Baby Theo

I completely abandoned this little blog of mine! I'm not sure if there's anyone out there still reading, but if so I think you deserve an update.

In late April 2016, I became pregnant and we left Ethiopia in May. Peace Corps Ethiopia doesn't allow volunteers to stay in country if they are pregnant and so I was medically separated. We were so happy to be pregnant that nothing seemed to matter. The school year was nearly finished and we were set to leave in a few months anyway. Cutting our time a bit short was sad, but the thought of a new baby was so exciting!

I gave birth in early January 2017 to a baby boy who we call Theo. He's the light in our lives and I could not love him more, yet every day I do! Being a mama is seriously hard work, but I love it so, so much. I'm so happy to have our little "made in Ethiopia" baby.

He's pretty happy to be here, too. :)

Keeping Busy with Creativity

I’ve always been a big crafter. I love, love, love making things and can get so in the zone that I skip meals. It feels good, like fun work. I’ve really been taking advantage of the free time I have right now by creating things almost every day and I wanted to share some of my recent projects with you. I’m working on a couple different skill sets and really letting my creativity flow. The more I create, the more I want to create!

AGE Summit 2016

Peace Corps Ethiopia’s Gender and Development Committee (of which I am a part) recently put on a 4-day conference in Addis Ababa called The Action for Gender Equality Summit. It was 4 days of learning about how to be leader, sexual health, gender equality, and teamwork.

the whole Summit crew with Ambassador Susan Page

Ten Peace Corps volunteers from around the country each brought 4 students (2 boys and 2 girls) from their communities and five of them also brought their Ethiopian counterparts. The idea is that the students come to learn about new ideas and how to be a leader and then they can go back to their communities and teach other students about what they learned. Also, they can then be junior counselors at a Camp GLOW (Girls or Girls/Guys Leading Our World) in their area during the summer.

The days were long, beginning at 7am and going until 10 or 10:30pm. We did mostly serious learning, but we also did yoga in the mornings, danced the Whip/Nae Nae, made prayer flags, and had a talent show. It was a good mix of solid learning and fun activities, with a definite emphasis on the solid learning!

morning yoga

students performing skits

We also had a couple guest speakers, a career panel, and the girls ran in the annual Women First 5k. The race is only for women and was a lot of fun! The boys made signs to cheer us on the night before, and it was so cool to see them holding up signs for us and gender equality.

the boys cheering us on

the Women First 5k, 2016

All the students, counterparts, Peace Corps volunteers, and additional volunteers from organizations in Addis were so great. We created our own little community during those 4 days and worked together so well. I hope the students learned a lot and had a lot of fun both at the AGE Summit and visiting their nation’s capital (for most, it was their first time in Addis). I’m so proud of everyone who was involved in this event. It couldn’t have been great without everyone who was there! Thank you!

Crossing the River, a team building activity

It was amazing to be a part of the AGE Summit and I am so proud of our committee!

the GAD Committee

Search #AGESummit2016 for more photos!

Katie in Ethiopia

One thing that made coming back to Ethiopia a lot easier, was having Spencer’s sister Katie come to visit! We all flew back on the same flight and spent 10 days traveling around Ethiopia, visiting Addis, Hawassa, Bale Goba, Riiraa, and of course, our town, Durame.

It was fun to show her all the places we usually go to in Addis and Hawassa. It’s so interesting to see Ethiopia through a tourist’s eyes, rather than those of a Peace Corps volunteer. It’s so different! She was excited to see things that I have long since forgotten were interesting when I first arrived. It was very refreshing.

hippo in Lake Hawassa

fishermen on Lake Hawassa

Sunset over Lake Hawassa

We also went to visit some new places with her, namely Bale National Park. We stayed with my friend and fellow Peace Corps volunteer, Samantha, in Goba which is just outside the park. We woke up before dawn and took a very crowded bus out to Riiraa to go hiking and see a waterfall. The bus ride took us through the coldest part of Ethiopia, so cold that hardly anything grows up there. It looks like the moon! Once in Riiraa, we walked to the trail head and started exploring. The forest was beautiful and it was so fun to hike around in the woods without seeing anyone. It was so peaceful.

Riiraa

Bale Mountains National Park

hiking in Bale Mountains National Park

climbing in Riiraa

Getting back to Durame from Bale was a challenge since there were some protests happening in Oromia. We took an alternate (although much longer) route and got there in the end. We had dinner with our compound family, took bucket baths, the power went out, we visited each of our schools, and heard the hyenas whooping at night. It was the perfect showing of our life here.

street art in Addis

Much sooner that I would’ve liked, it was time for her to fly back to California. We sat on another long bus and I cried when we dropped her off at the airport. Goodbyes are always hard, but it’s nice to know that we’ll be together again this summer. 

A Glorious Wonderland

At the end of January, we went back to California to visit family and friends and to attend my cousin’s wedding. I have a lot of cousins but this particular cousin is extra special to me because we grew up very close. When she told me she was engaged and asked if I would go back for her wedding, I said yes in a heartbeat!

We made it just in time for her bachelorette party in San Francisco, although our luggage stayed in Istanbul (where we’d had a layover) for an extra day. I was a bit stressed about leaving for the party without any of my things, but thank goodness I have such a great sister-in-law who hooked me up with clothes, shoes, make up, and accessories to wear in the City for the celebration. The bride also brought me extra clothes and asked her friend to bring me extra clothes, so in the end I had more than enough!

Visiting California was like a glorious wonderland. We had no responsibilities, we had all the food options we could ever dream of, and we got to spend precious time with family and friends. I am so grateful that we were able to visit home in the middle of our Peace Corps service. The notion that we had the trip planned helped me stay dedicated to my service, even through one of the toughest times of year to be living away from family: the holiday season. Looking forward to something is always good.

Plus, it was just a nice break! Everything was easy. Going shopping was easy. Communication was so easy!  I could ask a waiter anything and they would understand and then I would get the exact food I wanted! I know this might sound oddly normal to those of you living in the States, but this was huge for me. I was also so happy to eat all the foods I’d been missing so much!

The one thing I struggled with was finding one thing I wanted in a big selection of things. For example, I went to the grocery store and wanted to buy a certain kind of vitamins. I was looking at the vitamins for a while and I couldn’t find the ones I wanted. It was like my brain was overloaded! It could not process everything at once. It wasn’t stressful though, I just asked someone who worked there to help and she found them right away. Communication wins again!

It was such a great trip. Coming back was a little hard, but it’s all good. We’re in the middle of our last semester of teaching and the end is near. I’m happy and excited for the next step (grad school, yeah!), but for now I’m enjoying the slow pace of life and all that delicious Ethiopian coffee. 

Christmas and Genna

We spent Christmas in Addis with a bunch of our PCV friends eating delicious food at one of the fanciest hotels in Ethiopia, the Sheraton. There was sushi; it was glorious. 

We spent Genna (Ethiopian Christmas) with our compound family in Durame. I helped clean two chickens to make doro wat, which was quite the experience! Spencer helped the kids put together a couple palm fronds to make a Christmas tree and then we all made decorations. It was great and our Genna dinner was SO delicious. 

The Simien Mountains

The Simien Mountains are on many tourists’ travel itineraries while visiting Ethiopia, and we’re no different. When Amanda and Matthew came to visit at the end of August, we knew we had to go. Located in the northern part of the Amhara region (very far from where we live!), the mountains are home to many endemic animals and are sometimes referred to as The Roof of Africa.

We visited in the rainy season, which made the views beautiful and green. The downside being that the rain limited our hiking and also some views were obscured by the clouds. When you’re that high up, you literally are walking through the clouds. We took a two-day, one-night trek into the mountains and even though it rained in the afternoons, the mornings were beautiful and clear.

On our second day, we trekked to a lookout point to see a massive waterfall. Our guide said it was over 500 meters tall! A good thing about going in the rainy season: the waterfall was fully flowing.

One of the most famous endemic animals in the area is the Gelada baboon. These furry, monkey-like creatures eat only grass and are so gentle you can walk right up to them. Our tour guide told us they especially like ferenj (foreigners), but I think that’s only because foreigners don’t have crops to protect from them.

We also saw a Menelik’s Bushbuck (I think) and a lot of birds and flowers. It was nice to see all the flowers blooming, which we would have missed had we come in the dry season.

a bushbuck's backside

A trip to the Simien Mountains is expensive (especially for Peace Corps volunteers), but well worth the beautiful scenery and unique wildlife. I think if we went again, we’d stay for longer. We didn’t get to hike much, because of the rain and our limited time. It would’ve been nice to get a couple longer walks in.