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NGO Bazaar

At the International Evangelical Church, once a month there is a bazaar with all the NGO's selling products. There were representatives from the Women Fuelwood Carriers Project, Alert Hospital, Former Leprosy groups, Disabled crafters, Women for Change, Women's Development Project and lots of others, all great organizations and amazing handicrafts. We all went nuts with shopping and even with a big purchase for myself(this great quilt), I only spent about $140 US.

Ferengi's In the Rain

One day, Jen and I were at Kaldi's getting a coffee, writing and cutting out crafts, and we decided it was time to go home-- of course, it instantly started raining and we do not have rain coats or wellies. Do we stop like every Ethiopian? No, we keep going and it starts to hail... and they are hard and hurt. We are soaking wet, people are motioning to us to come under the awnings, mini buses are stopping and yelling at us, but at this point we are cold, wet and dirty and there is no point in stopping. We make it home and Selam and our guard cannot stop laughing. Later after the rain stopped, we had to go out again and Selam kept pointing to our wellies and saying chammas, like take your shoes. Well, we made quite the spectacle, with our wellies and raincoats on a mini bus in the sun. One person even asked us what are shoes were called. When we said they were chammas for the zenob(rain), we got some very funny looks.

Crowns

We made paper crowns with the kids at Little A. Jen cut them out, the
kids decorated them and then we taped them together. They all put them
on. Mr. Amharic made one for me to wear. Then the caregivers started
making them for the babies, so at least they seemed to like this
activity. We took pictures of all the kids outside with their crowns.
It was a royal success!!!

Kolfe, Kebetsehay, and Kechene

On Friday we got to visit the three government orphanages in Addis.
Jen met the in country rep for Gladney, which is an adoption agency
based in Ft. Worth, Texas, when she was at the airport and he took us.
He takes each group of adoptive parents when they come to pick up
their children at the Gladney Foster Care centers. Kolfe is for older boys, most of whom are past the age for adoption. No other agency takes their adoptive families to visit because it is not possible to adopt these boys. They are from about 14-21. They can stay there as long as they are in school. Gladney has set up a scholarship program and for about $600 US, it pays for school, books and transportation. It is very bleak there. There are not even tables and chairs in the cafeteria. There is a small garden, some chickens, the hope was that the boys could help support themselves. Travis told us a story about two friends who got in a fight and one boy got killed
with a metal pipe, but it was simply because they are a bunch of
teenage boys with little direction and just one director and some
kitchen staff. Next we went to Kebetsehay, which is for younger boys and girls. It appeared to be rather run down and there were so many children.
Probably double the amount of kids per room as AHOPE. The baby room
was meant to pull heartstrings. There were about 25 babies in the
room, some crying, some silent, some holding out their arms. I held
one little girl who was sturdy and smiled, but when I had to leave,
she was so sad. The older kids all yelled for their pictures to be taken. You have to wonder if they know that is the way to have someone know about them for adoption. Finally we went to Kechene which is mostly for older girls but there are also some babies. It is an old orphanage for the Deaf building and the girls keep their rooms nice. It is pretty bare in the common areas, but on a pretty piece of land with trees and woods.
Travis says most of the babies will find homes, with the exception of
the those with special needs, but beyond age 4 is pretty slim.
It was a rough day but I'm glad I went.

Update

Mr. Amharic
One little boy at Little A, I will refer to as Mr. Amharic, as he
spends a lot of his time, pointing out items and telling us the word
in Amharic. He is very patient and will repeat the word. For example,
shoes are chammas. When we first got to Little A, Mr. Amharic seemed
very unhappy and if you were with another child, he would try to hit
you, which was very concerning. The only activity that he liked was to pretend box-- where he would hit your hands when you put them up, like he was boxing. But with the more time we've spent with him, and let him teach us, he has definitely warmed up. He is really such a great kid who is actually very patient and able to wait for us now that he has decided that we are friends.

Girma, Our Internet Saviour
Girma, the owner of the internet site is awesome. We stop most days we have power and ask Internet allay and he will say yes, or yellum,
which is without or not working. It is slow but super cheap, like
$1.20 US an hour. He also does copies and laminating. And he always
stays close by to help trouble shoot.

Thank you Goodwin School!!!!

Today(Wednesday, June 24th), we went back to Vera's with Big AHOPE for the field trip with the kids jeans day money. I was a little concerned
that the big kids would think it was babyish but boy was I wrong. They
were very happy to be there. Abebe said he told them the night before and he didn't think they slept which I thought was super cute. They rode the rides, ran around and took tons of pictures, they loved taking pictures with their friends. At lunch, I was helping Abebe figure out what everyone wanted to eat, pizza or burgers. So he's ordering and I was questioning how he was going to order a whole pizza for every kid and was that a good idea, but he insisted it was. Well, we get to lunch and believe it or not, almost all the kids ate their whole pizza!!! They pick up a slice, roll it like a rolled sandwich(which unless you know my mother, you have no idea what that is) and put it in their mouths. I guess you could say they eat pizza sort of like they eat injera. Marissa, the repeat volunteer said that it is partially because some of the kids didn't use to have enough food so they eat everything put in front of them. But the kids were great, very polite and they all thanked me and
Goodwin. One of my favorite( I know you shouldn't have favorites...:)) at Big AHOPE is Sassy. She is 7 and has pretty good English. She even asked me how old I was and when I put up the fingers, she was able to repeat my math in Amharic. I let her wear my sunglasses and that was a big
hit, very, very cute!!!!

Mini Buses

All over Addis, are these blue and white vans that people either call
mini buses or mini taxis. They hold about 12-16 people, depending on
how many they try to squeeze in. There is a driver and a man who
stands inside, opens the door, collects your money and yells the
destination out the window, so you know which one to get in. Each ride
which is usually from one neighborhood to the next is between .75 Birr
and 2 Birr. For your conversion: 2 Birr= 20 cents US.

Monikers or AKA names for the kids

I've been trying to figure out a way to differentiate the kids in my
posts and I was going to use their first initial but I'm getting
confused as many of the kids have the same names, so I think I'm going
to give them each a moniker(is that the right word??) when I talk
about them, so for example, Little S from my previous post will be
Sunshine....

Sunshine Update
A couple of days ago, Jen got an AHOPE forum message(all my forum
messages go to my excite account and we can all guess how that works
here!!) but anyhow the message said that this mom just passed court
and officially has adopted her daughter and is just waiting for the TB
test, so she doesn't know when she will get to travel, but wanted an
updated supply list to collect for AHOPE.
Well, Jen wrote her right back and asked if she would be willing to
let us know who her daughter was. And she did and guess what it is
Sunshine!!! We are so excited that she has a home-- I can't wait for
her mom to come and meet her.

Community Development Center Update
We ventured out for our first solo visit to the CDC on Thursday, June
25th. This involves a minibus to Mexico, then one to Piazza, then one
to Yohannesburg. On our third lag of the trip, Jen sat next to this
cute brother and sister, about 9 and 11. They were clearly delighted
that three Fereng were on their bus. They wanted to talk to us and
asked as everyone does if we were sisters and if they could go to
America with us. I had two bouncy balls with me in my bag and I gave
them to them. They thought that was very cool. Turns out, they were
getting out at the same spot, so they started walking with us. Then
they ask us if we know AHOPE and it turns out, they go to the CDC. So
we walk with them, as they are bouncing their super balls all over the
place. The little girl puts her arm around my waist and says "I'm HIV,
do you know?". I almost started crying right then and there. To feel
that you have to identify yourself immediately as that, not as a
smart, cute, funny kid but as a medical diagnosis.

Vera's Wonderland

Okay so Disney is currently rolling over in his grave! Sunday, we took the kids to this place called Vera's Wonderland, which is essentially Addis' version of Kiddieland, with poorly drawn Disney characters. How many of you have been to Kiddieland in Melrose Park??? Well those same archaic rides exist over here, just fewer. There were this really spooky paintings of Disney characters, like Goofy has fangs but the kids were super excited. We got pictures of them on the big slide, the Dumbo ride, the swinging ship and the bumper cars. They ate tons of fries, pizza, Fanta and ice cream. I got to ride the ferris while with the twins and S. who are all about four years old. Didn't I hear that our Kiddieland is closing, must take Juliet when I get back, who's in???

Lesson Plans

Okay, we finally had this volunteer meeting that was super helpful in figuring out what we are all going to be doing. We are definitely
doing activities and arts and crafts at Little A and teaching those
two classes at Big A.

So lesson plans or rather lesson plans on the fly.... as Jen and I
spent the morning planning our ESL conversation lessons as well as our crafts and activities. She made a crown that we plan to make with the little kids and I made a spider to go along with the Itzy Bitzy Spider which they know in both English and Amharic. I think we did fine but I wish I'd known what I'd be doing before I left as I would have brought ready made activities from school. Too bad, you can't get Oriental Trading Company to deliver here!!!!

Chamaki

Chamaki or juice in English is very popular here. It is really just
pureed fruit-- delicious or etofitel in Amharic!!! My favorite so far is strawberry, though pineapple is quite good as well. I am not a convert yet of the mixed juice which includes avocado, but we shall see. This has really been as close to fruit as I've gotten, though I do keep looking at all the hanging bananas but can't find any that are yellow enough or rather with a tinge of green.

Odds and Ends
In case you haven't read, try emailing me at tjones6575@gmail.com, it appears faster.

If you are trying to call me -- best between 12-1pm your time or
10:30-11:30pm your time.

I got a comment from a Miss S, who was a former volunteer, I'd love to fill you in, just email me.

Thanks for all the comments and emails, you guys rock!!!

Making Name Signs

As this is a project that I have started the year off with many times,
we decided to have the kids at Little AHOPE make namesigns for their
beds. These were just simple construction paper signs with lines in
the middle for their names and then room to decorate. We made examples
with Jen and Tiffany. The kids got really excited but we didn't
realize that even some of the older ones who attend school did not
know how to spell their names so that was a bit of a problem but the
kindergarten teacher came and helped out tremendously!! So she may
feel that we do not write our letters and numbers correctly(more on
that later) but seemed to like this activity.
While it was a bit chaotic and less structured than I usually insist
on back home, the kids had a great time. Then I helped them hang up
their signs with duck tape and took their pictures. They were very
proud of themselves, especially some of the boys, which was sort of
surprising. You will all love seeing the pictures, they are
adorable!!!

Day trip out of Addis

On Saturday, Jen and did a tour with NTO tours. Our guide was
awesome!! We got driven around in a white SUV, very fancy, like the
UN. Our guide really encouraged us to take pictures which is great
since we feel awkward taking pictures of people. We first went to
Melka Quntture, a place that was partially excavated and had an open air museum. Next was Adadi Marium, or St. Mary's church, which is a rockhewn cave church, similar to the style at Lalibela. Finally we
went to this place that had grave markers that looked like stonehedge. But the best part of the trip was that he drove us out of Addis and into the countryside where we got to see huts and mud houses and goat herders. We saw tons of donkeys with yellow plastic waterjugs on their backs. Lots of kids came up to our windows, that is difficult. He took us to a market in one of the small towns and showed us raw Teff and spices. It was great to be at the market and have him shoo away the throngs of people who began following us asking for money. Now, I
absolutely understand offering a Birr to someone if you'd like their
picture, but come on for taking pictures of your spices!!! Everything is right out in the open, piles of grains, fruits, vegetables, shoes, etc. We went to lunch at the Lemmon Hotel for muton and eggs. I tried one piece of mutton, aka roasted goat and that was enough for me. But they did have crusty rolls with the injera that was very tasty and a coffee ceremony afterward.I loved seeing kids wave to us from their huts or playing soccer or this strange form of volleyball in the yards of their little walled in communities. All in all, a splendid day!!!

More Posts... gmail is flying!

Teaching at Big AHOPE (random picture, not AHOPE)

We were asked to teach English to the 3rd and 4th graders at Big
AHOPE. There is a little school room that has tables, chairs, a
cabinet, a bookshelf and a small wipe board.
We called the 3rds and a group of about 10 showed up. They were very
noisy. We had them back namebadges and then say one thing they liked.
Then they had to go around the room and list everyone before them.
They did not listen well, we had trouble with behavior management!!!
Next we had the 4ths. There were fewer of them and both boys I
sponsor, M. and N. were in that group which was exciting!!! They were
much better behaved and we finished early. We had them find Chicago on
the map and let them go. It was good to finally feel that we did a
project that served a purpose, this was Wednesday, June 17th. We will
hopefully have these kids twice a week.

Embassy Row

We stay in a neighborhood of Embassies and Embassy residences. In
fact, our easiest landmark is to say the Royal Norweigen Embassy
residence. But it is also the residence neighborhood for Sahara,
Malawi(that's right Madonna!!), Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Greece and my
beloved Canada. While there are still hole in the wall stores, tin
shacks, goats on the road and begging, it appears that we are in a
more affluent subsection of the city.

Little S.

One little girl could be any of yours who is at Little AHOPE. Of all
the kids here, she is the one that I have to keep reminding myself is
HIV+ and an orphan. Perhaps it is because she is so chubby, has
gorgeous hair that is curly one day and braided the next or just her
fantastic smile. I would say she is about 2 and a half and is very
smart. She can count to 10 in English and knows many Amharic songs.
She's not clingy but likes to be held up high. I hope she is one of
the one's who has a placement!!!!

Selam, our Housekeeper!!!

Our housekeeper is very nice. She cooks breakfast: french toast,
crepes, eggs which look weird and have strange things in them,
breakfast pizza with onions, tomatoes, and jalepeno peppers. She does
make coffee in the morning but it is not good, which is surprising as
the rest of the coffee we've had has been great! We use a lot of jam
on our breakfasts, but it is always filling. She has two daughters,
aged 10 and 13, we saw pictures.
There is now a washing machine at the house!!! So, when the holy
trinity of water, power and daylight occurs, you can get your clothes
washed.... it's happened once.
And yes to whoever asked, our water is connected to our power as the
well is up in the sky in back and needs power to move the water.

Weekend in Addis

Hi All,

Okay, so internet is on again at least temporarily and I was able to read all my emails, but still can't send from them. Wendy, I laughed out loud at yours, thanks needed that!!! Second full day of no water, power, I don't need, shower that would be nice plus I'm going to run out of clothes soon.

Jen and I had a busy week with the kids and trying to plan out our work schedule, everyone seems to have a different idea of what we should do. But this weekend, we got to get out and see some of Addis and that was interesting. We had a super tour of the National Museum and then visited the Lion's Zoo and that was super depressing!!!

We also visited the Hilton and looked into some weekend tours for upcoming weekends, perhaps to Harar and Awassa.

The guest house is nice, I have an inside room, yea Marianne for telling me to ask!! But the whole no water and not flushing the toilet sort of an issue. The food has been good, kind of not thinking I'll be any skinnier when I return. :) Nice bed, clean rooms, kitchen is a little sketchy but seeing as breakfast is made for us, I don't have to go in there.

Jen is the only other volunteer right now, but one more is coming next weekend.

I'll try to write more in a couple of days, please keep emailing, love reading them!!!

I Made it!

Hi,
I'm here. Internet is horrid!!! I have not had power or water for a day and a half. The other volunteer Jen is great and the people have been very nice!!! The weather is warm, no rain for two more weeks. I am not sure how often I can post. I will try again in a couple of days. This is definitely an experience I shall never forget. But I'm doing fine, keep the emails coming, hopefully I will be able to read more of them soon!!
Love to everyone,
Tiff

I Made It... Part 2 (this was sent to me a few minutes later)

Okay, I'm going to try this again.... In case you are wondering, at the moment, I could see some of your emails and then nothing... so I am actually sending this to my friend Claire via Facebook of all programs.

I have been to both Little AHOPE and Big AHOPE and will begin officially teaching at Big AHOPE in about a week and also hopefully working at the community center next week. My flight was good and I was met at the airport by Jen(other volunteer), Abebe, social worker and the driver, it was super comforting to have a welcome wagon!!!

I am eating too much but enjoying the macchiatos!!! We even went with another foreigner to the Ethiopian Starbucks, aka Kaldi's last night.

I miss everyone and wish I could communicate easier.

Leaving on a jet plane!!!!!

A great big thank you to all of you who donated, listened and read this blog!!!! I am heading to Addis Ababa this afternoon. I'm flying KLM and should be there around 9pm tomorrow night. I hope my bags don't weigh too much and that everything goes smoothly. But I wanted you all to know that that thanks to you, there will be many things I will be able to do with the kids at AHOPE, as well as buy them supplies. I also look forward to my time at the Sholla Library which is where our pennies went!!!!!

I will be posting (probably through my ghost poster, Claire) hopefully at least once a week!!!! I will also try to be checking email as often as possible. But otherwise will pretty much be off the grid. Love to you all-- thanks for giving me a great good by weekend and I'll see you all in 7 weeks!!!!!!!! I'm out of here.

Packing???

Well, it is the morning I leave, I of course overslept which I'm mad about as I was planning a last bike ride and coffee visit with a friend!!!! ARGH!!! I guess the best laid plans and lists always go awry. Hope nothing else does and I hope my suitcases are under weight.

The kids ate the cuisine

Mrs. Melone's third grade, are the one class who has followed me with this journey like no other. So, I had promised them an Ethiopian Feast and I followed through this past week. I went up to Edgewater to pick up Injera and then I made Yemiser Wat(spicy red lentils) and Aklit(potato/carrot/onion stew). Boy these kids were adventurous. Many of them reported that the spices tasted like their grandma's from Mexico. Many of the kids love the injera!!! And as you can see in the picture, Alan gives it a big thumbs up!!!

Ethiopian Party

This classroom threw me a going away to Ethiopia Party!!! They made signs, wished me well and even learned a little Amharic. Very fun, thanks Ms. Durkin, Ms. Pusek and room 202!!! I'll bring you back lots of photos.

small fun donations

Here are some of the donations I am bringing for the kids at AHOPE as well as kids on the streets. When I was in Mexico, I had a hard time saying no to kids who begged but I found if I had something fun for them, they seemed to be as happy as if I had given them money.

The big bag of watches is for the kids at BIG AHOPE, there should be enough for everyone. Thanks to Silvia, my mom, Meyer Family, Julie, Cheryl, Kristen and to Kelly and Bill for buying all the rest!!!!!

I'm in the Newspaper

Guess what, I got interviewed for the local paper and they published a story about my trip and the projects the kids at school did for Ethiopia Reads!!! Here is the link, I'm still trying to find a hard copy(we thought it wasn't coming out until next Friday).

Thanks to Jen Fortney for sending out all the publicity stuff!!!!

Oh and guess what, the way I found out it had been published, because I got an email from author, Jane Kurtz, who helped found Ethiopia Reads!!!! How crazy is that??

JEANS DAY!!!

I have an awesome school and to make them even more awesome, they did a jeans day fundraiser for AHOPE. Each student who brought in a dollar could wear jeans. The money will go to fund a field trip for the children at AHOPE. The kids were really cute about the whole thing, one little girl didn't even wear jeans but brought a dollar to help out anyway. That rocks!!!!!

We raised $478!!!!! Can you believe it??

More thank you's

A big thank you to Julie Mensik for organizing a donation drive at her boyfriend's bar. While the turnout was small, I still certainly appreciated the support and donations from Julie, Chris, Liz, Stephanie and Silvia!!!!

Thanks for all the watches Silvia!

Thank you to my babysitting kids, Sydney and Isabelle and their parents Bill and Maureen for your kind donation and all the cool watches!!

Thank you to all my friends at school who have continued to donate $$ especially Pat Barlow, Louise Puzek, Olga Vazquez and the Specials Teachers.

Gloves!!!

An old, dear friend of mine who is a nurse at RUSH donated many, many, many pairs of sterile surgical gloves which is something needed by AHOPE. It is on the donations list and Marianne said it was definitely something the nurses there wanted. I am stuffing as many as can fit into my suitcase and then shipping the rest to Vanessa at Flights for Change. This is an awesome organization of Continental flight attendants who take supplies to AHOPE several times a year.

THANKS MARGARET!!!!