Miscellanies of Adwa

            The school year has begun. Daniel still has a few more weeks of freedom with George Eliot and Melville and Calvin and whatever else he decides to read next, but Soloda Elementary School is in session. On Monday morning I observed the three 5^th-8^th grade English teachers. Until Thanksgiving, we’ll be spending most our “school time” observing classes and clubs, getting clubs and new programs rolling, and interviewing or surveying teachers—all to get an idea of what we should focus on, in helping them, for the next two years. Here is a rundown of my comical Monday morning.

            First period 8^th grade English is taught by Teacher Hailu. He reminds me of the Ethiopian version of my grandpa Gene. He couldn’t wait for me to observe his class; his delight was apparent, as he left his classroom to come wait for me at the office, beckoning me proudly. Once the class began, it was apparent that this wasn’t going to be a typical class necessarily, but rather a conversation between the teacher and the American, with 45 students in our midst. After the first two students recited an English dialogue in front of the class, he turned to me and loudly called: “Well? What is your comment?” To which I naturally said, “Beautiful!” So he allowed everyone to clap for this. “You must tell us how we do, and if we make mistake.”

            He often came to stand at the desk where I was seated to say the likes of, “See? There are no books. They do not bring their books. Write that down. Report that.” And when he informed the students that he would not teach them again if they came without their books, he turned to me: “What do you say? Am I right? I told them I will not teach them if they have no books. Am I right?” And yet he snatched one of their books to give to me, so that I could follow along with them.

            Further on in the lesson he came to me and said, “How do you find it? What is your comment?” When I told him the class was good, he very enthusiastically said, “Tell Director Isaac. Tell Vice Director Haftay. You must tell them what you see here.” I later explained that I’m not evaluating them for anyone’s sake but my own, to get an idea of how I can help them later on. I don’t think this got through, however. Later, while the students were supposed to be answering questions silently in their notebooks, he came and sat beside me at the small student-sized desk in the back of the room.

            “You know, I like you. You speak Tigrigna very much. Where is your husband?”

            The second class, 6^th grade English, was taught by my favorite teacher, Gebre. He may be the only person in Adwa currently who knows my last name. (Here, last names are the first names of your father. So our little Elsabet is Elsabet Fikadu; and Meron’s full name is Meron Girimkil. So we needed to come to a decision: when we’re asked, “What is your father’s name?”, does Daniel say James, and I say Charles? Or do we say Luttrull? I decided to say Luttrull when Gebre asked. And, oh, how I love to hear him pronounce this, especially when it’s the odd name combo of Danayit Luttrull. At the same time, I hope they don’t think Daniel and I are siblings; married couples don’t usually share the same last name here). I won’t say much about this class, except I’ve never been more embarrassed to sit in a classroom, with the exception of an incident in 10^th grade when my fellow Math students revolted against Mrs. McCormick, all planning to applaud in unison at exactly 3 o’clock. (She threw down the chalk and refused to commence the lesson, said we could figure out our homework without her). The students didn’t pay a lick of attention to the teacher, his quiet “shhhhhh’s” or when that didn’t work, his resorting to hitting them with his stick. He was so nervous of my presence, and so agitated that he couldn’t gain control of the students.

            What followed this class period was the most uncomfortable half hour I’ve spent in Ethiopia (maybe with the exception of Saturday, when we discovered the reason the manager at the post office has been triple-charging us: he can’t read the scale. When we attempted a mini Math lesson, explaining that each tally mark on the scale means 5, and it’s not “5, 10, 25” as he explained to us, he threw our letters at us like Frisbees. Will we ever get a fair mailing price without intervention?). So onto what may have been my second-most-embarrassing half hour in Ethiopia: Apparently there is a 30-minute shay-bunna break for the teachers between third and fourth period. Unsure of how to spend this time, I began walking through the courtyard, followed and surrounded by maybe 100 students pouring out of their classrooms to get a fair look at me. Maybe touch my hair, if they could reach or get close enough. I don’t mind the children in small doses, or in our neighborhood, but to be called Money in the school setting, and mocked in a place where I should be an authority figure, is difficult. Completely flustered and needing to escape, I decided to go early to my next classroom. Wrong choice. I took a seat at another student desk in the last row, and was immediately surrounded by maybe 30 fifth graders, all pushing to be nearest me. I tried handling this calmly, answering all their questions and trying to keep Claustrophobia at bay. A few times throughout the course of this half hour, when it got a bit crazy, shoes were flying, students were on tops of desks screaming, etc., I decided it would be okay to reign in their version of recess and speak up. But each time I stood and yelled, “Baka!” (Enough!), no effect. More questions.

            What is your name?

            What is your friend’s name? (This likely meant “husband”)

            Where is Daniel?

            Is Daniel your brother?

            What is your father’s name?

            What is your mother’s name?

            Where is your house?

            Do you know Amharic?

            What grade are you in?

            What is my name? Her name? His name?

            Do you like injera?

            Do you eat injera?

            And then, as if it were as natural as the other questions, a fifth grade boy who had remained quietest thus far, and sat atop my desk, closest to me, leaning back against his outstretched arm, asked,

            What is the advantage of love?

            That’s when I realized that Daniel and I are also meant to be the sages of Adwa. That was my only moment of relief, and uncontrollable laughter, during this entire tea break.

            Following this wise question, the 4-foot Ethiopian female look-alike to Andy Sandburg stood on her desk, shoe in her hand, calling for me to see the largest gecko I’ve seen here yet, atop the window, minding his own business. (Sadly, my own instincts reflect the following theory: the larger the animal, the more cruel to kill it. Somehow, the greater the body mass, the more alive it is).

            “Ay, ay. Nimintay?” (No, no, why?) I asked her, breaking my own only-English-with-the-students rule for a brief moment, in efforts to spare the sorry gecko’s life.

            The only result was she, Hannah, was joined by more students with shoes, shrieking, pounding at the gecko. Once the gang of four students commenced War Against Innocent Gecko, and the animal’s body was in at least two wriggling pieces, Hannah took delight in picking up the still-quaking tail of the corpse with tiny sticks, and placing it in front of me on my desk. When I didn’t react as she hoped (disgusted and afraid), but rather angry and disappointed with her, I flung it to the ground, she proceeded to carry the tail to various girls in the class, who shrieked and jumped atop their desks. I think you can imagine my relief as Teacher Birzaf entered the room and taught one of the best English lessons I’ve yet seen in Ethiopia. All the while I was inwardly solidifying my new decision to never, ever remain at the school for tea break again.

            Our neighborhood is full of comedians. At least four, anyway. Capital, Nahom, and either Philemon or Adonai (the latter two are brothers, and I always forget who is whom) are Adwa’s version of the Three Stooges. Capital (pronounced Cop-ee-tahl) is Mo, the obvious ringleader. So tiny and thin in stature—always always wearing a devilish smirk—and he won’t let us call him by his name anymore. No, no, not Capital. Nigus. We must call him Nigus. Which is Amharic and Tigrignia for “King.” And so, we naturally bow to him when we greet him. (If he begins wearing a mouthguard with Roman Numerals, or makes reference to “his greatness,” only then we’ll become concerned. That, or, feel more at home).

            One of my favorite Adwa visual memories has been Philemon-or-Adonai holding onto the tail of Nahom’s shirt, who held onto the tail of Nigus Capital’s shirt, and Capital whipping them all around like a human snake, down the street. Their favorite pastime is to wait for us to pass by, then call after us, Daniel mainly, whom they may be trying to recruit: “Daniel! Danny!” When we turn around in response, they do a crazy, American-ish-style dance move, or do back flips, or stand on their heads. Last week, after Capital did his suave snakelike version of the Robot for Daniel, Daniel said to me, “The funny part is—he thought I needed to see that.”

            Our fourth comedian is our little Meron. Adwa’s own Harpo Marx in miniature. Our greatest issue with Meron is that we can’t be in her presence without laughing; we can’t leave her presence without our cheeks hurting—you know the kind of ache that follows wedding photos: you’ve been smiling too long, too strenuously.

            Meron’s usual smiles for us are performed with her head down, chin touching her chest, her eyes raised. We think the ridiculousness of her unique grin lies in her lack of proper teeth. While her lower row is in tact, her top row is rotted out and pointy (she is the designated finisher of the sugar in the popcorn bowl at every bunna ceremony). So she smiles like Harpo, moves around sneakily like Harpo, and is mostly quiet, like Harpo. But can she play the harp like Harpo?

            Now for some bunna ceremony greats. What I remember about our first bunna ceremony with the Girimkils is, first, Girimkil imitating the popping noise of the popcorn. He called it a battle, as if we were listening in on musket shots. Pop, pop, pop. Very entertaining. Later on in the conversation, when his wife asked us if we have any children, and we explained we are not allowed to be parents while Peace Corps volunteers, and sadly must wait two more years—Girimkil explained, “For ferenjis, it is a program. For Ethiopia, there is no program.” By program, he means plan, or schedule. At that moment I felt so sad to agree with him. Another weird, ugly side of America’s beloved birth control: the parents, the humans, choosing when the babies come. It’s very odd and unnatural, really. I wanted to tell him this, to tell him it’s true, but we don’t like it, we’d rather step back and let God plan it—but hypocritically, here I am willfully, agreeably putting “my” family plan in the hands of a government organization. They may make a Catholic out of me yet—something the Peace Corps has probably never boasted of. Then, too, I wouldn’t have to wait two years to take communion. (If you can believe it, I physically long for the Sacrament perhaps more than fall weather and my mom’s German pot roast).

            Last bunna ceremony—number 7 on the tally—was our own. We’ve decided a French Press will do the trick for us, but not for our neighbors. We caught the bug, more or less, and began buying from the long list of necessary traditional bunna supplies last market day—something we never envisioned doing; yet, we never envisioned neighbors we’d love and want to please so much. So we were the bunna hosts last week, though Girimkil says I’m still in my period of “training,” where the older girls, Nesanet and Luam, show me the ropes. They still disapprove of our using a metal curtain rod we found in the house as our pestle. (FYI, What we found was that all the bunna materials combined: charcoal stove, charcoal, fan for stove, jebina [coffee clay pot], mortar & pestle, etc., are cheaper than one kilo of bunna. A kilo of bunna is the same price as a kilo of meat, and Ethiopians rarely eat meat because it’s so expensive. But bunna is daily! Interesting).

            During said bunna ceremony beneath the shade, Daniel was peed on, or very cleanly pooped on, by a bird. While we found this a tad funny, a tad gross, and Daniel hurried away to wash off his arm, Girimkil was most delighted. “It is good luck!” he said. Oddly enough, this matches our Tigrignia teacher, Gebre’s response when Joel, another volunteer, told him his little host sister peed on his Tigrignia notebook. Gebre explained there is an Ethiopian proverb that claims if the cat pees in your bed, you must be grateful; it is good luck.

            “That’s the problem here!” Joel exclaimed. “You don’t sit back and let it come in, pee on you, and then say it’s good luck, Gebre! You shut the freaking bedroom door to keep the cat out! You have to do something to get different results! You just don’t accept the results and pretend they’re good.” It was funny how snugly the proverb fit into what we were learning about this culture thus far.

            We should also mention our time at the police station. We went twice last week, to give the officers an invitation to a community meeting, in which our Peace Corps Director came to Adwa to explain our roles in the community. Both times we were greeted with the same question in English: What happened? This question didn’t put me at ease, (Why do you think something happened? How likely is it that something’s going to happen?) and made me hope I wouldn’t have to answer this question to a policeman here again. Failing the first visit because it was Saturday and the station was closed (it was the guard we spoke with), we returned Monday. During a very comical scene in which one lady officer read the Tigrignia letter to herself, then read it again, said something to us we didn’t understand, then another officer joined and read it to himself, twice, then discussed it with the lady, followed by another office who came in to read it a few times—all the while we’re trying to hand-gesture that this is optional, invitation protocol, you don’t have to come, really—and we hear in the background, “I’m going to kill you. I’m going to kill you.” We look at the speaker and it’s the guard, sitting relaxed, holding his rifle. Obviously joking. But why was he saying it to his friend in English? It was his friend he was talking to, right? Later in the week, as Daniel and I stood at the door of the meeting, greeting our guests, you couldn’t guess how surprised we were to see a police uniform walking towards us. They actually came.

            Thursday Daniel and I went to the Woreda office—essentially the town hub where the mayor works, and where social services offices and the education office are located. We went to gather some statistics from the education office, for the reports and action plans we have to write. It was a surprisingly productive visit; the staff was so attentive, and gave us what we needed. (I now finally know all the names of the 13 schools I’m assigned to, and found out one is a prison school). As we left, and started walking back home, we were joined by a ragged-looking older gentleman wearing a very dusty open-jacketed 2-piece suit, and carrying a large dusty blanket over his shoulder. His right hand fingernails were painted a shiny orange. What followed was one of the clearest conversations we’ve had here with someone in English, with the exception of the college staff. If it weren’t for one thing, he’d make a great addition to Soloda Elementary’s staff of English teachers. He told us that he lived in Los Angeles for 12 years (to prove it, he named lots of streets in California). He said, “What a good life. I want to be living there, in America. Living there is so nice. I do not like that I have to return here. Maybe six years ago I was deported for some crime, and had to come back here.” (I hoped he didn’t notice my flinch away from him when we said ‘crime’). I told him, “It is nice here too, though. Adwa is beautiful. Look at all those mountains.” It appeared that he thought this was a stupid thing to say. “I can’t EAT a mountain,” he said. “Even in America, if you have nothing, there are shelters, there is help, there is the Salvation Army. Here, nothing.” Looking at the blanket over his shoulder, wondering if he was visiting the social services office when we saw him at the Woreda, we realized we were talking to a former LA homeless man. And yet he still dreams of life back in the states, in shelters. Our experience in Adwa thus far, again aside from the college staff—when we hear really good English, it’s normally coming out of a crazy person. The town crazies know the best English—which is a bit disconcerting for us English teachers. But we were glad for our conversation with Edris, who seemed in possession of most or all his faculties, and who didn’t even ask for money when he waved goodbye for us. An Ethiopia first.

            Today at market we had two noteworthy experiences. Experience number one was standing behind a man in an orange shirt in line at the post office. My eye caught the cursive words “Willoughby Supply” on the back of his shirt, amid other ads—another mentioning Mayfield. I nearly shrieked. The closest I’ve come to this is seeing a man wearing a Cincinnati University shirt. But my hometown! When he turned around and I saw the front said “Mayfield Village,” I nearly hugged him. “Gazay! Nay betasabay gaza! Sibuk!” I told him. “My home! My family’s home! Beautiful!” Then we went to market, in search of various overwhelming household items, but it turned out beautifully. We ended up buying almost the rest of what we need for our bunna ceremonies—we’re only missing a wooden sitting stool. And we bought two tables to set side-by-side in our kitchen for our workplace (so we could have our kitchen table back); and a spare cot for visitors. I was so proud that we neglected to go the easy route, to call the college car, and we arranged—cheaply—renting a horse cart by ourselves! Later, when I saw the man and his horse turning the corner down our road, I was so relieved that he didn’t run off with our property. I tipped him in excitement; though I didn’t explain, “This is for not stealing the stuff, and for finding our house.” And now our home looks even more homey. Our first kitchen table! In our previous homes we used our large coffee table, and an island—and it just feels so “adultlike” to take tea, or to write letters, at a kitchen table. I keep envisioning sharing coffee with Daniel’s mom at the table, when she comes to visit next month. Eeek! We can’t wait.

            Other things you should know: Daniel got a haircut at an Ethiopian barber shop this week. It was well-documented, don’t worry. He wanted a buzz cut, thinking that’s all they’re really used to doing; but when they asked him, or indicated, what cut he wanted, we noticed that other than the photo-shopped Avril Lavigne poster on the wall, all we had to work with were photos of Ethiopian men and their short haircuts. Thankfully, though, there was also a poster of the Manchester United team. I scanned the heads of the white English soccer players until we found something like a buzz cut. Both Daniel and I, and the 4 Ethiopian men in the shop, laughed so hard at the irony of this, of our elation when we found our solution: oh! There’s a poster of white men! Come, look! (The haircut was a success—though the electric razor was very slow and dull; he says it felt like it was ripping his hair from his scalp).

            Another of the week’s successes is that I’ve finally felt useful to Soloda Elementary. They asked me if I knew how to “maintain” (fix) computers, to which I said I would try. Korom, our town’s school sports guy, said, “That is perfect for me. That is what I want. Only to try.” In their office they were only using one of their two computers, because they couldn’t get the one printer to work. How did I fix it, you ask? How did I leave the office a room full of smiling, ecstatic Ethiopians? Well, I plugged the printer into the computer. All the way. I was relieved how easy it was to please them. I then explained to the secretary that the computer makes a pretty brooping sound when it recognizes new hardware. If you hear that, I explained, then it’s in all the way. I immediately regretted giving away my secret.

            We’d like to close by saying that our last trip to Axum—to buy two pretty lamps that can finally replace our fluorescent living room lighting—included a return bus ride on a 12-passenger van, all windows closed so that “no one becomes sick from the air.” This 12-passenger van held how many people that day, sitting every which way on strangers’ laps, as we flung around dangerous mountainous curves? Twenty-two. Twenty-two people.

           

P.S. We enjoyed two forms of audio evening entertainment this week. The first was a superb radio theatre murder mystery by Orson Welles: “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.” The second was the presidential debate. If the latter had the neat intermittent old-time 30’s Campbell’s Soup ads (and a few minutes of debating issues instead of debating what the candidates stances were on the issues), it would have been nearly as cool as the murder mystery.

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