Mäskäräm 7, 2007

This is my first message from Ethiopia. I, arrived together with another 3 British volunteers, at Sunday. On Monday another volunteer from Indonesia came and today, in European time September 17, 2014 a volunteer from Uganda arrived. He is also going to Semera.
I really like it in Ethiopia. The people are friendly and helpful. At the VSO office we have our In Country Training and we learned a lot of useful stuff we can use in our placements. We also learned some of the language, but that is quite hard. I do recognize some words now when people are talking to each other.
A very peculiar thing we learned this week is about the time. The Ethiopians are in a different year than the western world. I will try to explain. There are 12 months of 30 days in Ethiopia and there is a 13th month of 5 days (or 6 in a leap year (schrikkeljaar)). The year starts at September 11, so I actually missed the New Year just by two days.  We are now in the month of Mäskäräm. I will probably also learn the names of the other months, but that is not for now.
So not only, do the Ethiopians have a different calendar, the hours are also different from ours. At dawn the day starts and when it is 7 a.m., the Ethiopians call it 1. Noon is six o’ clock and at six in the evening they start over again.
It is very important, when you make an appointment to ask if they use the Ethiopian time or the western time otherwise you could be in for a surprise.
I see also a lot of poverty in Addis and around the office of shacks where we have our orientation training, but even all the shacks have satelite dishes, which look funny.
The food is quite good, they have a pancake called injera and on it there are different types of meat, vegetables and so on. You eat with your hand and most of the time if you eat with a group you share a big dish.
Yesterday, I met another volunteer who goes to Semera, Emon. I think we are going to work together a lot, because our functions overlap. If everything goes to plan (and you never know) I will be flying to Semera on Sunday. It will be quite a challenge, because everybody who hears I am going to Semera, says: ooh my God. Luckily a lot of people also say that it will be a wonderful experience. I will finish now, because we are starting today and a representative of Semera has arrived.