Settling down: New House, New Friends, New lifestyle

Hi everyone. Fist week of work, way intensive but nice. I was assigned for two majors:

1) 2007 Training workshop on methods for HIV and Aids Estimates and Projection in cooperation with HAPCO (Hiv/Aids prevention and control Office) to work on the implementation of the M&E system in Ethiopia

2) Five year evaluation of the Global Fund impact on three major diseas: TB, Malaria and AIDS.

Very hard issues, but step by stepo i'm going trough them and they are not ununderstandable.

I have to go almost every day to the Ministry of Health, 5 minutes far from here , and always with a UN official driver... and that is so cool! All the kids say Hi to me, people see the UN car and they stop moving, trying to see if one big boss is in.. But it's just me!

Amharic lessons with Abraham are going quite well, and we establish a rule called ''a word a day'': heb teaches me one word of Amharic, i teach him one word in Italian. I wonder how long it will last to learn a language... but I might hire an official teacher to learn seriously, and faster.

Other than that we finally settled down. The new house is amazing, a huge villa with a nice garden, satellite tv (rai international = serie A every sunday for free!!!!!!!!!!), big living room, confortable beds, new fridge, a guard 24/7, a maid that washes & cleans 3 days a week.... this is life! We even met lots of people: 2 french guys working here, many ethiopians, and the Irish roomate just came yesterday. Everything all right, I even recovered myself after the terrible first week.

That's all folks, new updates coming soon

First days in Addis Ababa, first negative records...

After a never ending flight, we finally came to Ethiopia. A UN driver came to pick us up, and we had no problem with bags and luggage, even tough we exceed the weight limit. We went directly to the Atlas Hotel, where 2 comfy room were waiting for us.
The following morning was dedicated to the discovery of the city: t-shirt, snickers, shorts and our unchanghable white skin. A taxi driver took us to the University and then we followed walking without a direct target... just willing to know how the real Africa was. Well, unfortunately all what people say about it, seems to be true. People begging for money every 50 metres, old people lying on the sidewalks, a noisy and smelly traffic jam... we went down the menelik road where the Ethiopian white house is, and we got lost in a `favela` where everyone was looking at us. But I have never felt in danger, people seemed to look at us but not to hate us because we were "whites" . They were smiling us, and that was leaving us astonished. We recover our way to tha Mezkal square, where some young guys were playing soccer. Normal traffic, but no shadow, no refuge from the African burning sun. We ate a sandwich, but our skin was already read, and that, lately, would have been a big problem.
We accidentally found the only internet point open at sunday, and we had the chance to say hi to our families with a text message from the vodafone web site. Then, burned and tired, we got home to take a shower. My face was completely red, my neck as well. My head was spinning, and my legs were tired. We had a brief dinner and then I tried to go to sleep... but i could not.
I did not sleep at all, i was so fricking sick! So thew following morning we went to the office, but before anything I asked to go to the CLINIC inside the compound. Diagnosis: fever (38.5) and gastrointeritis. The nicest wasy to begin. But after a shot in the bottom and some salty water I recovered my energies and I was ready to face the first day. The compound is gorgeous, an oasis in the desert with offices, shops, gym, conference rooms (Prodi came here 2 weeks ago) 4 restaurants, 5 bars...... its like a (rich) city in the (poor) city. It makes u thing about the words UNITED NATIONS, when you see a 3-metre-wall and beyong house made by wood and mood...

But still.... so during these days we are arranging all the burocratic stuff: UN id, UN passport, Bank account and research of accomodation. Yeah, that will be the major point.
On Friday, tomorrow, we will have the first contact with our agencies (UN/AIDS for me, UNFPA for Valentina, my experience buddy). I'll you guys know. I took some pictures, Ill post them tomorrow. In the meantime a huge hug from Addis......