Life on the farm (we mean compound)

We have gotten quite used to life here on the compound, but lately, it
has felt much more like a farm, or a petting zoo. This is no
tract-home, we have a big chunk of land that Tadesse, our
guard/gardener, has been working diligently to make into a botanical
oasis, complete with a coffee tree orchard, stone-lined, manicured
flower gardens, and vegetable gardens. We still get water delivered
bi-weekly on the back of a donkey-cart, but this is serious progress.
Back to the farm aspect, in addition to the two dogs who were already
here, we have gotten two adorable puppies, one brown and one white,
and we have named them ‘Bagel’ and ‘Cream Cheese,’ respectively. By
the way, they cost a whopping 5 Birr, combined, which is less than a
cup of coffee here. As cute as they are, we can’t really play with
them because they haven’t had any vaccinations, so we can’t risk
anything.

At 5:30am sharp, daily, the alpha-male rooster (named Bob, of the
Shishka-type) crows directly outside our door, at which time D usually
shouts an obscenity or two. The other rooster,‘The General’ (General
Tso) is quiet, because he knows he’s second-string. Tigiste and
Tadesse decided we should have more chickens, so the hens have been
busy sitting on their eggs for the past week, 2 more weeks to go (21
days) until we’ll have little chicks running around. Believe it or
not, all of the animals coexist very peacefully, unless of course, a
monkey comes running through the yard, in which case everyone gets
riled up…Speaking of monkeys, we see lots of baboons, just hanging out
alongside the road regularly. Their novelty has worn off, and was
replaced with the zeal for hippo sightings. There are a few hippos who
like to come out around 5pm in the marshes by the lake. The first time
we saw their little ears, then their enormous bodies, we went nuts!
They were only about 15 feet away, right off the road.

It has been particularly rainy in the past week, so we collect the
rain water with huge barrels positioned at the edge of the roof to
catch the spill-off. We don’t drink the water, clearly, but it’s used
for other things around the house, like washing dishes, washing
clothes, “plumbing,” etc. We didn’t know how much frogs like the
rain, until several of them surfaced in the past week. In fact, they
surfaced right into our rooms on several occasions. Luckily, Tadesse
had just taught me the word for ‘frog’ in Amharic, so he came quickly
to escort the little guys back out into the garden. Of course, we
don’t shriek for Tadesse to come running as often as we did in the
past. We have become quite desensitized to most things creepy and
crawly. One real test was the rhinoceros-looking beetle, about the
size of a mouse, that found its way into our room. The only time I had
seen anything like that before, it was behind glass, at the Museum of
Natural History. After that incident, we fashioned some make-shift
weather stripping, out of duct tape, for the bottom of our door, in
order to curb any further unauthorized entrances.

We’re still showering with a bucket and ladle, but we have started to
boil the water, which makes the process much more bearable.

More to come soon! We miss everyone incredibly, and think of you all the time.
I was able to post some pictures on my Facebook account, but here’s
the link just in case:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2086665&id=9802992&l=0c91bbf089

If anyone would like to send us any mail, we would LOVE it!

For letters, and small packages, it take s about a week. For larger packages, a bit longer.

the address is:

LeAnne Shor and Danielle Benzaken
Ethio-American Friendship School
P.O. Box 1376
Awassa, Ethiopia
Africa

seriously, we live and die by correspondence
cheers,
L

School is in session

Last week was our first week of school. Without any formal introductions or orientation, LeAnne and I just walked into the classrooms and started teaching. Teaching, however, entails some kind of learning with a give-and-take exchange between teacher and student. We quickly learned that it would be a challenge. All the children come from very different backgrounds including socio-economical level, educational level, and school background. This meant that most of the students don’t understand a word of English, except for a few key phrases, ‘Miss’, ‘toilet’, and ‘write down?’ It wouldn’t be so hard if there were teachers at the school who understood English and could translate, but aside from the Principal, who speaks very minimal English, it is just us.



In addition, materials and supplies are extremely basic. Each child has a notebook for each subject and a pen and there is a blackboard and chalk for the teachers in each classroom. The students don’t have any kind of workbook or practice book to follow along. So LeAnne and I started with a few basic phrases that we have the children repeat over and over such us “Should I write this down?” And “May I go to the bathroom?”



The next problem we came across is comprehension. It is one thing to teach someone how to read the letters and the words and sound them out, but it’s something else to understand that the word cat is a four-legged animal that meows. Since these children have no exposure to English outside of our class period, comprehension is very low. Unlike an ESL (English Second Language) child in America who is in an English speaking environment and is exposed to English all over, these children have no practice reading or writing English any where.



We are still figuring out which teaching methods work best for each level. There are about 15-30 students in each grade from Nursery to Grade 8. There is a very vast and expansive library at the school which makes books very accessible to the children, but as we have noticed, the students mostly flip the pages and don’t actually read the words.

Not Shiro again.....

If you’re not sure that you’ve ever had Ethiopian food, your stomach will
certainly remember.



Before our arrival, a major concern was, you guessed it, food. Back in New
York, I had Ethiopian food once, and I was totally clueless about the method
and flavors, so six months of it was a little daunting and nerve-racking, to
say the least.



Here are the basics:

- First there is injera, a sour, sponge-like flat bread,
made of a local grain called ‘teft,’ and is the staple that is served with
every meal.

-Injera lines a large serving platter, that is then topped
with a variety of different ‘weut,’ or stews, made of seriously spiced
vegetables and meat.

-Then, with your hand, usually the right one, you tear
pieces of injera to scoop up the weut, and eat.

-Dessert is not big here.

-Tea, spiced with ginger, cardamom, and cloves, ‘shai,’
after the meal seems pretty standard.



For the first four days, this was all we ate. Then, after discarding the
injera at every meal, it became obvious that we grew very tired of it. Using
our broken Amharic, we tried to convey to Tigiste (the live-in housekeeper,
and culinary expert) that we needed another carb besides injera, along with
more vegetables. So, the next time she came home from the market, she
brought a lifetime supply of pastas, as Italian cuisine is available here.


Because there is a large amount of rain, and the soil is very fertile, most
fruits and vegetables are available and abundant here. Now, our diet mostly
consists of vegetables like: tomatoes, cabbage, green beans, spinach,
carrots, onions, corn, all sauteed in various ways, day to day, accompanied
by either pasta or basmati rice, and fresh fish once a week or so.


Did we cave? Are we a little soft for giving up injera? Maybe, but I’m not
too worried about.

We would also like to wish everyone a Shana Tova U'metukah. May your new
year be filled with good health, happiness and lots of success! Keep
us in mind as you enjoy your honey cake!

So, it’s kind of like camping…

After a 4.5 hour drive, we have arrived in Awassa, the capital of the southern region of Ethiopia. Imagine an illustrated Children’s bible, that’s pretty much what the scenery looks like, lush, green as far as you can see, all the while dodging herds of goats, cows and donkeys on the road.



We headed straight to the “compound,” as everyone calls it, which is a sizeable piece of property, with a main house, and few smaller cottage-type homes, several well-kept flower gardens, a chicken- coop, and a small orchard with newly planted coffee trees.



We have our own room, with pretty modern furnishings, and bright blue, canopy-like mosquito nets to sleep under. Never having gone to ‘sleep-away camp’ in the traditional sense…I can imagine this is pretty close to it. Running water is a distant memory, electricity is totally unpredictable and shoddy, and we don’t have a phone (we’ll get a local cell on Thursday, fingers-crossed).



In order to conserve energy, rolling “brown-outs” throughout the country happen several times a week, dictated by the government. Hardly prepared, we played make-shift scrabble by candlelight, using the magnetic alphabet letters we brought for the children. Any suggestions you may have for any games/activities would be appreciated.



We usually help each other with the showering situation…not a one-man job. Conveniently, it was thunder storming this evening, so we kick-started the shower ceremony off au naturel…not kidding. Turns out, contrary to popular misunderstanding, it’s not blistering hot here. In fact, it downpours daily during the summer ‘rainy’ months, and the average temp during the day is usually a comfortable 80*.



In Addis, it is much more common to see foreigners/Westerners, relative to Awassa. When we walk down the street, we usually attract a small following of young children who shout “You, You, You, Yo, money! Money!” The level of poverty is staggering, and completely arresting throughout this country. Most families in this region can’t even afford the $3 registration fee to send their children to government-funded schools. After a few days absorbing these surroundings, we just find ourselves asking the same question over and over, “How do you pull an entire country out of this?”

Oh, so there's no electricity...anywhere?

Today was the first day in Addis, and it felt like one of the longest days of our lives. Sleeping a combined 9 out of 72 hours is not advisable, under most all circumstances, and certainly not if you're aborting take-offs, stopping in Sudan, and taking ice cold showers with a bucket.

Today was our first day in AFRICA.

*It wasn't the sweet melodies of garbage trucks, sirens, and honking horns that woke us up this morning...the day commenced with the combination of 2 choirs: deafening calls of what seemed to be a army of roosters, and the call to prayer from the nearby Orthodox Christian Church.

*Then we visited Yohannes' children's library in Addis- surprisingly well-stocked with classics such as Goodnight Moon and Anne of Green Gables.

*We've been traveling all over the city via overcrowded "mini-buses" with our trusty guide Micky, a 19 year old Ethiopian kid, who speaks 3 words of English, Yes, No and Come On!! He doesn't try to hide his laughter when we bombard him with such questions as "how do you say goat? in Amharic and "can we sit in the front seat of the mini-bus? (as the driver is blasting Akon)

*Ethiopian food is great..so far, although our stomachs vetoed it.

*In case you were wondering, you CAN feed a starving child in Africa for less than 10 cents a day.

Leaving the Concrete Jungle

When I tell people that I am going to Africa for 6 months to teach English, I have received one of three responses; "That's amazing!", "Why would you go to Africa, you can teach here", or just plain laughter. To be honest, I had those same reactions. When I first toyed with the idea of going to Africa, the thought was so preposterous that I just laughed. Then as the idea settled, I contemplated my family, my job, my obligations and all other realities keeping me back. And finally, I realized that I was going to embark on a truly amazing journey. A once in a lifetime opportunity that I couldn't pass up. That's when I decided I had to bring in reinforcements, my best friend LeAnne.

Some people think, well...maybe these girls were shit-out-of-luck finding or keeping a job, and they decided to go an alternate route. That wasn't quite the case for either of us. We both had perfectly good jobs that would have been thrilled to continue our employment.

So once the decision to go to Africa was made, it was very easy finding a school that would host us for 6 months and pretty easy getting my co-workers to support my decision. The hardest part, however, was facing my Jewish mother. How could I tell her that the luxurious, upper west side life that she had laid out for me wasn't quite doing it?? Actually, it is because of her undying support and encouragement that I am able to leave everything behind and take this trip. My parents have blessed me with a life most people only dream about; great home, good food, and a top-of-the-line education. I got everything one could ever ask for in life. Now it's time for me to give back. I need to help people who can't quite help themselves yet.

As for my anxieties, as wise woman once told me, "God will take care of you." And I hope she is right because we are jumping in head first.

Thanks to our families and friends for their love and support! We really wouldn't be able to do this without you.

Keep on Keepin' on,
D