PROCESS
With all of her documents in order, Rakeb completed the
application for East High School. This application is actually going through
the Amicus branch of Young Life. The organization’s Amicus branch caters to
bringing international students to the United States for a study abroad
experience. Usually these students come from more developed countries like
France, the UK, and Germany, but some exceptions are made… Rakeb is one of
those. If Rakeb is accepted into this program, she would get a J-1 visa and
have the ability to be in the US for about 9 months.
Rakeb in the middle of a roundabout on one of our sightseeing expeditions
RAKEB
A week or two after meeting Rakeb for the first time, we took an
adventure to go around Addis Ababa and try to find an English/Amharic
dictionary. What sounds like a simple trip was actually quite complicated!
After trying a variety of locations where books were said to be sold, we
finally found a legit bookstore. It was the only one I ever saw in Ethiopia. I
purchased my dictionary, but the best part of the experience was getting to see
the city through Rakeb’s eyes. She dragged me around and showed me all of the
schools she had been to before, all the “malls” she liked to go to with her
friends, and even a couple museums.
The chaos that is public transportation in Addis Ababa
ETHIOPIA
The main language of Ethiopia is Amharic. From what I understand
it is somewhat similar to Arabic. Whatever it is similar to, it is complicated!
The written form of the language is based in symbols, contains over 70
different ones to signify different sounds! If you want to see just how
difficult it appears at the onset, check out this link. On top of this, Amharic is the official
language, but there are 10+ other “main” languages and many less common ones
spoken in the country. All told, it is accepted that about 90 different
languages are spoken in the country.
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