http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/JohnnyLamoney/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from JohnnyLamoney en-us Thu, 07 Jan 2010 08:49:58 +0000 Thu, 07 Jan 2010 08:49:58 +0000 I think it is about time that I owe everyone another blog. If only I could think of some things to talk about. Well letrsquos see new developments. I got internet at my house so I can now check my email a lot more regularly. In fact it isnrsquot half bad. The days when I do have power the majority of the town doesnrsquot so that frees up a lot of the bandwidth. I get asked a lot if I http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Ethiopia/Southern-Nations-Region/Awasa/blog-425341.html This blog entry is the missing week of Chrisrsquos visit. I thought it would be a fun twist to have a new set of eyes tell you the story of what happened in his week vacation. I just want to warn any Ethiopians that nothing in this is meant to be critical of the culture. This was Chrisrsquos first visit to Africa so anything that isnrsquot part of normal American Culture stuck out to him. http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Ethiopia/blog-419989.html How is everyone doing I hope everyone had a very safe Fourth of July. I would say there was a fair amount of celebrating here in Ethiopia. Everyone met up at their consolidation points. Bahir Dar a city about 20 hours on a bus north of me had a very large group meet up there as well as Dessie which had a few meet there. Hawassa had the biggest group consisting of about 16 volunteers. http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/blog-415755.html Letrsquos seehellip It is one orsquo clock on a Tuesday or Wednesday. I am at my house being completely lost at the fact I have had electricity for some part of the day since Saturday. I had power all day Saturday and Sunday which never happens. I am just waiting for the power to get cut off for a good three or four days in a row. I am stocked on candles so that wonrsquot be a problem http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Ethiopia/Southern-Nations-Region/Awasa/blog-412232.html Peace Corps has a very strict policy about traveling within country but without taking vacation days. This is a policy I that I adhere to without reservation. Did you know there are two Mexican restaurants in Ethiopia One in Debre Zeit and one in Addis. On a side note I want to tell you a story. A Peace Corps Volunteer had a friend come into town the other day. They had a great time and when http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Ethiopia/Southern-Nations-Region/Awasa/blog-397025.html Its 9am I just finished the free breakfast buffet with the eggs that seemed way too yellow. This is the last day that all of us PCVs will be together until MidService Training in nine months. Some left on buses early this morning and our group in the south will most likely leave around noon. I have to say that I am grateful that our group has geled as well as it has. We truly are like a giant http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Ethiopia/blog-409350.html Hello EveryoneI am sure you all have forgotten about me since my last post. Let me catch you uptodate. If you remember I was volunteering at the HIVAIDS NGO Forum. The newsletter I put together went to the printer. The coordinator is getting a lot of complements from it. Anyways after all that was finished I went in to ask about starting a new project. Getnetcoordinator had an idea f http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Ethiopia/Southern-Nations-Region/Awasa/blog-395780.html Hello EveryoneI just wanted to say a little something today. First I have a new email address johnnylamoneygmail.com. I have to get rid of the WKU email address because it fills up too quickly. Luckily I donrsquot have too many people in my address book. This weekend was pretty neat. A Peace Corps Volunteer from Tanzania just finished his service so he has been biking north in hopes of http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Ethiopia/Southern-Nations-Region/blog-392371.html Hey Everyone.I know its been a while but I figured you just got tired of reading about me receiving packages and what I had to eat. Now I have some actual news. The Head Guy from the Aids Resource Council came down to Hawassa the other day to talk with his new Peace Corps volunteer Rich. Rich is a pretty unique character 6 years in the military and felt he wasnrsquot doing anything good for http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Ethiopia/Southern-Nations-Region/Awasa/blog-390196.html Hello everyone. Let's play a little bit of catch up. I got sick last week just a little bit of the flu that is going around. Nothing big just a few headaches runny nose and tiredness. So what did I do I read three books. Franny and Zooey by Salinger The Curious Incident of the Dog at Night and Whatever You Do Don't Run. The latter was the best. I read two on Friday and one on Saturday. http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Ethiopia/Southern-Nations-Region/Awasa/blog-383936.html Hey Everyone I have a bunch to tell everyone but first I have to thank Cheryl for her care package. It was amazing. One of the most beautiful things I have seen here in Ethiopia. It came with Playdoh a small puzzle Frisbee socks the biggest bag of Sour Patch Kids I have ever seen 4 bags of Swedish fish and a whole case of assorted MMs. Thank you so much Cheryl it was perfect. So t http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Ethiopia/Southern-Nations-Region/Awasa/blog-382192.html I am writing this on a friend's computer. A fellow volunteer Jordan from Franklin TN traded his computer and hard drive for my PSP for the week. It was really nice being able to watch movies and TV. So what did I do this week I found a really great NGO that I am going to start volunteering at. It is actually called the Forum of HIVAIDS NGOs. They are working on a project to compile all http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Ethiopia/Southern-Nations-Region/Awasa/blog-379916.html OK ... I know it has only been a day or so since my last installment but I have to tell you one hilarious thing that happened to me yesterday. I was walking home after my productive day. I live by the bus station and was just talking with some of the guys who hassle me everyday just passing conversation. I start to walk home down my dirt road and no sooner than I hit the road do I slip and c http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Ethiopia/Southern-Nations-Region/Awasa/blog-376401.html Ok everyone ... I am sorry it has taken so long. Reason one is because Awasa has decent internet speeds but Ambo has incredibly slow speeds and I couldn't make that jump again. So let's see after site visit to Awasa I was so pumped about what I was going to be doing. Then we went back to Ambo to finish our training. We all shared stories of what our sites are like. My site was called an Ethiop http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Ethiopia/Southern-Nations-Region/Awasa/blog-375280.html There are a few things I want to clear up. First since Ethiopia is so close to the Equator it doesn't get hot and cold seasons so much as wet and dry seasons. I think I am right about that. It stays about mid 80s to mid 90s year round in Awasa. It rained last night and it was amazing. I cannot figure how to load pictures on here. Oh my goodness there are some really awesome things I have to http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Ethiopia/Southern-Nations-Region/Awasa/blog-365010.html Wow... it has been quite a while since we last talked to each other. So much has changed since then. Let's see where to start Ok site placement. Well I was aiming for either in the Tigray region by the Simien mountains or Awasa near the Bale Mountains. The day of placement was a huge ordeal. The country director made an appearance which I didn't think was a big deal because she only has http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Ethiopia/Southern-Nations-Region/Awasa/blog-364628.html We finished our 4th week today. I just want to say that everyone in the Peace Corps gets the same mood swings I was getting. No worries. Next week is going to be a big one for all of us. On Tuesday we have our Language Proficiency Tests and on Saturday we will recieve our locations. It is kind of ridiculous about how secretive they are being about our sites. We had a slew of speakers come http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Ethiopia/Oromia-Region/blog-359608.html Today was the first day since my last post that both the phone lines and the power were working at the same time. Ethiopia has made me realize how much I hate Dialup. So all of the Volunteers brought gifts for a Dirty Santa game. The limit was 10 Birr or 1 dollar. I bought a chinese power converter that only works in Chinait's useless here and a DVD of The Cowboy Way a horrible movie with http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Ethiopia/Oromia-Region/blog-358530.html Sorry everyone I spent all my money on some local beer and haven't been able to afford the internet. The Peace Corps Staff took all of us to a place called Lake Wenchi today. It was so beautiful. It is a giant crater lake. I would say about a kilometer across. The best part was the hour and half walk down the mountain side to the lake. I can't wait to be able to load some pictures on here fo http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Ethiopia/Oromia-Region/blog-357122.html I felt really bad for my host father yesterday. He took me and my neighborwho is also a Peace Corps Volunteer to a local park and waterfall. It really was amazing just being able to sit and relax and tune out everything that is on my mind right then and soak up the scenery. Anyways the trip almost broke my host father's wallet. First off the bus ride was 2 birr for locals 5 for foreigns. http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Ethiopia/Oromia-Region/blog-354464.html