First Week of Training

Well this has been a crazy week. Let's see if I can get you guys up to speed.

Tuesday Morning

Caught my flight at 6:45am. Got into D.C. This was the first training day, well, only training day. They just talked about specific examples of what we might be facing. I was really surprised to find that there were 40 other Peace Corps Volunteers going just to Ethiopia. Anyway...paperwork...name games... sleep. I was tired.

Wednesday

We found out we leave for ethiopia tonight? Wow. We went to George Washington University to tell us of a sister program that allows us to be paired with a GW student and use them as a resource for research. Finding out about specific programs that have worked under certain situations. It seems like a pretty neat program and we will see how it works out. Then we all went to get shots and went to the airport. We all have quite a bit of per diem left so we made a stop at the airport bar for 3 hours.

Thursday

15 hours spent on a plane, use your imagination.

Friday
I went to bed as soon as we got off the plane. So I woke up at 6:30 local time and felt great. Breakfast. Then we went into a meeting and got a bunch of Peace Corps shwag. Brand new Ethiopian Telephone (251910215918), Brand new uv light water purifier, 2 big buckets, a large cheese cloth and some water purification packets. Just remember there is no such thing as a little bit of dysentery. After the giveaway, we stood in line for our next surprise, 4 shots. 2 in each arm. The best part was how they would kind of whisper to you what the shot was and then poke you. The US Ambassador to Ethiopia invited us over to his compound for some snacks. He served us cheese toast, spring rolls, and samosas, all of it was good. Went back to the hotel, and drank some Ethiopian beer called St. George that has a guy slaying a dragon on the label. It was really good. Sleep.

Saturday
Guess who woke up with the squirts? Me. First person to get sick. Everyone kept saying,"Oh, That sucks." To which I responded at least I am getting this out of the way over a toilet instead over top a long drop. I just kind of laid in bed all day and watched soccer. Drank 6 liters of water and some oral hydration salts and felt good.

Sunday
I am writing this right here and checking my email. I don't really have anything planned today. I head out to the training site, Ambo, tommorow. I have had my camera packed this whole time but I will start uploading pictures which may be borderline impossible considering Ethiopia has terrible internet even for Africa Standards. I will get some more stuff up soon.

---

---