I'm in Ethiopia, and I've Gone Back in Time

On Friday night, my team and I arrived in Ethiopia!  It's a very interesting country.  Here are some fun facts for you.  Enjoy!

• Ethiopia is the only country in Africa that has never been colonized. Italy tried, but the Ethiopians beat them out...twice.

• This is a picture of Ethiopian taxis. A taxi here is called a bajaj. They are a cheap form of transportation.  You can fit five passengers and one driver in a bajaj (or six passengers, if one is small and willing to sit on a lap.)

• The currency here is called birr. One dollar equals 21 birr. I recently bought a bottle of water for 9 birr, which equals less than 50 cents. The bills are very colorful and pretty!

• Ethiopia has its own calendar. Today is November 10, 2015, but according to the Ethiopian calendar it is November 1, 2008!  
• Ethiopia also has its own way of telling time. I don't understand it entirely, but I know to add 6 hours to whatever time I would normally say, and that is the Ethiopian time. For example, today we are eating lunch at 1:00, but the maids referred to it as 7:00! This is separate from the actual time difference issue. Ethiopia is 8 hours ahead of East Coast time. So, if I wake up at 8:00 am, it is 2:00 according to the Ethiopians, and it is midnight in Pennsylvania!

• The Queen of Sheba, who visited Solomon in the Bible in 1 Kings chapter 10, is a part of Ethiopian legend. According to ancient Ethiopian holy texts, her name was Queen Makeda, and she married Kin Solomon. Also according to the legend, they had a son named Menelik, who founded the Ethiopian kingship.

• The national bread here is called injera. It has a spongy texture and a taste similar to sourdough bread. People use the injera to pick up their other foods rather than using forks and spoons.

• Coffee is a huge part of the culture. Coffee beans were first roasted and made into a drink in Ethiopia. The coffee is very strong and they pour it into very tiny cups. During a coffee ceremony, guests are treated to three rounds of coffee, with each cup becoming progressively weaker. It is considered shameful to not offer coffee to guests.

• Another popular hot drink is shai, the Ethiopian word for tea. The shai is served in tiny cups with heaping spoonfuls of sugar. If you've ever had sweet tea in the South, imagine a hot version of that, and you have shai.

• Religion here is very much a part of the culture. It is very difficult to find an atheist...almost everyone believes in God. About 40% of the population are Orthodox Christians, which is basically a more Catholic version of Catholicism. Orthodox Christians believe in praying to Mary and the Saints, not in praying directly to God. They also put Mary on equal standing with Jesus. About 35% of the population is Muslim, with most of the remaining 25% as Evangelical Christians. They coexist peacefully.

• The language here is called Amharic. Here are some common words and phrases:
  Selam no – Hello
  Endatena – How are you? (said to a male)
  Endatenesh – How are you? (said to a female)
  Dena nen – I am fine.
  Exabier Yemeskin – Praise God
  Amasaganalu – Thank you
  Chigger yellum – No problem
  Yeekirta – I'm sorry/excuse me
  Eshi – alright, ok
  Seme mano – What is your name? (to a male)
  Semesh mano – What is your name? (to a female)
  Semay ___ no – My name is ______
  Gobez – Good job       

That's all for now!

Love,

Miss Jacobs

Kids in Rwanda: An Interview

This month, I am living with a family that includes two boys in elementary school. I asked them if I could interview them so I could let my friends in America know what kids in Rwanda are like. They were happy to share their lives with you!

Meet Prince, age 9, and Joshua, age 8!

 

This is their house.  It contains a dining room, living room, and five bedrooms.  There is a separate kitchen building outside where their mom cooks, and a separate building that has a toilet and water for bathing.

 

 

Me: What grade are you in?

Prince: P3 (third grade)

Joshua: P2 (second grade)

Me: What subjects do you study at school?

Prince: There are many! French, English, and Kinyarwanda (the language in Rwanda)

Joshua: Social, English, and French

Me: What subject is your favorite?

Prince: English

Joshua: English

Me: What time do you leave for school in the morning, and what time do you come home?

Prince and Joshua: Leave at 6:00, return at 1:15.

Me: How do you get to school?

Prince: Sometimes we take the bus, and sometimes we drive.

Me: How many teachers do you have?

Prince: 5

Joshua: 3

Me: What do you like to do for fun?

Prince: Play football! (In Rwanda, kids call soccer “football.”)

Joshua: To go out to lunch.

Me: What is your favorite sport?

Prince: Football (soccer).

Joshua: Tennis.

Me: What is your favorite food?

Prince: Chips (french fries).

Joshua: Ice cream.

Me: What is your family like?

Prince and Joshua: There are 5 sisters and 4 brothers (including us).

*Prince and Joshua are the youngest of 9 siblings!  Four of their older sisters, ages 16-23, live at home.  Two older brothers and an older sister have grown up and moved away.  They both said that they enjoy visiting their grandmother, who lives nearby!

Me: What do you want to be when you grow up?

Prince: I want to be a doctor.

Joshua: I want to be a pastor.

Me: What is your favorite animal?

Prince: Dog.

Joshua: Lion.

Me: What do you do to help around the house?

Prince: I wash plates.

Joshua: I help to escort (show people around).

Me: What would you say to kids in America?

Prince: That I love them.

Joshua: I love them and God bless them!

I hope you enjoyed getting to meet my "little brothers!"  If you have any questions for them, let me know, and I will ask!

 

Love,

Miss Jacobs

African Safari

Hi everyone!

I recently had a fun adventure in Uganda! My friends and I drove about 3 hours to go to a place called Queen Elizabeth National Park. This national park is a place where wild animals can live in their natural habitat and no one is allowed to hunt them. It is a huge place – 1798 sq km. You can drive for hours and hours and still be in the park. People can come and ride around in a vehicle to see all the different animals. It's not like a zoo because the animals aren't in cages or enclosures, they just roam around freely. So you have to be on the lookout to find them! I also went on a boat ride to see even more animals. Here are some animals (and people) I saw around the park:

Baboons

When we were paying to get into the park, one of these baboons went through a window into our car and stole some food! Then a bunch of his buddies started coming out of the bushes. We got to see them eating leaves off of the bushes. Some of them even had babies!

Antelope

In Uganda, they call these animals kob, but you might know them as antelope. You can tell the age of an antelope by the number of rings on his horns – one ring for each year.

Elephant

Elephant herds are mostly made of females and young. Elephants can use their trunks to grab food, drink water, smell, fight, and breathe. They have great memories. Female elephants are pregnant for 22 months. A baby elephant, called a cub, spends five years with its mother.

Water Buffalo & Cape Buffalo

A herd of buffalo is led by a dominant male. When he gets old, the females kick him out of the herd. He then lives a solitary life, or joins up with other males in the same situation, creating a “bachelor herd.” Female buffalo are pregnant for 11.5 months and then give bird to a single baby that breastfeeds for one year. They can live for about 25 years in the wild. There are 9000 buffalo at the Queen Elizabeth National Park.

Lion

We spotted one lion on our drive – a male with a full mane! It is rare to see males, since usually female lions are doing the hunting while the male sleeps.

Warthogs

Pumbaa! Baby warthogs are called piglets.

Nile Crocodile

The Nile Crocodile is the second largest crocodile in the world. It grows up to 4.5 meters long and weighs 500 kg. Nile crocodiles are coldblooded and they eat fish. They have a good sense of hearing. The reason they often sit with their mouths open is to expel excess heat!

Hippopotamus

Hippos are the third largest land mammals in the world. They spend much of their time in the water because they are hairless and sunburn easily. Hippos can hold their breath underwater for 6-12 minutes. They also give birth in the water, but need to be near a shore so the mother can push the baby onto land to take its first breaths. Female babies are taken back to the group of hippos (called a “school”) after a few days, but male babies are kept separate from the group for 1-2 years so the dominant male in the group won't kill it. They can live for a little over 40 years. The water where hippos live turns green because of the color of their poop!

Pie king fisher

This cool little bird makes its nest underground. The nests look like holes in the side of the mountain. The pie king fishers also make fake nests in order to fool predators!

Fish eagles

Fish eagles mate for life. Their eggs take 45 days to hatch. The female sits on the eggs most of the time, but the male guards them when she goes to eat. They work together to feed their young. Fish eagles start looking like adults when they are 3 years old.

Egrets

There are a few different varieties of egrets in the park. You often see them near buffalo because they eat bugs off their fur. Female egrets choose their mates based on who has the best nest.

Nile monitor lizard

Nile monitor lizards use their tails to defend against predators. They rarely bite...but I would recommend keeping your distance anyway. :)

Fishing Village

There is a fishing village located within the park. These families were living in the park when it was established in 1952. The fisherman leave in their canoes around 4:30 pm each day and fish all night. They need to watch out for hippos, which are extremely dangerous in the water. At least one person is killed or injured by a hippo each month.

Mongoose

These little guys ran around the outdoor restaurant while we were eating!

In total, there are 95 mammal species and 612 bird species in the park. It was awesome seeing a few of these animals in their natural habitat!

Which one is your favorite?  

Food in Uganda!

Here in Uganda, we don't have quite the same variety of food as what we are used to eating at home. When we cook for ourselves, we eat a lot of rice, pasta, eggs, and vegetables like cabbage, carrots, tomatoes, and onions. For breakfast, we have cornflakes and oatmeal. We also eat fruit – mostly bananas, but we've also had fresh papaya, oranges (which are green here), and avacado. For snacks, we eat a lot of shortbread cookies.

This was one of our first meals in Uganda, from a restaurant called Burungi's. It's a chicken broth, and we mixed in rice and sweet potato (matoke).  There is chapat on the left.

This is the menu at Burungi's. “Offals katogo” is a kind of intestine. “Chapati” is like a flour tortilla. “Muchomo” is goat meat.

“Milk tea” is a big thing here. It's tea steeped in milk and it's served hot. You can also put sugar in it. It's wonderful! This picture shows milk tea along with a typical lunch of banana, eggs, and bread.

They sell peanut butter here, but it is expensive. Instead, we buy G-nuts Paste. G-nuts stands for “ground nuts” - nuts that grow in the ground, aka peanuts. So it's made of peanuts, but doesn't taste as good as actual peanut butter.

G-Nuts are also made into a purple sauce!

One day, our Ugandan friend Michael made for us a delicious feast for dinner. This plate has chicken, rice, and vegetables. He had to actually kill the chicken to make this meal. I was glad I wasn't at home when that was happening!

Sugar cane is a treat here. People chew the soft center portion of the sugar cane and then spit it out.

A “rolex” is a flour tortilla (called chapat) rolled into a kind of burrito with egg, cabbage, and tomato inside. It's probably my favorite thing we've eaten here so far.

This is passion fruit juice. I've only had it once, but would definitely drink it again!

“Chips” here are more like thick french fries. They are delicious!

That's all for now!

Love,

Miss Jacobs

Greetings from Uganda!

Uganda

Well, it took an 8-hour plane ride from Atlanta to Amsterdam, another 8-hour flight from Amsterdam to Entebbe, Uganda, and an 8-hour drive from Entebbe to Rukungiri, but my team and I arrived at our house for the month on Friday morning! Here are some things I've learned about Uganda in the past couple of days.

Weather

Right now, the weather in Uganda is beautiful. They have a dry season and a rainy season. The rainy season begins in October and lasts until December. Right now, it feels like the beginning of fall in Pennsylvania. It gets the hottest in June – up to 130 degrees Fahrenheit. The coldest it ever gets is between 60-70 degrees Fahrenheit, which feels very cold to Ugandans!

Scenery

When we go out driving, we see lots of mountains. They are different than the ones in Wyalusing because not all of them are covered with trees. We also see a lot of banana trees, cows, and goats.

Language

Most (but not all) of the people I've met speak English. They also speak a language called Runyankole runkiga in southwest Uganda. Here are some important words and what they mean:

Webale munanga (way-bah-lay moo-non-gah) – Thank you so much

Agandi (Ah-gahn-dee) – Hello, how are you?

Ndyaho (Dee-ow) - Fine

Apana (Uh-pah-nah) – No

Ego (like Eggo waffles) – Yes

Food

For our first dinner, we went to a restaurant and got chicken broth, rice, and sweet potatoes and mixed them together to make a delicious soup. We also got a dish called chapat, which is basically like a flour tortilla. There is also a popular food called matoke, which is sort of like a potato combined with a banana. They sell peanut butter at the general store, but is much cheaper to buy G-nut paste, which is also made from peanuts and has a similar taste.

If you have questions, please write them in the comments below!

Miss Jacobs

PS Internet here is pretty slow, but I will try to post some pictures when I can!

Training Camp

Hi kiddos!

 

From July 6-16, I was at World Race Training Camp in Gainesville, Georgia.  Some of the activities we did were challenging, but we also had a lot of fun.  Probably one of the hardest parts for me was walking for 2 miles with my hiking pack.  The full pack is about a third of my body weight.  But I'm happy to report that I was able to finish the walk in under 40 minutes!

 

 

 

I have a squad of 47 people.  We are called Z Squad.  We will all travel together from country to country.  Here is my squad:

After arriving in a new country the squad will split up into teams and help at different ministries throughout the country.  My team is called Team Liora.  My teammates are (from left to right): Alexa, Jen, Hannah, me, Ashley, and Sam.

 

During Training Camp, we usually slept in tents and hammocks.  This was Z Squad's campsite:

 

And here is my tent:

 

 

 

There were some nights where we had other sleeping situations.  One night, the staff set up an "airport."  The lights were on all night, and a track of airport noises played all night as well.  The nice part was that we got to use the real bathrooms instead of the Porta-Potties!

 

 

Another night, we fit 8-9 people plus our packs into one big tent.

 

 

There was also a night when we were driven to a nearby state park and camped out for the night on tarps.

 

 

All of the sleeping situations are things we might experience during our trip.  I learned that if you are tired enough, you can sleep just about anywhere!

 

We ate a lot of interesting food!  We had some "normal" American food, but we also ate some food like the kind we will eat when we go to other countries.  I liked almost everything...although the lunch for Africa day didn't have much of a taste.

 

African food

 

 

 

Asian food

 

 

European food (this was my favorite food day...but unfortunately, my route does not go to any European countries!

 

 

Central American food

 

 

 

There was also a day when the staff created an "Indian market" where we had to barter for our food while surrounded by lots of noise and crowds!

 

 

Here are a few more pictures of what training camp looked like:

 

 <--where we went to the bathroom

where we ate our meals --->

<--where we had teaching sessions & praise and worship time

    the path leading to my squad's campsite --->

<---where we took bucket showers

 

I have some more exciting news!  Near the end of Training Camp, we learned were we will be working in September!  Team Liora will be working with an organization called Cherished Life Ministries in Rukungiri, Uganda.  They are involved with a school, orphanage ministry, door to door ministry, preaching, Bible studies, hospital ministries, and more!  I'm excited to work alongside this organization!

 

Thanks for reading my blog!  If you have any questions or just want to say hi, you can write something in the comments and I will be sure to answer!!  I hope everyone is enjoying summer vacation!

 

Love,

Miss Jacobs

 

 

 

 

 

Photo credits (two of my awesome squadmates):

Kristin Fraser - Gate 53 airport picture, big tents picture, camping picture, market picture

RaeLynn DeFalco - all the food pictures, the other airport picture