Friday, July 6, 2012

Site Visit

I've spent the past two days in Addis for a counterpart training workshop.

A map of where all of G7 volunteers will be in Ethiopia.
Counterparts can make or break your experience here. They're the ones who help you integrate and help construct and implement projects in the schools. As such, they're super important and I've felt pressured to get along with mine.

I met mine, and he's nice enough. We haven't clicked like some other pairs, but he's a good guy. And come tomorrow, we'll be hoping on a bus and going to Huruta together.

For most of next week I'll be in Huruta, my little future home town, to try to get settled. I have to open a PO Box (my address on the support page will change soon) and a bank account. I'll also use this time to get used to the town and try to meet important people.

I'm not entirely sure how smooth the week will go, I'm more nervous than anything. My counterpart and I do have language issues and Huruta is small, can I really have a week's worth of stuff to do?

This will also be my first taste of the true Peace Corps experience, and I hope that it'll be easier than it is in my imagination.  Other steps in this process have been similar, I was worried about living with a host family but it ended up not being that big of a deal. Hopefully, settling in to Huruta will follow that pattern.

Wish me luck!

3 comments:

Matt said...

This sounds great, Jenny! I hope you become comfortable in this town. Good luck with everything - I hope everything goes smoothly for you! Things will be great with your counterpart and all the important people you will meet next week! Have a great week and enjoy yourself! And on a final note - I found this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LIhl6gEx1U
And I just have two things to say regarding it:
Why aren't you in it?!
And also, I basically love the interpretive shoulder dancing of Ethiopia that you mentioned in a former post, haha.

Linda King said...

Wishing you luck! Go for it with a positive attitude and it will be fine!

Annalisa Crawford said...

I think the best thing about your situation is that you're not the first to do it, so it's all designed to help you as much as possible.

I hope you 'click' with your counterpart!

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