Self-motivation

As my time in Ethiopia dwindles down, I've been taking a closer look at my service thus far. I was with a friend this past week and due to the events that took place, or should I say lack of events, I came to realize that as PCVs we are constantly having to motivate ourselves and a big chunk of my service has been me motivating myself. Let me explain.

Self motivation as a PCV is constant. How did I come to think about this profoundly? Well this week, my friend and I were all set to get some work done. As COS (Close of Service) approaches most of us are thinking about our next step. It may be graduate school, applying to jobs, working on our resumes/CVs, reaching out to connections back home, etc. Safe to say I have plenty I should be doing. I didn't have any programs scheduled at my school on that particular day, so the two of us were all set to go down to the hotel and get some work done with the hotel's wifi. It was extremely hot, but we faced the heat. Of course the internet wasn't working. With sweat starting to come down my face, we tried the other places in town. Four places later, nothing was working. We then said we'd go ahead and do some errands. I had to go to the post office. It was 2:30pm and closed. I couldn't tell you why. I guess an extra long lunch break? Then we had to go to the bank. The network was down so we couldn't get our money. We thought we'd stop to get a bite to eat. We were craving inkulal siga (scrambled eggs with meat on injera). They didn't have what we wanted so we just went next door and had some avocado juice. Pretty delicious too but it wasn't what we set out wanting. All this is to point out that throughout my service, just because I wake up in the morning all set and ready with a list of tasks to accomplish, no matter how simple the task, such as going to the bank to withdraw funds, there's a good chance I won't get through those tasks. You just have to know that going in. PCVs have to be incredibly flexible. If not we are setting ourselves up to endless disappointments and frustrations.

It gets hard having to always motivate yourself. No one is pushing you. You have to do it all on your own. For the most minute things too, such as going to the post office. On that day when we set out to the hotel, we came back after a two hour excursion with nothing to show for it. I wanted to work. I wanted to get some concrete research done, but because of forces out of my control I couldn't. It can get pretty discouraging because this isn't something that happens once in a while. This happens ALL THE TIME. I've had to learn to be unbelievably patient because nothing ever turns out the way you hope. There's only so much you can do. I can't make the internet work. I was ready to do job research but then I couldn't. So then what's left to do but go home and read a book. You can easily get discouraged. You have to continue to self-motivate. Every day. It's so easy to feel defeated. All this to show that as a PCV you set out to accomplish certain tasks, yet there's a good chance none of it will get done. That's why when something good does happen, when you get a success, no matter how small, you really have to hold on to it and celebrate it.

In the beginning I think I was easily discouraged and frustrated by this. But as the months have gone, I've become pretty flexible and patient and when things don't go the way I planned I just try again the following day and occupy my day by doing something else. It's hard, but I think all of us are learning how to work in all kinds of environments.    

Fasika

This post is a bit late seeing as how Fasika (Ethiopia Easter) was celebrated on April 12th. Better late than never though.

I was super excited about Fasika this year. Maybe because I hadn't had doro wat (chicken stew - the best dish in Ethiopia) in months and I hadn't had any meat in weeks because Ethiopians fast for two months prior to the holiday. But mostly I think I was excited because I knew this was my last major holiday in Ethiopia (that made me sad) and I really wanted to take it all in and be a part of it. So that's what I did.

You know a holiday's coming when chickens and sheep start showing up on your compound. Over a week before Fasika, my landlady had bought three of the biggest chickens I've ever seen in Ethiopia and a pretty decent sized sheep. My landlady kept calling the chickens "ferenje doro" or "foreigner chickens" because of their size. I guess she was calling us foreigners fat. I don’t know but I thought it was funny. So for a week we were woken up super early by the chickens. I was more than ready for their inevitable death at the end of the week.

A couple days prior to Fasika Ethiopians start making the beverages for the holiday. Keneto, a non-alcoholic drink for the children is made with barley. They also make tela, home-made wine. Saturday afternoon my landlady was finishing making these. As I walked past the storage room where she was cooking I asked her how it was coming along. She then handed me a full pitcher of tela to take back into my house and drink. It was 1:30pm. The celebrations were already beginning.

That night, the animals were slaughtered. The men kill the animals. It was pretty gruesome so I didn't take any pictures. They killed the sheep and then hung it upside down to drain all the blood out. Then they killed the chickens. The chickens were brought to my lady in the outdoor kitchen they have at the end of the compound. There she tore the dead chickens apart, all with her bare hands! It's so much work! I'm always so impressed when I see this done. It was a mess of feathers, organs, blood, but she knew exactly what she was doing. She went through the same process with five chickens! Three were for her family and the other two were for her mother (because her mother is older she does it for her). The stew had been cooked earlier and was sitting there in three huge pots. We were going to have enough doro wat for days. As my landlady cleaned the chickens we sat around her and kept her company, talking and drinking more tela. She didn't go to bed until after midnight.

The next morning Abigail, their daughter, came to wake me up for breakfast. Ethiopians start eating doro wat bright and early in the morning. Doro wat has tons of onions (we're talking several kilos) and is full of berbere (hot spice) so it can be a lot to take in that early, but I think I'm used to it by now. I love it. So I went to my landlady's home and we all ate chicken and drank tela, again! She also had prepared tibs (chopped up sheep meat) that morning and I got to eat that. After the meal my landlord pulled out the gin and poured us all a shot. And then another. It was 9:30am! I was so full and exhausted when I got back to my house and had to take a little nap. Because at noon I was invited to my neighbor's home for round 2. It was the same routine there. More doro wat and tela. I was so full and could only eat a little bit. At 3pm I was invited to one of my teacher's homes for another meal. That last one was rough. I didn't think I could eat another bite. If you don't eat it's considered rude so I tried and did my best, but that night I was not feeling well. When your body isn't used to eating meat, it's quite a lot of meat to take in all in one day. It was all worth it though. My last holiday in Ethiopia was wonderful. It's unbelievable to me that this was the last one. I remember my first one in Ethiopia. I celebrated Ethiopian New Year, September 11th, with my host family back during pre-service training. That feels like a different time. I remember feeling lost and so unsure back then. I'm so much more comfortable now. I feel at home. I definitely felt at home for Fasika this time around. I've come a long way and being able to see that progress is pretty great. When you first arrive here you have no idea if you'll make it and how it will all turn out. I'm so grateful that I've come this far and I've become comfortable here. I've made Ethiopia my home.

Malaria Awareness

If you remember from last year around this time I had written a blog post about malaria. April 25th is World Malaria Month so Peace Corps has turned April into Malaria month. I thought I'd use this post to refresh your minds and share more about the disease.

Malaria continues to be a crisis throughout much of Africa. Every 45 seconds a child dies from the disease. What's worse, malaria is completely preventable and curable if people would sleep under mosquito nets. If you do contract malaria you can go to a health center or hospital and it can be easily treated. Because malaria feels like the flu, many do not know they have malaria or they wait to long before going to visit a doctor. Malaria has been eradicated throughout many regions outside this continent with the use of insecticides, medicines, and mosquito nets. This disease is transmitted only by a special kind of mosquito- called the Anopheles mosquito- which primarily bites at night.

Compared to the rest of Africa, the percentage of people who get malaria in Ethiopia is low. Still, malaria can be found in 75% of Ethiopia. Now we're trying to completely eliminate the disease from the country. Hopefully this becomes a reality sooner than later. Much of Ethiopia has a high elevation making malaria non existent in those areas. Mosquitos can't get above a certain altitude. In the last few years however, as a consequence of global warming, cases of malaria have been reported at higher elevations than normal. Living in the South malaria is a bigger concern because the elevation is lower here. Addis Ababa for example, the third highest city in the world, lies at 2,400 meters, whereas Hawassa, the capital city of the South and an area that I frequent often has an altitude of 1,685 meters. It may not seem like quite a difference, but when I first arrived in Ethiopia I definitely felt the change in altitude and it took a few days for the altitude sickness to go away. There's no malaria in Addis while in Hawassa it is quite prevalent. Because I often go to Hawassa I do my best to remember to take my malaria pills. I always sleep under the mosquito nets the hotels provide and I always spray insect repellant on. The government is working to make malaria a disease of the past. Health clinics throughout the country pass out mosquito nets to communities in rural areas. Without the proper training, though, and the lack of information, many people don't know how to use the nets and use them for other purposes that won't help them against malaria. One use I've seen is using the netting as a chicken coop.

What are Peace Corps Volunteers doing? One of the goals for health volunteers is to work on malaria awareness. These volunteers work closely with the health centers in their communities. There is also an Africa-wide initiative known as STOMP. In Ethiopia, we have regional coordinators that work closely with STOMP to spread the latest news about malaria throughout their region and keep their volunteers updated on the latest malaria activities they can do in their communities.

This month I used my English clubs to spread awareness about malaria. Even though there have been very few cases of malaria in Butajira, it is still possible to get it. I want my students to know what causes malaria, what they can do to prevent it, and what they should do if they start to get symptoms. Hopefully, by giving people information about the deadly consequences of not using a mosquito net and other prevention methods, malaria can be eradicated in Ethiopia and the rest of Africa. 

Our New Life Skills Club

On Saturday morning, the girls that I took to the AGE Summit and I started a life skills club at our school. The girls learned so much at the summit and are now ready to share their knowledge with their fellow students. We also received GAD (Gender and Development) manuals at the summit so we are using this as a guide for our club. I met with Itsubdink and Habtamnesh (my two participants from the summit) this week to discuss the logistics for our club. Since they know their classmates best, they chose the students to invite to our club. We decided it would be best to have both boys and girls participate and to meet in my classroom. The purpose of our club is to give the students the skills they need to become successful. That means we are going to be teaching them about leadership, personal health, and making good decisions, all while promoting English language and gender equality.

For our first session we did an activity called "Life Tree." This is a personal growth activity that aims to introduce participants to the importance of goal setting in their lives and the significance of personal values in achieving goals. By creating specific life goals participants will be motivated to take the steps towards a successful and rewarding life (GAD Manual). We first had the students imagine their lives in 10 years. We asked them what they saw? What were they doing? Where they were? Who they were with? Next, all the students were handed colored sheets of paper where they drew their own tree. The roots represented their foundation and the skills they have now. In the tree and the leaves they had to write their future goals. On the left side the students were to draw clouds to represent tangible resources they would need to accomplish their goals while on the right side they were to draw a lightning bolt signifying any potential threats they might encounter in reaching their goals. I love doing introspective activities like this and really enjoyed watching the kids tap into their creative sides. Students aren't often given the opportunity to express themselves and their ideas. It was nice doing an activity where they focused only on themselves and where they want their life to go.

I'm most proud of Itsubdink and Habtamnesh. It was wonderful watching them really take charge of this lesson. They were translating everything that I was saying and during the activity they walked around and helped all of the students. It's amazing to see them sharing the knowledge and skills they learned at the summit by leading these lessons. Our first session was a great success. I can't wait to see what next week brings!

AGE Summit

My girls Itsubdink (left) and Habtamnesh (right)

Last week I attended the second annual AGE (Action for Gender Equality) Summit in Addis Ababa, a 4 day event for volunteers and their students centered around the Women's First 5 km run in Addis and put on by Peace Corps Ethiopia's GAD (Gender and Development) Committee. Peace Corps Volunteers who had completed the most gender activities in their communities were chosen to participate in the summit and choose two students from their sites to bring along. This event brought students together from SNNPR (my region, the South), Oromia, Amhara and Tigray. Students never get the opportunity to interact with students from other regions so that was another terrific aspect of the summit. I chose two 14 year old girls from my gender club who I thought would benefit the most from the event. I wasn't sure how the girls' parents would feel about me taking their daughters away to Addis for a few days, but after sitting down with them they agreed that this was a great opportunity for the girls. Even though I only brought female students, some participants brought males at the request of GAD. When talking about gender inequality it's important to understand that men need to be a part of the conversation and movement towards equality as well. Men play an important role by influencing other men and their female counterparts. Gender equality will never be achieved without both sexes working together.

Ambassador Haslach speaking to the students

The event was held at the Red Cross Center, a training center with plenty of space for outdoor activities, indoor sessions, and the dorm rooms on the compound. On Friday morning we had a visit from the American ambassador to Ethiopia, Patricia M. Haslach. In her speech she discussed the importance of following your dreams and making them happen. She also spoke about the mentors in her life that have helped her achieve all that she has. In a field dominated by men, she explained that confidence can take you far. Not everyone will be pleased to see a woman in such a high leadership position, but that shouldn't stop you. You must know that you are equal to your male colleagues. Obviously her speech didn't just influence the students, but reached me as well.

The two days prior to the race (the race was held on Sunday morning) were filled with sessions about gender equality and empowerment. After the ambassador's visit on Friday, the kids did an activity called "Walk a Kilometer in Her Shoes." This is a relay race where boys have to perform some of the basic chores girls do every day. The boys put on women's shoes and wrapped a ball around their backs with a scarf to represent their "baby." They then had to chop vegetables, fill a bucket of water, carry it across the compound and wash clothes. Throughout the race the girls had to tell them if they were doing something wrong and were cheering them on. The goal of this activity was for the boys to realize how much work their mothers and sisters do. It showed them how difficult it is for girls to study and do their homework when they have so much work to finish at home first. Later, the kids did an activity called "Gender Stadium" where both the females and males talked about their gender roles and how having those roles makes them feel. Other sessions focused on respecting one another's viewpoints, gender based violence, and leadership/mentorship.

A woman from CCL (Center for Creative Leadership) spoke to the participants about mentorship and six successful Ethiopians were invited to do a career panel. The students also got a tour of Addis Ababa University, the most prestigious university in Ethiopia. The tour was followed by another panel with professors and students from the university. The students had lots of questions for all of the guests. Sunday evening we had a keynote speaker, UN HIV/AIDS Ambassador and 2003 Miss World Competitor, Hayat Amhed. She is an incredible role model for these kids and it was a treat having her come to the summit to talk about her life.

Race day was Sunday morning. We all woke before the sun came up and took a bus to the race. We joined a group of over 10,000 women! This was such an incredible experience. All sorts of women were participating, both young and old, big and small, Ethiopian and foreign. It didn't matter what you looked like, everyone was happy and cheering each other on. The energy was amazing. Women were the only ones allowed to participate so the boys stood on the sidelines with posters cheering us on and showing their support. Being a part of this event was one of the best moments I've had in Ethiopia. It was a truly empowering experience. What was even better was seeing our students thriving in this environment. I can't begin to imagine what was going through their minds. None of these girls had ever been to such a huge event. Before the race started we got a performance from the girl group Yegna. Ethiopian Olympic gold medalists Meseret Defar and Haile Gebreselassie blew the horn to start the race. The girls were SO happy. I saw them completely let go and just be free. Us volunteers never see girls this happy and excited in our communities. Most of the time they are quiet and not at all outgoing. At site they fit perfectly into their gender role so to see them at this race, dancing together, laughing as loud as they could and running around was incredible. This is something I will remember forever.

Itsubdink explaining her group's activity to the rest of the participants

That afternoon back at the Red Cross Center we had sessions about sexual harassment and sexual health. Each of us volunteers also got with the students we brought to create an action plan about how to bring the lessons learned throughout the summit back to our communities. We finished the day with a talent show. Before heading off to bed a lot of students had tears as they said their goodbyes.

I had an amazing 4 days and I can't wait to do more gender work with my girls and have them be leaders of our school back in Butajira. I am so proud of them. In just a few days I saw these girls come out of their shells, speak up, and gain so much confidence. I can't wait to see what we do together with the handful of months I have left. 

Extremely proud to have these two as my students

I know I have written about these facts in a previous post, but I thought it would be a good reminder of why the GAD committee and the gender work volunteers are doing

are so important to the development of this country.

These facts come from the World Economic Forum 2013, DHS 2005, Oxfam Ethiopia Country Profile 2013, and UNICEF 2012.

•        Ethiopia ranked 118th out of 136 countries on the 2013 Global Gender Gap Index.

•        Only 18% of Ethiopian women are literate, compared to 42% of men.

•        In Ethiopia, 71% of women have suffered from physical and/or sexual violence in their

             lifetime

•        81% of women agree that wife beating is acceptable for at least one reason.

•        17% of Ethiopian women report that their first instance of sexual intercourse was forced.

•        Only 14% of women are employed outside their family.

•        Women hold only 18.7% of land.

•        The 2011 EDHS found that 12% of women aged 15 – 19 are pregnant or mothers.

•        Fertility rate is 4.8.

•        The maternal mortality rate is 470 (out of 100,000 births).

•        Only 24% of students enrolled in university are female.

•        Ethiopia currently ranks 174th out of 187 countries on the Human Development Index.

            Average incomes are less than half the average for sub-Saharan Africa.

•        8% of women were abducted and forced into marriage.

•        Ethiopia is ranked 76 out of 79 countries on IFPRI’s Global Hunger Index.

•        Only 3.2% of the Ethiopian population is over the age of 65.

•        Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) prevalence by Region

•        Amhara – 68%

•        Oromyia – 87%

•        Tigray – 29%

•        SNNPR – 71%

The Emotional roller coaster that was 2014

Here's the first blog of the year. Enjoy!

It's been some time since I last wrote. That's because one of my close friends from college came to visit for three weeks. It was great showing her around Butajira and the daily happenings of my life. During her visit we traveled to Hawassa, Shashamene, and spent a really fun weekend in Addis. It was also wonderful having her here for Christmas. With the limited ingredients we had, the both of us were able to come up with a pretty delicious meal. Being away from home during the holidays is always harder so I'm thankful to have had my girl Candace with me and I feel like those three weeks together brought us much closer. There's nothing like washing each other's underwear in a bucket outside and sharing a chamber pot to bring two ladies closer. With a new year upon us I've been reminiscing a lot on 2014. So much has happened and I'm trying to piece it all back together to come up with a coherent idea of what the year's been like for me. Around this same time last year I was in a very different place mentally. I started off 2014 feeling quite uncomfortable and unsure in Ethiopia, even after having been here six months. I still had no idea what I was doing, how to go about doing my work and living here, and to be honest, several things were still scary. I was pretty negative and I hate to admit that my outlook on Ethiopia wasn't great. I can remember only focusing on the bad things that happened to me which caused me to be angry most of the time. Things were not going the way I wanted at work, my communication skills weren't there, and the harassment I received was really getting to me. I stayed in that state of mind for longer than I'd like to admit.

So I moved from being scared and uncomfortable to being angry which in turn became sadness. All of this wasn't great. I can recall last spring when I was counting down the days until my trip to the states and only being focused on that. Not healthy! Going to America was a whirlwind of emotions in itself. After a month in America, where I got to be with my family, see my friends, and eat a ridiculous amount of food, I arrived back in Ethiopia feeling depressed. All I wanted to do was go back. The thought of ending my Peace Corps service early crossed my mind on more than one occasion. Looking back on it now though, I'm so happy I decided to stick to it. When my second year began I knew I hadn't given it my all so I decided to try harder and seriously push myself.

I don't remember exactly when it was, I want to say sometime in August, but my outlook on Ethiopia changed. I made a decision to view Ethiopia in a different light if I was going to take on another year here because I couldn't continue the way I had been for months. I wasn't going to make it to the end with that frame of mind. And if I was, I would have become an extremely angry and resentful person. I had to accept that I was never going to change Ethiopia and that I'm not here to change it. Harassment was probably the hardest thing I dealt with and I came to realize that if America still doesn't have its act together concerning gender equality, how could I ever expect Ethiopia to? I had to stop allowing harassment to make me angry and afraid and ruin my days.  Being angry wasn't solving the problem and the men that I was getting angry at didn't understand where my frustrations came from. Changing the way society views gender takes generations. I'm only here for 2 years. How could I ever think that my being here for that short span of time would make men treat women as their equals? That's crazy! The best I can do is hope that my being here alone is planting seeds in peoples' minds about changing the role of women in Ethiopian society.

Concerning work, I decided to do things that were working and to make more of an effort to work with people who wanted to work with me; To only focus on the work that is going well. I decided to make more of an effort to work with my community and school and really listen to what they wanted me to do instead of what I wanted to do or what I thought the schools needed. Because that doesn't work and it's not sustainable. At the end of the day, my coworkers have been here a lot longer than me, they know their communities better and ultimately I am their volunteer.

The hardest pill for me to swallow has been having to remind myself that I am a guest here. I made the decision to come to Ethiopia on my own. No one asked me to do this and so in that period when I was constantly complaining about this country and I only saw the negative was unfair. It still doesn't make the way I'm treated by certain Ethiopians right, but when it comes to work I try to remind myself of that simple fact. I made the decision to live in Ethiopia for 2 years. Don’t get me wrong though. I constantly find myself in less than thrilling situations, but I try my best not to focus on those incidents so much and to think of the good things that happened to me that day.  Being the center of attention every time you walk out the door and having people yell out at you and gawk at you really builds confidence after a while. I'm no longer scared to walk through town and I brush things off a lot more easily.

Favorite picture of 2014 - Surroundings at Lake Langano

I have to thank all the Ethiopians I've met who have made me feel welcomed and loved. My host family and compound family are always here for me. Conversations with them and encounters with my teachers makes it all worth it. Even though working with the teachers has proven to be quite challenging, they are still very nice and appreciative of what I'm trying to do and I'm comfortable around them. I try to focus on the student that hugged me and kissed me on the cheek after we read together for half an hour or the student that offered me her banana flavored stick of gum as we crossed paths on the dirt road. Simple interactions with a suk owner can turn a bad day around. Just yesterday as I was walking to school I had an elderly Ethiopian man bow his head at me and take off his hat when he walked past as a sign of respect. I try to focus on those moments instead of the ones where people are aggressive towards me.

I want to end this post my expressing that my experience is mine personally. I cannot stress that enough. It's important for people to remember that every Peace Corps volunteer's service is different. We may live in the same country, but our regions, our sites, our work, the people in our community, etc. vary widely. Each one of us has a very different experience and so what may work for me does not necessarily work for someone else. For all the volunteers in my group who ended their service early I think they all ultimately made the best decision for themselves. And who knows, if I had had to go through some of the awful stuff other volunteers experienced I probably wouldn't still be here either. But whenever I thought of going home I knew I would end up regretting it. I hadn't given it my all and until that moment came when I had tried everything and I was still miserable, then I would say it's time to say goodbye. That moment has yet to arrive.

For my own experience, staying patient and going through that difficult first year allowed me to learn, grow and arrive at this current point where I'm happy in my service. I'm sure some will ask if going through those rough months was worth it. For me it absolutely was. I'm not here to change Ethiopia. I'm here to experience this country for all its good and bad and learn from it.  

Another Thanksgiving Away

As I’ve stated many times before, living away from my family is one of the hardest parts about living abroad. It's especially challenging during the holidays. Most volunteers go through episodes of depression during this time. As Thanksgiving was approaching I felt myself trying my best not to see the date getting closer on my calendar, but it was difficult. So when I found out my name had been drawn to have Thanksgiving dinner with a family working at the American Embassy I did not hesitate to accept the invitation. A few weeks prior, Peace Corps had asked Americans working at the embassy if they would like to host Peace Corps Volunteers at their homes for the holiday. Since not all of us would be able to go because there weren’t enough families to host the over 200 volunteers currently present in country, Peace Corps picked names at random. I found out I’d be going to Addis Ababa just a week before the holiday.

I headed to Addis Thursday morning and met my hosts in the city where they picked me up in their private car and drove me to their beautiful home. As soon as I arrived through the gates, it felt like a completely different world. And I welcomed all the luxury. All I thought as I entered their home was, “enjoy this Helena, it’s only going to last a few hours before you have to get back to your mud house and shint bet.” In the most basic sense I can describe their home, it was America. All these things that are normal to Westerners, a home where you wear no shoes because it's so clean, a full kitchen, a living room with couches and huge rugs, a huge dining room table set for 10, a full bar with actual glasses, a hard wood floor staircase, a bedroom with an actual bed and bed frame and a private bathroom … all the stuff that’s normal, isn’t normal for me anymore. So when I walked in with all these things at my feet I was overjoyed and I had to stop myself from screaming and crying tears of happiness. My hosts led me to the spare bedroom where they said I could sleep the night and told me to take my time getting ready. As I was left alone in the room I just sat on the bed and took it all in. And then of course I immediately hopped into the shower. I got dressed, put on my dress, did my hair and put on some makeup. I can’t tell you how good it feels to be able to feel like a woman. I took these simple acts for granted back home. To be able to get ready in a comfortable home was such a gift. After I had finished pampering myself I headed downstairs to see what I could help with. There was an actual turkey sitting on the kitchen table. Yes… a turkey!!! (Embassy workers put in their turkey order a couple months before the holidays). My host then asked me what I wanted to drink. He gave me an entire list of things I could have. I know all this stuff seems silly to people back home, but this is not what I’m used to anymore. Obviously I was beyond happy. We had our drinks and appetizer/snacks as we waited for the other guests. My white wine actually tasted like what good white wine should taste like. I got to have chips and salsa, hummus and pita bread, mixed vegetables with dip that included broccoli, red peppers, and cucumbers!!!!! I had to control myself so I wouldn’t go crazy over all this food. And those were just the snacks. Cabbage, potatoes, and tomatoes start to get old after a few months of the same repetitive meals, so the variety in vegetables was a welcomed change.

Afterwards, the other guests slowly arrived and I got to meet some really interesting people. Of the group of us there, half of us had done Peace Corps so I was able to relate to quite a few of them. It was amazing to be able to have conversations with Americans. We finally got to sit down and have Thanksgiving. The turkey was delicious which was of course accompanied by every other Thanksgiving dish you can think of. All in all, I stuffed my face and ended the night with a stomach ache that was well worth it. I would do it all over again.

Until Peace Corps I had never really sat back to think of what I’m thankful for in my life. So here’s what I’m thankful for this year. I’m thankful for this wonderful embassy family who agreed to host me. They went above and beyond by letting me stay the night in their home and driving me all the way to the bus station the following day, a.k.a. the place I dread most in the entire world. I’m also thankful for this experience and for Peace Corps. This past year and a half has been a huge learning and growing process. I’m often complaining about it as many of you know, but I honestly am happy I made the decision to come to Ethiopia and I have no regrets. Living abroad has also taught me how important my family is to me. I’m so thankful to be able to have an experience that shows me what I truly value most in life. I don’t think everyone gets that opportunity. And most of all, I’m thankful to be an American. Being a white, middle class American comes with many privileges that I never understood before and didn’t realize I had. I’m so much more aware of my gender, my class, my skin color, my nationality and what all of it means. I can’t imagine what my life would be like today if I hadn’t accepted my invitation to serve in Ethiopia.

I had a great Thanksgiving this year. I hope the same goes for everyone and I cannot wait to be home for the next one!