Home?

In the space of a month I have been in three different regions of Ethiopia for different trainings and assignments with the Peace Corps: desert-like central Tigray where my site will be, fertile and hot Southern Nations where I live now, and just recently verdant Oromia. Within one country the landscape can change so dramatically it is incredible, to say nothing about the people. 

I have been living in Ethiopia for nearly two months now. I have made a home with my host family, adapting to new foods and ways of life. This place has become comfortable to me, even mine in small pieces. But that comfort zone I have made in Southern Nations will not be mine for much longer as the date I move into my site in the Tigray region moves closer. 

After one month of training Peace Corps sends all volunteers from the host families they have become close with to the site they will be living in for the next two years for a week long visit. I flew from the capitol Addis Ababa to Tigray in the northern part of Ethiopia. I traveled with my community liaison who is a coworker of mine from the woreda ((like a county)) health office. Every volunteer is paired up with a liaison from the town or city they will be living in to help them navigate and integrate into this new community.

Thrown from the small city I have gotten accustomed to, I went to Tigray by plane and then took two mini-buses to my site. It is mountainous, dusty, and has the brightest, bluest sky imaginable. My site is starkly and startlingly pretty. I live in a compound with a couple, their three year old girl, and two month old baby. The husband’s sister is also living with them, helping out around the house and going to the local technical college.

Ethiopian hospitality is truly something remarkable. My compound neighbor cooked, made me coffee, and kept me entertained the whole time I was at site when I was not with my liaison. In a place where food can be scares and expensive, her kindness is something I will always try to repay.

In my town I will be primarily working with the health office. However I can do projects with any group in town, like the schools or the youth health educators, from murals to condom demonstrations to co-facilitating girl's clubs in the schools. 

I spent most of my time on site visit being shuffled around town introducing myself in basic Tigrinian to any and every official around, and then nodding furiously when my liaison did a much better job of it after.

While in my town I kept thinking about what I would do to make that place home, to make parts and pieces of it mine. The three-year-old at my compound will be going to school by the time I leave, with a "dahan wiali Betty" on her lips as she leaves our home every day. All the people I meet- co-workers, friends, the woman I buy bread from- will remember the blonde American they lived with for two years. 

When I came back to my city in SNNPR I felt like I was home again. The people I see everyday smiled at me and the kids run up to fist bump me. When I turned onto my street I heard the usual chorus of "Betty"s. My host sister hugged me fiercely. We played cards and chatted long past the time I thought I would have collapsed out of exhaustion.

In less than a month my task will be to build these same relationships and friendships I made in this small city ((with luxury goods like Snickers and English speakers)) to my new village ((with scarcity and Tigrinia speakers)). I am thrilled and terrified at the prospect, but know, in time, that the kids on my street in Tigray will yell "Betty" too, and that I will call it home.