene has a little school clinic with first aid, which is a good start, but there is no trained health care professional that can help them. Although the school has budgeted in money to take students to the doctor when they are sick, they don’t actually have the funds to do so; they barely have enough money to serve lunch each day.

           I do think the school is, however, making the best of what they have. Last week, we held a community health training for the students’ parents, and I think it was incredibly successful (even though I couldn’t understand much of what they were saying…). They had a doctor come in and speak about the most pressing health issues in the community, including family planning, sanitation, and HIV/AIDS. The participants had a discussion about how HIV transmission can be prevented and how people shouldn’t alienate those with HIV because it only makes the problem worse. One woman shared a story about how she was caring for three of her grandchildren when one of her daughters came home because she was dying of AIDS. She said the community looked down on her for living with someone with AIDS, and she was shunned by many of her friends and neighbors. But neither she nor any of the children she took care of became infected with HIV. She convinced the group that they need to care for anyone who needs it, including those with HIV. All of the participants then vowed to take a free HIV test at a local clinic, and to tell at least one other person what they learned at the training. Overall, there were probably 60 or 70 parents there, including many fathers, uncles, brothers, and grandfathers (this really impressed me because childcare was not a burden to fall solely on women, like it was in rural Uganda). It was incredible to watch, as it was truly community-led development.

           One of the saddest health-related issues I have seen at Kechene had to do with a twelve year-old girl named Asegedech. One day about two weeks ago, she was crying in the middle of class and one of the teachers went over to comfort her. I asked what was wrong, and the teacher showed me one of Asegedech’s molars that was completely rotten. She was in a lot of pain. I asked if the school had money to send her to the dentist, but they did not. So I offered to pay for it. The next day, Asegedech, Asrat (the teacher), and I walked to the dentist for a check-up. I think the other patients thought it was totally strange to see a foreigner at the clinic, because it definitely wasn’t one of those hospitals run by ex-pats. But Asegedech and I just played tic tac toe and drew pictures while we waited, as I was trying to distract her from being nervous (she had never been to the dentist before, even though she has already had four rotten baby teeth pulled by a traditional medicine woman). We bonded a lot; one man came up to me and said, “you love her, don’t you? You treat her like your own. It’s great, I have never seen it before.” I really had no idea what to say, probably because I think the man was right. I do love her, and I so sincerely believe she deserves a wonderful, healthy life. Anyway, we finally got to see the dentist, who said the tooth was infected and useless and needed to be taken out. Asrat wanted to talk to her parents first, since it was a permanent tooth, so we got some antibiotics from the pharmacy and told the doctor we would come back the next day.

           The next day, however, turned into a couple of weeks. I kept asking Asrat when we could return to the dentist, but he kind of shrugged it off saying Asegedech’s father had not come to talk with him about it. I was a little frustrated; I wanted to help but totally agreed we should talk to her father. I wanted to call or visit her home or something, but Asrat didn’t really respond when I suggested this. I know he cares a lot but I think his approach was a little less pro-active than mine. I didn’t want to force my opinion, I mean I know nothing about teeth or medicine! And besides, Asegedech looked like she was doing better, so I decided to drop the issue and hoped the right thing to do would make itself clear.

           It did. The very next day, Asegedech’s father (a very soft-spoken, cute old man) showed up to school, saying she had been crying all night because she was in so much pain. We all left for the dentist right away. Asegedech had to get a gigantic shot and she cried and screamed when she saw the pliers that would be yanking out her tooth. But we held her hands, and her dad comforted her a lot. She was so brave and I was proud that I almost felt like I was her mom. I was a little worried about how well she would recover (this dentist office consisted of pliers, anesthesia, and two patient chairs, that’s it). But even the next day, Asegedech had a bigger smile on her face than I have ever seen, and she was eating like nothing had ever happened. How wonderful! I got out a pack of stickers to give her, and the price tag caught my eye. I had spent three dollars on stickers, about the same amount that it cost to take Asegedech to the dentist. The whole ordeal cost less than five dollars. It made me think of what we could do if once in awhile we thought about Asegedech instead of buying something we don’t need.

All of these events have gotten me really interested in community health. I want to find a cost-effective, community-based model of health care for schools in developing countries. Maybe I could even help start a health and sanitation program at Kechene; they really need it. Of course, I love these kids so much, and aside from their health and well-being, I don’t care that they are dirty and have snot running down their faces. They have so much joy even though their lives are hard, and I can tell they really appreciate all that Kechene is doing for them. They are the greatest kids in the world.

Mountains and some other things

I haven’t blogged in awhile because I have been busy doing a bunch of random, wonderful things. Today, I climbed a mountain! I went with three teachers from Kechene school and three of my friends that I live with. The mountain we climbed was called Entoto, which is the biggest mountain around Addis (and Addis is like 8,000 feet high anyway!). Before we went, one of the teachers asked if we wanted to take the road or the forest. We chose the forest.

I have never experienced such pain! Ok not really, but it was ridiculously hard. We walked through a bunch of neighborhoods first, and most of the people were laughing at me because I was sweating and having trouble breathing. It was fun seeing a more village-like part of Addis though. Then we got to the forest and basically climbed up rocks for two hours. It was so hard. So hard. My hopes of one day climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro might be out the window now haha. But it was so beautiful. At the top of Entoto, we looked around and went to a church called St. Mary’s, which was the first church in Addis Ababa (they slaughtered 5,392 cows to serve at the church’s opening feast!). In the church compound, there was also a palace where past Ethiopian emperors lived. It was almost literally a straw hut, and we were a little confused. But it had a great view!

As we started our descent, it started raining. And when it rains here, it pours. It was fairly miserable, actually, because on top of the mountain it is so cold you can see your breath! Luckily though, we took shelter in this random salon that was about 8 feet by 8 feet, and had at least twelve people in it. Then it started hailing. I shared a bag of cookies with the barber, to thank him. He ate like 20 of them, haha. After that it still took us at least three hours to get home, freezing and soaking wet. I was thinking how lucky I was to have a warm place to go back to, a warm shower, and a warm bed. A lot of the cold and wet people around me didn’t have that luxury, especially the homeless people that sleep on mats on the sidewalk. I wish I could help them.

Overall, climbing Entoto was so awesome and definitely worth it! I also had another random adventure with my roommate, Juyeon. The family she lives with in Washington DC has connections with a lot of people in Ethiopia, and one day we went to meet a man who had previously been in the army. We thought it would be fun and maybe he would have connections to NGO’s that can help Kechene school. Little did we know that he was actually the former chief of staff of the Ethiopian Armed Forces (his name is General Tsadkan)! So basically, he is a huge deal. Anyway, he was so nice and so open about his life. He was one of two rebel leaders of the EPDRF, which fought against the communist government in the 1980’s. When the EPDRF finally took the capital, the other rebel leader became the prime minister and General Tsadkan became the chief of staff. But after awhile, the two disagreed about a lot of things, so General Tsadkan could have either used the army to take over the country or retired to be a civilian leader. He chose to retire (what if he had chosen the other option?!?). I have never met someone who could have had such an enormous impact on history. Now, General Tsadkan advises the government of Southern Sudan on their defense policy. We had a long, interesting talk about African politics and it was great! I had been feeling like I didn’t know enough about Ethiopia. My favorite part, however, was talking to his son about Bojangles. Yep, that’s right!! (They lived in the US for awhile). General Tsadkan said he would see what he could do about helping our school!

I also met a new, half- Rastafarian friend the other day (meaning his mom was Ethiopian and his dad was Rastafarian). We were both stuck under an awning during a storm and we started talking (I thought he was interesting because he had a plastic bag on his head to protect his dreadlocks from the rain). He asked me if I believed in Karma, and when I said yes, he told me I was rastafarian. Anyway, there are actually a lot of rastafarian people here, whose family members moved to Ethiopia from Jamaica. They have their own city in the southern part of the country, and they worship Haile Selassie (former Emperor of Ethiopia). We talked for at least half an hour, about everything! It was a great way to wait out a rainstorm.

I have a lot more to say, especially about my wonderful students at school, but I will save it for next timeJ.

-Colleen

Settling in

This past week, I have felt much more useful and much more productive at Kechene school. I am starting to get to know the kids and their different but totally cute personalities, and I literally cannot believe how smart they are! I am also getting to know the teachers well too, and that has been great. We have conversations about education, marriage, and just about life, usually while we are eating rice and cabbage for lunch (the students are totally silent during this time because they are concentrating so hard on eating their own food). And when we are feeling frustrated from the language barrier, we just go outside and play volleyball, and all is well.

I have only ended up teaching one day this week, for about half an hour. And believe me, it was tough (in a different way than in New Orleans, but still as tough for sure). Anyway, I asked the math teacher what he wanted me to teach, and he said "Anything! American math!" And I was like..uhhhh.....help haha. I know nothing about kindergarten curriculum, and at the time I had no idea how much math these student knew! So I decided to teach them order of operations, because it was clear that they could add and subtract (I focused on how to evaluate math expressions when they included parenthesis). Thus, I began my lesson to at least 30 six and seven year old kids. They had no notebooks or pencils,  so only a few kids could work out a problem at the same time on the chalkboard, which was quite problematic for my behavior management! Not to mention the language barrier, which was hard (although I am pretty good at counting in Amharic now, I must say!). Teaching was quite an experience... but I think I learned a lot from just jumping right into it, and I have a few ideas for improvement when I teach next time. I really want to teach an African geography lesson (they love pointing out things on their map).

I have found tutoring students during recess and breaks to be much more productive. The first time I had sat in on a class, I noticed one of the students was REALLY far behind the others. So at recess tapped him on the shoulder, and we practiced the English alphabet together. I made flashcards, because I noticed he could only do the alphabet in order. He really liked the hands-on activity. In fact, like five other kids gathered round and were studying with us! It was great. The next day, I started giving kids math problems. Now a few of them walk up to me and ask me to give them a problem right when they get to school, even though they have time to play outside then. Especially these two really cute kids named Besufucato and Limya (Limya has the biggest eyes I have ever seen!). Anway, it makes me really happy that they enjoy learning, this is going to take them far in life.

I am also working on a few other projects for the school, like writing a newsletter about the graduating kindergarteners and editing their school brochure. Also, one of the teachers is starting another school in his neighborhood, because none of the kids there have enough money to go otherwise (government school tuition is free, but students have to pay for uniforms, books, and meals). A church has donated land and labor to build a school house, but other than that they have no funds whatsoever. But this teacher has such a big heart, that I think it will work one way or another. I am helping him write a proposal and budget; it's a great learning experience for me! I hope the school will be successful because the kids deserve it.

So even though there are setbacks often, things are going really well over here. I almost feel like I have been living here for like a year! It's only been three weeks though.... :)

-Colleen