My house after two years.  I didn’t know I could fit this much stuff in this tiny room and now I don’t even know what I’m going to do with it all.

Enjera is the staple food of Ethiopia. It is made from t’eff, a grain endemic to this country. It is high in a lot of important nutrients that otherwise would be absent the average Ethiopian diet. The slightly fermented mix is poured onto a heated clay stone, the fuel for the fire is often cow dung that has been hand made into patties and dried in the sun.

Pretty much my typical day. Sitting at my desk watching leverage and being a comfortable lap to sleep on.  At this point I should probably name the kitten. Any ideas?

With only thirty eight days left,it is easy to get caught up in the rush to leave. Volunteers have already been heading home. Those of us still in country are seeing the photos of them enjoying delicious food, having great parties, and being in weddings. It is hard to believe that we completed our service, made new friends, changed lives, and changed ourselves as well. Packing, selling our belongings, and having good by parties will be our lot in life for the next few weeks and months as we all say  our goodbyes to the friends and coworkers we have made over the last two years. Trust me, at this point almost no one can believe it has already been two years.
Looking back on our service and thinking of what we should have done differently is easy, after all hind site is 20/20 (which I am too still just coming from medical).  But I want to think back and figure out what I did right, so that is what this blog is about. Realizing that yes, I could have, should have, and wish I had, done some things better. But so does everyone else, but I did some things right and I want to focus on these to remain positive about my service.
Going back to the very beginning I would say I formed a really good relationship with my host family. While I don’t call them enough and they do get upset about that, and to be fair I don’t really call anyone, I have visited them a few times since leaving training and I still have a great time every visit. I am especially going to miss Andualem, my host brother, and I kind of wish I could just bring him back to America with me. While having a site mate has been great, I also was so correct in going to a site with no other volunteers. I am an introverted person and I don’t easily accept new friends. If I had another Peace Corp volunteer in my site from the beginning I don’t know if I could have made as many new friends. Friends which I will miss. I also made some great PCV friends, and yes, so did we all but my immediate neighbor was Allie and without her, I don’t know if I would have survived training, and we continue to visit and be friends to this day. The amazing people of G10 will always have a special place in my heart.
From swearing in and going to site I would say I am very glad I decided I was going to make reading a priority. Having read more that eighty books since arriving in country I would say I am not doing too badly. It is a great way to stimulate your mind in a place where sometimes you feel like everything just makes your head fall off from boredom. Getting myself a project of beekeeping right away was a huge bonus. I was lucky how it worked out to be. And yes I did beekeeping the whole two years, though it was very off and on work. But having something to know was my thing to work on was nice. It gave me some focus and commitment.
While from an outside perspective this will probably sound odd. I have a coffee shop hangout.. I have sat in that one place more than any other place in my town, with the exception of my own house. There I have met new friends, been introduced to counterparts, had meetings, taught about sexual health, ate some great food, gotten drunk, made people laugh, shared my culture, learned Amharic, passed the day away, and yes I also drank a LOT of coffee.  As a creature of habit if I had chosen any other place to spend my time I doubt I know I would have had a very different service.
Getting clubs started at my site was a bureaucratic mess.  It took three months of wadding through red tape, getting through translational nightmares, and frustration that I thought might kill me. But the gender and English clubs allowed me to meet the kids of my town, something that has value only another PCV can truly understand such as issues of harassment. And I got to know some of the kids who can even inspire me so long after my own high school days.
In my service there have been amazing ups, and the lowest lows in my life. But I am glad I am able even now to look back and see the friends I have made, the people I call family, and some kids I know will go on to be leaders of this country. I hope I have helped make some lasting changes from my service, and I know I will always have my Peace Corps service as a mile stone in my life.
Starting thirty days before I leave I want to try and show you all in photos my town and Ethiopia through pictures. I don’t know if it is going to work with the internet problems and power outages I am still to this day dealing with in my town. But I am going to try to upload a picture a day so you all can get a feel for my life. But be prepared for me to miss some, not to mention the very poor quality pictures my phone takes. I hope it works but check back and see.
Also just because I love this city here is a picture of the sun setting over lake Hawassa last night.

12/15-

12/4
Well, what can I say, I am bored.  I have really had no significant work since I have been back from the States.  There has been a few beekeeping things to do, but really that amounts to two or three afternoons.  It is really annoying how little I have accomplished recently.  I did have a farmer field day where my office took the farmer and development agents around to show them the work they were doing.  I wouldn’t really call that work though since I understood none of what they were saying and really just walked around in the demonstration fields.  The other day PC came out here to figure out if they were going to put another volunteer in the area.  They selected one of my rural kabeles and I think it is going to be nice for the new volunteer.  The farmer training center is well cared for and the development agent in charge of it is really smart.  Finally there was thanksgiving; I went to Hawassa where they have opened a new office for us.  It was really nice and the internet was great.  Just being in Hawassa made me regret not extending a little.  It is a beautiful town with wildlife everywhere, the people are used to white people so the harassment isn’t too bad, and it is on the lake so just so relaxing.  To celebrate the holiday we had a potluck at the office.  There was mashed potatoes, curry, coleslaw, chicken, desserts, and much more.  It was so delicious, and getting to see so many people I haven’t seen in a while was great.  I am really going to miss the friends I have made here.  PCVs are just the best people (myself excluded of course). 
COS (Close of service) is coming up, although now that I am so aware of it it seems time has slowed down.  But, I know sooner rather than later it will come and I will be out of here.  I got a taste of what it is going to be like when I leave the other day;  one of my coworkers got a job elsewhere and there was an office party for him.  We got together at a restaurant for food and drinks, but a good thirty minutes was taken up just with speeches.  I knew Ethiopians like to have their meetings, but apparently they love giving speeches, everyone talked about how they will miss him, and gave advice.  I even was even asked to say something, but I kept it “short and sweet.”  They all told me that I was their brother, and that when I leave they will be doing the same thing for me.  It will be interesting to see how they deal with the translation issue, I feel like it is just going to mean a translator so thirty minutes of speech translated will mean an hour.  But, It is nice to know that they will miss me and I know I will miss the friends I have made in my town as well. 
I realize that I only have this month to use my remaining vacation days, so what to do.  I know I should go somewhere new, but I really think I might just go back to Harar.  It was such a good time, and I would love to just have to time in a place I can wear shorts…yes, planning a vacation has come down to picking a place specifically to wear “skimpy clothing.”
It is almost time to start applying for jobs.  I am afraid of what that even means for me.  I feel like I am unqualified for anything that I would really want to do (also, I really don’t know what I want to do), but I also am totally against going back to school unless I have no alternatives.  What that is going to mean for my future I really have no idea.  I am really hoping that this PC experience will get me farther than I think it will.  Everyone please keep me in mind if you hear about any NGO, conservation, and/or wildlife related jobs. 
But hey, not to fear, I have four and a half months of PC, plus a month vacation in India before I really have to worry to much about any of that!

11/23
Happy Thanksgiving, I am really going to miss the holiday this year as I am not going to participate in the Embassy dinner.  It was really nice last year, but all the travel and having to find housing etc. to go this year just didn’t seem practical.  I am still going to celebrate his year, but I am going to go to the local(ish) PC office and do it with my fellow volunteers on Saturday.  That way I can spend a few days relaxing and enjoying with them, plus going to the pool is always a plus.  We are doing a potluck so should be lots of good, if not themed, food to stuff my face with.
I have really not had any work for about two weeks now.  To say I am going stir crazy would be an understatement.  Thankfully there has been power relatively consistently which means I have been wasting my days away watching movies.  But, if there had been no power on top of it I would probably have already lost my mind.  My site mate is trying to start up some clubs, but I am letting him do the footwork this time.  After having to take weeks getting them going last time I had no desire to be the one to initiate them.  If they get up and going I have a few ideas that we may try to get the kids interested. 
Bee keeping season is now in swing.  Sadly, there aren’t as many flowers as I would like to see, so I am not expecting a huge honey harvest this year.  I have talked to a few people about how we won’t get a lot of honey without trees, they seem to understand but not really care.  It is hard to get across conservation ideas here because there really is no such thing as environmental awareness here.  I am saddened when less than a hundred years ago people came to Ethiopia and described it as a beautiful oasis with wildlife and flora abounding.  Now the only flora you really see is Eucalyptus (a non-native) trees, and the animal life is non-existent excluding cattle.  I worry, that one day, this is what the rest of the world will soon look like if we aren’t careful. 
I have been told I am going to help with a dairy processing training soon, but I will hold my breath.  If it even happens, it is likely it won’t be for several months, just because that is how scheduling goes here.  I did try to do a training for the livestock office on how to do stool sample testing on the cattle and livestock. They seemed a little interested in the beginning, but quickly were distracted  It could be helpful for them here because there is no sort of regular deworming schedule or anything of that sort. To be able to better diagnose problems would be a huge benefit, but I will be surprised if they implement it at all. 
I have started writing my description of service for when I COS.  It is interesting looking back, I had so many ideas, plans, and things I wanted to do while living here.  It actually makes me a little sad just thinking about what I have actually accomplished and not just dreamed of.  I wonder what I could have done differently that would have helped me have a higher project rate, or a better impact.  I wonder what I am leaving behind in just the few short months I have left.  Did I make a difference?  Did I help someone without even knowing it?  Did one of those students decide to use a condom, or did one of the farmers decide that they should do some techniques a little different and improve their livelihood?  I don’t really know, and in all likelihood I never will.  So what do I want to take away from service?  Well I guess I have five months left to figure that out!  Then it is off to India, Dubai, and who knows where else! 

10/30
Happy Halloween!!!  Sadly missing another holiday, but I have been invited to a party in Bale Goba in order to celebrate Halloween.  I have also found some pumpkins and been cooking with that.  I am pretty happy how my cooking skills have progressed while being in Ethiopia.  Not only have I learned to make breads and pastries, but I have done it while using a dutch oven to cook.  I can’t wait to get back to modern appliances and seeing what I can make.  I have just made some pumpkin pies, while not exactly what you think of when you say pumpkin pie in America, they were rather tasty and incredibly easy to make.  Today I will be making pumpkin bread to take to the party. 
We have really gotten into the rhythm of having a horse, it is rather time consuming and I can image it being hard to deal with in America with such a hectic lifestyle (at least compared to here). Most of the time is really taken by the fact that we have to take him to and from where he stays to my office every day in order to let him graze.  Still, it is a welcome distraction in spite of the fact that it means every day I have to be up and going by eight A.M. rain or shine, week day or weekend.  Spending the time brushing and cleaning him every day gives me something to do even if I have nothing else for the rest of the day.  I also have embarrassed the bareback riding.  It isn’t really practical to carry the saddle to him every day, just to ride him the ten minutes to my office so once a day, assuming he isn’t wet from the rain, I ride him up to the office without the saddle.  I feel almost more comfortable, not physically of course, riding without the saddle now.  It also doesn’t really help that the saddle in Ethiopia are pretty terrible.  Then of course there is the time we ride him just for fun.  It is really relaxing and enjoyable.  Yesterday some friends and I took him up to the reforestation area around the gorge. It was beautiful, and when we got to the end we stopped and drank a bottle of honey wine.  We also got invited to a celebration of one of the bee cooperatives who has their hives in the forest.  They graciously offered us the sheep they were cooking as well as some gin.  Getting into the swing of everything, finding him a house, getting the food and such taken care of may have been a huge headache, but so worth it in the end.
On a less fun note, I can’t even believe I complained at my midnight curfew as a teen.  Living in a compound in Ethiopia means you have certain rules.  You have to respect your landlord and their property of course, regardless of if their baby comes into your house, picks up and plays with everything, and occasionally pees on your floor.  You have to get permission for everything, even if that means that you do not get permission for things like making a garden.  But, I think the worst is a curfew.  It is an unspoken rule in Ethiopia that you have to be home at a reasonable time.  If you are not then the landlord will lock the gate and you are out of luck.  This means I have, for the last year and a half, been living with a nine P.M. curfew.  I honestly feel like a child again having to watch the clock and make sure I get home in time.  It is one of the bigger things I am looking forward to being done with. 
Seeing how today was the deadline for submitting the paperwork to extend my stay in Ethiopia, and I did not figure anything out, it looks like I will be leaving Ethiopia in five and a half months.   I am looking forward to starting the next phase of my life despite the fact that I have absolutely no idea what I will be doing.  Looks like I have a lot of research to do in order to find my next calling.