go… re, hush that fuss, everybody move to the back of the bus.

i told you i’d make every gore post a song lyric.

so after six weeks away from masha, i really just wanted to get back home for a bit, and what i really wanted to do was relax with a good book.

what i did to make that happen was sit on a bus that took aaaaages to get to metu (and cost way too much… or so i thought), and hoped for a decent transfer to gore, and then to masha.

so when we arrived in metu just in time to catch the last mini-bus to gore, then to gore just as they were closing the doors to a late bus to masha, i didn’t have time to look that gift horse in the mouth.

so how’s life back home in masha?

i sat under no less than two other people, with my bags being used as a seat for numerous others, and my legs crooked and stuffed into whatever space was available, then themselves used for support, of what i don’t know, there were too many people on top of me to really see what else was going on on the bus. despite the bus being this packed, the driver didn’t shy away from picking up every single person he spotted hitching on the side of the road.

even for the masha stretch of the jimma loop, this was ridiculous; first to get a bus this late (it was after 5 when we departed, and most busses to and from anywhere leave by 5), and second for it to get this packed and then some. as i would later come to find out, however, it was not without good reason.

i did eventually make it home, less the feeling in my legs, though by that time, i would have given up my opportunity to sit on my bed and read until i fell asleep to have spent the last three hours in gore with chels and jess, and taken a more comfortable bus in the morning.

but… be careful what you wish for. sometimes someone is listening, and they take things too literally.

when i got home, i opened my door to a total disaster area.

noci’s food dishes were full of some goopy slime that couldn’t have been edible food at any recent time, there was dirt and poop smeared all over my floor, the walls had been torn up at the base, most of my posters eaten or clawed to shreds, and noci high tailed it out of there as soon as he saw daylight… or nightlight as it were, because it was night by the time i got home, and the power was still out in masha, so the possibility of reading comfortably was out as well.

later that night noci returned, and within a few hours, for some reason or another, he was essentially paralyzed from the neck down.

what?!

what the hell happened here?

i leave for six measly weeks and the whole operation is in shambles!

as the days passed, and i eased back into my life in masha, noci slowly by slowly got better, though not after soiling just about everything i sleep on, leaving me to get my z’s in an old sleeping bag i inherited from nikki, and i was informed that the entire staff of the woreda electric department had been fired and new staff was rehired under the auspices of a total power grid revamping.

blow me down if it didn’t work.

the power in masha has been bordering on decent of late, though the network and water are now looking a little shaky, and with the recent government price fixes there are days when there isn’t even a place in town to get a cup of tea (that is defcon4 out here, believe me. if ethiopia could evacuate itself, colt 45 would have worked every time along time ago), let alone something to eat at a café, and once i was told, “soda? there’s no soda in masha anymore. there’s no soda in ethiopia.”

also thanks to price fixing on transit, and gasoline, drivers can’t make enough money to turn a profit, so they have been forced to cut back on daytime runs, and begin clandestine night drives, which are frightening when the roads are such as they are out here, and no one seems to understand what headlights are for. if you get a day bus, often times, you are forced to argue over the price, as the change (if you are due any) is usually written on the back of your ticket, and paid back when you near your destination, but these days, the ticket is often given without the change written down, and no matter how fast you catch it, once it’s in your hands, it’s a battle to get the porter to admit that you have any birr coming your way. normally this would be a dick move, restricted mostly to sleazy jerks, but these days, there is no honest way to make a living in the transit business.

how’s life, you ask?

you know…

can’t complain.

* * * *

stay tuned for our next episode:

we have visitors? that’s gotta be a mistake.

****

easy listening: black rebel motorcycle club : ain’t no easy way out

sights and sounds.

hi everybody!

just dropping some photos from my recent travels to morocco and togo. sadly, in all my brilliance, i forgot my camera charger in masha, so there are but three pictures of togo, two of which were taken with jenny’s camera (the waterfall, the guy in the motorcycle helmet, and jenny and i in the eyes of the telecom billboard).

other than that, you may notice that i have backlogged quite a few posts with music files (not necessarily related to the post, but simply what i was listening to at that time) in my attempt to generally share the experience of being me, as well as providing some reading suggestions, as in, what i have been reading at the time (don’t worry, i won’t suggest anything until i’m totally finished reading it, so as not to recommend anything that’s not worth your time).

currently i am working backward on this media sharing project, so simply click “older posts” at the end of each post to see what i have added to the last post.

in addition, i have rejoined facebook, and yes, my soul died a little in the process (it was a work move, and after i’m done here, i hope to transition away from it once again), but at the moment, i might as well use it to push my blog, so “like me” and get updates via the ‘book, or so i assume from what the kids tell me facebook is capable of these days.

enjoy the pics!

return to abibasinnia and the rise of tinnish koi.

remember when i said adventurers shouldn’t be allowed to talk to each other?

i said that right?

well, i should have… with a grain of mischievous sarcasm.

* * * *

when i got back to addis, i wasn’t exactly thrilled to be back in the smoggy self-appointed capital of africa, though after my adventure with dan and the pharmheads from tampa, i was softening to slum city.

i hailed a cab across town to king’s hotel where i was already a day late for in-service training, and PC should have had a room waiting for me.

of course they did not, and i spent a good part of the night leafing through the reservations book with the receptionist, while he pointed out that peace corps’ reservation was for one night… a week ago, and i insisted that that was a separate reservation, and that all the grungy americans milling around the hotel were part of the new reservation… the one that was handwritten on a crumpled napkin and then (classic!) hole-punched and inserted into the reservations binder.

the solution to this was “you’re always roommates with those other two ferenji (matt and mark), why don’t you stay with them? call them now.”

“… hey, mark, whaddya doin’ right now?… i see… order me a george’s, i’ll be there directly.”

i left my bags on the floor of the lobby, and went next door to the merkeb bar, where all those friendly faces i had missed over the last four months at site were drunk enough to be way too happy to see me. matt regaled us all with his tale of midget wrestling, coke dealers, chain whipping co-eds, and police reports in denver, colorado during the “funniest story of your life” contest (tony came in a close second with SATs postponed because a homeless man took a shit on the library window during the test), and i couldn’t have been happier at that moment to be back in ethiopia, but the city by shit river had so much more in store for me.

i bet, right about now, you’re thinking that this is why adventurers shouldn’t be allowed to talk to each other, aren’t you?

no, my friend… that seed was planted long ago, when nikki told me all about how two outgoing PCVLs were competing in an unsanctioned moto-rickshaw race across india.

during shaibunna break my first morning back in addis, laura pulls me aside…

“how would you feel… you don’t have to answer right now… but… how would you feel about maybe… possibly… doing the rickshaw run with me and dustin? you can think it over if—“

absofreakinlutely!

“i’m so happy right now! let’s hug it out!”

team tinnish koi was born.

tinnish koi, for the uninitiated, is PC ethiopia’s latest in-joke.

tinnish koi means in amharic “little (tinnish) wait (koi)”, or “hold on a second”, which is what we find ourselves doing so often in this country. in our minds, however, tinnish koi is a “little (tinnish) fish (koi)”. so tinnish koi, the tiny japanese fish, was born as a character in our PCEthiopia comic strip, as the best idea for a group tattoo, and as the name for our rickshaw run team.

a brief aside, if you’ll allow it (if not, move on): in the great tradition of strategic sports that may cause head injury, we plan on slapping a fish sticker on our rickshaw every time we achieve some feat of awesomeness. so you have until new year’s day 2013 to send me fish stickers (po box 101, masha, sheka, ethiopia), and if you do so, you are allowed to dictate what feat of awesomeness we must achieve in order to earn that sticker. also, stay tuned for details on how to donate to our team, as the rickshaw run is actually for a charity that helps get clean water to rural india. ok, meet you over on the other side <

the next week and a half in addis proved to be quite enriching. not only did we have daily trainings, and constant reunions with our fellow PCVs, but we now had the know-how and confidence to explore the city like we hadn’t before (for example, if you just go to the actual george’s brewery, a liter will set you back a paltry 6 1/2birr, the equivalent of 35cents), and the in-culture experience to share our knowledge of all things good and habesha (bozena shiro, for example, is shiro waat with tibs mixed right in! or jessica’s discovery of the delicious and ill advised “stripper champagne”).

during our trainings we held elections for various committees, and i ended up in the peer support network, which is a committee that exists for the purpose of improving the happiness and general experience of the PCV community. one of our duties is to be chaperones/guides for the newly minted PCVs during “addis day” or more accurately “last ferenji standing”, the all-day, no rules, no holds barred, we don’t care where you go but you can’t stay at the hotel, city-wide extravaganza meant to help the day-old volunteers stock up on things they might need for moving to site, and give them a little confidence for times when they have to return to addis without a travel buddy.

prior to this trip to addis, this part of PSN gave me pause. not that i feared addis, i just didn’t care for it much. i hoped i might get the group that just wanted to relax with a few beers and have a decent meal as far away from the king’s hotel buffet as possible. after this trip… i want the group that wants to do everything. and screw addis day, i’m taking the new kids out as soon as possible.

sure, they need to spend a few days per diem in one night of beers at the king’s and have their moment of naiveté when they think that 23birr for a 12 ounce george’s is a great deal, but why should they wait 6 months to find out that 6.50 draught liters are only a line taxi ride away?

after a relaxing few weeks in morocco and togo, i was back amongst people who feel, these days, more like old friends than new, i had a newly expanded role in peace corps, and i had a newfound love for the city in the smog.

ethiopia… it’s good to be back. i didn’t miss you a bit.

* * * *

stay tuned for our next episode:

joanna gets all up in djibouti.

****

easy listening: thao & mirah : eleven

exit strategy.

between throngs of dancing togolaise men in mesh tank tops and miniskirts, vomitiously bouncy busrides, and fried cheese in pepper sauce, the rest of my time in togo flew by, and before i knew it i was back at the airport. only this time it wasn’t the middle of the night, and the place was pretty well staffed, although the new staff amounted to a series of unofficials seated at loose-side tables and folding chairs at random intervals between the curbside and the tarmac who demanded to see my passport and then asked how much i was going to pay to get it back.

fortunately for me, the togolaise have little to no resolve in the field of bribery, and i forked over exactly zero cifa through approximately twenty minutes of being bounced around to half a dozen “checkpoints”.

then i got to the “official” passport check out station, where they nailed me for having an expired visa. my default feeling on expired visas is this: what are they gonna do, force me to leave?

in all probability, what they should do is force me to stay… in a holding cell, until i paid some sort of penalty fee.

in reality, what they did do was tell me there would be a “fee”, to which i asked, “how much?” and they responded, “how much do you have?”

i gave them what i had: 5,000cifa- calm down. that’s not much money. the funny thing is, they didn’t push the point, or rough me up at all to see if i was lying. i could have told them i only had 100 cifa and probably got away with it (and had i a hundred cifa coin, i would have tried that, but i only had a 5,000cifa bill). the really funny thing is, i’d bet that 5,000cifa is a lot less than the actual penalty fee that the government would have collected had these two officers chose to pursue the legitimate avenues here, but i sleep soundly at night knowing that some people would rather have 5,000cifa in their pocket for not doing their job, than 15,000cifa in the community coffers because they did do their job, and fortunately most of those people work in positions of authority.

jenny and i blew each other one more kiss through the glass wall of the terminal, and i made my way to the gate.

it was time to go home…

* * * *

stay tuned for our next episode:

from togolaise wives to hotel discount husbands.

****

easy listening: the xx : heart skipped a beat