Holidays

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So, as most of you know, it’s the holiday season and I continue to be in Ethiopia. This leaves me feeling a bit homesick, but it’s also cool to have 39 other people feeling the same way.

On Christmas, Peace Corps gave us the day off and drove us to a lake about 30 kilometers away. It was a nice getaway spot where we did a lot of reading, a bit of exploring, and most embarrassingly a tiny bit of dancing. Unlike most South African dances (which I remember as being undeniably awesome), Ethiopian dances merely over-utilize the shoulders. There is one dance, though, that’s pretty cool where everyone lines up like a congo line (get it, congo?), the person in front having a whip. When the dance starts everyone repeats “sell-em-ay, sell-em-ay” and the person in the front tries to whip the people in the back. Crazy, no? After Christmas I brought it home and started playing it with the 4 and 8 year olds in my compound. They don’t whip quite as hard as our teachers.

After we drove back to Ambo (which in itself was an adventure of dueling busses on an unpaved and mountainous road) we all congregated at a hotel and had a nice Christmas dinner consisting of injera and an assorted number of wats. Right after dinner all 40 of us exchanged “white elephant” gifts in a massive orgy of awesomeness. My gift was a sweet Jamaican belt that I got for like 80 cents. Some other gifts included home made tree ornaments (equipped with passport pictures), throwback hats, and pink underwear. If anyone hasn’t heard of the “white elephant” ceremony before it’s definitely something you should prioritize on your to-do list. Basically everyone has a number, and proceeds by opening a present according to their place. If a later number so chooses, they can steal a previous gift instead of opening a new one. The person who had their gift stolen can then open a new gift on the table. Finally, gifts cannot be stolen more than three times. I got number 31, which is a pretty good number, right? Wrong. I started off by stealing a bag of swedish fish, only to have them stolen from me one person later. Then I got a set of waterproof cards, which stayed safe until the 38th person. All the while I had been sitting next to Sean (pronounced “seen” in Africa), who seems pretty cool but told me his present was a wrist band wrapped in Suduku. No one had taken it yet, and I didn’t want it, so I asked for the one not wrapped in Suduku. As luck would have it, they were all wrapped in Suduko, so I got the wristband by chance.

New years was also a really fun time including my three favorite things: gin, singing, and sleepovers. Since all Ethiopians are in bed by 9:30 and since, when I’m out past 7, my parents fear that I’ve been eaten by hyenas, we decided to rent out a conference room at a hotel in town for all to stay the night. It cost a total of 20 dollars. We also had a bonfire on the hotel’s property. The whole fiasco reminded me of freshman year (in a good way). Basically 40 twenty-something’s (sorry Ken, Julie, and Karen), each with a bottle of alcohol, drinking as if they might get caught by someone. The theme of the party was “check yourself before you wreck yourself”. The whole thing climaxed when, at 12 on the dot, we stopped our dance party, lowered the new years soccer ball (equipped with tapped on decorations and used water bottles), and all screamed “happy new year!” All in all, a really great and American time. It was quite difficult to explain the next day to our parents. First because no one stays up so late. Second because their new year isn’t until September here. And third because in Ethiopia it’s 2001. Seriously.

So there you have it, a recap of my holiday bonanza. While it was nothing like the holiday season back home, it was equivalent in spirit

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