November 21: My Birthday (that’s right, it’s a holiday)
So I woke up on Monday morning, checked out my Facebook, and many of my PCV friends (and a few people from home who understand the time difference) were on the ball and wished me a happy day! The first thing I did was bake myself a cake. Seriously. And a big shout out to Uncle Dave Long and Sharon Knight for the yellow cake mix and chocolate frosting that was sent in a care package! And to my mother, for sending colorful sprinkles! Thanks guys! So I baked the cake, frosted it, and sprinkled it, then took it outside to show the ladies in my compound. I told them “lomi anti lidetay iyu” (today is my birthday). They looked at me, looked at the cake, then back to me and said “Happy Birsday????”
Later on that day they put on a coffee ceremony for me, and we ate cake. Kevin came by to help celebrate. They all (kinda) sang “happy birthday” in English.
Thanks to all of you who wished me a happy birthday via fb, skype, snail mail, etc. It really was a happy birthday!
November 24: Thanksgiving
My favorite holiday, hands down. And no, they do not celebrate Thanksgiving in Ethiopia.
After lots of list making (I like lists) and text sending we figured out that it would be possible to have a somewhat traditional Thanksgiving dinner in Ethiopia! We decided to spend this American holiday in my town of Wukro. We had PCV friends travel from 4 hours away to celebrate with us!
It took a lot of work (and a few care package items from America), but we were able to create a fantastic, tasty spread of American holiday deliciousness! Dinner included meatloaf, fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, green beans, salad, jello, no-bake pumpkin cheesecake and apple pie!
November 25: The day after Thanksgiving
We had an AMAZING Mexican Fiesta dinner! Complete with homemade everything!
November 26: Black Saturday
My friend Allison and I broke our banks and bought legit, Adidas, Ethiopian Track Suits! Well worth the 950 birr to look so cool!
December 4: Early Christmas from Peace Corps Ethiopia to Bailey
Peace Corps Programs in various countries allow Volunteers to purchase a bicycle if deemed necessary for their work. Ethiopia happens to be one of them! PC Ethiopia gave me a stipend to purchase a bike, and so I did just that! My bike is so cool… It has 18 speeds, lots of reflectors, a light, blinkers, a water bottle, a bike lock, and a rack on the back to secure my books and papers (seriously)! 
And on top of all fancy stuff, its blue, my favorite color!
So I was kinda nervous to ride it around. I mean… there’s LOTS of big rocks, thick sand, oxen, donkeys, goats and sheep, and of course, children wandering around all over town. But I finally got on and gave it a shot on my way to pick up a live rat trap (rat story to be continued…maybe its own blog post). As I began to ride it I noticed that my tire was flat! How could my tire be flat if I JUST bought it?! I found a bike shop on the side of the road, and the nice old man pumped air into my tire and I was off again.
The next day my tire was flat AGAIN! I walked it to the nice old bike repair guy, he took the tube out of the tire in record time, patched up a hole and before I knew it I was on my bike, testing it out. Turned out there were lots of holes in the tube. So I had to buy a new tube.
I didn’t mind, the tube wasn’t too expensive, but I wanted to give the guy who sold it to me a hard time about selling me a bike with a faulty tube! When I went to Mekele a couple of weeks later, I told the bike shop owner about it and his response was “Yeeeeah, it’s from China” …. Haha. Oh well!
December 24: Christmas Eve
So I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned this before, but Peace Corps Volunteers are awesome! Just when you think you’ll get sad and lonely on Christmas Eve because you’re not in Salina, KS at grandma and grandpas house eating pizza and soup after the 4 o’clock Mass, 13 Volunteers show up to your house and start making Mexican food!
We had a fantastic spread of homemade Mexican food… wheat and white tortillas, meat, beans, rice, guac, salsa, cheese!!! We all sat around in my compound and played charades afterwards.
We ended the night with a sleepover. I had 4 friends stay with me. We watched Home Alone as we fell asleep. It was great!
December 25: Christmas Day!
Christmas day started early, as usual, but in a not so usual way. We got up and went to play basketball… outside! Since its 85 degrees and sunny here, every day, what better way to spend Christmas morning, by doing what makes me the happiest!
My friend Diane said it was neat to see me so happy out on the court 
After a few pick-up games with a mix of Americans and Ethiopians, we decided that it was time to get busy cooking and baking. But first, we had muffins for breakfast. Thanks to Aunt Sue for the blueberry and cinnamon muffin mixes and the ingredients and recipe to make Grandma’s pumpkin bread!
THEN it was time to work. My stove ran out of propane a couple of days prior, so my house was out of order for cooking. But luckily the male PCV’s in my town, Kevin and Rashad, had functioning stoves. So we divided up the cooking and baking into two kitchens and got to work. According to Sham, who was in charge of Kevin’s kitchen, they got a lot more work than us in the other kitchen… whoops
Anyhow, we had a fabulous Christmas Dinner. Meatloaf, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, salads, mac and cheese, green beans and carrots, and various desserts ended up being waaaaaaay too much food for the 14 of us. We all stuffed ourselves until we were uncomfortable, it was awesome!
December 31: New Year’s Eve
We decided that Mekele, the big city 45km south of my town, was the best place to celebrate the New Year. We followed the usual pattern of getting into Mekele, eating ferenji food, walking, eating, walking, and then more eating.
In the middle of one of the walking bouts, we stopped in at the movie theater. On a previous trip to the city, we stopped in to check it out and made friends with the owner. He is an Ethiopian man that lived in Boston for 25 years before returning to Mekele. He offered to show a movie for us, for free, to help celebrate the New Year. We took him up on the offer and returned a few hours later to watch the movie “Red”. We were given free popcorn and had the theater all to ourselves! It was easy to forget that we were in Ethiopia.
After the movie, we headed over to an indoor/outdoor bar. We celebrated in a way that any group of Americans might. The bar owner surprised us with a couple of bottles of champagne. Have I mentioned how kind some people in Ethiopia can be?!?! Free movie, free champagne, sheesh! We all had a great time!
January 5: ‘Vacation’
The start of a 3 week ‘vacation’ from my site. Diane, Ally and I hoped on a plane, headed to the capitol city of Addis Ababa. We hung out in Addis, ate waffles, burgers and ice cream and spent a lot of money.
January 6: Ethiopian Christmas Eve
Since the Ethiopian calendar is weird, their Christmas falls on our January 7, which is their January 29th.
A few weeks prior to Ethiopian Christmas, I received a call from my Host Father down in Assela. Assela is where I lived for 10 weeks with a family during Pre-Service training and to get introduced to the ways of Ethiopian culture. He invited me to celebrate Christmas with them. I told him that I would come, but I don’t think they believed me.
When I showed up at their house on Christmas Eve, they all seemed so shocked, but happy of course, that I actually came! Their two older sons were supposed to come down for the holiday, but it ended up that they were unable to make it, so my family was extra pleased to have ME there
Being back ‘home’ was like I never left. I tried to help with the chores and cooking, but they insisted that I go take rest, that I must have been tired from the traveling. I rested for a bit, only to please them but after my nap I jumped in on my host sister, Betty, while she was making cookies. We made a bunch of the fried cookies that I fell in love with while I lived there. We listened to music on my iPod, and then she introduced me to a few new Justin Beiber songs she had on her mobile phone, haha.
January 7: Ethiopian Christmas Day
As soon as I woke up, I got online and got in touch with my family back home. We decided that it would be cool to skype, so my Ethiopian family could meet my real family! It was so cool to introduce them to each other!
Christmas Day was, surprisingly, very relaxing. My host parents and sister didn’t seem to work too hard. We went over to my PCV friend Daniel’s host family’s house for lunch. My family was VERY pleased to see that I could now eat Ethiopian food!
Throughout the day we watched EthiopianTV, where they showed the celebrations of the different regions and cultures of Ethiopia. I gave my host family a few gifts like games, lotions and honey from Tigray! We had supper at my house with a few family friends and had coffee ceremony, of course. That night, my sister and I watched a movie on my laptop, just like we did when I was there months before.
I left on Sunday morning. It was sad to leave them again, but I assured them that I would be back sometime! I hopped on a bus and headed back to Addis.
When I returned, I was reunited with all of my Education Volunteer friends. It was so great to see everyone after 4 long months at our own sites. On Monday morning, we would all head to Ambo, Ethiopia for our In-Service Training. More details on that to come!
