Yaya Life & Hunting Hyenas

Part 2: Yaya Life

As we wound up the mountainous road we passed by women of all ages, bent over, carrying stacks of sticks about 4 times their width across their backs (all the while leading donkeys piled high with straw ) walking up and down the hill.  It’s shocking, heart wrenching and upsettingly impressive.  Every day these women walk from goodness knows where into the city, to sell their goods or give them to suppliers or what not.  Down below, the streets of Addis are filled with vendors, stalls, and beggars; the roads are bustling with cars traveling at incredible speeds, and people jay-walking in ways that makes jay-walking at my Uni look safe (tell that to the mayor!).  There seems to be no rhyme to the traffic, the only rhythm is chaos- and it seems to work. 

While Addis has a beauty of its own, being more of a country girl, I love it in Waserbi!  To put it plainly, Yaya Village is an ideal hotel for athletes- but everyone is welcome!  And weekends are packed with families escaping the hustle and bustle of the city.  Yaya Village was begun and is run by Joseph Kibur; an amazing man, a super friendly boss and an incredible runner. Joseph is continuously trying to find ways to give back to the community, and encouraging youth to join athletics as a way of keeping them safe, educated, employed and out of trouble. As a result of its top facilities (gym, track, and fantastic surrounding trails) and reputation Yaya attracts elite athletes from around the world. We’re talking Olympic, World Champion, just-broke-3-world-records-last-week-no-big-deal type. 

 Of course, there is one aspect of the Village that I love and respect the most, and it’s the Yaya Girls Program. For me, and many others, the Girls are the heart of the place.  The hotel provides the girls Program in-kind donations which allow them to live in the Village, use the running facilities and gym, receive vocational training and provide access to Yaya’s amazing guests! In return the girls Program provides publicity for the hotel and an awesome group of girls for guests to hangout with, run with, learn with, eat with, and for those really in love with them, provide the opportunity to support through financial donations! At the moment there are four girls enrolled in the program; Lamrot, Asnakech, Tisgist, and Alumseye. They are fantastic, cheerful girls, who are eager to study English and push themselves to become great runners.  Lamrot has already graduated the Yaya Girls Vocational-Skill Program and works at the hotel but she still trains and is improving her English with each class.  Asnakech is 20, Tisgist is 19 and, Alumseye is 17 are continuing their vocation-skills component and are exceling in their English classes and give 101% in every training workout.

Now let me tell you about our key player! Banchi; the Mother figure of the Yaya Girls, female empowerment leader, volunteer liaison, finance admin, and over all angel! She lives just 5 minutes away in the Waserbi neighbourhood- and she’s here every day, helping out and keeping things running smoothly. Without her, we are literally lost.  Banchi is also prime for breaking the language barrier between me & the girls, and the surrounding staff & locals! She’s also taken me under her wing by showing me around Addis, how to use the minibus (which is literally always squashed full of people and daunting to board), introducing me to her wonderful friends, and even letting me sleepover when I wasn’t well. She is the greatest role model and truly the type of woman that the Yaya Girls Program promotes; a real Spice Girl.

These ladies run twice a day; they’re up at 7 every morning for an hour run, and then go again at 4:30 for a half hour.  Some days they’ll hit up the gym and rip out an ab workout that puts me to shame but, I promise that by the end of my time here I’ll be able to least do a solid run with them.  We have English class at 2 o’clock and then an informal conversational class after dinner, where we just chat or play cards.  I try to swap English words for Amharic words during class, and I always try my hand at greetings and farewells with the girls and hotel staff.  One day I even wrote some key Amharic words down on my hand, which the girls spotted and found hilarious.   And when I’m completely bewildered I refer to a Madagascar quote by the penguins, “smile and wave boys” as it usually gets me out of the deep end.  That being said I just finished my first Amharic lesson with the girls, so I can’t wait to shock the hotel staff tomorrow with some new lingo.

{sorry I was going to finish up at this point-but I must share this- it JUST happened;}

Part 3: Hyena Hunting

Together the girls and I live in the staff compound just a minute or two away from the hotel, and there are guards that walk the perimeter of the Village, keeping us as safe as can be!  HOWEVER, I did just see 3 hyenas.. I was sitting here writing to you and Alumseye came knocking at my door with a whisper; “sTEF! ...Hyena!” So obviously I dropped everything, donned my Birkenstocks and hurried out my door as quickly & as quietly as possible.

Tigist, Asnakech and our friend Branu were already out and tiptoeing towards the path that leads towards the bathrooms at the back of our compound, and there in the bushes (about 30ft away) were two lamp-like eyes staring back at us..! Branu, used his flashlight to wave it off and it slinked over a mound of dirt and out of sight, but suddenly two more sets of eyes appeared and scampered in the opposite direction behind our kitchen- so we raced to the other side to try and spot them again- but they were gone. And my body… was stiff the entire time. But it was pretty exhilarating!! My first hyena sighting was on Monday night as I was leaving the bathroom, which faces pure darkness (which is less than a minute from my room, but around the corner so it faces the horses’ compound and a bit of the woods). I was just in the doorway and my torch flicked up to catch two eyes watching me, about 15 ft away. I froze and after a few seconds of my mind scrambling to function, it darted away in the field. I kind of shuffled/ran back to the kitchen where the girls were and while clutching at my heart, squealed; “JIB!”

Anyway, that’s all for you lot for now..! Now that my heart has started to beat again I’m off to bed. I still have to review a lesson plan for tomorrow and be up early for a run with Xavier. And gosh, it’s 10:20; well past my bedtime. :P… But for real.

Night

Steph x