Entwine Group in Gondar

After all the travel trouble this group had they finally all arrived in Gondar on Sunday morning. Max and I greeted them at the AJJDC clinic. We handed out de-worming medicine to a large group of people. It was hectic and the Jewish Ethiopian community was getting a little restless after having waited for several hours for us to begin (Ethiopian Airlines, need I say more?). We finished around lunchtime and headed to Lammergayer for a vegetarian buffet lunch. The skies started to grey so we decided to eat inside rather than the flower filled courtyard but nobody seemed to mind. Finally, a moment to sit and breathe and meet the visitors! Such a great group of young professionals from all over America (LA, DC, Baltimore, Texas and New York), Vancouver, Canada; Australia and the UK. We piled into the 4WD trucks and headed out of Gondar town. We stopped at a beautiful well in Chereka Village and were on our way to Teda Village and Ambober Synagogue. Ambober is a village that once served as the capital of Ethiopia’s Jewish community. The Ambober synagogue was the site of JDC’s main operations to assist the Bet Israel community before they made aliyah to Israel. The synagogue is not far from the main street in Teda but it is about a 40 minute drive through rocky roads that are nearly washed away during a rain fall. There is one bridge that must be crossed with no railings that looks like it could collapse any minute. It’s just like those pink jeep tours in Sedona Arizona, exciting and probably the only car ride I won’t be falling asleep on.

Monday morning we woke early to meet half of the group at the Chilo Primary School. We painted the outside walls of the new building with educational material. A few laborers were hanging around outside the school gates and Fasil translated for me, he said they were hoping we would put the alphabet on the outside so that they could learn to.o We did just that. Hannah and Sarah painted the alphabet, Joanna did numbers, Stephanie drew flowers, Adam and Elly created really impressive animals and a Max and Menachem worked on a map of the world. It was a lot of fun and a huge mess. The children and teachers came out to see what the commotion was and they joined in on the fun. The Entwine group was so great to think ahead and bring a lot of school supplies that were donated to the teachers to use in their classrooms. They really enjoyed having us and we had a blast being there. I love the students and teachers at Chilo, they are appreciative, gracious and very kind.  As school ended we huddled inside a classroom to enjoy boxed lunches from the Goha Hotel. We dodged a major hail storm and played a pictionary game until Manlio joined us with two friends from Israel who were backpacking through Africa, Yael and Gil. They became part of the group with us and we returned to Gondar town once the crazy hail stopped. Max and I plan to return to Chilo to put some final touches on the walls. We want to add the school’s name and label the continents on the world map.

Later in the afternoon and after a refuel session of double machiatto’s and shay buna spriss (tea and coffee mixed) we brought everyone to Fasilides Secondary School to meet our students. We broke off into groups and the students interacted with the Entwine group to practice their English. It went very well. We were a little nervous but the students opened up and chatted with their visitors. We were so pleased, it was such a relief and we felt silly for being nervous in the first place.  A few people came up to me individually to thank me for sharing this with them and for showing them such a meaningful day. Wow, it really blew me away. We have been here for 2 months now and I know I am doing something out of the ordinary and very cool but when someone (let alone multiple people) from a group of similarly minded peers takes the time to express his/her admiration and awe at what we are doing it really puts it in perspective. Thank you, if you are reading this, the time you spent interacting with us, inquiring about every detail of every day of life in Africa, learning more about Entwine’s Global Jewish Service Corps and just getting to know us was so special to me. You helped me see what I am doing through your eyes. I get caught up in the bug bites, in the showerless nights and the frustrations of being lost in translation but I am here for a far bigger reason and I thank you for recognizing it, thank you for your interest, thank you for taking the time, energy and expense to visit! So, although the principal of the school, someone I spend three days a week working for, forgot my name and Temesgen flat out asked the group what they brought for the school, the day was a major success and a lot of fun! (Yes, as the principal addressed the group he thanked Max and “his counterpart” for teaching English at his school).

We were joined for dinner by Nitai who is in charge of JAFI’s volunteer program. An Israeli who has lived in Gondar for 5 years now, he answered many questions about the previous and remaining Jews in Gondar. It was interesting and I am glad to have met him and hope to work closer with JAFI moving forward.

On Tuesday, Max and I joined the group that was headed to Tantikura Primary School for a morning of de-worming. Max and I visited this school previously and really loved the beauty of it’s rural surroundings. JDC recently completed a three room school building and we converted one into a de-worming station for the entire school. We were 12 volunteers sitting behind school desks with pills and cups of water in hand. Tantikura has a pre-k class so with the help of Principal Maru and the teachers, we had the children come in by age so that we could hand out the right amount of medicine (from 1-4 years of age they receive the amount of their age, 5 and above receive 5 pills). We would tell the students to “wat” or swallow and check their mouths to make sure the pills were gone. Only one incident of spit up that Allison climbed over me to avoid but overall it was a huge success. When things slowed down we split up and joined a class to work on their English. Hillel drew on the board and Allison and Jake used their drama skills, we did a lot with very little. I find the students at Tantikura to be overwhelming. They did this when Max and I visited earlier, they surround us and scream “money, money, money” and “you, you, you” might be their new national anthem. To and from the school is about a 15 minute walk through a beautiful cactus lined path. The path was a huge mud pit from the previous day’s rain. It was quiet a sloppy walk and we left before the rain started to fall again. Back in Gondar town we visited the nearly completed Science and Technology center. Max and I have witnessed great progress in this site, they did a good job and the dedication will be at the end of this month. We then introduced the group to 12 female nursing scholarship students at the Gondar University’s Medical Center. It was a good discussion even though we were tired and we know the students are shy. Questions like, “would you be in college if not for the scholarship?” and “are there any men in your program?”. Answers: No and yes, more men than women.  We went home, washed up and met everyone at the Dashen beer garden for towers of beer, plates of food and good conversation.

I came to Africa knowing I would get the chance to work on my patience or lack thereof. The evening at Dashen Beer Garden really pushed me farther than I had hoped. Max and I went last week, sat with the chef, placed a preliminary order, reserved 6 beer towers (for our 30 guests) and mapped out a game plan for this evening. Feeling slightly responsible for the success of the night, I put the pressure on myself. So glad we arrived a little before the group so we could re-work a place for everyone to sit. Working with the waiters and one difficult supervisor to order and pay extra for certain reasons was one thing but when one waiter came over to tell us that he needed to take the beer towers away because the customers felt it was discrimination, I was furious. We are paying customers who are likely paying more anyway because we are white. The Ethiopian customers who complained broke a glass on the floor and threatened to leave and the waiter had the audacity to come over and tell us he had to take our beer towers away because they felt it was discrimination. Among a few other very frustrating incidences I know I was more mad than I had to be and I was happy to have Becky and Hannah, two women from London, to chat with (certain accents make things better). Anyway, I thought I’d have an easier time working on my patience but some things cut a little deeper (discrimination, asking for hand outs, being second class for being female) but I will continue to work on it, I will work to keep my focus on the bigger picture (making a difference, having fun, coming across as sane, etc.).  Overall, I had such a wonderful time with the Entwine group that was in town and I hope to stay in touch with each and every one. I believe they enjoyed their time and got the most out of their time in Ethiopia, I for one had a blast.