Ras Dashin: Day 2

We woke up bright and early on the second day of our trek to find frost on the ground and breakfast waiting.

I felt significantly better than the previous night. There were certain points throughout the evening that I was genuinely concerned I would not be able to continue the next day. While there were mules for rent and I would not be stranded, I didn’t want to be left behind and miss out on the adventure.  During the day, I took a steady stream of pain medication in hopes to quell the headache before it began. I also wore a hat with a scarf wrapped around it, which kept as much sunlight out as possible. This is also why from here on out, it looks like I’m wearing a hijab in every picture.

The day started off fairly well, but I still felt a little off from the headache. I tried to persevere through, not realizing this would be the best I felt all day. We headed uphill towards a peak that had spectacular views. At about 13,000 feet, it was highest any of us had ever been. We walked to a ledge that overlooked miles and miles of rolling mountains and from there, topped a “little” mountain. 

 

It was around this time that I started to feel horrible. While my headache did not come back, I began feeling nauseous, light headed, and tired- like I could have sat down right there and gone to sleep. Turns out, I was suffering from elevation sickness but at the time I didn’t realize it. My pace considerably slowed but I tried not to say anything at first. I mentioned to Joe something was not right, but I didn’t know what it was. From there, we were walking downhill for a period. I assumed I would start to feel better as the walking became less strenuous. But that was the moment I knew I was in serious trouble.

We walked downhill for 30 minutes and I still felt just as bad. All my symptoms were getting worse despite the lower elevation and less taxing walk. Down, down, down we went and down, down, down I went. We reached the bottom and I looked up at one of the most looming sights I will ever see in my life. The next 3 hours of the walk were all uphill- serious uphill. Over the course of that time, we would gain something like 600 meters of elevation- just shy of 2,000 feet. I stopped in my tracks. Everyone knew I had slowed down, but I don’t think they realized how bad off I was. We took a break during which Joe gave me some motion sickness pills. We hoped they would curb the queasy feeling and after a while, they did just that.

Words cannot describe how I felt at that moment. Despite the lower elevation, I still felt like I could not breath. My body was so incredibly tired, more than it should have been given the amount of walking. The only way I can describe it is my body was shutting down. I have never experienced anything like it, and I hope to never again. As we started walking, I had to take breaks. It started as walk two minutes, and then sit. Walk one minute, and then sit. It got to a point where I told myself, take ten steps, and then sit. I made it seven. I remember thinking, “if I am feeling this awful at 13,000 feet, there is no way I can summit”. As if I was not going through enough, I started beating myself up over the whole situation: This is just cause I’m so out of shape. This is so embarrassing; no one else is struggling like this. I am slowing everyone down and they must be so annoyed with me. I paid all this money and I am going to fail.

At this snail’s pace, we eventually made it to the peak. We ate a late lunch and I was pretty quiet still feeling discouraged and embarrassed. I took some comfort in knowing that the rest would be downhill. But as we were walking the rest of the day, I started feeling better. Sure, the lower elevation and pills had something to do with it, but I owe my upswing that day to the five fellow volunteers on that trip.

Despite what was going on in my head, never once did any of the PCVs say anything that was not supportive. I apologized for slowing them down and they wouldn’t hear it. They all to me this was hard stuff and I was sick yesterday. They told me to stop worrying about everything; it was kicking their butts too. They all waited patiently. Any time I needed a break, they never once complained. In fact, more often than not, someone simply said, “Good! Me too!” They made jokes that had me laughing and soon enough, I felt much better. I was even able to start enjoying some of the scenery again.

These special trees only grow at an elevation that makes your lungs hurt- around 3,800 meters (12,500 ft.) I’m not sure I’d recommend seeing them. Also, there were tons of monkeys that had pretty amazing camouflage. That is not a rock it in the middle, it’s a monkey!

Joe, Yayu, and Zach. The phrase “it is cold” in Amharic is extremely similar to a dirty phrase in Amharic. It became an ongoing joke to try to say the dirty phrase as often as possible without laughing. Dajin did not enjoy this game. Yayu loved it. In this photo, instead of saying “cheese”, Joe and Zach said the dirty phrase. Yayu’s face is priceless.

While I was still feeling bad, the last few hours of the day were enjoyable. The sights were beautiful. My mental state picked up. I realized it was elevation sickness and there was no reason to beat myself up about being slow. And Joe, Michael, Zach, and the Luttrulls kept being nothing but supportive.

When we got to the campsite, I felt an incredible sense of accomplishment. Throughout the day, every part of me wanted to stop. Every step was a struggle. But I did it. I made it. At that point, I felt, ironically, invincible. If I could make it through that day, there was nothing that could possibly stop me. I may be slow, but I will get there. The next day would be mostly downhill and the extra day would give me time to acclimate to the elevation. As we sat around that night eating dinner and playing games around the campfire, I knew that no matter what happened, I felt a sense of pride in myself that was worth the journey. Looking back, that was definitely a turning point in the trip for me. No matter how hard it got, I knew I could keep going.

After two days of misery, it all goes up from here (pun intended)

Ras Dashin: Day 1

It was really happening, we were setting out on an adventure that would take us to the top of Ethiopia. After a restful night of sleep, we all jumped in our mini bus and headed two hours away to the town of Debark. There, we all registered into Simien Mountains National Park, picked up supplies, and most importantly, met up with our guide and scout.

Our guide, Dashin or Dajin, would lead the way and ensure we made it to the top. He spoke great English and was able to educate us about the wildlife and flora in the park. Our scout, Yayu, would be responsible for keeping us safe, carrying the bag of whoever was the most tired (usually me), making us laugh, and being all around the coolest guy ever. He spoke no English.

As we finished up in Debark, some might say debarked from Debark, we piled back into the car and headed up an unpaved road to get to our starting point. I think it was around this time our guide and scout sized us up and made some assumptions about the trip. This was mostly due to Michael, Joe, and Zach having an epic tickle fight, nay, tickle war in the van. Dashin/Dajin tried to not acknowledge what was going on but I am confident he thought, “Oh god, I’m going to have to spend the next 5 straight days with these people”. Yayu on the other hand was giggling, and we all knew we were instant friends.

We arrived at our starting point- all excited to begin what, at certain points in the previous months, seemed like an impossibility. We unloaded our gear and organized a bit. We would carry daypacks with essentials- water, sunscreen, hats, etc. while the rest of it would be packed onto mules and taken to our campsites separately. In all, for six people to climb the mountain, it took one guide, one scout, three cooks, four mule handlers, and four mules. I still feel like it was a bit much, but we trusted they knew best.

As we started walking, we quickly came to a ridge that looked over a huge section of Simien Mountains National Park. The ridge must have been a 500-meter drop and made the whole scene more dramatic. Without a doubt, the view from that ridge is the most awe-inspiring thing I have ever witnessed. Layers and layers of hills and ridges going on for as far as the eye could see. The sheer vastness and beauty of it quickly silenced us all- a difficult task given the six of us. No one in the group had ever been to the Grand Canyon so no one could compare, but I suspect it is a much grander version of the US treasure.

We walked for the next few hours to our campsite for the night. We were moving at a pretty fast pace, as if Dashin/Dajin wanted to test our fitness levels. Fortunately, at some moments, the scenery was so incredible we had to stop to take some photos. I appreciated these views not only for their beauty but each of these places represent a spot where I was able to catch my breath.

Yayu is amazing and this photo with Danielle should be on every PC pamphlet

We eventually made it to the campsite, which overlooked a gorgeous golden valley. Not a bad place to sleep on my first camping trip ever.

One perk of the tour company we used was that everything was set up for us- all we had to do each day was walk. Upon reaching our campsite, all of our tents were set up and coffee, tea, and snacks were waiting for us. This particular night was not my favorite. If I am in the sun too much without taking certain precautions (hat and scarf to block out the sun), I get terrible headaches. Sure enough, I ended up with a miserable one. With the sun going down and the temperate getting frigid, I decided my day was going to end early. As everyone else was eating dinner and relishing the day, I was in my tent sleeping and hoping this would not be a pattern for the trip.

A few notes for going forward…

• Simien Mountains National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage site and everyone in the world should go there at some point in his or her life. Alright, that is unrealistic, but seriously, it is amazing. The Simien Mountains are a range of mountains often referred to as the “Roof of Africa”. In this range, there are some of the tallest mountains in Africa. So while Kilimanjaro in Tanzania is much taller, this is like a giant mountain plateau. The result is the terrain of this trip was crazy difficult.

Here is your average mountain. To summit, you need to climb up for however long it takes and then go back down.

Our mountain would be the fifth one from the left. All this is to say, in climbing Ras Dashin, the tallest mountain in Ethiopia, we also had to climb four other huge mountains just to get there.

• Everyone in Ethiopia pronounces Ras Dashin exactly how it appears to be spelled. Apparently, this is incorrect. It should be pronounce Ras Dajin. If you were to say it this way outside of the National Park, you would be laughed at (think of someone rolling their “r” in the word burrito for a full three seconds- that’s probably the equivalent). But our guide, literally named after the mountain, placed a great importance on the proper pronunciation. If we said it wrong, he would correct us with a lecture. It went as far as Joe was writing notes in a journal one day and Dajin looked over his shoulder and told him to spell “Dashin” the right way. It became an ongoing joke and resulted in most of us being afraid to say the name of the mountain we were climbing. And while it may sound reasonable, we were mispronouncing his name after all, it is worth noting he called Zach “Jack” for five days straight.

Ras Dashin- History and Friendship and Mountains, oh my!

A few months back, Joe Whelan called me with the idea of climbing the tallest mountain in Ethiopia. It was something he wanted to do before our service here ended and suddenly, time was closing in. He was looking for a group of around six volunteers to undertake this adventure with him.  Without giving it too much logical thought (i.e. am I really able to climb a mountain?), I agreed as long as it worked into my schedule. He rounded up an amazing group of people (Zach Morris, Michael Quiroz, Daniel and Danielle Luttrull, Joe, and myself) and worked out the logistics* for us all. 

*We are only allowed to leave our site during semester breaks, but all of our breaks were at different times. There was a small overlap, but with my parents and Zach’s sister visiting, it seemed as though there was no window for us to go. The trip went from a "go" to a "no" to a "go" to "who knows?" Eventually, Joe maneuvered everything and work it out, which was quite an impressive feat. Zach’s sister left Monday night and we left Tuesday morning. We returned back the next Monday afternoon and I picked up my parents late Monday night. We were cutting it pretty close (I was terrified of a flight delay that would leave me, and worse my parents, stranded) but it was the only time that worked. The trip wouldn’t have happened without Joe’s logistics work, which at certain points, I hated him for.

We flew from Addis Ababa north to the historical town of Gonder. We had the full day to explore and I had never been there before. Joe, Zach, and I opted to visit the Fasiladas Bath. It belonged to Emperor Fasiladas and it's one of the bigger historical draws in Ethiopia. During a religious holiday called Timket, they fill the bath with holy water and thousands of people celebrate by jumping in/getting baptized.  The holiday was only two days prior and we heard it was suppose to be pretty amazing while filled with water. 

 

The scenery was beautiful and made you feel like you were back in time. I always laugh to myself when I get the opportunity to see places like this- looking at a wall covered with roots that are older than the country I come from is a pretty incredible feeling.
 

While at the Bath, a theme that would follow through to the end of the trip started: the bromance of Joe and Zach. 

After the Bath, all six of us finally met up. Another great thing about Gonder is that it is home to one of the biggest breweries in Ethiopia and their main beer is named after the mountain we were about to climb- Ras Dashin. As a tribute, we may have enjoyed a few. We sat around talking and enjoying a beautiful afternoon. That time solidified what I already suspected, the trip was going to be a blast if for no other reason than the group of people going. Everyone was mellow, excited, and perhaps a bit nervous. Eventually, we went back to the hotel and pooled our money together because we still needed to pay for the trip. It was more 100's than I'll ever see in my life (irrelevant that they were birr 100's). There was a moment when we saw just how much money it was and jokingly toyed with the idea of skipping the trip and living like kings and queens for the next week in Gonder.

We came to our senses and told the tour guide to come over and pick up the payment. While this sounds simple, nothing ever is in Ethiopia. As we all sat around in one room, we realized we had never met the tour guide before. He came recommended, but we really knew nothing about him. And now, here we were with 30,000 birr all feeling sketchy. We devised a few ridiculous plans, including intimidation tactics, forgetting that our group would be best described as goofy and as far from intimidating as possible. Our tour guide was a nice guy who I would wholeheartedly recommend, but that moment in the hotel room was a little tense. I'm not sure I helped by asking how he was going to get all that money home, did he have a car? Yes. Did he have a gun? Laughter without an answer.

After what felt like a tense drug deal paying our tour guide, we all went to dinner and called it an early night...


There are just too many memorable moments for one blog; check back tomorrow for day 1 of the hike! 

Straight From the Horses' Mouths

I realize it has been a little while since there has been an update, but the last five weeks of my life have been crazy. I have done some amazing thing with many of my favorite people in the world. In the coming weeks, you can read all about them here (or not, do what you have to do) but in the meantime, I hope this special treat will hold you over.

As a thoughtful and entertaining Christmas gift for family and friends back home, a married couple from my group, Daniel and Danielle Luttrull, decided to make a podcast consisting of many volunteers telling stories from Ethiopia. The result is THIS. It is an honest look at life in Ethiopia. Some of the stories are heartwarming while others are silly. Download it all; give it a listen. And while it has an overall Christmas theme, the topic of all of our stories is good year around: things you never expected to happen in your life.

As a note, tracks 4, 6, and 8 have mild curse words if there are little ears around. And track number 2 is a hilariously thoughtful description of a former vegetarian witnessing/helping slaughter a goat for an Ethiopia holiday. If you are a bit squeamish, maybe don't listen to it while driving.

And if you want more, here are the personal blogs of some of the people you'll hear stories from. Enjoy!

Joel Miller (Track 2)
Sarah and Aaron Arnold (Tracks 4 and 5)
Joe Whelan (Track 7)
Daniel and Danielle Luttrull (Tracks 8 and 11 and your hosts for the hour)

COOKIE PARTY!

Upon hearing that I had access to an oven, my lovely mother instantly decided I needed to have all the fixin’s to make Christmas cookies. The care package arrived after forenji Christmas but before Ethiopian Christmas. The only thing to do was invite my favorite children and Lisa in the world to my house for a cookie party. What followed was adorable. 

It was oddly difficult to explain why we were cutting cookies into the shape of socks.  I think I am going to side with the kids on this one, that is a weird tradition.

Betty and Soliana, Tilahun's daughters. 

Taking this out of context, I guess it's just me threatening a kid with a knife. But frosting makes it OK!

Even Lisa got into the action. Not going to lie, she tried real hard. I guess we both did. And the girls' cookies still looked roughly 100% better.

Shalom really enjoyed making cookies and nothing was going to distract her from it. This was the only picture of her looking at the camera.

Shalom's older sister Yididia, aggressively sprinkling.

 I guess they tasted good too!

Lisa and I decided we had to leave something out for Ethiopian Santa.

Peace Corps: Goal 1

I was recently talking to my brother, Alex, on Skype and he said something like “Laura, you talk about travelling, activities, and other shenanigans, but how is the actual work going? How is teaching?” I think my first reaction may have been laughter but it did get me thinking about the work I do at my school, and more specifically, my lack of reporting about it on this here blog.

My official Peace Corps title is Primary School English Teacher Trainer. The idea is that if I work with teachers and improve their English and methodologies, that will trickle down to the students. In theory, I will have a wider reach teaching teachers than simply teaching a few classes of students. Peace Corps’ main goal is sustainability- my work should continue even when I am gone.

While this all sounds great, it does not work perfectly in practice. Already overworked teachers are not always motivated to do extra work when there is no tangible incentive. Furthermore, most of my teachers have other roles and responsibilities once they finish their day teaching. At first this was frustrating, but eventually I learned to respect the decisions these people have to make. If the choice is, come to my training or go cook dinner for your five children/work a second job to provide money for food, I’d expect their highest priority to be their family’s well-being every time.

The result of these circumstances is that I am not able to do as much work as I would like. But the work I do complete, I enjoy. A great example of this is a program my Ethiopian counterpart and I have started at my school called Grassroots Soccer. The program uses soccer as a vessel to teach students about HIV and its prevention. We are only halfway through the eleven sessions, but the students seem to be truly enjoying it. For me, one of my favorite parts has been to watch my counterpart begin to take the lead and become more confident in delivering the lessons. He has been able to lead discussions and talk with students about subjects normally not discussed in Ethiopian classrooms.

I brought my camera to a few sessions and here are some examples of the type of lesson in the Grassroots Soccer program:

The contract all student have to sign to participate in the program. Since sensitive topics are often discussed, it is important to have a safe environment where everyone feels comfortable sharing. Also, students are expected to go home and tell their family and friends some of the things they have learned. 

 In groups of 2-3, students had to decide if a statement was true or false. There are many misconceptions about HIV and this activity helped to get students thinking critically about things they hear, instead of blindly believing it.

 The papers in front of the students represent common risks for contracting HIV, "sex with older partners", "not using a condom", etc. Students had to dribble the soccer ball around the obstacle with certain consequences for hitting one. These consequences impacted themselves, their teammates, and everyone in the program.

Not only did this exercise teach students risks for getting HIV, but it put the impact of the virus into perspective. Your family, friends, and community are affected if you get HIV.

 My counterpart, Solomon, lead a discussion about the importance of being mutually faithful with your partner. The discussion took an interesting turn when a female student commented that being faithful never really works because how can you fully trust your partner? Without missing a beat, Solomon began discussing power dynamics in a relationship and whether or not you should really be with someone you cannot trust.

Chilalo Mountain

The town of Asella is nestled at the base of a large mountain called Chilalo. It is a beautiful beast that had been taunting Joe, Abel, and myself for some time, luring us to try to conquer it. And conquer it we did (kind of [not really {I'm genuinely surprised we lived}]). The mountain is ranked somewhere in the top ten tallest mountains in Ethiopia. The exact figure is unknown because measuring, turns out, isn't an exact science. I am going to say, because I jump while at the top (and I can jump fairly high), we were at the six highest elevation in Ethiopia. In actuality, I think the summit is around 13,000. I feel that is pretty solid for a day hike.

Our destination as seen from my house

Early in the morning, Joe and I left from my house to meet Abel at his. We arrive there at around 7:30am. It is worth noting, we arrived back at Abel's house at 7:30pm. It was a long day. But the weather was perfect. There were very few clouds about, giving us some spectacular views.

Here we are: clean, excited, and perhaps a little naive. We knew other people had done the same climb with success so it never occurred to us (or at least me), the day would be anything but a pleasant jaunt.

Apparently there is a forest in Asella where local runners train. The cool thing about living in this area is that local runners could actually be future Olympians. By the time we reached this forest, most of the runners were done for the morning. But I have watched people in Bekoji train the same way. They zigzag through these trees, up and down hills with speeds ranging from a light jog to sprinting. I tried to run with some of them and could not keep up. Going at what seemed like a snail's pace in comparison, I still fell over tree roots and had to stop to catch my breath before the actual runners seemed to be done with their warm up.

 

Once out of the forest, we came upon a path that people walk daily to get to the market in Asella. What to me was a fun novelty, was a daily routine to them. 

 

One thing that I love about Abel is his love of coffee. Because we left so early, he was not able to drink coffee. To an Ethiopian, this is obviously unacceptable.  We came upon a rural area that had some houses. While Joe and I were hoping that no one would stop us and tell us we were not allowed to climb the mountain, Abel was going to door to door to see if anyone would make us coffee. This nice woman was happy to prepared a full coffee ceremony for us. She built a fire, roasted the beans, pounded it into grinds, cooked the coffee, and served it to us.

In my opinion, the most amazing sight of the day (and possibly my service) took place in this woman's home. There is a common phrase here (at least among PCVs) called "habasha hands". It is an equivalent to "housewife hands" in America (I feel like maybe this terms is not appropriate to say anymore, houseperson?). It is the idea that a person works with hot objects so often that he or she can touch something that would burn a normal person.

This woman had the craziest set of habasha hands I have ever seen. To give some perspective, Abel went home and told his mom about this woman. Abel's mom raised five children, four of which are boys, and she was astounded. Our barista built the fire to boil the water on sticks. Once the fire as going, she balance the kettle on the sticks. The kettle literally became red hot because it was directly on the flame. Once the coffee was done, she grabbed the kettle from the bottom (the RED HOT bottom) and pour three glasses of coffee. She did not flinch or grimace. She felt nothing. As she held metal that would have melted my skin off, she just continued to smile and talk.

I think this was our rock band album cover photo

With a dose of caffeine in our system, Joe and I decided to do what any good American would do in this situation: play baseball. There were circular plants growing in this open area and we took the opportunity to have batting practice. This was Abel's first time taking a baseball swing and as you can see, from the fear in my position, he is a natural!

My best attempt at, "You shall not pass!"

Abel and Joe

The rock formations towards the top of the mountain were amazing. Chilalo used to be a volcano (or still is? when does a volcano stop being a volcano?). The result are these beautiful rocks that look just like lava rolling down hill.

Close to the top. Asella is somewhere down there. At a certain point we stopped trying to find it.

Joe at the top of the world. 

For anyone who is a regular reader of this blog (so basically just my mom), you will remember that Joe and I climb a mountain called Gelama together near his town of Bekoji. Once at the top, someone asked if we wanted our picture taken. Thinking that we were "too cool for school", we scoffed and said no. Later in the day we realized how dumb we were and that probably would have been a really nice picture. We did not make the same mistake twice, here is our photo: redemption! I would also like to state that Joe is noticeably taller than me, I have no idea why I look like an amazon woman in this photo.

And on the back side of Chilalo, there was ... drum roll... another mountain! Kind of. It turned out that Chilalo is crater-like. There are three walls of the crater, but since they are near the same height, you cannot see the others unless you are on the top. We were all blown away by this. Looking back now, it all makes sense. People from towns all over the region use Chilalo as a marker, but these markers always contradict each other. Knowing the actual geography of the mountain makes it obvious that people are just referencing different faces of the mountain.

I have never in my life seen anything as expansive and amazing as the view from the top. I honestly felt like I was on the top of the world. 

Group shot; we made it!

 

As I said earlier, the trip was 12 hours straight of walking. Joe had a fancy watch to tell us how far we went, but it ran out of batteries (telling of the day). Based on what the number was before it died, we walked somewhere between 15-18 miles. 

We got lost on the way down and that cost us a good hour or two. While in some places in the world this would not be a problem, it meant we were likely walking through hyena turf towards the end of the trek. A fairly scary idea at the end of a long day. We realize we were in trouble when we passed people on the road and they offered to let us all stay at their house for the night. They almost pleaded with us because they knew the path was unsafe at that hour. But when given the option of getting one hyena bite or one million bug bites, we all knew the best choice. Fortunately, we had no problems and all got home safe.

In my mind, the day was one of the best examples of everything I love about Peace Corps and Ethiopia. I went with two people who were strangers a year and a half ago, but are now family.  I saw some of the most beautiful sights I will ever see in my life. A woman we did not know and lives in conditions of such poverty that her bedroom, kitchen, and barn are all one room, treated us to coffee. Any time were were lost and someone was around, they were happy to help us. On the way back, strangers cared about our safety, perhaps more than we did, and offered us their home for a night. The day was perfect and exemplified all the forms of beauty in which this country is so rich.