Routine
Just a description of the average day, so cut for your convenience.
I’ve been in Ethiopia just over a month now, and much of my life has settled into a comfortable routine. Most mornings, I wake up with sunrise at about 6:30, eat a quick breakfast and start to work at wound 7:30. I walk about half an hour over the ‘New Road,” then turn down towards Kazainches, and into the little street where our offices are located. It’s a paved or cobbled road for most of the way, so it’s not too bad (although surprisingly hard on my shoes) and many children are walking to school then, so it’s rather nice. At work, I am in a small room that I share with my counterpart and the purchaser. We have one computer, which we share. There’s no internet or no phone line - but we can go to the main office building to use those if we need to. The cook comes around with chai (tea) sometime between 9:00-10:00 - this is black tea with cinnamon and spices, served with sugar but no milk. I really like it, although I’ve taken to putting about two and half teaspoons of sugar in it. Sometime between 12:00-13:00, she also lets us know that lunch is ready. We all eat together, and lunch is usually injera and some vegetable dishes, although we get pasta once a week. Because it’s the fasting season, none of the dishes have meat or dairy - it’s all vegan. I bring my own water, but we have another cup of chai after lunch, and are served it again sometime between 15:00-16:00. I usually leave work between 16:00-17:00, but I will often make a stop or two along the way to buy groceries, or to detour to VSO to go online. This can often take up to an hour, but I manage to head home by around 18:30, as it gets dark at around 19:00 and women are not advised to be out alone after dark. Sometimes I have to pop out to the local shacks to buy more bread, vegetables, water, or eggs, but as that’s pretty close to the house, I just tell our night guard where I’m going and that I’ll be back soon, and often he’ll wait by the gate for me.
At weekends, I’ve mostly been undertaking shopping expeditions to Shola market, the local open market for a better range of vegetables, or to the larger ferengi supermarkets, for delicacies like cheese, mayonnaise, or the better class of canned tuna. In the evenings, I’ve been inviting (or being invited by) fellow VSOs to dinner, but I’ve not really gone out much aside from a few meals out with other VSOs. Relative to our income, it’s expensive to eat out - although the cost is negligible by US or UK standards. Since my uncle arrived earlier this week, this is something that’s quite apparent - he keeps mentioning that a 40 birr sandwich is only 4 dollars - but considering that the VSO stipend is only 200 dollars (about 2,000 birr), that’s one expensive sandwich! That’s one interesting difference between residents and tourists, I guess - the conversion thinking. I’ll maybe write more on this later.
I’ve been in Ethiopia just over a month now, and much of my life has settled into a comfortable routine. Most mornings, I wake up with sunrise at about 6:30, eat a quick breakfast and start to work at wound 7:30. I walk about half an hour over the ‘New Road,” then turn down towards Kazainches, and into the little street where our offices are located. It’s a paved or cobbled road for most of the way, so it’s not too bad (although surprisingly hard on my shoes) and many children are walking to school then, so it’s rather nice. At work, I am in a small room that I share with my counterpart and the purchaser. We have one computer, which we share. There’s no internet or no phone line - but we can go to the main office building to use those if we need to. The cook comes around with chai (tea) sometime between 9:00-10:00 - this is black tea with cinnamon and spices, served with sugar but no milk. I really like it, although I’ve taken to putting about two and half teaspoons of sugar in it. Sometime between 12:00-13:00, she also lets us know that lunch is ready. We all eat together, and lunch is usually injera and some vegetable dishes, although we get pasta once a week. Because it’s the fasting season, none of the dishes have meat or dairy - it’s all vegan. I bring my own water, but we have another cup of chai after lunch, and are served it again sometime between 15:00-16:00. I usually leave work between 16:00-17:00, but I will often make a stop or two along the way to buy groceries, or to detour to VSO to go online. This can often take up to an hour, but I manage to head home by around 18:30, as it gets dark at around 19:00 and women are not advised to be out alone after dark. Sometimes I have to pop out to the local shacks to buy more bread, vegetables, water, or eggs, but as that’s pretty close to the house, I just tell our night guard where I’m going and that I’ll be back soon, and often he’ll wait by the gate for me.
At weekends, I’ve mostly been undertaking shopping expeditions to Shola market, the local open market for a better range of vegetables, or to the larger ferengi supermarkets, for delicacies like cheese, mayonnaise, or the better class of canned tuna. In the evenings, I’ve been inviting (or being invited by) fellow VSOs to dinner, but I’ve not really gone out much aside from a few meals out with other VSOs. Relative to our income, it’s expensive to eat out - although the cost is negligible by US or UK standards. Since my uncle arrived earlier this week, this is something that’s quite apparent - he keeps mentioning that a 40 birr sandwich is only 4 dollars - but considering that the VSO stipend is only 200 dollars (about 2,000 birr), that’s one expensive sandwich! That’s one interesting difference between residents and tourists, I guess - the conversion thinking. I’ll maybe write more on this later.