So what happened after our
ceremony on Friday? Well reality hit all of us pretty hard; at least it did for
me. I was so nervous the following morning. My stomach started hurting as soon
as I woke up because I knew I would be myself in less than an hour. At 8am, buses
took us to the various bus stations in Addis Ababa (depending on where in
Ethiopia our sites were) and dropped us off. We were all alone after that. All
that was going on in my head was, “Helena, I sure hope you were paying
attention during training because you’re on your own from this point on.”
The bus stations here can be
pretty frightening at first. As soon as we got off the bus from the hotel, all
these people came up to me yelling, “Where are you go? Where are you go?” Once
you tell them where you want to go, Butajira in my case, they take you in the
direction where those buses are. They physically grab your arm and pull you to
where they want you to go. I’m not sure what the specific name for these guys
is. Their job is to fill up the buses. They get commission for every person
they get on a bus. That’s why as soon as they find someone going in the
direction they want they get a hold of you and make sure you follow them, hence
the arm pulling. I was prepared for this since we had to do this during our
demystification visits. It was just that this time, I had to do it by myself
instead of just following an experienced Volunteer. There is so much yelling
and moving in the bus stations it all seems extremely unorganized and chaotic,
yet similar to the market, there is some system in place that the locals
understand. These bus stations are also notorious for pickpocketing, therefore
you have to be very mindful of all of you belongings and hold on to them tight.
Back to Saturday morning, I
was taken to the correct bus and able to finally relax once I sat down. Now,
there is no specific time that the bus leaves at. You have to wait until all of
the seats are filled before leaving so I sat on that bus for over an hour. This
is the part that kills me. Butajira should only take about two and a half hours
to get to from Addis, yet I didn’t get there until after 1pm. Once the bus
finally took off at 9:30am, getting out of Addis was a pain. Traffic there is
terrible and there doesn’t seem to be any road or traffic laws so cars, trucks,
and buses are just going in whichever direction they feel like. I try not to
pay attention so I don’t start freaking out. Also, the bus driver stopped at
least three times to pick up something to eat for himself and get a drink. No
one seems to be in a rush at all. They are all taking their time, stopping
whenever they feel like it. And if anyone needs to use the bathroom just tell
the driver. He will stop for you to go on the side of the road. Safe to say I
will not be doing any unnecessary traveling to avoid this mess. I’m trying to
learn to be more patient though, seeing as how I have to live here for the next
2 years. I better get used to it.
Finally, I made it back to
Butajira. I’ve been used to having 57 ferenji (foreigner in Amharic) in this
town for over 2 months so being back in Butajira alone felt a bit lonely. I
walked to my new home though. Of course, my house is completely empty. I had no
idea where to start. I’ve been here for almost a week now and I still have
almost nothing that I need. My floors are cement so I also need to get some
plastic flooring. And where do I get all this stuff? There’s no supermarket or
home supplies store where you can get everything you need. Instead of dealing
with this on my first day back in Butajira, I walked over to my host family’s
home. They have really gone above and beyond their duties as a host family.
Since training is over they are no longer getting paid by Peace Corps to take
care of me however, they insisted that I stay the night until I got myself
settled since I didn’t even have a mattress to sleep on. For 2 nights I slept
over and they fed me. I’m not sure what I would of done without them.
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