The First Week

Okay well, just to make a disclaimer – I could never capture everything that I’ve experienced in the first week in a blog entry.  This culture and city and organization are far too rich for me ever to be able to document even in video, let alone in words.  The smells, the textures of the food, the spices, all of the sounds, the feel of the air, the pollution are all elements that have to be experienced firsthand.  But, I did promise everyone back home that I would try my best to bring Ethiopia to life for them, so this is my first attempt at that.

My first day of work was Monday.  Sarah and I treaded the 40 minute walk from our house to the Millennium Villages Project (MVP) building where Millennium Development Ethiopia (MDE), the organization with which I will be working, and the Center for National Health Development in Ethiopia (CNHDE).  It was a cool morning, about 60F and 15C, the sun was out along with the beggars. 

The minibuses were all packed full, but that didn’t deter the “yellers” from trying to recruit more riders.  Apparently, the law is that there should only be 12 people maximum in one minibus at anytime.  However, Sarah and I counted once and found 19 people crammed in like a can of sardines.  Watching people get into one of these things is seriously like going to the circus and watching the clowns jam into their itty-bitty car.  It’s rather comical, actually.

The secondary school students were walking toward their school from every direction, and you could find them in every single street making their ways to their final 2 or 3 days of classes.  By Friday there were no more teenagers populating the sidewalks in their forest green and white uniforms – the boys in the green pants and shirts and the girls wearing either green skirts or pants with white button-down shirts and green sweaters covering.   They all looked rather dignified. 

When we finally arrived at the office, we were amongst the first ones there that morning, showing up at about 8:45.  I first met Elsie and Leya, the two admins.  They are both fairly young, around 30, and it seems that they keep that place together.  I later met my Millennium supervisor, Birkti.  Since it is currently the end of the second quarter, the whole building is much like a beehive - people running around, rushing to finish quarterly reports and to compile data from the past three months.  In light of that Birkti simply set me up in my office (we’re not sure if this is my permanent spot while I’m here or if I’ll eventually move) on the first floor with all of the directors and the admins.  No pressure.  The photo below is of the view from Sarah's office.  It's a quiet street, but the activity is typical of Addis.

Sarah and I haven’t really figured out the whole cooking-in-Ethiopia situation yet, so we usually dine out for lunch.  On Monday, we went back to the main street to look for a restaurant where we could get a quick bite. There, we found the Malaria officer from CNHDE, Yihenew.  We sat down with him and just had what he had.  It was a injera, the Ethiopian bread that looks much like a very thin sponge, tan/grey in color, and is about 30 inches in diameter.  It folds up and rolls up and is used to gather the bits of prepared meats or vegetables that are placed on top of it. 

Anyway, Yihenew is an intelligent guy who loves to study malaria and especially its mosquito vector.  He knows more about mosquitoes than I would ever desire.  He told Sarah and I that one can tell if a mosquito is carrying malaria or not by how it positions itself when landed. Very practical.  I’ll have to take pictures of how he described it and then post them here to show the rest of the world how to avoid malaria-ridden mosquitoes.  Based upon the plethora of information that Yihenew has, I just might write a whole blog entry on malaria one day in the near future. 

On Tuesday I made my way to the U.S. Embassy here in Addis in order to have my transcripts authenticated yet again. This is becoming quite ridiculous.  Even though they have already been authenticated by the U.S. Secretary of State in Washington D.C., they have to get the seal of the U.S. Embassy here.  That was another $50.  Holy cow.  Nonetheless, my part in the process of acquiring a work/residence permit in Ethiopia is finished.  It’s now in the trusted hands of Hiwot, the Millennium finance czarina.  She knows the process here and will certainly do very well. 

 

Birkti, my supervisor here at MVP, was suddenly called to Kenya on Tuesday afternoon for the remainder of the week.  So, I helped Sarah out a bit with her tomato paste business plan in her absence Wednesday through Friday.  I’m sure that I’ll be making up that lost time on my own projects next week when Birkti returns.