Ethiopia (days 5-8)

I made it to Ethiopia!! After the chaotic hours in Joburg, we landed in Addis. After waiting for about an hour to get through immigration and witnessing a fight break out! I am now with this girl! 

Addis is cold compared to Botswana! Amanda and I promptly went to her PST site and spent the weekend with her wonderful host family! 

It was wonderful to spend time wandering through the countryside and eating delicious food!! After spend the weekend in th country we came back to Addis. 

And we ate more wonderful food. 

This was my breakfast! Injare with a chickpea mixture and eggs. There are lots of religious fastings and dietary restrictions  for various reasons. Today we followed some sort of dietary restrictions. There are these wonderful hole in the wall places that can give you a cheap and quick meal. 

My airline magazine said that Addis was the "Dubai of Africa" ...maybe they are referring to all the construction? It is a sprawling and busy city. 

Little boys hustle for change and shine your shoes for 4 birr. My shoes look brand new! 

Ethiopians love their juice. It is almost like a smoothie. I am a convert! 

I am off to drink coffee and explore the city. 

Until next time...

Days 3-4

I slept in!!! I was glorious. 

After having a relaxing morning drinking coffee and eating breakfast and just being. I set out in a hike to swimming holes. 

I had to channel my inner billy goat since we climbed down into a river valley 

I love how the weather affects mountains. If it is cloudy you see a different side to them. 

 

I am now sitting on a flight to Addis Ababa. It has been a hectic day! I didn't sleep well....I was experiencing some intestinal complaints. Then I had to get up bright and early to drive to Joburg. It was an uneventful ride....until I got pulled over for crossing a solid line. Then I couldn't find the unmarked entrance to drop off my rental car....

...and then ran and ran and ran to catch my flight. 

Day 2: hello mountains

After walking around with a smile on my face (being in the mountains tends to make me smile nonstop) I tried to track down needed necceties aka coffee and food. In my rush last night I decided not to stop in Masuru....

After sweet talking the kitchen staff into letting me heat up water (thank god Sesotho is a cousin to Setswana) I the mothers milk (aka coffee) while overlooking a beautiful landscape. 

Then I hit up the general dealer...who would have thought that Lehututu would have a better stock?! Since canned fish doesn't seem appealing at 8am I settled on unrefrigerated yogurt (it's fine....?) and cereal. 

I decided to go on a morning hike--the great thing about Malealea is that they hire villagers to do the tours as part of their community trust program. My trusty guide Lucky and I set off. We were going to do a '5 hour hike' to the Bushman paintings and the waterfall. 

Throughout the hike Lucky would wait patiently as I snapped photos and tell me about little cultural tidbits. 

A few views from our journey

The hike was spectacular. Words can not describe the beauty of Lesotho. 

Our hike ended up to be more a 6 hour journey...I must say... Hiking up hill and down hill on yogurt and cereal is a recipe for feeling faint...and bless Lucky's heart he patiently waited for me...and fetched me water when I ran out. 

My dirty and sore feet are propped up on a log and I am drinking a Maluti (for you Granny!)

Life is good. 

They have a saying in Lesotho which is peace rain and prosperity...here is to peace and prosperity! 

The next chapter...RPCV day 1

It is all very surreal. 

I did last minute packing in the morning. Said good bye to my wonderful landlords and was off. Three years of my life crammed into two very stuffed bags! 

Sitting at the airport--I felt like I wasn't in my body. I wasn't about to get on an airplane and leave my life behind. Botswana has been my world for the past three years. My American life is a vague memory. 

I flew to Johannesburg and rented a car to drive to Lesotho. Just me and the road. It was a beautiful drive through Free State. Very much like Montana and the open sky of the Western Uniter States. I can see why the Boers came up to settle in this part of Sourg Africa. 

Following my google map I made good time from Joburg to the Masuru board. Which I would just like to say was the most painless crossing ever! You don't even get out of your car!!! 

It was a sign when my GPS stopped working and I wound around mountain roads and battled other chaotic drivers. As night fell I only had 40 kilometers to go...and the road conditions decreased. My last 15 or so kms were spent bumping over a rutted gravel road following a man in a tractor praying he was  actually taking me to the lodge. 

The night gaurd took me to my room--tired and hungry I went to sleep. As I fell asleep I told myself that I would sleep in till at least 9.....

 

As I opened my eyes the next morning...it was 530 am! 

My frustration quickly left when I looked outside. 

the long road in

I took a mini pilgrimage to Lehututu, a final good by before I leae Botswana. We were taken to site--the three of the new PCVs placed in the Hukuntsi area. Three girls and their two years worth of possessions and a puppy crammed into the back of a pickup truck.

I remember driving down the 5 kilometer road for the first time. Seeing the expansive salt pan that seemed to go on forever.

I think it was the longest 5 kilometers I have ever traveled.

We came before the rains. Before green and the yellow flowers that erupt everywhere. Before the cows get fat and baby goats play.

I grew to love the ride in, my house was in the center of the village just a short walk away from the bus stop. Every time on my way in I would look for my little yellow house with colored curtains. And smile because I was home. 

This time in--it was no different, except it wasn’t my little yellow house with colorful curtains. And the rain had come.

Nuances of brown

On September 14, 2012 after landing in Botswana a mere 30-some hours earlier I journey from Gaborone to Kanye.

I still remember the looking out the bus window and feeling a myriad of emotions wash over me. Depression. Excitement. Dread. Joy. Nerves.

I remember looking out in the brown scraggly bush of a landscape wondering how I would ever grow to love a place that was brown.

Telling myself to love the brown. See the beauty in your new home.

Three years later almost to the date, I made the same journey from Gaborone to Kanye...

It isn’t just brown. Greyish-brown, green-brown, bone-brown, sandy-brown. There are so many nuances in such a simple color.

There are so many nuances in this simple thing I call my life.

I have grown to love Botswana and all its brown. There is something rich in all the brown. In all the scraggly bushes, the people, dried up stream beds, hard packed sand in the east and the deep red sand of the Kalahari. When I depart, I hope that the nuances of brown stay with me and over time more shades appear.

Time--its irrelevant until its over

Time is a weird thing...I think it is weirder in the Peace Corps life than it is in my every day life. I say every day life, like I am not living a real life here. My life here is very much real--I work, I have (had) friends, I am a person here just as much as I am in America...That could be part of the problem...My life is split into two Botswana and America.

I digress....

All of a sudden it is August 1st. (WHATT??!?!?!??!)

I can no longer tell people I have been in Botswana “2 1/2 years” since its almost 3 years.

It seems like I have just moved to Gaborone. Nope. That was almost 10 months ago.

I feel like I have nothing to show for it. That is a complete lie.

I feel like a child. When in fact, I am an almost 29 year old woman who has done some pretty amazing things in these short years.

A brief recap on the past 10 months:

• The Leadership Program (that crazy one I stayed on to run) opened its doors! It was a fighting up hill battle all the way and only took about six months to do. But I did it! We opened our doors in April and we have 32 enrolled youth. It has been unbelievable seeing them change and grow. Each of the participants are coming into their own. Sometimes I look at them and don’t want to leave....
• It is August! Which means, all of my close friends have left Gaborone...It was very bitter-sweet seeing them off over the past few months. But this also means, my time here is almost done! December 11th. I will blink and it will be here. 
• Some really amazing projects have just fallen in my lap! In Lehututu is seemed so hard to get things started, one of the benefits of being at such a connect organization is that people see us out! Lucky me I get to help coordinate! 
• The other projects that I am coordinating are swimming along! I am keeping busy which is what I wanted! 
• I went from missing “the village” everyday, to not at all. Not to say that I don’t miss it, I very much do...That life seems so removed from me. That chapter of life where all the really hard aspects are just a cool story--hey remember that time I lived without furniture for 18 months? Or electricity for two years....
• I went on a rhino capture for conservation--of course, I have I can’t find the pictures that I uploaded from a friends camera of the trip, the pictures magically disappeared in my iPhoto...It was one of those unreal experiences. I am so glad that I had the opportunity to go on it! Perhaps if I ever get the photos I can write a blog about it. 

All along, I have said once I graduate, I will start the job hunt. Well, now that I have some initials behind my name and I have 4 1/2 months left--it is that time. Job hunting seems very overwhelming and scary! When I pull up job servers to look...this feeling of panic comes over me. Where do I want to live? What do I want to do? AHHHH....so, usually, I don’t get very far. I am very sure that there have been points in my life where I felt like I had no direction. The world is my oyster right now. Everything I own is packed in my parents basement or will be on my back. Picking that one direction...seems toooooo much right now. 

With that being said, I am in the middle of a book that I need to finish....