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.

Enjoy the following photos! Click below:

More Photos!

In Kitchens and Churches

I blame my semester in Uganda for lots of changes. But the main change I brought back to the states was a contempt for shortcuts, an irritation for anything superfluous, a general distaste for unnecessary machines. And this change can partly be traced back to a book called Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger (Ronald J. Sider). I recommend this read.

It makes sense that we apply our own change of ideas to where we are, how we spend our time, our money. For me, since becoming a wife and falling in love with every corner of a kitchen, my place of change has been the one room in the house that holds the stove and fridge.

This has generally translated to various tools I refuse to see in my kitchen, or various pre-made foods I refuse to buy. There was a 6-month stint when we were living in Marion where I refused to buy bread, convinced it was just as easy, much cheaper, and more heartfelt to make my own loaf each week. And it proved exactly that, inconvenience in tow. But I can’t say I ever expected a semester abroad to someday shape my ideas about whether or not I’d ever let a machine knead my bread for me.

There is just some sort of enjoyable mystery about toil and labor that hasn’t been made convenient, or given shortcuts, for a high enough price. There is something about refusing to pull out your wallet for trivial things, in exchange for doing the work with your own hands. (This could be why we never eat out). And it’s not about toiling for the sake of toil itself—rather, it’s not letting a brainless machine take the satisfaction that should be my own, not letting it cheat me out of that feeling in my bones and cramped hands, that tangible knowledge of a job well done. And it’s mainly about being wise and short and picky with your money, in order to be fully, unabashedly generous in the areas that really matter.

My longing to someday achieve stay-at-home-Mom employment doesn’t stem from a distaste for office work or a 9-to-5 (maybe it does, actually)—but I think, mostly, it stems from a desire to be fully content and fulfilled; and when I think about what that means for me, I picture various forms of household toil: jamming fruits by the stove; hunching over a vegetable-filled garden; hand-scrubbing cloth diapers; tromping toward a bee’s nest with an empty honey jar; rolling bagel dough in sesame seeds; processing homemade baby food; making cards from paper and fabric; crocheting hats and socks and purses for little ones; and spending the rest of my free time in the church and at a writing desk. Doesn’t that just sound heavenly?

But it’s certainly interesting, and different, to think about what this means for us now, in Ethiopia. With no fridge, no oven, no washing machine or dryer, no way of getting milk or butter in this city, we have to come up with new ideas and habits. We learned this week how to make an oven on your stove top (take a larger than large pot, line it with empty tuna cans, and sit a small baking pan within, on top of cans, and voila, you can make a delicious quiche); we’re considering bringing a goat home with us next market day (and do we name her Minerva or Tonks?) to solve the milk problem; and our “refrigerator” has consisted of our pots and pans sitting on the stone kitchen floor overnight, for our leftovers. Who knew you could still plan and buy for a week’s worth of meals, without having refrigeration? We are enjoying the challenge of living with less, with the exception of the pad we’ve been dealt, and witnessing how this changes our diet and lifestyle. And we wonder what it means for our future. Will the two-year-long lack of tools and common comforts delve us further into the desire to do things the hard way, the old-fashioned way?

What’s interesting is that our challenges here do not align with the old-fashioned country America I guess I’ve been trying to achieve. This is old-fashioned Ethiopia. So it’s not simply that I can make the foods I’ve always made, and get the pleasure of completing every step from scratch. Instead, all the usual taken-for-granted provisions have been scratched. There’s no oven, no brown sugar, and no molasses to even make brown sugar if I wanted to. So what I hoped would be a place and a time that offered me the freedoms of doing everything the way it was intended, the long and meaningful way, without having to answer questions like, “Why don’t you just do it the quick and easy way? It will give you more time to do other things”—is instead a place that’s given me a list of things I can’t do, things I have to wait two years to do again. All of this mainly due to the fact that there is no Meijer or Giant Eagle, or even any grocery store larger than the tiniest corner convenient store, in sight.

This means not being able to revert to favorite recipes and habits, having to wait for my mom’s package of ground cinnamon and proper vanilla, realizing I really can’t make bagels or cinnamon rolls or appetizers or cupcakes or cookies or pickles or candied fruit peel for two years, and having to figure out how to be a hostess to our Ethiopian neighbors—what meal do you prepare for someone who eats so entirely unlike you? And if inviting a new person over for dinner every two weeks was my form of love in the states, and no one’s tastebuds here would appreciate what an injera-less “dinner” means to the ferenjis, I just have to get creative; I may just have to sit on a stool on the floor, with my French press in front of me, popcorn beside me, grass strewn across the floor for beautification—and give each guest three tiny cups of really thick coffee. If that’s what hospitality means here.

But this is what makes me most homesick. One of my greatest daily joys has been drastically, completely changed. And for the next two years we’ll have to learn how to make-do and do without.

Switching subjects: If there has been any theme to our near-three years of marriage, it can be the incredible variety, and goodness, of the four churches we’ve attended together. College Wesleyan Church (July ’11 - Dec ’11) and Pilgrim Lutheran Brethren (Jan ’12 – May ’12) have our hearts for their exceptional qualities: a sincere concern for the poor, the hearts and leadership of the pastors and their wives, an emphasis on community, etc. The more “abnormal” of the four have been Waco’s Church Under the Bridge (Jan ’10 – June ’11) and now Ethiopian Catholic Church The Eparchy of Adigrat Mary Help of Christians’ Parish Adwa (Sep ’12 - ).

Church Under the Bridge is exactly what it sounds like: a 20-year-old church that meets beneath an overpass in all sorts of weather; the congregation made up of the rich, the middle-class, and a large portion of Waco, Texas’s homeless community. The sort of place that hosts a “Recovery Sunday,” where countless church members stand at the front and proclaim their years of freedom from various addictions or “professions”—and the sort of place where a handicapped man named Patrick always sits on the stage at the pastor’s feet during the sermons, whether nodding adamantly, rocking various congregants’ infants, or smoking a cigarette.

Our first Sunday here at Mary Help of Christians was all we hoped it could be: a sanctuary we could actually enter, regardless of our Christened-status (in the Ethiopian Orthodox churches, we’ve only been allowed in as far as the churchyard); the Eucharist, served beneath an ornate red and gold cloth umbrella (even though we can’t partake, not being Catholic); and the English words adorning the very-American-looking stone sanctuary wall: Alleluia, He is Risen. We felt we were stepping into home. The liturgy, the songs, and the homily were all spoken in Ge’ez (Ethiopia’s holy language) or Tigrignia—and we couldn’t read along if we wanted to, given the different alphabet to which we’re mostly illiterate; but it was a frame of reference we were familiar with, with robes and wafers and pews we were familiar with, and all this somehow made it easier to worship. Plus, Father Tesfaye translated a summary of the homily for us in English before he closed. Following the service, we met a delightful novice named Susan from South Sudan, Sister Ruth, and Father Tesfaye, the latter inviting us to tea and breakfast in his quarters and then giving us a thorough tour of the mission’s beautiful campus. Again, we felt so welcome, so at home, and so thankful at the crazy odds that landed us in one of the few Ethiopian cities with a Catholic church and mission.

Father Tesfaye then informed us of an English mass he holds for the nuns and monks on Saturday evenings (even though they’re all Italian; English is the common language between them and the Ethiopians). And this 45-minute piece of our week the following Saturday, where we sat in a small chapel with four nuns, one monk, and the stations of the cross on the wall, was our first experience in our new Christian community for the next two years. To think, we’ve been congregants of a Wesleyan church, a Lutheran Brethren church, a Baptist-ish church primarily for the homeless, and an Ethiopian Italian Catholic church that is home to an old Italian monk and cyclist named Fabio—all in only three years. We can’t ask for much more.

Unless, of course, we could ask for a home that holds a mango tree, a k’o bush (an Ethiopian fruit that resembles a hand-held less-juicy watermelon) and parrots in its yard—we think. We feel stretched in small ways, but on the whole, completely blessed for this season we’re in: in the company of people and nature we can’t find elsewhere.

Finally, we’ve included a tally on the righthand border of this blog, to document the number of coffee ceremonies we attend in the next 20-some months. We’ve been keeping our own tally at home, and thought it kind to share.

P.S. School still hasn’t begun for us (Daniel still has three more weeks of vacation); and for the first three months of our service (lasting until just before Thanksgiving), we are supposed to mainly observe and research and start thinking up plans of action. So this means lots of chapters of Harry Potter that we read to each other each day, and lots of time with our neighbors (there were 13 children in our yard one day this week, each either holding a coloring book, a children’s book, or a ball or glove. And now they pound on our gate, yelling our names, at all hours of the day).

Welcome to Our Home!

Finally, here are some photos of our new home and neighbors! Enjoy:
https://picasaweb.google.com/115745669337345922210/WelcomeToAdwa?authkey=Gv1sRgCN_z4v6tr4-YvgE

Offhand surprise of the day: Returning from market, there was a freshly dead cow--in the process of being skinned?--lying just outside our home. There's either a holiday tomorrow, or a baby was born...our pieces of Tigrigna aren't adding up to any clear reason; but somebody's going to be eating a lot of beef.

What I Saw There

The blog title is taken from Herman Melville’s Typee, which I read last week. It’s a good book, based on Melville’s own experiences in the South Pacific, about a sailor who spends a few months with a cannibal tribe called the Typees. Throughout, Melville’s narration vacillates between an enlightened political treatise that adores the nobility of Typee government, law (or lack thereof), cultural norms, etc. and a rollicking South Sea narrative that gawks at these naked, tattooed, people-eating people. I think part of it might be that Melville, in one of his first books, is still trying to work out how to blend genres; something he does perfectly in Moby Dick. But I also think that this recourse to extremes is a common part of living in and describing a foreign culture. Sometimes I think Ethiopia is the greatest thing I’ve seen since Reggie Wayne caught, then dropped, then caught that pass in the game-winning drive against the Patriots in the 2006 (you might need to correct my date) AFC title game. Other times, I feel like I’m living with a bunch of crazy people who keep trying to fix broken things with broken tools. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

At any rate, I think this blog reflects that tension.

First, some gawking: a few days ago, Danielle and I were buying things at a shop near our home. Danielle was inside picking out tomatoes and yarn, while I stood outside talking to a group of five or six little kids. One of the kids pointed to the bag I was holding and said, “Bag,” so I started quizzing them on their English.

Pointing to my wrist: “What’s this?”

“A watch!”

Pulling out my phone: “And this?”

“A mobile!”

Pulling out a harmonica: “And this?”

Silence—then the oldest kid, probably eight, finally answered.

“A harmonica!”

Pulling out a sucker: “And this?”

“Lick-lick!”

“Carmella!”

“No, no, candy!”

I gave it to the kid who said, candy, again the oldest one, who immediately gave it to his little sister. Then, I was at a bit of a loss. How do you top a sucker? I started greeting the kids in English, asking them their names, and shaking their hands. One of the littlest kids, maybe two, was walking around without pants on (not uncommon) and came up to grab my hand. Some other kid, just barely bigger, started pushing him away, but I broke up the fight, and held the little kid’s hand. “Suffer the little children” and all that, right? Danielle finally came out of the shop, and the little boy holding my hand let go. He then picked up a rock, used it like toilet paper, threw it onto the road, and picked up another square of rock to repeat. I turned, wide-eyed, to the oldest kid who nonchalantly pointed to the stains on the littlest kid’s shirt.

“Ship,” he said, “ship.”

I washed my hands several times.

Now some adoring: Adwa has been in a state of mourning ever since Meles died. That is, during our whole two weeks up here. We’ve had several conversations with gray-haired men who start tearing up when they or we mention the Prime Minister’s death. And people all over Adwa have been wearing black t-shirts with Meles’s name written on them in white fidel. Last Saturday, we accompanied a long procession from the college that walked around the town chanting slogans in Tigrinia like: “Meles, father of democracy! Meles, father of peace!” and several others I couldn’t understand. For the first half of this solemn parade, all the men walked on the right side of the street and the women walked on the left. Separated from Danielle, I didn’t have anyone to talk to in English, and since I can only carry on paragraph-long conversations in Tigrinia, I spent most of the time just walking and thinking.

First, I thought about the way Ethiopians mourn for normal people. First, they hold something like a weeklong funeral. Then at regular intervals after the death—at one week, at one month, at sixty days, at one year (something like that)—the whole family gathers and mourns for the day like the death had happened again. We heard about this from our language teacher, and saw Fikadu and his family practice it. Sometime before we came to Sagure, Fikadu’s young second cousin died in a car crash. A few weeks into our stay, Fikadu seemed very sad and told us in mixed English and Amharic that his cousin had died. We were confused because he made it clear that it was several days ago, but he and Selam and his brothers’ families all left for his cousin’s town to mourn. Then, a few weeks before we left Sagure, they did the whole thing again, with so much to-do that we thought another second cousin must have died in a car wreck, until we heard that it had happened a few months ago. Still, even though the second day had all the same outward hubbub as the first one—the mourning clothes, the sad faces, the trip to meet with the family—you could tell that Fikadu had started to move on.

It’s a fantastic way to mourn. Unlike in America, where people are expected to bounce back from tragedy quickly and aren’t able to, here you’re expected not to be able to bounce back and do. As time passes you mourn the death anew and can’t help but realize that you’re getting along okay and that life is still going on. As you go to the second, third, fourth wake, you can’t help comparing yourself to the way you were at the first one and realizing how far you’ve really come. Things are getting better.

The other thing I thought of as I walked in the crowd of Ethiopian men, was high school football. If this seems odd, it’s because you’ve never smelled either a crowd of Ethiopian men or a high school football locker room—they are indistinguishable to the nose. As I thought about what I liked most about football—pulling up-field in front of a tailback and creaming a few defensive backs who weighed about sixty pounds less than I did—it reminded me of another funny thing in Ethiopian culture. Each elementary school here has an Aesthetics teacher. The Aesthetics teachers are responsible for what American schools normally consider three distinct subjects Art, Music, and Physical Education. At first glance, of course, this sounds absurd. Imagine beefy Mr. Coheap trading in his sweat suit for a baton and coaching a sixth grader through a cello etude. Or imagine dorky Mr. Smith putting down his trumpet and going into the gym—he’d spend his entire tenure as phys ed. teacher cowering under a shower of dodge balls.

Still, mulling over high school sport as I walked in a crowd of smelly men, the system (theoretically, at least) made sense to me. Sport, properly understood, is an art as well, concerned with putting things in their proper place and with doing things at the proper time and with doing things in the proper way. Surely, the discus ring or baseball diamond or football field is as close as many a big, awkward boy like high school me will ever come to painting or singing or dancing.

Epilogue

Because my husband is a brilliant writer, I have little to say in addition. Except a brief account and a family tree of our neighbors:

Brief account: Yesterday Daniel and I met with Gush, the hotel receptionist from our first week-long visit in Adwa, for coffee. When we met him by accident in the street this week, he told us he was moving to Axum, so we better come see him. And we did. When he greeted us at the hotel, with full smile, he exclaimed: “According to your promise!” I love that there is sometimes little difference between the elegant English I am reading in our Adwa living room of Jane Austen’s Emma, and say, the English Gush was taught. Though often rough or disconnected, the English we hear is also often very proper: According to your promise!

While meeting him for coffee, and a friend of his who joined later, we spoke of America. They were trying, in twenty minutes, to give us the run-down of her differences from Ethiopia, and how we should behave here—the best way to bargain (informing us of the fair price for tomatoes which we haven’t been getting); how to respond to the children who call us Money! (they were both so ashamed of this); and they were so curious if we cooked like Ethiopians (they mimicked a standard U.S. oven, and explained, we would now be doing without that, and instead cooking like their mothers). Talking more about America, Gush’s friend then said, “Sometimes we feel…we feel…now, we don’t read these in any books. No one teaches us this. But in our heads we think, ‘Where is God? He must be in America, with them, not with us. They have packaged food, and the best juices, and mineral water. God must be with them.’”

            Gush joined him in this reverie: “Yes, even on the postcards. On the postcard God is white, he is like you. God is a ferenji. So he must be with you.” They laughed through all of this, assuring us they know it’s silly, but still they believe it sometimes. “Until,” Gush said, “There are the winds, or the disasters, the flooding, in America, and then we think, ‘Okay, God must be with us now.’” Listening to this in awe, and trying to interrupt their laughs to argue against such words, I was also caught off-guard by the “blessings” he named. Packaged food? Juices? (I wanted to ask him if he’s tasted the juice in Adwa; America’s version pales, beside this). As far as the packaged food is concerned, if there is any part of an Ethiopian’s health that tops an American’s, it’s the diet. We are cooking and eating so well and so healthy here. I couldn’t put a block of cream cheese into a casserole here if I tried. No casseroles allowed either. But if he were to mention the emergency services, or the economy, or the freedoms in the government, or health services, or education—he would have nearly been right on. If only we could wear shirts to inform them: Most Americans aren’t happy in this wonderland. Yes, we may live in a wonderland. We’ve been thinking lately about the Ethiopians who move to America; we compare their initial thoughts to what we may think if arriving to a world from the future. Flying cars, and robots, etc. But while it’s a fantastic land of provision, it’s full of many unhappy people obsessed with their own wants. We’ve heard tell of another volunteer explaining this to an Ethiopian, and the look of shock on their faces. What, not happy? Americans not all jumping and smiling, with the blessings they have? But, there’s such bounty! What is there to be sad about?

It is difficult, to put an end to the suspended disbelief—to explain it may not be all it’s cracked up to be. Meanwhile, they are all striving to be more like the Western world. “But we are developing, we are developing. We are getting better,” they explain, as if they need to make excuses for themselves, ashamed of what they call their country’s “backwardness.” Yes, development is good, and that’s what we’re striving for. But it sometimes feels that their driving force, their light at the end of the tunnel, is a bunch of smiling, ecstatic, contented faces beaming over…packaged food. Some Ethiopians need coached on what is development and what is the “flesh pots of Egypt.”

That wasn’t as brief as I intended.

The family tree:

Girimkil married to Misilal.

Their four children: Sammy, Luam, Teddy, and Meron

And four or so pet pigeons

We’ve told you about Gentle Sammy and his pigeon pets. Meron, an adorable 4-year-old with ears that jut greatly beyond her tiny bald head, whose name means Myrrh, likes to take her midday naps in our yard, on a burlap sack, in front of our back gate, her favorite spot. She is normally clad in only a long, dirty T-shirt. Luam and her mother Misilal make the best black coffee I’ve had in Ethiopia, this coming from a girl who can’t take coffee without milk. I drank all 3 cups of the first ceremony—4 cups in our second bunna ceremony—and loved it. Teddy we don’t know as well yet. More to come.

But this family—especially our two security guards, Girimkil and Sammy, loves to knock on our doors. On average four times a day. For several reasons: to see if we know how to make their flip phone shut, to ask us why we came home late, to tell us to close our shutters, to show us the tablets they received from the clinic. And each time making us smile and chuckle. We’ve not only been placed in a gorgeous yard, but we have incredibly gentle, sweet, beautiful neighbors.

In closing, Girimkil once called Daniel “Teacher Man.”

Pigeon Whisperers and More

            We moved into our new home on Saturday. We followed about twelve Ethiopian men and women into our compound, each of them carrying a mattress or a piece of our bed. Entering the blue gate, we were overwhelmed anew at how spacious our yard is—not even noticing until later that the yard descends into a second yard with a garage, and a driveway and greenway leading to our second gate. We could play baseball catch at several different angles and not exhaust the possibilities for quite some time.

            The house itself is also a size we’ll probably not be able to duplicate for our lives in the states anytime soon. Here are a few other differences between “our Ethiopian villa” and a house we may someday own in the U.S.:

            -Unless we get a fixer-upper someday, we will likely not see this much dirt caked on so many different things. We’ve got some serious cleaning to do.

            -Upon doing such cleaning, we will likely never again ask each other, “Is this salamander in the door handle dead or alive?” (It was alive).

            -Upon washing new dishes, I will likely never again have to scrape off bird poop with my fingernails. God willing.

            -Most importantly, in the states, anything and everything is so darn easy to get. So decorating is easy. America would do so well with just one store like Target, and one like Lowe’s. But that’s not enough—there’s Wal-Mart too, and The Home Depot, in case you want a different color uniform to look at, or slightly different products. But here? If we want shelving, we will go to the carpenter with a sketch we’ll draw. If we want curtains, we will go to the fabric shop and then to the tailor. If we want lamps or clothes hangers—well, we still haven’t figured these ones out. If it is possible to buy a lamp or a hanger in Adwa, we’ll let you know.

            Sunday night we called our host family to check in. When I dialed the number, I still didn’t know how to check in or chit-chat with people I saw the previous week, and especially when they know very little English. But Gebre told us we should; he says familial relationships in Ethiopia are based on quantity, not quality. Not keeping in regular touch with your relatives is disgraceful. When I asked him how often we should keep in touch with our host relatives, he said to call at least every two weeks. Sounds excessive. But when Fikadu answered the phone, all fears of not being able to carry on a phone conversation dissipated. I believe we’ve already told you how incredibly lengthy the greetings are in this culture. In America, I’m so embarrassed if I accidentally say, “How are you?” more than once in a greeting; this implies I wasn’t listening the first time. This happens to me often. Well, praise God, there is a place for people like me; and it’s Ethiopia. As we said before, the rule of thumb is to repeat every different version of “how are you?” as many times as you can stomach. I am banking on, whenever people come to visit us, their believing we’re fluent after witnessing a few greetings. Because so many words are said, to the untrained ear, we could be discussing philosophy in so many minutes. No joke, this is how our conversation went (and yes, I laughed through much of it). Feel free to skim to get the general gist:

            FIKADU: Hello?

            DANIELLE: Fikadu! Dehna neh? (How are you? [male, 2^nd person])

            FIKADU: Dehna, dehna nesh?  (I am well, how are you? [female, 2^nd pers])

            DANIELLE: Dehna, igzyaber meskin. Dehna neh? (I am well, thanks be to God. How are you? [male, 2^nd pers])

            FIKADU: Dehna. Dehna no? (I am well. Is he well?)

            DANIELLE: Danny? Dehna, dehna. (Danny? He’s well, he’s well).

            FIKADU: Dehna nachu? (How are you? [plural, 2^nd pers])

            DANIELLE: Awo. Dehna. (Yes, we are well).

            FIKADU: Igzyaber meskin. Salam no? (Thanks be to God. Is there peace?)

            DANIELLE: Awo, alla. Salam no? (Yes, there is. Is there peace?)

            FIKADU: Awo. Adwa waym Addis Ababa? (Yes. Adwa or Addis?)

            DANIELLE: Ahun, Adwa. (Now, Adwa).

            FIKADU: Konjo no? (Is it beautiful?)

            DANIELLE: Awo, konjo. Tell Selam, Timkat, and Elsabet we say hello. (Yes, beautiful).

            FIKADU: Awo. Mimi? (Yes. Mimi=nickname for Selamawit)

            DANIELLE: Iwa, I mean, awo, Mimi. (Yes [Tigrignia], I mean, yes [Amharic]).

            MIMI: Hello?

            DANIELLE: Mimi! Dehna nesh? (How are you? [female 2^nd pers])

            MIMI: (sound of delight) Dehna. Dehna nesh? (I’m well. How are you? [female 2^nd pers])

            DANIELLE: Dehna. (I’m well)

            MIMI: Dehna nesh. (How are you? [you female 2^nd pers…again])

            DANIELLE: Dehna. Dehna nachu? (I’m well. How are you all?)

            MIMI: Dehna. Danny, dehna no? (We’re well. Danny, how is he?)

            DANIELLE: Danny dehna. (Danny is well).

            MIMI: Dehna nachu? (How are you all?)

            DANIELLE: Dehna, dehna. (Well, well).

            MIMI: Adwa?

            DANIELLE: Iwa, awo, Adwa. Igzyaber meskin. (Yes [Tigrignia], yes [Amharic]…thanks be to God).

            MIMI: Izosh, izosh. Adwa. Izosh. (Be strong [female 2^nd pers], be strong)—what I take to mean, “you poor thing.”

            DANIELLE: Chigga yelem. Konjo no. (No problem, it’s beautiful).

            MIMI: Ishy, c’iao. (Okay, bye).

            DANIELLE: C’iao.

            FIKADU: Dehna nesh?

            DANIELLE: Dehna. We miss you guys. Betasabacin iwadalo. (….We like our family).

            FIKADU: Dehna idaru. (Goodnight [plural 2^nd pers]).

            DANIELLE: Dehna idaru. C’iao.

            Intensive, right? So little is said in so many words, but at least it makes for a lengthy conversation, where otherwise, our mutual vocab would be exhausted much earlier. I’d like to point out a theme during our stay in Sagure: Selam telling Daniel and me “Izo, izosh,” respectively, for having to move to Tigray, a place most Oromians would rather not visit. What they don’t know is how beautiful Tigray is, how incredible the food is, etc. (in the meantime they tell us, “There is no injera in Tigray, only bread. There are no trees). Both are actually rampant here, injera and trees. Our way of countering the “be strong, you poor thing,” is our reply: “We’re going to Tigray, igzyaber meskin. Thanks be to God.”

            The college continues to be far too generous to us. They’ve already helped us save so much money by providing a kitchen table and four chairs, four loungey couches/chairs, three nightstands, our bed, an extra mattress, and a kitchen storage cabinet—but our next major expense, a propane stove, they wouldn’t even allow us to buy. Instead, we were escorted to the college’s chemistry lab, and a man in a white jacket handed us a full propane tank. As we protested, Getnet explained, “This is excess. No problem, they have two.” Daniel commented on later: “We just depleted the science department’s resources by 50%.” But Getnet assures us we can “repay” them by returning it to them in two years, as a full tank. Far too generous. But we are so grateful. And at this moment our bellies are full with minestrone, thanks to the propane tank that brings cheap ferenji food to our fingertips. What a joy and relief to finally cook for ourselves again, after almost 3 months of eating whatever is set in front of us, which was usually saturated in oil.

            We’ve been in and out of countless suks the past few days, acquiring the foods and soaps and cooking utensils we’ll need. A suk (suk=Amharic, shuk=Tigrignia) is about the size of the smallest country gas station you’ve ever been in. But, without fail, each time we step into one, an average of 8 children follow in behind us. This in addition to the other customers already in line, or trying to squeeze past the children. The kids want to listen to and giggle at the ferenjis going shopping in their language. While endearing, it’s also frustrating to be trying to barter and calculate a total price in another language of numbers, when Hanna and Lela are pulling on your skirt and pants: “Give me money! Biscuit! Give me biscuit! Danayit! Daniel!” The most humorous instance was our first purchase, when the group that followed us were all females. The oldest, about preteen age, indicated Daniel with her eyebrows and told the others, “He is beautiful.” We all laughed. “Iwa, ifalit iya. Sibuk iyu. Sabayay iyu,” I said—“Yes, I know. He is beautiful. He is my husband.” And they laughed some more.

            In case you covet a larger Tigrignia sample, for a taste of the language, have at this classroom assignment from a few weeks ago, in which Gebre asked us about our previous evening:

            Timali mishat innoyay dawila. Ni isra dakika awirina. Haftay hishuni, illa. Kas’ilu, host haftay ni Daniel safiato. Host haftay baaligay iya. Nissa idmi’a salasta iyu immo hadagana iya. Kas’ilu, dirar balia. Dihiri’u, dakisa mikniyatum k’iris’at nayiruni.

            Translation: Last night my mom called. We talked for twenty minutes. My sister is feeling better, she said. Then, my host sister hit Daniel. My host sister is rude. She is three and is dangerous. Then, I ate dinner. After that, I went to sleep because I had a stomach ache.

            That account actually seems to summarize the main themes from our time in Sagure—with the exception of the stomach ache.

            One of the surprises since our move-in is our limited privacy, when we thought it would be abounding.            While we technically have a spacious yard to ourselves, it seems that a young man is living in one of the outdoor rooms on our compound—no biggy, except at first we weren’t sure whether or not the house-owners were aware of this arrangement. At this point, we’re assuming someone knows he’s living there. A neighbor, Samuel, about 12-14 maybe, guards our yard by sitting in it. Today we came home to him sitting on our stairs with a pigeon on each of his knees. Daniel says Nathaniel Hawthorne would not only love Samuel, but would give him his own short story.

            After making a deposit in the bank today, we finally felt comfortable to leave all six grand windows open. What breezes and smells and views! [Adwa may be the first place where, while indoors, I feel like I’m camping. From inside our living room, or while cooking, it smells like I’m in the woods of Hidden Falls Salvation Army Camp, and there is very little lovelier than this]. This was going to be our first night sleeping with the windows open. (You see, the massive bolted shutters are a pain to open and close—so you’re either all in, or you’re not). Following an after-dinner rainstorm, though, Samuel knocked on our kitchen door and told me to shut our kitchen window. Confused, we did as he said. But he then walked around the entire house and closed all the shutters for us. “Okay,” we said to each other. “We'll open them again before we sleep.” An hour later, Samuel returned with his old father to knock on our door. They had noticed that our shutters were only closed shut—not bolted. So, they on the outside, Daniel on the inside, they went window and window together, ensuring we bolted them. Really? We can’t open and close our windows when we want to? At this point, we’re unsure if this was a friendly, neighborly suggestion implying, “We want you to be safe”—or if these are the rules of this compound. What’s perplexing is that these neighbors live in a different compound; and if our gate had a proper door handle and keyhole, it wouldn’t be an issue. Or would it? Samuel’s dad told us that he has been guarding this yard his whole life—before him, his grandfather—and now to Samuel, his son. While we do want the freedom of evening breezes, on the other hand, this event was not only humorous, but indicative of a romantic family career history that I don’t necessarily want to stand in the way of. So, we shall see.

            If you were ever looking for a reason to come to Ethiopia, today we bought 2 pounds of avocados for the equivalent of 90 cents. What makes it even better: yesterday we went to the market to no avail. No one had avocados. But today, while standing in the same spot we were the previous day when we asked for avocados, a tall Ethiopian woman stood behind me while I was getting prices for carrots. “Do you want avocados?” she said quietly. After my repeating “Avocados abay iyu? Avocados allaki doe?”—“Where are the avocados? Do you have avocados?” several times, (because the only response was shifty eyes), she then led me to an abandoned “market cubicle” with no avocados in sight. But then she pulled away all the burlap sacks that were hiding them. If she had been in an Italian man’s body, offering me anything other than avocados, it would have been the perfect scene for a mafia movie—I mean, she even gave me change from a pouch she retrieved from inside her dress top. Toting our goods away from the market, Daniel asked, “How did she know we wanted avocados?” My point exactly.

P.S. Maybe the craziest thing we heard this week is that Adwa has weekly trash pick-up. We were deciding between burning and composting, when someone throws in this wild card. We’ll believe it when we see it. But maybe Tigray really is that rich and favored.

Daniel’s token additions:

1.     Danielle is downplaying our guards to make us sound less rich, but I won’t. Sure one is old and blind and the other one is a twelve-year-old with a mystical connection to nature who probably wouldn’t hurt a fly, but I’m sure they’d do in a pinch. The main point is we have a huge house with guards. You should visit!

2.     I felt like a real Ethiopian yesterday when I asked a bajaj driver in Tigrinia if he was a thief. He tried to charge us 15 birr (about $0.90 US) for a taxi ride all the way across town. We talked him down to 8 birr, but I still feel like we got ripped off.

3.     I started reading John Calvin’s Institutes yesterday (which is not to say that I will finish it), and I’m surprised at what a great writer he is. His preface to the king reads like someone mixed the Bible, Thomas Jefferson, and the early fathers in a blender and then poured it into a book.

4.     People are chanting things outside accompanied by what sounds like those awful instruments from the last World Cup. Danielle won’t let me investigate.

New Address and Photos

Our new address:

Daniel & Danielle Luttrull
c/o Adwa College of Teacher Education
P.O. Box 91
Adwa, Ethiopia

And copy & paste this link to see more photos:

https://picasaweb.google.com/115745669337345922210/800DaysInEthiopia?authkey=Gv1sRgCLfY4Z-h-vnS4wE

Saints and Martyrs

            I think movies trained me to cry at standing ovations. Every film that has a standing ovation also has that accompanying music that reaches its peak the very moment the two loyal, standing clappers are joined by three, four, ten others who decide yes, yes, we should stand for this too. This ploy leaves your tear ducts no choice, I’ve realized. As a new arrival to College Church last summer, I remember feeling silly needing a handful of tissues when we celebrated Pastor Steve’s 10-year-anniversary at the church. Why am I crying? I’ve been here a month. These people celebrating have been here all ten years. But there’s something incredibly beautiful about a church standing for her pastor, about an audience standing for Mr. Holland, about a café full of men standing for their country.

            Daniel and I were quite lucky to “shay-bunna” (perhaps our new favorite verb?: “tea-coffee”) at Harar Hotel last Sunday, at just the right time. Tiku Gelana was running in the women’s marathon in the Olympics, and our usual hang-out spot was packed. We caught only the last thirty minutes or so, and we watched respectfully as three Kenyans, a Russian, and our Ethiopian led the race. Daniel pointed out how neat it was to recognize the woman as an Ethiopian—and how easy this would be even if she were in another uniform. Ethiopians are beautiful, and have very distinct features. Watching her run, we saw our neighbors in her face, and we delighted in knowing her home was twenty minutes away from us at that second, her family and neighbors likely huddled around a TV just like that scene in Cool Runnings. And as the kilometers dwindled down and the Kenyans slowly fell away, our fellow café patrons rose, clapped in beat, and chanted her on. We believe the word they were chanting was “hid” (pronounced “heed”): hid, hid, hid, with claps and hip-shakes mixed in. “Hid” means “go,” which we know because of our host mother’s communication with Elsabet and the cat. Two men were curiously dressed in red jumpsuits, one of whom pumped his red ballcap in the air in beat with the “hids.” (We have some of this on tape, Igzyaber yimeskin, thanks be to God). Needless to say, Gelana took first place, and the whole place was in an uproar. What a beautiful and genuine celebration. We were so thankful we could share in that win with our neighbors.

            After the race, our host father Fikadu approached us, explaining such a celebration warranted his buying our drinks. What we thought would be a quick shay-bunna (avg. length 30-45 minutes) turned into a four-hour event with four Ethiopian men, and eventually Joel, another volunteer. The men, whom Joel now refers to as “The Council of Fathers” had much to drink; it was so entertaining to see what this did to their English and their enthusiasm. It was one of those time spans where you’re consciously aware of how odd and how lovely it is, and how you wish it could stretch on. You think, We should be recording all of this, Daniel’s dad would love this, my grandpa would love this, anyone would love this, why didn’t I bring an easily hidden tape recorder to Ethiopia? every few minutes.  So far, this sort of thing happens several times a day, which is how I’ve been measuring our happiness here.

            Joel, the volunteer we’re closest to in proximity and relationship (he will be in Axum, only 15 minutes from us) likes to talk. He’s a funny guy. But, with the exception of Joel’s host father Abbiot, The Council of Fathers were most intrigued and confused by his eloquent waxing. This is something else about Ethiopians: they like to size you up, compare you with others, out loud. It is culturally appropriate to say, “You are fat, but he is thin,” “You are clever, but she is not so clever,” etc. There is one girl in town (one of our students) whose common greeting to me is: “You are thin (pronounced “teen”). What do you eat?” and once a border-line crazy man in town rated two other girls and me in order of beauty. It drives us nuts. So at the table with The Council of Fathers, Getacho asks me as Joel is talking: “Why so long? This is a short program. This one talks long.” I was hoping he would keep it between us, but then he, and then Fikadu decide to point this out to Joel: “Why to talk so so much? Ethiopians we talk short. You are history man. In Ethiopia we say if you talk long you are history man, because history lasts hundreds of years, and so does your talk.” How awkward. And yet it’s so funny, because they don’t see it as awkward.

            On the flipside of the Olympic spectrum, the American side, we are noticing we feel a bit more patriotic out of country (this is likely to happen if you leave “commercial paradise” for a third-world country; you realize how much you have, what with hot showers and stores stocked with powdered sugar and vanilla extract). We’ve considered teaching the kids to, instead of yelling China! when we pass, chant U-S-A! U-S-A! We tried implementing this a few times, but sadly, it didn’t stick. But the night an American girl won gold in Judo? or some other sport I can’t spell, we Americans in Sagure were at the same café (Harar Hotel). After hearing those first few bars, most of us stood, put our hands on our hearts (Joe removed his hat), and sang the anthem. Yes, it was beautiful. The café staff and patrons were tickled, staring at us (like normal) and smiling. We all clapped afterward, thankful for this girl and her sport and the opportunity she gave us. Ironically, just as it’s more exciting cheering for the Ethiopian athletes while in Ethiopia, it’s somehow more special celebrating your homeland when away from your homeland.

            Girma Café recently hired a young man who loves to practice his English with us. Gosa. He is the one who says, “What is your command?” when asking our order. After only a week of serving us, he had all our names memorized. When some of us are missing, he lists us by name: “Where is Ashley?” His second week on the job, he puts my bunna be wetat (coffee w/ milk) in front of me and says, “Danayit, what is that letter?” and points to the foam atop my coffee. Beautiful and foamy, outlined in brown coffee foam against the white, there sits a capital letter “D.” I look up at Gosa, beaming, and realize that the heart I had in my foam the previous day was no coincidence.

            Gebre is another Ethiopian gem in our daily Sagure life. About our fathers’ age, he is well-equipped for teaching us Tigrigna, the Cookie Monster language, with his smoker’s cough and giddy attitude. Gebre likes English clichés and slang, so I find it appropriate to keep a Gebre page in my Tigrigna notebook, on which I jot down some of the things he says:

            “So…you enjoy very much imagining things that do not exist?”—Gebre, on Joel’s re-telling of a dream

            “You have to dance the dance of the prevalent times”—Gebre’s translation of “When in Rome…”

            “It is very hotty”—Gebre, on the weather

            And I realize I’ve been neglecting to mention Zinash. She is a girl who sometimes fills her jerry can with water from our family’s compound faucet. A ninth grade student, brimming with fresh English, Zinash took to us quickly. She, like many others, asked me to teach her English. “Okay, tomorrow,” I said. “Come tomorrow at one, and I will teach you.” I prepared a lesson on colors/fruits, and she didn’t show.

            But what’s significant about Zinash is our abruptly short relationship. Upon returning to Sagure from our site visit to Adwa a few weeks back, she welcomed me in our compound with a note.

            “It’s a poem,” she said. And just to emphasize again our family/our community/any Ethiopian’s confusion at my and Daniel’s name similarity, the poem is addressed in the margins like so: Welcome Back to Dalio, or Other Name. Thankfully, this is just the beginning. The lengthy poem goes on to tell me things like, “Let not the grave touch you or the earth eats you I am ill tired and I like a remedy.” I do believe that the line, “your two beasts are saints and martyrs” was intended to be “your two breasts....” A bit disconcerting. But the Bible themes aren’t over. The last line of the poem? “I am like Uriah and you like David.” Well, awesome. My young friend in-country views me as the seducer and murderer of her spouse. Is this perhaps why she didn’t show up to our one-on-one English class? Maybe. After she had me read this poem aloud, she instructed me to write one for her. Which I did. And, siga adday (“I swear by the flesh of my mother,” in Tigrigna), it was a sweet, short poem. But since that day, our biggest fan Zinash has barely looked at or spoken to either of us. A mystery.

            But the coolest teenage girl in Sagure is, by a long shot, Timkat. As I write this, we’ve already left Sagure. Yesterday we said our goodbyes to our host families to head to Addis and then our new homes. I was a sloppy mess, crying all over our family’s cheeks, and Timkat’s devotion to us is perhaps the main reason. What a hard worker, what a sweet girl, and what a difficult situation. A few weeks into our stay in Sagure, I asked Timkat about her family. What’s so eerie is that, much like our use of Amharic, Timkat’s subject/verb agreement is almost always off—each time she means to say “I” or “my,” she instead says, “you.” So it is startling when she says to us, “You mother, konjo konjo (beautiful). You mother, two degrees. You mother dead. You father two degrees. You father dead. You baby dead. You brother dead.” And the more she uses her hands to explain, the wetter her eyes become. “You why? why? why?” She begins a mime to demonstrate what happened to her family; it takes about ten minutes for us to reach understanding. She demonstrates a person spraying something in the air; then she takes us outside our bedroom window to point in at the roach spray in our room; then she demonstrates pouring something into a glass. “You mother, dead.” 

           With our Amharic/English mixture, what we came to understand is: the “best” friend of Timkat’s father poisoned her mother in a drink, then shot both her father and baby brother. She would have been around eight at the time; it seems she survived because she was visiting family in Addis when it happened. Suddenly she has no family. She is forced, by circumstances, to live with her father’s sister, Selamawit, and family. From her story and gestures, we also gathered that Selam, our host mom, was (at least beforehand) friends with the murderer. Timkat then showed us beautiful photos of her young family and explained that the remainder of her photos of her family were burned and tossed down the shint bet, along with her mother’s computer and other possessions. For such reasons, Timkat not only suspects foul play and maliciousness (and towards herself), but she has to suspect these absurdities against the people she lives with, her own relations. Whether or not the understanding of an eight-year-old girl during a traumatic time was accurate, the reality is she believes herself to be waiting hand and foot on a woman (and her husband and unruly toddler) whom she believes is bad. What a miserable thing. And what an ache to watch for weeks after, as she tangibly sets aside her childhood for this family, for the four to six tasks she juggles at once, throughout each day, running and panting almost always for our sake. Maybe the best reason we no longer live in Sagure is not that we finally get to live on our own after 8 months of being others’ guests, but rather that Timkat may get an extra hour of sleeping in, since the ferenjis in her house no longer need an early breakfast.