It’s my first time ever to spent summer time by my self in a large city, renting a dorm that’s is about to fall, reading half a dozen book, eating at the cheapest restaurant and more excitingly working as a program coordinator for Ethiopian Global initiative for their summer project called USCSE(United States college students for Ethiopia). It’s not my first international experience as I participated in 2 summer camps held in Gonder and Motta by Peace Corps last summer, but this is one is entirely different because unlike the lasts summer it’s was all me now I’m the one who do everything, who take care of my self and stuff..well that’s cool isn’t it? at first when i got this position I was so afraid to take responsibility because I just got into Addis and things were changed since I remember from last time. One of the project is concerned with High school students, we help them solve the problems in their community, make them believe that it’s only them that can solve their problems not anyone else from the west or..we do research , help them get involved in their community and see the minority of the problem. We tried to make the program more exciting so it’s not one of those boring endless Ethiopian meeting style.This is, of course not with out problems’ too; lack of commitment from the Addis Ababa university students,lack of punctuality and readiness from the High school kids and stuff like getting hard time entering into the Addis Ababa university which we were supposed to held our meetings on(we held most of our meetings at A Caffettiera in 6 Killo called “Dibab”). Despite all this we managed to reach where we are now and it was great that we had our closing ceremony at the Us Embassy. The kids truly make it their own. the highschool students really make me proud!! Me and Blayne had to do lot’s of stuff starting from picking postal papers to ordering cakes. blayne, obivously had lots’s of stuff running on her mind. i was scared thought we might not have something great to present at the embassy but unlike my fear it was all great! this last event was one of the most exciting eventy i ever attended. 50 order cakes(small pastries), 2 donated huge cream “jolly bar” cakes, tea , milk, and coffe which was all provided by the embassy,and lot’s of water. a proffesional photographer who tooks dozens of pictures and handed it for us in Cd for 500 ETb, blayne’s father as a videographer, and more than 30 invited guests in which only a handful of them make it.a program that was meant to start at 11 AM but had to wait for another hour……….long life for our guests!!
The energy, passion, confidence and commitment the highschool kids show at the presentation and the cooperative work of everybody make the event the “unforgatablle.” I was wearing a suit as you can see from the pics and i was a “gentle man”…it was really fun!!

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days before the event i got a personal e-mail from Samuel Gebru(president and chair man of EGI) and I was offered to have the position of Addis Ababa Operations Coordinator. i was really excited and i gladly took the postion now i become the official member of the Ethiopian GLobal Initiative:) I even have the ethgi.com email account( for official use only:D) it meant that I’m going to be a long-term member and I will be a volunteer in school time and will be a seasonal worker.
In the past 6 weeks we have done an amazing work and that was the start now we have more to and much more to achieve. I see the a bright future with EGI and hope that I will achieve something great with them for my Community.
Enjoy the Pics………………
Soon