A Long, Short Summary of My Practicum Experience in Ethiopia

Sunday, March 15, 2009

For the past 3 ½ weeks I was in Ethiopia for our practicum part of the program. Roanna, Eli, Tessa, Suzy, and I traveled to the northeast part of Ethiopia. Roanna, Tessa, and Eli were placed in Sasiga whereas Suzy and I lived 25 kilometers away in the district of Belo, village of Sogue. It was seriously out in the middle of nowhere…at the beginning Suzy and I didn’t know what to do with ourselves, but we adjusted and absolutely LOVED our experience. We were living in a VERY hot, dusty, desert where hyenas, donkeys, and antelope roamed the land. We saw one antelope, TONS of donkeys that made an unexplainable “He-Haw” (it was so funny…we always laughed), and two dead hyenas on the road. We lived with the Gumuz people.

Suzy and I lived in the FH compound with the other FH staff. Each person had their own room…kind of like an outside dormitory with a shower and bathroom at the end. We had a really good cook named Tenanye. For breakfast we’d drink tea and eat pasta or rice with bread. Sometimes she served Fer Fer, a traditional dish that is a mixture of injera pieces, meat, and a spicy sauce…I was not a fan. Then, for lunch and dinner we ate injera, sheep meat (which I did not like or eat much of…ate some unknown parts), vegetables, and shiro which is like a lentil sauce. Every day after lunch we had a coffee ceremony which was sooo good. Ethiopian coffee is served in small coffee cups, is very strong, and has a lot of sugar. Definitely the best coffee I have tasted…it is so sweet and fresh. Fresh coffee is green, then it is roasted, grinded into fine grounds, and dissolves in hot water until the right consistency. Everyone had coffee ceremonies either in the morning or afternoon.

We formed close relationships with many of the staff and learned so much from them! They are awesome people who have a desire to serve God in all that they do. Every morning, we woke up early for staff prayer and devotions. During this time, I learned the importance of prayer and how powerful it is. They have left their families who live hours away to serve this rural, remote community in poverty…I could not imagine how hard that would be.

During our time, we worked mainly with CDP (Child Development Project). This involved leading a girl’s group, talked with classrooms in the school, and did home visits with some of the sponsor children. We also had the chance to visit some of the agriculture and water sites. I learned so much about the community…and was especially drawn to the inequality issue. In this community, women are seen as inferior, men superior. Early marriage is a major issue. At the age of 12 and 13 young girls are dropping out of school to marry. Boys typically marry around the age of 18. We saw many young mothers who looked around the age of 14 and already had children. We talked about the importance of education and waiting for marriage in our girl’s group.

Inequality is also seen in the gender roles. At young ages, girls carry heavy jugs of water from the river to their hut numerous times during the day. They also may be expected to carry heavy piles of sticks on their backs, cook, clean, take care of their siblings, etc. While the men herd the cattle which mainly involved sitting around and talking with their friends. When walking through the village, we often saw men getting drunk and playing cards. At some of the home visits we met with two sponsor girls. The girls did not talk much, as they are taught not to communicate or express themselves, and did not smile…you could see in their eyes that they had no joy or hope in their life. Very sad….

In Sogue live the Gumuz and Highlander people. There has been much tension between the two people groups over the past couple years. It has been a conflict of racial tension and a struggle for resources. Last May, a massacre erupted between the Gumuz and Highlanders…in four days, 200 boys and men were killed while the girls and women were raped or physically abused. The government stepped in and settled the dispute. Although both groups live peaceably now, unspoken tension remains. However, Sogue is very safe and we enjoyed our stay.

The night before we left Sogue, we had a camp fire…which means butchering a sheep and cooking the meat for dinner. Suzy and I made an American meal for them to share a little bit of our culture with the staff…it was difficult to find ingredients and cook over coals, so we decided to grill bread for sandwiches and made a salad. At the camp fire, they presented us with traditional dresses and shawls. They were beautiful! Zeldanesh, a staff member, showed us how to put them on…we were told we had to put them on before we could continue with our farewell ceremony. Suzy and I bought the staff a clock. Who knows if they’ll use it, but they appreciated our gift. We talked about what we learned and what a blessing it was to stay with them. That night, we shared in devotions, worship, dancing, and eating lots of good food. It was so much fun and I felt so special. I miss them!

For the last week, Awake, our supervisor, showed us around several places. We traveled for TWO days in jet packed car…we sat 4 people in the backseat, so squished. We also stopped every few hours for macchiatos, fruit, corn, etc...let’s just say we never went hungry with Awake and all became addicted to coffee. We were all tired and were so thankful when we finally arrived in Zuway, the other FH program in Ethiopia. We stayed for about 3 days and learned about how FH works in the urban poverty setting. We did some home visits, played games with the school children, went to market, as well as visited two lakes! The group stayed at a hotel in the town. It was fairly nice except for the poor water system. On our half of the hotel, the water never worked…only one time were we able to shower in our room. Because the water didn’t work, Suzy and I could not flush our toilet for days…the smell was terrible!!! Boy, were we ready to get out of that room, ha! Me and Suz just got a bad room…our outlets didn’t work and the water didn’t work, but it made for some good memories and had fun laughing at the situation.

The last three days were spent traveling and exploring Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. This is a fairly developed city. At least it looks more developed. The streets are so clean, they drive on the right side of the road, and the streets are not complete chaos which was very nice. However, I noticed at nights many people covered themselves with a blanket and slept on the sidewalk. I never saw so many people sleeping on the street. I also noticed the numerous people that were crippled. Some people walked with shoes on their hands because they had crippled legs. I think it might be polio? but not sure. I did not recognize this in Uganda. Ethiopia speaks Amharic and seems to have a lot of Arabic influence. They have light skin, look similar to Indian ethnicity, and are known as Africa’s most beautiful people.

We visited the FH headquarters and were able to see some of the markets. On Wednesday night, Awake took our group out to a cultural restaurant for our last hoorah! It was so cool. We ate traditional food-injera and other special dishes, had a coffee ceremony, listened to music and watched the many cultural dances which were so cool! The dancers wore different Ethiopian dresses for each dance…each dance represented a different part of Ethiopia. Two of the dancers came up to me and starting dancing with me. Shaking their shoulders is the cultural Ethiopian dance…I tried my best to follow what they did but I don’t think I did the Ethiopian dance justice. I laughed the whole time…Eli got it on tape. Anyway, it was a fun night and great way to top of the end of our practicum experience. Oh yea, and I got my hair braided…it lasted for 4 days. I wore a bandana on my head and the staff knew me as, “Kristy, the Ethiopian Lady.” I know this post is very long, but it is difficult to sum up my practicum experience in a few words. So…I hope you enjoyed seeing a little glimpse of my AWESOME experience in the land of GREAT coffee, mangos, and injera ;)