America Ihite

Majamariya (first), what trumps any news in Africa is the news we hear from America: we are aunt and uncle to whom we are told is the most beautiful baby boy. Any free moment my mind catches, it’s wandering down a hospital hall, peeking through every window, trying to find that head of curly black hair. I’ve contemplated finding/making something 21 inches long that weighs 8 pounds and 1 oz., but one, I think it would take days to find a ruler here, and two, the scale in Fikadu’s suk (shop) weighs in kilograms. And three, maybe it could be seen as creepy, me rocking a heavy stick or humming to a bag of flour, just to get a feel for the weight and size.

What I thought could be horrible—being separated by seas from my family during this colossal, beautiful thing—was actually lovely. My parents were so generous with their time, with their phone calls, to keep us at the center of this alongside them, and we have been so blessed. Even the small fact that, on whim, I got to speak with my sister only 9 minutes before her water broke—the Lord knows how important that was to me, how much I required even that small thing. And to be passed around the delivery room, to talk to the new parents and grandparents, and then to hear Zachary cry. I could rattle on for awhile about this, and how it made my week. Some day I will tell Zach about trying to fall asleep after his grandma called and said he was on his way—and not being able to, being full of giddiness late into the night, listening to the hyenas howl and the dogs chatter, watching the lightning light up our room, reading Psalms and writing poetry by flashlight while the rest of Ethiopia slept. All things fantastic.

And yet now, here I am wondering just how many times in this life I will find myself in a “shint bet”, crying. There aren’t many bathrooms in the states where I’ve found enough solace to just weep with God, but it seems to be a theme for me in Africa. Today was our last day of practicum—a tiresome 2-week stint of lesson-planning and teaching at the local elementary school—and we had a sort of celebratory field day with our students. Alicia and I were in charge of “Alicia says/Danayit says,” and I was in the middle of round two with this: “Danayit says dance! Danayit says turn around! Danayit says jump! Touch your nose. Ah, ah, ah, Danayit didn’t say,” when I got a call from my mom. All I know at this moment is that the epiderral my sister has been dead-set against for years—because of her respect for the workings of her spine—ended up doing the very thing she feared. We don’t know much of anything, and so my phone is now acting as another of my limbs (as it has been all month). But we are praying she will be fine, that it was caught early enough, that the Lord will hear all our prayers. It isn’t fair or logical, or at all simple, to listen to horrid news from your crying mother, and to then have to hang up, slip your phone into your pocket, and return to 90 more kids to touch your nose and head and toes just as you did before the phone rang. Or to walk down the road with your husband, praying aloud together, inadvertently ignoring the people you’re normally smiling at, greeting, asking their names—and to see confused looks on their faces. (This was our first time “ignoring” people we passed in Sagure, and it was interesting to see the extent of the shock on their faces as they grabbed for our hands and we brushed past; Daniel had to say “aye ahun,”—not now—and I had to explain, “lela kan,”—another day). Can you comprehend this? Having to apologize to strangers in the road for not shaking all their hands and speaking English and Amharic with them? It hasn’t really seemed all that exhausting, having to be “on” 24/7, answering to everyone, chummy with everyone: this should be the life of the Christian in the states anyhow, to not be so self-absorbed that you ignore eye contact, any contact with the strangers around you. However. There have never been so many eyes vying for contact with mine, ever. We are followed, swarmed everywhere. I’m not complaining: these children, these people are precious, and when they yell, “I love you!” they don’t even need to—the kissing of our hands and the yelling of our names through the fence as we sit in our language class—they’ve told us already. I’m just trying to convey the craziness of being a minority. Of being an American in Sagure, Ethiopia.

And right now I’d rather be in Willoughby, Ohio beside my sister. We are thanking and praising God that she and Zachary are alive, with no threat to their lives. But we are also begging Him to be near our family right now, to give John strength, to hold Christine so tightly, and to heal her.

Until now we’ve been loving most minutes of our time here. All the changes and oddities that come with living in a new country, in a third world country especially—they’re mostly quite exhilarating.

Like the time our family killed a chicken for us when we returned from Adwa. (I’ll let Daniel talk about that one. He may have gotten the bigger kick out of it, as I was the one with the warm blood on my hands).

There’s the interesting English we see on clothes here: the silky bandana our host mother wears periodically, which sports a picture of Bob Marley, and in an interesting font, the bold and only word on the bandana: Marijuana. And the boy at my primary school in Adwa who wore the brown zip-up sweater with the large pink word in capital letters across the front: GIRL.

The interesting English we hear here: the waiter asking us, “What is your command?” and telling me “Your answer is three birr,” meaning, I’ll give you three birr change; and a teenage friend of ours in town asking us, “Where is Fikadu’s habitation?”

There’s the new and different fruits: in Adwa we had a few “beles,” which we are told are like, or are indeed, prickly pears? We wouldn’t know. But they grow from cacti, and look like baby cacti, and are sold at the corner of every block and are, in fact, delicious.

There’s the confusing but hilarious miscommunication that happens daily: when my dad called us two minutes after Zachary entered the world, and after Daniel and I celebrated for awhile, and I cried for a bit, I knew I had to return to the living room sometime. I dried my tears, breathed deeply, and joined our host family again on the couch.

FIKADU (host father): (smile beaming brightly). Lij? (Child?) You, akist? (aunt?)

DANIELLE: Yes. Awo. (nods, immediately chokes on tears). His name is Zachary. Simu Zachary naw. (cries more now, blows nose into tissue).

FIKADU: (very obviously confused, forehead wrinkled, waits and watches the ferenji for awhile) Sagure? Simu Sagure?

DANIELLE: (laughs) No, Zachary. Not Sagure. Zachary. Simu Zachary. (After repeating three times, she also cannot hear the difference between the two, and gives up).

            (She is still having trouble stopping her tears, and is laughing and crying simultaneously. Fikadu and Timkat stare in wonder, Fikadu laughing nervously, Timkat laughing with more gusto. The juxtaposition of laughter and tears seems to confuse them, and make them uncomfortable).

I am happy. These are happy tears. I am akist!

Fikadu congratulated us both, calling us akist and agot (uncle), which made me glad. Fikadu was catering his culture to ours, in our happiness: in both Amharic and in Tigrigna, there is no word for the husband of the biological aunt, or the wife of the biological uncle. In this case, Daniel would not be agot (uncle), but “husband of mother’s sister.” Which kind of makes me mad. When we drew our family trees in Amharic class, and had to introduce and describe our families, I was too stubborn to call Bob Kukula “the husband of my mother’s sister” instead of Agot Bob. He’s my uncle, and that’s too large a white flag for me to raise. Thus, I was so thankful for Fikadu congratulating Daniel and calling him “agot.” Since the news of Zachary’s birth, Fikadu addresses me as “akist”: “Akist, dehna nesh?” (Aunt, how are you?), etc. He may just be relieved that he finally has something to call me, seeing as our family is still confused about my name.

Three intermittent fun facts:

1. Daniel is currently trying to find and kill the fleas in our bed. Be jealous.
2. We learned a valuable phrase in Tigrigna last week that you use when it is both raining and the sun is shining at the same time: “zibi walida”—a hyena has given birth. I find myself always wanting the sun to be shining while it’s raining, just so I can put this to use. And, it’s raining all the time anyway. Even moreso since we’ve returned from Adwa. We’re having trouble figuring out when is the ideal time to wash our clothes. The average drying time now is three days. It just doesn’t stay dry long enough.
3. You’re going to love this one. Years ago an emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie (who wasn’t emperor yet) traveled to Jamaica. Jamaica had been suffering from an incredible draught. But when this man stepped off the plane, it immediately began to rain. The Jamaicans assumed him to be their savior and god, and a small number of them immigrated to Ethiopia, believing it to be Zion. So what was Haile Selassie’s name before he changed it? Ras Tefari. I imagine you can guess what religion he inspired. I just think this is so darn funny.

So these two weeks have been incredibly action-packed. We are so thankful for this practicum, and teaching was so enjoyable and enlightening at the same time—but amidst the ridiculously difficult language classes, dang. We’ve had no time to sit and rest, other than during meals, so having no time to study Tigrigna outside of class has been frustrating. What we thought would be 12 full weeks of language training has turned into only six. And while we’re learning so much and can now talk about our families and daily routines; describe people and houses; talk about our likes and dislikes; shop for groceries; order food; and conjugate some important verbs into past, present, and future tenses; we are frustrated that we’ve not been given the 12 weeks we thought we’d have. But, shigar yalem, no problem. We imagine it will be much easier learning the language in a place where it’s actually spoken.

So the past two weeks happened like this: during week one we co-taught with another trainee; we taught two 45-minute lessons to two different grades (2-5) each day. By the end of week one we were so ready to teach on our own, so that we didn’t have to lesson-plan outside of the home with others, late into the evening (though this meant getting to see the stars on very dark walks home). And in week two we only had one lesson a day, and got to teach by ourselves. Thursday I had fourth grade, and the first five minutes of my lesson were some of the best five minutes I’ve had here. My lesson was Reading & Comprehension (something they need a lot of practice with here; the kids can de-code quite well, but actually understanding what they’re reading is an entirely different matter). So I began by reading Where the Wild Things Are to them, and their reaction was incredible. These students are not read to, at all—not stories, at least. Passages from their textbooks, sure, but that’s it. And as I weaved through their desks, showing them the pictures, their eyes were wide with fear of “the wild things” and a favorite student in front (the tallest and wisest boy) kept saying, “Yes, yes,” in agreement with each page. One girl on the right side of the classroom ducked away from me and scooted so far away from the book and into her neighbor as I came by with the “frightening” sketch of the terrible roars, terrible teeth, terrible eyes, and terrible claws. If you only knew how gratifying this moment was.

A culture of reading does not exist here in Ethiopia. Few people own books; few people read for enjoyment. While bringing a Nook and Kindle with us seemed wise, because of the volume of books we could bring, it’s a shame we can’t easily model reading in our communities. If we were to go to a café to read, the first response wouldn’t be “those ferenjis are reading,” but “what are those devices they’re holding?” But I did bring five children’s/picture books with me, and they may have been five of the smartest things we packed.

P.S. Daniel and I just returned from a coffee/tea break as a reward for finishing our Sunday laundry. When we passed our normal bunch of kids on a particular side of the main road (Wagu, Habtamu, Fikadu the kid, Buruke the boy [not to be confused with Buruke the girl], Kami, and Zarun), Wagu asked me for money, as usual. He is one of our dearest child friends (plays harmonica with Daniel, is the son of our parents’ shop guard), and yet he still likes to ask us for money. When I said no, he said “America” then something in Amharic while expanding his arms over his belly to indicate a large person. The motion that followed was similar to that of someone dropping a pail of water. He repeated this a few times. “Min? (what?)” I asked. “Algabanim (I don’t understand).” I was assuming that because I refused him money, and Wagu was pretending to have a large belly, he was telling me Americans had enough money to be fat, so I must have money. So I said, “wufra? (fat?)” and he nodded. We were getting somewhere. He repeated the motion and his phrase. Lightbulb over Daniel’s head. “America ihitish—your sister in America.” Oh! He was motioning a pregnant person giving birth! The mood suddenly changed, I confirmed the news for him, and we all laughed for awhile. Like we said before, news gets around fast in Sagure.

This is Daniel. Danielle has said about every thing, but I’ll add a few unconnected pieces of news.

First, the chicken. Before we left for Adwa, Selam told us that they’d make us doro watt. It’s a spicy chicken stew and the premier Ethiopian dish, bar none. There isn’t really an American equivalent, but for my family it may be Grandma’s fried chicken or pork chops, and in Danielle’s it’s probably German pot roast or zucchini spaghetti. The fact that I can’t name one dish per family even, shows how much more unified Ethiopia is in terms of taste. Whenever I’ve asked an Ethiopian what his favorite food is, he looks kind of confused and then says, “Doro watt,” like it’s common sense.

At any rate, even though everyone loves doro watt, you only eat it rarely, because it is an expensive and time consuming dish. Thankfully, we made it back from Adwa in time to watch the preparatory work. Here’s the play by play:

• Carlito, the big rooster I named to make the whole experience harder for Danielle, is wandering around the yard, enjoying what are the last few moments of his free-range life while Selam sharpens the knives.
• Fik’adu comes out for his sole duty in the process (the divisions between men and women’s work here are interesting). He steps on Carlito’s foot, grabs the scruff of Carlito’s head, and with a quick sawing motion cuts his head nearly off. Then he kicks the chicken under a metal container that he steps on while washing his hands off. Once Carlito’s death hollering ends, Fik’adu turns to me and says, “Dead. Ciao!” and runs back to his shop.
• Selam, with incredible efficiency, pours boiling water over the chicken and pulls/brushes all the feathers off. Women here have an astonishing tolerance for heat; I’ve seen Timkat pick up live coals from the fire while cooking (I’ve probably already written this but it never ceases to amaze me).
• Then, after Selam pulls Carlito’s head the rest of the way off and tosses it in a bin, she calls Timkat over. Timkat puts her mouth on Carlito’s bloody nub of a neck and blows into it as though it were a balloon. Selam then ties off the neck. This took a few tries because the ferenji’s shocked expressions kept causing Timkat to laugh, stop laughing, wipe some of the chicken blood from her mouth and try again. We’re still not sure why this was a part of the process.
• Next, Selam and Betty (a neighbor, whose name is oddly common for Ethiopian girls) skin the chicken, pull it apart, and take out the parts you can’t eat (I think there may have only been two things they took out, both looked like stomachs).
• Last of all, Selam pulled out all the rest of Carlito’s hairs and washed him and put him into a briny mixture of lemon and water and salt. Danielle got the job of removing blood pustules from Carlito’s liver or something.

The doro watt was spectacular, though Danielle didn’t enjoy eating it twice a day for the next three days. Also, we wondered how safe it was since our family doesn’t own a refrigerator. At any rate, we didn’t get sick.

Another thing that makes me laugh about Ethiopian culture (though at the same time it is endearing) is their insistence that guests eat. If Mattel is looking to expand their market in Africa, they might should consider an offshoot of Hungry Hungry Hippos called Feeding Ferenjis. Once you finish what is on your plate in an Ethiopian house the hostess will immediately start piling more injera and watt on. You have to be very insistent that the meal was enough and very tasty or the hostess will look at you hatefully. It’s also the hostess’s job to tell you to eat constantly. You can have food in your mouth, and she will still insist that you eat.

Since Danielle and I are in the master bedroom, Selam and Fik’adu sleep in the living room/dining room. A few times we’ve been eating breakfast when she’ll wake up, turn towards us, say, “Danny (both of our names) bella bee bee bella (eat eat eat eat),” and then roll back over and fall asleep.

I know I’ve already written about this, but it makes me laugh daily. Elsabet, who they say is four but who we think is three, still breastfeeds. Some observations:

• A few days ago, Danielle called Elsabet a trickster in Amharic during dinner. Fik’adu got a kick out of it, and Elsabet looked up from breastfeeding to yell something at which everyone laughed. We asked what she said, and Fik’adu told us, “She said I’m not her father.”
• I think she should be barred from breastfeeding on Wednesdays and Fridays since those are Orthodox fast days and none of the rest of us can drink milk.
• I don’t think anyone should be able to, at the same meal, request breast milk and coffee.

Yesterday, the Peace Corps took us to a natural hot springs resort in Sodore, about an hour drive north of Sagure. It was fantastic to be warm for the first time in weeks (Sagure has been what a friend of ours from Fort Wayne has called “Both Africa and Indiana cold” for a while, and Danielle has had a cough since last Sunday). It was also nice to see some of our favorite trainees from sites that are far away from Sagure. The hot springs were a fantastic African experience. They were separated into men and women’s sides and were like very hot hot tubs in which thirty or so Ethiopians were bathing. I hadn’t bathed in a solid week, so I got my soap and jumped right in with the habesha guys, who, thankfully, were all wearing swimming trunks, as far as I could tell. Danielle tells me that most of the women in the other side were naked, which jarred her for a bit, but didn’t stop her from washing her hair in the warm water.

Aside from the bathers, we also saw hundreds of monkeys. I’m not sure what type they were, someone said Capuchin (?) so maybe that. They were really brave, though, from being fed by people at the resort and would come up and steal your food if you weren’t vigilant. I loved walking up to the monkeys who would immediately start sizing you up, “Is he going to feed me?” you could see them thinking, “Or is he going to beat me? He’s going to feed—or wait he might beat me. Yeah he’s going to beat—but he could feed me.” And so on, they’d keep coming closer and backing off as long as you didn’t move too much.

It’s cool being here with the Olympics kicking off. Most of the Ethiopian team is made up of distance runners, and most of them grew up within 50 kilometers of Sagure. I can’t really tell how excited people are for it, but I couldn’t imagine all of the hoop-la that would be going on in Marion right now if several Olympians in running events were from Kokomo.