lora kathleen

Six down, 18 to go. I’m officially 25% of the way there. Woah!

I realized a couple weeks ago that we’ve been in Ethiopia now for over eight months, almost nine. I remember when I used to think that time was flying by… right now it feels like it’s absolutely crawling. Looking forward, I know that soon enough I will be saying, “Where did all the time go??” Well, read on to see what my life has been consumed by…

Big news… I’m moving!

Yep, you read that right. I’m moving! Luckily, I am staying in the same town and even in my same kebele (district), but this time next week I’ll be in the process of moving into my new house. Thanks to some drama with my landlord that Peace Corps happened to walk in during a site visit, it was decided that it was time for me to find a new house. Almost two months later—I’ll be moving in!

Sadly, my new house is only one room (albeit a huge room) but the compound is amazing. It’s brand new, has only three other residents (the landlord, his wife and their servant), has a cold shower (!!) and is HUGE. I am optimistic they will let me garden as there is a lot of room they don’t seem to be really using and the trees are all very young so there is plenty of sun for now. It is also in a newer part of town so it will be very quiet. The only thing I heard while we were out there negotiating was the chickens they own, then heading back to my current house there were sounds of traffic, kids playing, electric saws sawing and just all the people milling around. My current area also has two shops in the compound and four or five tella betoc (local beer houses) that keep the compound hopping form dawn to dusk. My new area is pretty much residential so I am happy that I might actually get some decent sleep once in awhile.

It’s a little bit farther out of town, on the other side of the church that is near my current house. And aside from never going out at night (which of course, I don’t really do anyway… ever), I think it might finally be time to buy that bicycle I’ve been avoiding so that I can get into town a little easier!

Everything Else

Committee Meetings & Other Travel
This past week I was in Addis for a Cross Culture Committee meeting/training and am happily the new Secretary for the CCC. After camp is finished, I can’t wait to dive in completely to this committee and make it a part of the remainder of my Peace Corps life! Although I’ve only been a member for a short time, I feel really passionate about the mission and objectives of the committee, and truly hope we can grow and build on what the previous groups have done already. There is so much potential out there and I’m really excited about the possiblities!

Also, this coming weekend I’ll be in Gondar for a Camp GLOW planning meeting. It’s hard to believe we’re about a month out from that! I am taking an awesome counterpart and four girls from different schools in town. I’ll be at site for at least three weeks before it’s back to Gondar for camp! There are a couple awesome things in the works from there that I’ll provide updates for when the details become more concrete.

School Garden
My site mate and I have been working hard to get the land prepped in order to plant a garden in the early fall when school starts back up. We’ve been digging trenches for a water catchment system, tilling up the grass so it’ll be easier to work with come September, and refurbishing an old shint bet (toilet) that the school no longer uses and repurposing it into a gazebo for the garden area. Many students have wandered over to help us for a couple of minutes and it’s definitely made the work go a LOT faster. We were worried it’d take two-three months just to prep the area, but within a few days we had a huge amount of work done.

There are BIG plans for this garden. We are hoping the vegetable area will be able to eventually become an IGA (income generating activity) for orphans and some of the more vulnerable students (eg poor), a small tree nursery to raise seedlings to distribute to the students families, a gazebo and garden area for students to study, as well as container gardens, a composting pit and the water catchment system.

English Club
Last week the kids held a “end of year” party. There was coffee (of course), habesha libs (clothes) and lots of dancing. They’ve been a great group of kids and I’m hoping that most of them—if not all—will be back next year to work on their English and participate in fun projects with me and my site mate. Hopefully we can do some fun things like paint a world map on a wall somewhere and do more American/Ethiopian holiday celebrations. These lijoc  (children) have been the lifeblood of my six months in Bure so far and I can’t wait to do more fun things with them next year!

Rainy Season
It’s officially rainy season here in south Amhara with hours of rain every day. Sometimes it’ll be fairly gentle and people still go about their business, but other times in is an absolute downpour, banging on the steel roofs and sometimes even hailing pea-size hail. My current (soon to be old) house has a major leak in the bedroom from even the slightest bit of rain—something that has not been fun to deal with (especially before I realized it was there and my clothes got all wet!).

The biggest surprise of rainy season is the mud. There is mud EVERYWHERE. While digging out the garden, I think I gained two inches from mud caked on my shoes. Luckily, I am the happy new owner of some bright yellow farmer rain boots (read cheap plastic) that I tromp around town in. People laugh at me, but whatever, the practicality is awesome. So future PC/Ethiopia PCVs—seriously, the mud is ridiculous!

More good news about rainy season is that the water is BACK. It’s been on almost every day for a couple weeks. I’m relieved that I survived the dry season with minimal break downs (one major one to be exact). Also, since the epic five day power outage, the town’s power has been mostly on or only been out for a couple hours here or there. I’m optimistic this means good things for our future of consistent power.

Oven
Last month I was all excited about my new stove, this month it’s my new oven that I got from a COSing PCV in a town nearby! (COS=leaving at the end of one’s service) I haven’t gotten to try it out yet, but I hear rumors of brown sugar and baking powder in Addis, so am optimistic soon I’ll be baking cakes and muffins like a madwoman. Note to all people with access to a supermarket: please send cake and/or muffins in a box!! I have easy access to eggs, oil and water and am at the point where I might tackle someone for a decent piece of cake. Or any pastry for that matter.

 

Anyway, that’s about it for the first six months at site. Looking at recent developments I am beyond excited for what the future might hold for me here in Peace Corps/Ethiopia and can’t wait to dive into all that awaits my time here. You know, one thing that experience has definitely taught me is that if you allow and give your life the opportunity to give you amazing things… it does. So “get in.” It’s only life after all.

(Check out Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 if you haven’t yet!)

Rising early for a mid-morning flight, it wasn’t long until we were packed into a minibus, taking the long drive from the airport through the craggy Lasta mountains to reach the fabled city of Lalibela. Until recent times the isolated city was known as Roha, meaning “rock-hewn,” likely a nod to the famous rock-hewn churches dug deep into the earth.

According to my guidebook (the 6th Edition of the Bradt Guide to Ethiopia—by far the most comprehensive guide to Ethiopia), there is a “stark, cathedral-like grandeur” to Lalibela and that the excavation of the 11 churches—all of which were carved during the reign of King Lalibela in the 12th century—is somewhat of a mystery and estimates that it would have taken 40,000 to carve them.

That said, Lalibela has been the biggest and most pleasant surprise of my entire travels around Ethiopia. With Lalibela, I expected tourist treatment, I expected farengi waga (foreigner price) and I expected harassment. However, the one and a half days we spent there were nothing short of incredible.

The 11 churches, split into two clusters of six in the northwest and four in the southeast, along with the freestanding gargantuan of Bet Giyorgis, are still in active use by the Ethiopian Orthodox church and the people that live in the villages surrounding them. We visited the first six mid-afternoon as a pre-rainy season rainstorm settled in. Our amazing guide, Destaw Kibatie, gave us a fascinating history as we wandered through trenches and tunnels dug out of the rock. Several churches were monolithic, carved straight out of the ground and free-standing on all four sides. The largest in the world is Bet Medhane Alem, that is said to be modeled after a church King Lalibela saw in Axum (St. Mary Zion). Additionally, there are churches carved into the rock such as Bet Meskel, a tiny chapel in the courtyard of Bet Maryam, a monolithic church famous for the baptismal pool believed to cure any infertile woman and a famous veiled pillar that is said to not only have the Ten Commandments inscribed in Ge’ez (the ancient language of Ethiopia still used in the church today, similar to Latin), it also tells how the churches were excavated and has a story of the end of the world.

With just a little time left before sunset and the churches closing, we headed to Bet Giyorgis, the only church not within a cluster. Legend has it that St. George (known as Giyorgis in Ethiopia) was offended that none of the churches in Lalibela were dedicated to him, so King Lalibela promised to build him the most grand. And Bet Giyorgis certainly is grand, surrounded by a sunken courtyard, the church is almost 15m in height and build in a perfect cross.

Here I’m going to break from the way I’ve done my past vacation posts and will share a picture within the post, because the view was just so breathtaking—the roof of Bet Giyorgis in the left hand corner, the cloudy sky with sunbeams peaking through, the Lasta mountains in the background, and this priest stopping to look down into the courtyard as the last of the tourists leave the church. This picture captures perfectly the atmosphere of Lalibela for me: majestic, serene and holy.

It was quite a bit of walking, climbing and crouching to explore the first seven churches, so we called it an early night with plans to meet our guide bright and early the next morning for the final cluster as well as an afternoon trip to the other side of the mountain.

The next morning we checked out the southeastern cluster, beginning with Bet Abba Libanos. The church’s roof is connected to the rock from which it is hewn, but the back and sides are separated by tunnels. While we were checking out the church, the priests and deacons were singing in one of the side tunnels creating a very spiritual air. Next was Bet Emanuel which is a beautiful example of Axumite style (which we saw more of later that day). Then we went through a really cool, long, dark tunnel after checking out the open air church of Bet Mercurios and ended up at the dual churches of Bet Gebriel-Rafael, of which only one was actually an active church. The church had a deep “moat” in front of it that you had to reach via a wooden bridge. The building almost seemed more like a residence than a church, and it’s believed King Lalibela may have actually lived there. In the moat there was a set of stairs leading farther down into the rock. When we were there it was filled with water, but our guide said that during the reign of Haile Selassie they excavated and found the original Lalibela cross. Very cool.

After a wonderful lunch at the Seven Olives, our guide picked us up and we took the hour and a half trek to the monastery of Yemrehanna Kristos, one of the most breathtaking churches I’ve seen in Ethiopia. Church was in session when we arrived so we spent a few minutes outside the modern retaining wall listening to the singing echoing from inside. Built under a cave, the church has a façade of alternating granite and wood in the Axumite style. Behind the church at the back of the cave are the bones of pilgrams visiting the monastery, which was eerie when lit up via camera flash or flashlight.

We ended the night with a stop at Ben Abeba, a wonderful little restaurant on top of a hill in Lalibela that looks a bit like a witch’s hat and owned by a charming Scottish ex-pat. We had stunning views of the Rift Valley as we watched storms roll by and the sun set. The next morning we caught a flight back to Addis and me to Bahir Dar, with my parents heading back to America.

Overall I was surprised by the lack of tourists in Lalibela. Sure, April is the off season and yes, there were some Ethiopian tourists and an Italian tour group, but as I told my parents, could you ever imagine going to see the pyramids in Egypt or the basilicas of Rome with less than 30 other tourists? It’s unthinkable.

Lalibela certainly is an amazing place that very few people outside of Ethiopia even know about, and I daresay it should be considered one of the wonders of the world. I really hope I am able to make it back before my time here in Ethiopia is finished. And if Lalibela wasn’t on your travel list, consider adding it!

(Check out Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 if you haven’t yet!)

After a lovely four days in Bahir Dar, we rose early the following morning to take the minibus ride from hell to Gondar. I think it took us like 5 hours total, and it was supposed to be a contract! But my parents really are troopers for enduring that!!

Arriving in Gondar early afternoon, we met my friend (and fellow G8er) Sarah to show us to our hotel and have lunch, we got back to the hotel just in time for a pre-rainy season rainstorm and much needed nap. That night we took the three Gondar PCVs to dinner at the Four Sisters, an amazing habesha restaurant not far from Piazza… the heart of Gondar.

The next morning—after a much needed rest—my parents and I got an early start to check out the Royal Enclosure, full of the castles built during Gondar’s time as capital of Ethiopia, a capital that lasted for nearly 250 years! Emperor Fasilides’ chose Gondar after a very tumultuous time in Ethiopia’s history: the Abyssinian Empire was collapsing under the onslaught of a Muslim leader and his father, the previous Emperor Susneyos, had converted to Catholicism, made it the state religion and attempted to shut down the Orthodox church, killing an estimated 32,000 people.

The castles were fascinating, especially since we were practically the only people there and could wander around and explore without the herds of people I’ve come to expect at touristy sites. That was definitely one perk of touring in the off season—there was often very few to no people around!

After the Royal Enclosure, we walked up to the beautiful medieval church of Debre Berhan Selassie. Unlike most Orthodox churches, this one was square and made out of stones. In Gondar they like to say that the church originally built in the 1690s was saved from the invading Dervish in the late 1800s by a swarm of bees, and thus is the only church in Gondar to be in it’s original building. However, the artwork inside is far more interesting than the architecture, and is said to be some of the most beautiful art from the time period they were created (early 1800s). Some of the most notable pieces are the famous 80 angels painted on the ceiling, an image of the Prophet Mohammed, founder of Islam, as well as a fearsome image of the devil surrounded by flames.

We next headed down to Fasilides’ Bath, the site famous for it’s Timket celebrations, with the city’s 44 churches participating in the ceremony at the pool. Although the pool was completely drained when we saw it, it was still incredibly inspiring. The pool was actually the summer retreat for Emperor Fasilides and the pool was spring-fed.

Finally, we went to the Dashen House, the downtown version of the Dashen Brewery (actually brewed in Gondar!) and had several jumbos (drafts) of Dashen’s Cellar Select. Since it was fasting and we weren’t able to get tibs, we went up to the Goha Hotel on top of the mountain to watch the sunset and have some delicious fareng food and good wine!

Stay tuned for the next installment of the last part of our trip, the beautiful rock-hewn churches of Lalibela!