Life in the land of Tigray... 2 months down, 22 more to go!

It's with releif that I feel like I'm starting to be productive here at post; it's only been 2 months since swearing in and moving here, but each day that I spend doing 'nothing' makes me feel more and more antsy to get started on something. I have to admit, though, it's nice to slow life down- I find myself taking time to notice things I wouldn't pay attention to before and making efforts I would have otherwise decided I didn't have time for. I do miss a real job however, and I am excited to get to the point in my service where (I hope) I have a busy schedule again.

The past month (since it has been a month since I last wrote- whoops... I'll work on that) has been a bit busier than my first month: I've been working on the English clubs and language curriculum at the High School and one of the Primary schools here in town, as well as observing the Environmental clubs at two primary schools and the high school in order to hopefully get involved in the future with projects and Environmental education. My intentions in going to the schools were solely for Environmental Education purposes, but each time I spoke to the head master about it, they were interested, but even MORE interested if I were willing to help them in the English program. So far I've spent a few days observing classes and speaking with teachers, as well as giving them additional resources for activities and games for classroom and English club lessons. Our plan at the high school is to get the club meeting on a regular basis and have discussions, games, activites, etc. But it's slow starting to say the least.

Aside from the schools, I have been spending time working on my CNA (Community Needs Assessment) for Peace Corps- a report and presentation given during our In Service Training. It's an analysis of the community from interviews, observations, and community participatory assessments to determine the strengths and weaknesses and possible projects for our service. Basically it's been a lot of interviews and walking around observing.. but it's actually been fun to gather the information and gives me an excuse to ask a lot of questions. Yesterday my counterpart and I took a trip to the neighboring town to see and observe the tree nursary sites there (my excuse was for my CNA, but I just really wanted to see the sites). We have one in our town, but since these were the two largest in our Woreda, I thought it would be a good idea to visit them. It was great having my counterpart along (he's rather busy most of the time so I don't see much of him) because it meant I could ask all the questions I wanted and he could translate since my Tigrinya is still minimal at best. The trip made me really excited to work with the tree nursaries in my area and we spent time discussing possible project ideas for them, such as compost pits, improved irrigation systems, fruit tree production, and (my personal imput) spice and herb hardens. I'm excited.

So, work completely aside, I still have more free time than I know what to do with... some of the ways I spend my free time (like watching all 6 seasons of How I Met Your Mother in a week) I'm not that proud of, but this area is an amazing landscape of rocky cliffsides and plateaus and is great for hiking- most of my desitinations being isolated churches either carved out of a cliffside or surrounded by thick forest land. Or, whenever things get too boring I head out and look for wildlife (usually in the forest areas surounding the churches. So far, I've seen enough bush and rock hyraxes to last a lifetime, but also some Grivet monkeys, the endemic-to-Ethiopia White cheeked Turraco, and signs of spotted hyenas and Genets. I recently learned that there is a 7500 hectre forest in my Woreda but nobody has really studied it to see what lives there- maybe a future project??

Above is the inside of the rock hewn church just outside of my town (the top picture as well). The church is called 'Ara'abata Insasat', or, 'The Four Animals'; after a lengthy discussion with the Priest, I gathered the church got it's name from the tapestry you can see in the back partly obscured by the curtain. The painting is of three Saints and in each corner is an animal: An angel, a lion, an ox, and some sort of bird. The church itself is hand-carved out of the mountain and even has a 5 metre high vaulted ceiling!! Nobody knows how old it is or who even created it- I was told God carved it out of the cliffside himself.

Unlike most of the churches I've seen so far, the paintings in Ara'abata Insasat seem older and almost stencil like- I would love to know more and I keep searching the internet for histories of these churches, but with not a lot of luck..

One of the many friendly rock-hyraxes in the cliffs surounding my town.

Eastern Tigray at it's finest- a more traditional homestead a few kilometres outside a neighboring town.

The Environmental group at one of the primary schools: each morning they bring a container of water from home (there is no running water at the school) to water their project trees.

The view at the top of the cliffs of one of my many hikes- I dont know why, but I can't seem to upload a panoramic photo without it becoming blurry...