Finding Happiness

            I’m finding it difficult to describe how I’m feeling. I’m not sure how to put my emotions into words because I’ve never gone through anything like this before. Living in the middle of Ethiopia, on my own, surrounded by nothing that is familiar makes me speechless. There is not one day that I don’t question what I’m doing here or ask myself if I have the strength to do this. I’m finding it difficult to find what makes me happy. Every day when I wake up in the morning I get a sick feeling in my stomach. I want to stay in bed and not walk out my front gate. I roll around in my sheets for about 20 minutes before I actually have the strength to get up and face a new day. A day where I have absolutely no idea what is going to happen. Something is going to happen, something always happens whether it be good or bad. Something that is new and unfamiliar and scary. But every day I find a way to get up and go to work and when I get ready to go back to bed at night I get a feeling of relief and I can relax, for I’ve made it through another day. Even though each day gets easier and easier I continue to question my decision to be here. 

But then I think about my host family and I ask myself how could I leave tomorrow? I’ve told my community that I will be here for 2 years and I don’t think I could leave them. My host family has done so much for me just thinking about all the kindness they have brought my way brings tears to my eyes. I know I have only known them three months but I have no idea how I’m ever going to say goodbye to them when that time comes. I also see how excited the teachers at Mekicho get when I tell them my length of service. It is not often that foreigners stay as long as Peace Corps Volunteers. People here are used to seeing foreigners for a few weeks and then having them leave. Or Abigail, my landlord’s 10 year old daughter who gets so annoying when she comes into my house and touches absolutely everything that I own, yet she keeps me company and I’m so happy that she lives in my compound. She comes over after school and does her homework with me. How could I just get up and leave?

            What about the little boy that ran up to me this morning as I was walking to work and held my hand the entire way to school. In the little Amharic that I can speak I told him I was an English teacher (explaining that I’m actually a teacher trainer in Amharic is too difficult for me right now). He knows that I will be working at his school now so how would it look to just leave before I’m supposed to? I just wanted to hug that little first grader this morning for holding my hand and asking what my name was instead of screaming “ferengi” at me from across the road. You have to be careful about hugging kids because the minute you hug one of them you’ll have 100 kids behind him trying to get a hug out of you. I am expected to be here for 2 years and I owe it to all of these people to honor that promise.

            After reading one of my blog posts I had a friend from home send me a really uplifting message, a message that could not have been written at a better time. He reminded me to be myself, that people will get used to me, and to live in the moment. That when this whole experience is over I’ll be wishing I was back here. We often believe we will be happy in another place, doing something else, forgetting to be happy where we are in the present. When I was going through my last semester at UT I kept telling myself that this wasn't the place for me and I was ready for a change and that Peace Corps was that change. Now that I’m in Ethiopia I find myself thinking about all the good times I had with my friends and I’m picturing what my family is doing at this very moment wishing I was with them. We have to live in the present and be happy in the present because we will never get those moments back. We create our own happiness whether it be in America or in Ethiopia. So I’m going to keep going with this and try to find what makes me happy here. Baby sets. As they say in Amharic, “kas ba kas,” (little by little).