Continuation of Swan Song, Part 1: My Pipe Dream…

Even knowing that I might fulfill my goal of creating a long-lasting project that will benefit people in and around Gondar, there is still another big issue that I have to face: the negative memories from my last few months in Ethiopia. As some of my previous posts have illustrated, my last few months in Ethiopia were the most difficult of my entire fellowship –from re-adjusting to the loneliness of Gondar after spending a wonderful week with the other JSC fellows in Israel, to sexual harassment not just from my student but from someone I liked and trusted, and ending with my illness and experience with the Ethiopian medical system, I didn’t get to ride out of Ethiopia on a wave of happy memories and list of goals completed.

Swan Song, Part 1: My Pipe Dream

Recently my youngest brother graduated from high school and I was lucky enough to be there to celebrate with him, and not just at the graduation itself but all the graduation events. It seemed like the goodbyes and final moments leading up the actual graduation stretched on for weeks –there was a senior dinner at our synagogue, a final banquet for his robotics club, a graduation party, a pre-graduation event at the school, and so on. I’m so used to having these final dinners and established goodbyes that I, like many people, take them for granted and put off saying and doing certain things until the set time –no need to take pictures with Zelalem today, when I’m running around trying to get to school, I’ll do it right as I’m leaving Gondar. And why, on an average day, should I tell the women who I work with on the toy project how much they mean to me? Isn’t expressing that sort of sentiment a bit odd and best left for when I am about to leave Ethiopia? But as I learned too late, sometimes we don’t get that official goodbye moment, the opportunity to say and do all those things we’ve been saving for that final wrap-up that previously has seemed to come, neatly arranged, with every major stage in life. And with that said, I think it’s time I tell you the rest of the Typhoid Maggie story.

Typhoid Maggie

I think I jinxed myself. A little over six months ago I wrote about how I am often kept awake at night by the thought of what I would do in the case of a medical emergency. That was no exaggeration or story made up to prove a point, I really did think through what I would do if my (or Jason’s) appendix dramatically burst in the middle of the night. This of course meant that when I did get sick, it wasn’t dramatic and didn’t follow any of my plans – it was with an illness that while common in Ethiopia, most Americans have only read about in history books or while playing the Oregon Trail computer game. The story of my bout of typhoid and first-hand experience with the Ethiopian medical system was comical (okay, maybe not at the time), made me ponder the issue of trust, and led me to re-visit my thoughts in the aforementioned blog post on the Ethiopian medical system. 

A Day in the Life, Part 2

Continuation from A Day in the Life, Part 1….

When we left off, I had just returned home from a morning at Salaj Elementary School as part of the JDC rural outreach program.

A Day in the Life, Part I

For months, my mom has been asking me to write about what my day to day life is like here, and given her powers of persuasion (“everyone I know has been asking you to write about it”) it is pretty impressive that I have yet to do it. However, since Sunday was my Mom’s birthday (happy birthday, Mom!)  I figure it is about time to write the post that apparently everyone wants to read.

In reality, there is no typical day here as my relationships with the people and environment around me change constantly. However, I will still try to give you a taste of what life is like by writing about one jam packed day in which I undertake different projects. It is not an exact account of a particular day, but rather a conglomeration of experiences that I wanted to share with you. However, this is a pretty accurate portrayal of a typical Tuesday.

Frustrating Phrases

For one of the ice breaker sessions during mid-year seminar all of the fellows were asked to teach everyone our favorite word or phrase from the country where we work. I taught the phrase “denanesh” which means “are you fine” and plays a rather funny role in both Amharic and English conversations here as they usually go something like this:

Person 1: “Hello. How are you?”

Person 2: “I’m fine. Are you fine?”

Person 1: “Yes I’m fine. Are fine?”

Person 2: “Yes, I’m fine.”

Sometimes in the middle of a conversation the whole sequence repeats again, and I try very hard not to laugh when it does. I realized how Ethiopian I am becoming after I asked a ferenji friend the other day “are you fine?”

Happy World Water Day!

Today is World Water Day, and while I have already written about the issue of clean water in Ethiopia, I thought in honor of today, I would share some facts about water and sanitation issues around the world. They’re pretty mind-blowing.

Happy Anniversary, Ethiopia

Six months ago today I landed in Ethiopia ready to take on one of the biggest adventures of my life, and wow, what a ride it’s been. When thinking about what I should post in honor of today’s anniversary, I decided to share a presentation on professional goal setting that I gave two weeks ago at the JSC mid-year seminar in Israel. Creating the presentation over the past few months gave me the opportunity to think through the successes and challenges I have faced over my first six months here, as well as what I want to do in the second-half of my fellowship. Unfortunately I couldn’t discuss all my goals and every aspect of my work, but instead just presented a case study on my experience teaching. Here it is.

Part Two: Medical Malpractice Suits and Long Showers

There are many things that keep me up at night here, other than the persistent itching of mosquito bites and constant barking of my seemingly nocturnal dogs. One of these things is what I would do if I got really, really sick here. The thought of needing immediate care terrifies me, not because there are no doctors or hospitals in Gondar, but because of the quality of the medical care— my friends who are doctors here say that even they wouldn’t go to the hospital if they were ill. There are a number of issues with the health care system here, but since I am not deeply involved with it, I will only go into a couple of the issues that I know about.

No Need for Thanksgiving This Year

I didn’t need Thanksgiving this year. Not that I didn’t want the turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and family time, but I didn’t need an allotted opportunity to be thankful. From my first day in Ethiopia, when I accompanied Rick to see his patients in Addis, I started making a mental list of all the things that I am thankful for, which has continued to grow over my three months here.  I intended to present the list as a mini research project at some point at the end of this fellowship. But as I watch Americans supposedly spend a day being thankful and then beginning the next day (if that) dedicate the next three weeks to trampling each other for the newest and greatest gifts to add to all that they already have, I felt the need to share a condensed version of my list now that is based on my observations and not research. While living in Ethiopia has made me grateful for many, many things, I have decided to narrow down my list to just four: education, shoes, health care, and water. This blog post, part one, will focus on education and shoes.