Corresponding with Indiana Classrooms

Highlight: Ethiopian Names

Does it hurt to talk in your language?

Do you ever get to ride a camel in Ethiopia? We were debating on if we would ask that question.

Does your time run diffrent then ours? How?

I have some ideas of how you can celebrate Thanksgiving. If you take straw or grass you can make manicans of your family. You could also take that type of bread you eat with every meal (injera) and use it as a pie crust and use berrys instead of pumpkin to make a pie.

Wanna come over to my house and watch my dog, Diamond?

In response to our Peace Corps challenge:

Dear luttrulls,

I do not et wif my fegers. I can not stop wochin teve. I wil not woch clos wif my hans. I haf fod in my fijerader.

Dear luttrulls,

I will eat with my hands. Will I dance like a etheopean?...Yes! I play baseball! do you? we have Spring now! In etheopea what tempetsher is it?

We sent an Ethiopian birr note, and pointed out the unknown shepherd boy on its front. We asked, “Who would you put on the dollar?”:

I no who can be on The Doller. you can. you are a good prsen. you can be on The doller. you are good at doinG good. But Juseu spos to be on. you are nice. your niceer Then a pig. you are nice. I Love your wlord. can we go To your wlord.

Writing letters to classes in America has been one of our greatest delights these past two years. Our sister Lindsay and our friends Amy and Kyle have graciously participated in Peace Corps’ World Wise Schools program. Their Kindergarten, first grade, and fourth grade classes have been exchanging letters (or drawings) with us.

Our aim, and the aim of this program, is to help open young Americans’ minds to different cultures and lifestyles around the world. We began our correspondence with the fourth graders this year by explaining:

Every country has its own unique culture. By the end of this year, you will be experts on Ethiopian culture—and hopefully will have learned about your own culture in Midwest America at the same time. For example, it is American culture to shake someone’s right hand when you meet him for the first time. But when you meet a new person in Ethiopia, you support your right elbow with your left hand while shaking with the right. If he is a friend, you will also bump your right shoulders together when shaking hands. And the longer it has been since you’ve seen him, or the closer friends that you are, you bump your shoulders lots of times. (Can you try this?)

In the meantime, we’re learning from them too.

More than once we’ve been bogged down with the difficulties and frustrations that come from living abroad; yet when we sit down that same day to write answers to their curious questions, we get our refueling. When we explain coffee ceremonies, or the strange calendar, or how the clock works here, or the holiday Meskel—we’re reminded of all the enjoyable, unique aspects of our Ethiopian lives that we’ll have trouble parting with.

These students help keep the culture fresh for us.

There are other perks—like the paper Christmas tree we have hanging in our living room this month. The fourth graders each made us an ornament with one large Christmas tree, because they didn’t want us to go without one. The package took six months to get to us, so we’re having Christmas in May.

Letter 6: January 1, 2014

Dear Mrs. Luttrull’s class,

            Happy New Year! We hope you had a fun and restful holiday. As you already know, Ethiopians do not share our New Year, but celebrate on the first of their own calendar, in September. Their calendar isn’t their only form of time-keeping that’s different from ours and the rest of the world. Their clock is different too!

            Because the sun rises at 6 AM, that’s when Ethiopians start their clock; and they call 6:00, 12:00. So 7 AM is 1:00, 8 AM is 2:00, and so on. It’s very strange to look at a public clock at noon here and the clock reads 6:00. This took Danielle awhile to get used to, but then Daniel explained to her that it’s only a math problem. All we have to do is add or subtract 6 hours to whatever time it is on our watch to know what time it is in Ethiopian time, or Habesha time. As Americans, we call ourselves Americans. Ethiopians call themselves Habesha; so the Ethiopian calendar is called the Habesha calendar, and Ethiopian time is called Habesha time. Now you’ve learned a new and interesting word!

            Telling time here is doubly difficult for the two of us because when someone asks us what time it is in Tigrigna, we have to do two things after looking at our watch. First, we have to think what time it is in Habesha time, then we have to translate the number to Tigrigna. For example, if our neighbor Gebre Michael asks me, “Kinday saat iyu?”—What time is it?, and my watch says it’s 2PM, this is what I do. I add 6 and know it’s 8:00 Habesha time. Then I think of how to say eight in Tigrigna: shomenta. Isn’t that interesting?

            Gebre Michael’s name literally means, “Servant of Michael.” Every Habesha name has a literal meaning. Our friend Tirsit told us that because of this, some parents give their children names that are full sentences. For example, if a girl’s name is Abeba Mekele Haddush, this translates to, “Flower grows anew.” Can you imagine if your first name was Flower, your middle name Grows, and your last name New? They don’t give middle names here, though. You have a first name, and your last name is your father’s name. Many times people ask us, “What is your father’s name?” and what they mean is, “What is your last name?” So Daniel could say either, “Daniel James,” or “Daniel Luttrull.” So Gebre Michael’s daughter’s name is Luwam Gebre Michael. When she receives a diploma or certificate, though, she will need a third name, even though she has no middle name. So then she adds her paternal grandfather’s name at the end, making her full name Luwam Gebre Michael Mebratom.

            What would your name be if you lived in Ethiopia? Danielle’s would be Danielle Charles Charles and Daniel’s would be Daniel James James. As you can imagine, then, juniors aren’t common here. Fathers don’t name their sons after themselves because then their sons would have the same name twice, like Dawit Dawit. Another interesting part of this system is that husbands and wives and their children have different last names, since a husband and wife don’t share a father. Here is a list of some common Habesha names and their meanings. You can combine a name from the first column with one from the second to make a complete and proper name phrase.

            Haile: Power of                                     Selassie: the Trinity

            Mulu: Full of                                         Igzyaber: God

            Gebre: Servant of                                  Berhane: Light

            Wala: Son of                                         Gabriel/Michael

                                                                          Mariam: Mary

                                                                          Meskel: the Cross

                                                                          Heywot: Life

                                                                          Kidan: Saints

            We’re wishing you the best in 2014,

            Daniel and Danielle

Shortly after receiving this letter, Mrs. Luttrull’s class sent us letters with great questions like What is your favorite animal there, and why? (Danielle, hyena; Daniel, Gelada baboon). One group of her students signed with their Ethiopian names (first name, father’s name, grandfather’s name). Reading the Ethiopian versions of their names gave us the same sort of satisfaction as when we read this closing paragraph from one of her students two Thanksgivings ago:

I think that you can celebrate in these few ways. Number one you can have coffee and a fire. Number two you can make a cornucopia with injera stuffed with different foods. Number three you can eat doro watt around a table like a feast. If you like the ideas, you’ll really want a Thanksgiving!

A fourth grade Indiana girl using the word doro watt! Injera, too, is a part of her vocabulary now. She may even remember the Ethiopian coffee ceremony when watching her parents drink coffee on Saturday mornings.

To the two of us, who can’t imagine leaving coffee ceremonies or doro watt behind us forever—(so just wait and see how many kilos of berbere we can pack into one suitcase)—knowing that some Americans know about this culture alongside us, is important. Ethiopia is a part of us now. And we’re happy to be spreading the word, the curiosity.

A special thanks to Mrs. Luttrull’s class of 2012-2013: A generous, creative group of five students donated and shipped to us a box full of school supplies (story books, notebooks, fun pencils/pens/erasers, Post-it notes, colored paper, glue sticks), bouncy balls and small toys, new socks, toothbrushes, toothpaste and more! They came up with the idea on their own, and accomplished it. Without knowing it, they helped kick off my Reading Raffle rewards program at three school libraries in town, by providing me with the prizes. Just two weeks ago I held my monthly raffle at Adwa school; we had 67 books read in April! To date, 133 readers have participated in this program, and 229 books have been read.

Furthering the subject of our January letter, here are several more names you’d hear in our town. In bold are our favorites, in case we’re ever in the market for Ethiopian middle names:

Freweyni   Guesh   Makda   Tekaste   Adhanom   Mikias   Fikadu  Muuz   Kissanet   Mulugeta   Senayit   Kalkidan   Eyob   Binyam   Betelehem   Merhawit   Fisseha   Bereket   Kifle   Yordanos   Tesfay   Emebet   Nahom   Lisan   Dagnew   Haben   Fierdos   Birzaf   Tekle   Melat   Gidey   Mamit   Yebralem   Girma   Girmawit   Egzaharia   Winta   Luel   Leteberhan   Rahel   Gidena   Eden   Frezgi   Natnael   Tirhas   Maarg   Zayt   Milion   Roza   Seble   Lidya   Abel   Eyerusalem   Filimon   Bisirat   Tsega   Kibrom   Yisak   Efrem   Amanuel   Yarid   Saba   Tedros   Shewit   Kidey   Bilal   Seifu   Zenawi   Shishay   Negasi   Semrawit   Kasahun   Medhin   Lemlem  Robel   Weyni

And some more, whose meanings we know:

Netsanet (Independence)

Nigusay (My King)

Nigisti (Queen)  

Fyori (Flower)

Almaz (Silver)

Zinab (Rain)

Selamawit (Peaceful)

Alemsahay (Light of the World)

Mebrit (Light)

Tena (Health)

Haftom (Rich man)

Hagos (Happiness)

Ba’ab (From God)

Haddush (New)

Lela (Another)

Yegna!

Our sitemate Lauren and I had a Girls’ Club that met every Sunday in my living room. We hosted female-empowerment discussions, activities, and crafts, one of my favorites being our Describe Yourself! game, with Amharic translations:

Mahlet is productive, caring, determined, supportive, fearless, kind, courageous, successful, intelligent, helpful, trustworthy, knowledgeable, patient, honorable, and a leader.

(Second favorite lesson = listening to Aretha Franklin’s "Respect," and discussing the message. In fact, if you have this song on your itunes, go ahead and play it while you read on.)

Because of schedule conflicts, translation pressures, the far walking-distance the girls on the other side of town had to travel (and in the hot weather), our club gradually stopped meeting.

A few months later: Just when I thought I couldn’t feel more anguish as a woman, every Peace Corps Ethiopia volunteer was given a cute, free tote-bag filled with Yegna stickers, Yegna pamphlets, and a flashdrive chock-full of Yegna material.

Meet Yegna.

Mimi

Lemlem

Melat

Sara

Emuye

(“Yegna” means “Ours” in Amharic.)

What I’d call the Ethiopian but role-model version of the Spice Girls. As a 5^th grader, I knew Sporty Spice was my equivalent. I was a tomboy, prouder of my skills as a second baseman and clean-up batter than I was of my grades or fashion sense. I remember taking my Spice Girls CD-insert to the hairdresser’s, pointing to Sporty Spice, and asking for her exact haircut. Along with my Backstreet Boys mini-books (each page a miniature fact sheet of each band member’s birthday, favorite meal, middle name, and hometown), I had one for the Spice Girls as well. I kept these in my school desk, somewhere near my pencil case and hidden NanoPet. At Recess and lunch, my friends and I would quiz each other from all of our mini-books.

Girls can make anyone their role models. But Lemlem is far worthier of influencing young girls than, say, Baby Spice.

Lemlem is a village girl. She tends her sick mother, does all the household chores, helps herd the cattle, raise her two younger brothers, and attends school to boot. Her father will remove her from school if she can’t balance all her responsibilities perfectly. How will Lemlem handle the pressures of getting an education and also managing her household?

Here’s how we find out:

Yegna, a real Ethiopian girls’ band, is also a fictional radio drama, following the different lives, struggles, and decisions of these five strong, beautiful girls—in order to address the pressing issues of what it’s like to be a young girl growing up in Ethiopia. Each one has her own separate and relatable story. (Each drama is followed by a talk-show, discussing the episode.)

So Lauren and I started our Girls’ Club back up. Every Saturday morning at 11:30, 14 girls in our community (grades 6-10) come to my living room, and we eat popcorn and cookies and listen to these dramas in Amharic, afterward discussing what we learn from them in Tigrigna and English. Fixing our previous mistakes, this time we chose girls who live closer to my home (girls from my Soloda English Club and also my neighbors). Betty, a 10^th grader, helps us with translation.

We’re taking the negative energy that builds up within us each week, when we feel degraded or objectified, and we’re turning it in a positive direction. We’re reminding Milyon, Betty, Firktuna, Makda, Birkti, Merhawit, Luwam G. and Luwam T., Netsanet, Tsege, Tsege-Berhan, Tsegareda and Seble how strong and gobez (brilliant) they are, because they’re not told it enough. We’re hoping to help shift how girls are viewed, and how they view themselves, in our Ethiopian towns. (Lauren has a second Yegna program at the main high school in town, reaching a much larger audience of both male and female students.)

The rest of the world should follow in the footsteps of the creators of this band and program, GirlHub (a collaboration between Nike Foundation and the UK Department for International Development) and start giving our future female generations better role models. Fifteen years from now, I’d rather hand my daughter the CD-insert of Yegna than I would Katie Perry or Miley Cyrus. Here’s something in which America would benefit in following Ethiopia’s lead.

The Yegna radio program is an incredibly practical, attractive and creative way to combat gender-based violence and address issues like early/forced marriage, dropping out of school, and teen pregnancy in Ethiopia. This is doing something for Ethiopian girls.

Check out Yegna’s great music video for their song “Abet”—(which is the Amharic response when you’re summoned). Read the powerful English translation below the video.

But before you do, you should know that the following is a common sight in classrooms, meeting rooms, and language centers in big towns and small towns across Ethiopia:

A teenage girl is called on to present in front of the class. She stares at her feet, she stares at the wall, she makes no eye contact with anyone. She giggles, she closes her eyes. Her right hand alternates from covering her eyes to covering her mouth, while she stands in paralyzing fear and silence for up to three minutes. The air has been sucked out of the room, and you, back there in your seat, are nearly trembling for her.

We see this all the time. Ours is a town of 60,000—not a village—and we see this all the time. A paralyzing shyness that was once valued by the social norm. Having this scene in your mind is important, I think, when you hear Mimi sing, We have stood up! We have decided! See us—here—we have come! How might these words of confidence fall on the ears of the many teenage girls I just described? What sort of growth may come from such powerful seeds?

Thank you, Yegna. Thank you, GirlHub.

Go.bez.

Video of Abet.

English translation of Abet:

Lemlem: “Abet!” Say “Abet to me,” hear me—Abet—I have a message—Abet in this house!

Mimi: “Abet!” Say “Abet to me,” hear me—Abet—I have a message—Abet in this house!

Melat: “Abet!” Say “Abet to us,” hear us—Abet—We have a message—We have a message about us!

Melat and girls: Abet—Ezih bet! (Call and response: Hello! In this house!)

Lemlem:

She is as a sister and a mother

As a wife—we should not be silent or take her for granted.

While one woman holds three lives

With love, supporting each other

Working together with understanding

Let us be one and live in joy

Let’s not be separated. Adera!*

* Adera is a pleading and heavy word to “promise/take care”

Mimi and girls: Let’s not be separated. Adera!

Melat:

Oh—let’s go out—Yay!—with our heads high

Oh—let’s show them—Ah!—that we can!

Let’s show our talent, capacity, and our wisdom

Let the world be amazed—let’s come together

Let us live together in love

People, let’s not be separated. Adera!

Mimi and girls: Let’s not be separated. Adera!

Melat and girls: Abet—Ezih bet! (Call and response: Hello! In this house!)

Mimi:

Who you underestimate/look down upon will will one day

leave you naked

Advise him and wake him up and advise him

Let him respect me—let me respect him—Let’s not look down on each other

Whenever, wherever, love shall win! Wa!*

*Wa! is a warning.

feat. Haile Roots:

Why should I lose her and be sad and hurt

While she has been by my side, my support in this world?

I don’t want to see her down and depressed because

she can’t find someone to support her

While I could be there by her side to support her

I have passed her by so many times pretending like I can’t see her [her needs]

But now it’s enough—let me stand by her side

For the world is not complete without her

Why should I lose her and be sad and hurt

While she has been by my side, my support in this world?

Mimi:

We have stood up! We have decided! See us—here—we have come!

Melat:

We’ve had enough of the past! We are rising today!

Mimi:

We have been looked down upon in the past

People have underestimated, undermined us

What we have had to endure—we do not like

We have risen today, we have decided

We carry love, skill, and hope in our hands!

Abet—Ezih bet! (Call and response: Hello! In this house!)

Haile Roots:

Why should I lose her and be sad and hurt

While she has been by my side, my support in this world?

World Malaria Month!

I like routines and order. I like doing similar things, in a similar order every day.

Upon entering our kitchen for the first time in the morning, I fill the kettle with water for our tea, and I set the table with the following: plates, spoons, peanut butter, honey, bread, tea cups—and one Doxycycline pill beside my plate.

When I set the table for dinner, in addition to the salt and Mitmita (HOT Ethiopian spice) that I place in the table’s center, I put one Doxycycline pill beside my husband’s plate.

I have an “emergency pack” of Doxycycline in the back zipper portion of my purse, just in case we go to a restaurant for breakfast or dinner. I am quite anal-retentive about keeping this pouch stocked and re-filled at all times. When we went home to America for three weeks last summer, or to Germany last fall, I was still taking my pill every morning, and Daniel every evening, to keep it in our system.

This is how we help stomp Malaria out of our household. How do we remember to take our daily pill? By embracing routine. One time Daniel accidentally took two of the pills in a five-minute period (which led to a concerned call to the doctor). But we barely ever forget to take it.

Other ways we stomp Malaria out of our household:

- We sleep under a bed net every night (it hangs from four of our bedroom walls, closing our bed in like a beautiful princess canopy). Daniel may prefer to think of it as an intimidating military fort. However you think of it, this net is not only a physical barrier between us and nighttime critters, but it is also treated with insecticide to kill bugs that land on it.

- Our bathroom window is not fool-proof. While all our windows have screens (ironically, the screens were made from old bed nets, by the volunteers who lived here before us), there’s a large hole in our bathroom screen that duct tape won’t fix. Because the female Anopheles mosquito that carries Malaria from person to person, home to home, generally comes out from 10PM to 2AM at night, I shut the bathroom shutters as soon as dusk hits. The one or two times we’ve forgotten, and it was 9:30 before I shut them, I got nervous, like a child knowing the Boogie Man is on its way.

- If we go out at night, we wear long sleeves and pants, and wear bug spray.

How it Spreads

Did you know that Malaria is passed from person to person? The female Anopheles mosquito bites an infected person, and then promptly bites another person, giving him or her the parasite. So when a person sleeps under a bed net, she is not only protecting everyone sharing a room and house with her, but all of her nearest neighbors, and hence, her entire community. Likewise, every person who neglects to take precautions against Malaria is not only putting herself at risk—but her entire community as well.

We didn’t understand how dangerous, unnecessary (preventable), and deadly Malaria is, until we came to Africa.

There is a myth that “Malaria’s not so bad, if you’re used to it”—that people who grow up in regions where Malaria is prevalent, build an immunity strong enough to protect them.

This is a myth. Every year, over one million people are killed by Malaria. In 2009, it was estimated that one child dies every 45 seconds from Malaria. Today, one child dies every minute. But if all children slept under insecticide-treated bed nets, the number of children dying from Malaria could be decreased by half. In 2010, Malaria’s death toll was 1.2 million. According to The Africa Malaria Report, Malaria is the single greatest killer of children under five, and is a dangerous threat to pregnant women and their newborns.

When we visited Uganda, our friend in her 50s or 60s walked around her home in her mumu and an IV attached to her arm. She had a severe case of Malaria.

Last year, one of our own Peace Corps volunteers serving in Ghana died of severe Malaria.

It’s preventable. And yet it’s sobering to see how few people are attempting to prevent it in their own homes and lives. I remember seeing two bed nets (Wela’s and Mebrit’s), of all the many houses we’ve visited in our community in the past two years.

Odd idiosyncrasies surrounding the use of bed nets:

1. Most Ethiopians prefer conical bed nets to the boxy four-corner ones (like my princess canopy). They may opt not to hang a free four-corner bed net in their home, because it’s “not fashion.” It’s too large and too cumbersome for their tiny one-or-two-room house. (Thankfully, you can change a four-corner bed net into a conical shape. Ethiopian Pinterest, anyone?)
2. Folks like new things. Like my dad and I who never remove the protective transparent sticker from our cellphone faces (“It stays nicer, longer!”), some Ethiopians, when given a brand new bed net, are much more likely to use it if it has first been removed from its bag. But if you give it to them in its original packaging, the life-saving net may find its way on a shelf or under the bed, so it can be kept nice and new.

It's preventable, and people are dying. Education is key. Information is key. Malaria myths are nearly as prevalent as Malaria. Some Ethiopian towns where Malaria used to be rare, (because they’re at an altitude of above 2,000 meters), are now experiencing warmer rainy seasons that welcome the Anopheles mosquitos to migrate. Climate change at its worst. And yet those living in the towns still think they’re safe to sleep without nets and keep their windows open at night.

“Malaria” in Tigrigna is “Aso.” I find the pronunciation, and what it sounds like in English, appropriate. Malaria is the dangerous punk roaming our worldwide neighborhoods, and we keep inviting him in. It’s time we shut him out for good.

Check out Peace Corps’  Stomp Out Malaria Facebook  page for more information. See what Peace Corps volunteers are doing around the world to finally stomp this deadly, preventative disease completely out. 

After you do that, watch this short video.

Our Friend Hani

            Walking along the main road, I see a familiar face. A three-year-old face at knee-level. He’s dressed in a green smock, coming from Kindergarten, about to cross the main road. We stare at each other, trying to place each other. Anti? he says. You?

            Hani! I yell. Hani! Hani! I’m elated. I barely recognized him in his smock; I don’t think we had ever seen Hani with pants on. Hani is a three-year-old terror, who used to live near our home, on an adjacent road, and every time he saw us, he’d attack us. With laughter, with his hands. His game was to somehow, some way get into our compound unnoticed, to presumably play with us, to see the ferengi house. Our game was to out-run him and slide into the gate before he could squeeze in. After that, he’d cackle from the other side of the gate, calling out our names in as tantalizing a fashion as a three year old can muster.

            An unruly, adorable little boy. I once saw his naked legs chasing after me through the back entrance to our yard, and I ran from him, laughing, as his older brother, in turn, chased him. He made it to our doorstep and cried and cried when a neighbor carried him away, back to his own house. But we haven’t seen Hani in maybe 7 months. He just disappeared. And now, there he is, holding the hand of an older girl, about to cross the road. As I yell Hani, recognition lights up his face, and he runs to me, head thrown back to look up at me. Danayit! Danayit! He grabs my legs, laughing, hugging my knees. I steer him to the sidewalk so we don’t get hit by a bajaj, and we have a quick conversation, three year old and twenty six year old:

            Where have you been? Where is your house? It’s not on Adi Haki anymore. Where is it?

            (Hani points into the distance.)

            Many times Daniel and I say, Where is Hani? Where is he? I am so happy! Here you are!

            Do you have Daniel?

            Daniel is at home. He is fine. I will tell him I saw you, and he will be so happy.

            Okay. Bye, Danayit!

And he runs to chase the older girl, grinning ear to ear, giggling. I watched him until he disappeared behind the truck.

            I was happy, so very happy.

On Being Hated

As our end of service approaches, and we get nearer and nearer to home and questions and Ethiopian storytime, I think it’s an appropriate time for some gritty honesty, for my own sake. Lately I’ve limited myself to hints, but the problem has become all-encompassing, comparable to the sorts of sun-blocking storm clouds that hang over Mt. Soloda in our rainy season, and I know I should share before coming home—I guess so that, well, you believe me, and do so while it’s happening. So that you know it has never been hyperbole.

“I’ve never felt so disrespected in my life” is a line I know I’ve heard before, fielded and responded to before, in conversations with family and friends. Something happens at work, at the store, in a board meeting, and you can’t forget it. This isolated moment hangs there in your mind and your heart, for weeks, maybe months, and you try to set it loose to be forgotten and overcome.

I want you to know what it looks like to be a foreigner and a woman, to be a target for unceasing ostracism and contempt. To be a foreigner and a woman living in Ethiopia.

At least twice a week I go through a bout of misery. A deep hopelessness resulting in bitter anger. That statement—I’ve never felt so disrespected in my life—is not an isolated, once-in-a-blue-moon moment for us female volunteers. It has become our state of being. Every other day, at the very least, for the past 21 months, I have been sexually harassed. Men have licked their lips, kissed the air, stared at my breasts, invited me alone to their homes (we've been told that in Ethiopian culture, if a single man invites a woman alone to his home, it means the likes of Come sleep with me), asked about my sex life, professed their love for me, gawked at me for half hours like I’m a poster, described my features in inappropriate detail, called me sexy, etc. And I come home feeling like a used object on a broken shelf.

The male volunteers will never quite understand this. They support us dearly, and listen well—and they sometimes see it happen—but they’ll never fully feel it as their own. It will rarely ever be directed towards them. They’ll always be the supporters, not the ones needing the support and not wanting to ask for it.

What this means is: when, weekly, I vent and cry to Daniel about the particular sexual harassment I’ve been given that week, I end up feeling relieved in the moment—for having told him, and for how he soothes and encourages me, lifts me up—but gradually, gradually I end up feeling like an awful individual. I struggle with the questions: Am I an awful volunteer? Am I becoming a horrible person? Am I so full of hate—and how is he not? Am I so weak, so thin-skinned? Could I be exaggerating this somehow? Is it even a problem, or is it only in my head? Shouldn’t I be over it by now? Will I be like this when we go home, too?

I am an object of hate. I am ridiculed, I am blatantly desired. They see me as separate, as other and yet simultaneously, as theirs. They think I belong to them, that I exist for their entertainment and lust.

I only leave our home when I have to: school, church, market. It’s inside my house, within our stone-wall compound, that I feel like a person. Like a loved woman, not an abused one. Like I can be healthy and normal and free.

I’m legitimately afraid of who I’m becoming, of the gentle self I may have lost, of the thoughts that run through my head, of the comments I make about Ethiopia, about Ethiopians. I am angry. Most of the time I feel like a burning ball of hate. I feel unfairly wounded, and feel the need to fight back. I don’t feel the same loving person that I arrived. And I feel alone in this. Daniel and the rest of the male volunteers despise being called Money and You! White! It’s awful, the continuous psychological strain is exhausting, but it can’t quite ever reach the likes of Sex! or Pus*y!

My sweet friend was told by a stranger on the road: “I want to lick your…” Fill in the blank yourselves. (Southern Nations--SNNPR)

My good friend had a man on the road run up to her and grab her crotch, right in front of her husband. A police officer stood by on the road, playing with his phone, while her husband had to be the one to do the “punishing.” (Amhara)

Multiple friends have reported of men showing them pornography on buses, as a sort of sick invitation. One volunteer sat beside such a man on a bus, as he masturbated beside her and her visitor from the states. (Multiple regions)

Three of my friends often tell me how frequently they are grabbed and groped as they walk to work—their breasts, their buttocks—by men they pass by. (Amhara, Oromia, Tigray)

Enjoying a gracious meal with one of our favorite families, the Negas, our good evening took a turn when I received the first of what became a long string of texts that night from an unknown number. The sender described for me what the different parts of my body would taste like. (Tigray)

And this is no longer shocking to us. It’s commonplace. We expect it; this is what it is. It’s a part of our lives now. And all the while we give up so much to help our predators. To serve them and their country.

When I cry to Daniel, I often belittle my experience, to question my own psychology. I haven’t been grabbed once. The other girls have it so much worse than I do. Why am I so affected by this? Why can I not keep it out of my head? Why is it so so damaging? What's wrong with me?

A wise friend told me, “But we shouldn’t have to qualify it! Why are we telling ourselves that this isn’t that bad, that there are worse things? No one should have to go through this, any of it, ever, whatever the degree.”

It is always affecting us women. We walk to school, to market, anywhere, and we have our mantras prepared. We are muttering to ourselves what we’ll say, what we’ll do, when they target us—not if, no it’s never if, it’s when. So even when they’re not speaking to us, they’re winning. Even when they’re not speaking to me, I’m hating them.

Unless they’re my colleague or shopkeeper or trusted friend, I purposefully ignore men in the age group of 15 and 45. I ignore their hellos. When Daniel greets his students on the road, I usually continue walking, eyes focused ahead, indifferent scowl plastered on my face. It's grossly unfair: a very vocal minority have made me of wary of an entire group, filled with good men who could be making my time in Ethiopia richer, if I gave them the chance. Four hundred or so men, in the course of my 21 months here, who have exercised that power they think is their right to lord over me—a mere woman—have sullied the image of the other 30,000 men in my town. These 30,000 men have become untrustworthy until proven otherwise. It's generalizing at its worst, for the sake of my own safety.

How it changes us: We wear frumpy, unattractive clothing, and no makeup. We make eye contact with no one. We keep to our houses, our rooms. We avoid certain colleagues and schools whose principals make moves on us. We welcome no conversation from strangers on the road, because we know what the comments will quickly become 70% of the time. If we own headphones, we always wear them when out in public. We are losing our sweet, loving, and welcoming spirits. We have become hardened.

I say we, because I only just fully realized. I knew we were being sexually harassed, I knew it wasn’t only me, that it was happening to all 160 of us female volunteers living in Ethiopia; we can’t escape it. We learned this early. But what I didn’t know was that it was affecting all of us almost entirely the exact same way. That all this time, we were fully together in this—every single bit of this.

We just attended our annual All-Volunteer Conference in Addis Ababa. On the first day we had a session for the ladies, to discuss gender inequality in this country, to discuss how we’re treated, and how we can cope with it in healthy, non-destructive ways. When our session leader shared that “when my parents came to visit, they said, ‘Wow, honey, you’ve become quite mean,’” the relief that rose from my chest was unquantifiable. That’s me, I whispered. When one friend talked about having lost her ability to keep eye contact with people, to be friendly with strangers, the tears began to surface. That’s me, I whispered. When a volunteer talked about the “stink face” she wears everywhere in public—how shocked she was by it when her friend took a candid photo to show her later—I laughed knowingly. That’s me too. The entire session, as we all unloaded on each other for support, and shared and coped, all I could do was weep silently. I didn’t know how powerful, how important, solidarity and understanding could be. For the first time, I was looking into my fellow female volunteers’ faces and seeing my own reflection.

And then our male staff-member, there to support us, to hope along with us for some solution or answer, stood to encourage us, and he couldn’t finish his sentence. He cried alongside us, and we wondered that he could feel the weight of it too.

I thought I was less, I thought I was pathetic. I thought I was becoming as unchristian as I could possibly be, and that it was my own fault, that surely I could be handling this better, more maturely and compassionately. But, in fact, we’ve all been psychologically forced to the same dark and difficult place. The place in the corner of our minds where we must daily try to force the light back in, reminding ourselves that we are strong, good, beautiful women, and we are no one’s objects to possess. We are our own selves.

I suppose I want you to know the truth of it. That this is really really hard. That today, in Ethiopia, you have 160 strong women serving your country and world to help work towards peace and development and education and quality of life for all. That many days, maybe most days, we’re suffering through it. But we remain strong, and will defeat this. The western world is outnumbered in their earnest and successful efforts to keep men and women equal, and if this is all we ever see, this is all we’ll ever see. I wish you knew what it was like almost everywhere else.

In our All-Volunteer Survey, over half of our volunteers surveyed reported that they are sexually harassed at least a few times each week. A quarter of all the volunteers surveyed reported they are sexually harassed more than once each day. When these surveys were compared to those throughout the rest of Africa’s Peace Corps posts, Ethiopia ranked First in sexual harassment.

And yet we’re only getting a two-year glimpse—and though an awful one—just a two-year period of being treated as less, as worse, as not good enough, i.e. as “woman”. We’re told, “No—you can’t climb that mountain; you’re a woman,” as they laugh at us; we’re asked, “How can you be fat and single? No man will marry you,” as they laugh at us; we’re asked by male colleagues, “Would you like me to measure myself for you, so I can tell you my size?” as they grin at us; we’re asked, “Is your husband good in bed?” as they snicker at us—and the entire time we know in that bright corner of our minds that we are getting out of here in just a few months, in just another year, etc. We will escape these common horrors eventually—it’s a sacrificial sliver in our lifetimes—but the women around us, the women and young girls in our communities whom we come to love and adore and admire: they have to live with this. Indefinitely. And while we at least have the relief of complete awareness of our injustice and the indignation that follows, they will go on thinking it normal and acceptable and their own burden to carry—until someone will do something to change it.

To our families: I suppose maybe you’ve compared Daniel’s musings about Ethiopia with mine, the way I had been doing, and found me falling short. I’ve been afraid you think me weak and under-qualified for this job I committed to. That I’m weak-willed, less tolerant, and simply more dramatic than my husband. I’ve been afraid you think me prejudiced and bitter-hearted for no reason (for how can you possibly know what this is?). I’ve been afraid that maybe, around your dinner tables, you discuss how bad and inappropriate my attitude has become, how I blow things out of proportion, how inadequate I am for this job, how I haven’t lived up to the task I’ve been given. But what I want you to know, before we come home, is that I am brave. I am resilient. And after 630 so days of this, I am still here. I didn’t quit. And I suppose, somehow, I still actually want to be here to help them. I think that has to say something.

And perhaps, with the hate, love is there too.

This is undoubtedly “the toughest job I’ll ever love”. The toughest job, thing, two-year stretch, whatever you want to call it, that I will never experience again.

As I trudge through the murky recesses of a wounded and slowly-recovering spirit while the near-nightmare continues, I’m focusing on Love. Specifically, on Christ’s words in Matthew 5: 43-48.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

 A Christian for 15 or so years, I thought I knew what this meant, what Jesus meant when He said this. I thought “frenemies” counted in this category. Annoying people, know-it-alls, and the “least of these.” I thought they were who it was hard to love and who we had to love anyway. Let me suggest that maybe that is quite easy by comparison. I didn’t really know Hate until I joined Peace Corps. When I become most hopeless and full of rage and doubt, I remember that Christ knows exactly what it feels like to be an object of disgust. He didn’t have frenemies—he was “despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” (Isaiah 53: 3). The Son of God was trampled by hateful men, and yet He tells us to love those who hate us. To turn the other cheek. To respond not in hate, but with love. For if we love those who love us—should we be congratulated?

Before now, I’ve always prided myself on being an exceptionally nice person. Kind to everyone, always assuming the best of people. Then I came here and realized that for the past 25 years, people were being kind to me too. What credit was it to me? Yellen—there is none. Easy peasy.

So while I’ve certainly never been so disrespected in my entire life, and never will be again to this unyielding, heightened degree—neither have I been so humbled. So shocked into a deep understanding of my sinful humanity, Christ’s perfection, and the depth of His love for us. To, for the first time, understand what my Lord meant when He turned an age-old custom on its head and made it nearly impossible to fulfill—and entirely impossible to fulfill by our own human power. To, for the first time, know that I don’t know the first step to fulfilling this command. On my own, I am no different from the lowest of men: I know how to love those who treat me nicely; big, amazing deal.

So I thank God for His grace. He knows how to love those who hate us—He’s done it, and He did it well—and He won’t keep it a secret from us. If we ask Him to show us how that cheek-turning thing works, surely, surely, He will.

Upon Him was the chastisement that brought me peace, and with His wounds I am healed.

Footnotes

I’ve written this same “blog entry” three times in the past five months—and yet I never post it. I end by crying into my hands, angrier than when I started, and knowing I can’t possibly express or share what can barely be understood and only judged. Daniel and I have made a conscious decision to keep our posts as positive as possible, to sift out as much negativity (even if deserved) as possible. Because this is our fear: Crude catcalls linger in the memory more vividly than beautiful coffee ceremonies; inappropriate colleagues may be more memorable than our stories of our sweet Meron. We do love Ethiopia; we do love living in Ethiopia. And so we use our writing carefully, so that we don’t distort your image of this unique place when we’re in our worst and weariest moods. But I also believe that we can’t fully understand what it means to love a place, unless we know the whole of it—unless we know how difficult it can be to love that place. Somehow the value of the love increases. And the fact that I’ve tried and wanted to give you the full account of it at least three times—tells me that maybe, somehow, I should tell you. That maybe, somehow, you can benefit from it.

One of the main manifestations of Christ’s gracious love for me has been the one who listens to every account of this every day, with compassion and hurt and love, not knowing how to deal with it but trying as hard as he can, and who tells me that I am a good volunteer, that I am a good Christian, and I am a good woman. As I speak words of doubt, he counters them with words of encouragement. I’d have been on a plane home a year ago if it wasn’t for this daily and very crucial help from the worthiest and best of helpmates. He helps me to be the strongest of women. I think I’ll be forever inspired by my 150 or so role models who somehow withstand and overcome this, and stay here, without their own Daniel. We weren’t meant to bear such burdens. And yet somehow, we do.

The Return to the Pearl of Africa

Daniel's first sugar cane!

            Uganda, the second time around, was different from the first. Context is everything. In short, this February, Uganda seemed to us a bit like Paradise.

            Coming from the U.S. in 2008, when I would spend my spring semester of junior year (four months) at Uganda Christian University, I naively didn’t see Uganda as “the horn of plenty”—to quote Daniel, who too saw Uganda as Ethiopia’s world-wise, less awkward, and wealthier sibling. Coming to Uganda this time, from the other direction (just 2 hours south via plane), you can imagine, reaped very different results.

            From the plane: Look out the window—look how green! Oh my goodness, do you see those trees?

            From the market: (Awed silence, at the sight of passion fruit, jackfruit, Nile Perch, pork, eggplants, truck beds full of pineapples, and even those beautiful pink-white Italian beans that lose their jelly-bean color when you cook them.)

            From the car: This traffic is crazy! Does every single Ugandan own their own car? [nearly] And where are your horse carts, exactly?

            From the public taxi: 1, 2, 3…they only have 14 people in this 12-passenger van; and they’re strict about this number. Ethiopia has 22! And look, no one on each other’s laps.

            From the street, one week in: Not one person has asked us for money since we’ve been here, did you notice? (something that can, and usually does, happen by the hour when out and about in an Ethiopian town the size of Adwa)

            From the grocery store: Is this Meijer or Giant Eagle? Are those bagged, processed chickens? You mean you don’t have to kill them yourself? Flavored yogurt?! We’re not in the capital, so why is this store so huge? It’s bigger than our house—can you believe it?

            From everywhere else: (Jaw dangling from mild envy of Sharon, who lives here.) You just had a full conversation in English with that shopkeeper, and the random customer! In English. You talked about real things, and they understood you. They’re fluent. Absolutely fluent. Making friends must be so much easier. (Note: We can have fluent, deep, natural and theological conversations with my host sister—maybe even with that shopkeeper. Meanwhile in Ethiopia, I don’t have a single female friend my age, because their English is generally limited to: “Are you fine? I am fine. How do you find the weather condition of Adwa?” And they’re too shy to even say this, so instead, they cover their eyes.)

            More than once, I wondered what the Ugandans, who could not only eavesdrop but also understand our private quips (we’re not used to that, and had to be careful), were thinking of our exclamations. Look how beautiful this pit latrine is! It’s tiled! or DORITOS! Are you serious? Because the average American tourist, visiting for a week, would a). be disgusted by any sort of pit latrines, pristine or gross and b). care less about seeing Doritos. Doritos, shmitos. But we deprived travelers, used to a much less developed land, were nearly at the pearly gates. For the record: we had self-control enough to forego the Doritos, and buy more Ugandan treats.

            As proof of our integration into our Ethiopian lives: in both Germany and Uganda, we didn’t convert in our minds the Euro or Shillings to Dollars. We converted to Birr. Which, quite expensive by comparison, is probably the main reason I simply waved and winked at the Doritos, and didn’t put them in my basket. (Yes, the stores even had baskets.)

            And then there was our actual reason for the vacation: to visit family, my Mama Joyce Serukenya and sister Rebecca (Nanteza). Whether it was jumping off the bus at Kigunga stage, frantically trying to find Rebecca’s face, and walking then skipping to meet her when we spotted each other, or if it was walking into Mama’s compound, where she stood at the door adjusting the curtain, and hearing her before seeing her: eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!—regardless, my face’s plumbing failed, and I was a consistent mess for a few days. Even upon seeing my old classrooms, or the most recognizable building on campus, or the podium in the lecture hall where I once delivered a sermon to the student body. Silly brick buildings, and I was a running faucet.

            I saw Vincent too, one of my dearest Ugandan friends: known to us students as V-Money, or Vincenzo. He used to drive the twelve of us who lived with host families, everywhere. We traveled the corners of the country together—him our conductor—almost every other weekend. He taught me Luganda words and phrases as I jotted them down in my notebook in the front seat, and I told him about Taco Bell. Months after I left that year, he emailed me to tell me they were naming their son after me; they couldn’t call him Danielle, so Daniel would have to do. When I saw Vincent, I nearly knocked him over—with my hysterics, and his own surprise at this crazy alumna running/crying towards him.

            And hence, my reunions were embarrassing ones, wet ones. But entirely good all the same.

Daniel and Mama Joyce wielding her machete

Rebecca teaching us how to prepare matooke, the staple food

On our way to Mom's house for the first time

            The second, deeper level of the reunion was introducing these beloved people to Daniel. They all knew about him in 2008; they saw, or heard, of the progression of our relationship, around the kitchen table every night, or via long sisterly talks between bunk bed panels. One of the last things Mama Joyce told me when we said goodbye in the yard while Vincent packed my suitcases in the van, was “When you come back, bring Daniel and your children.” Rebecca had been referring to him as Big D since she knew of him, and the nickname has stuck. This was how she first greeted him.

            So, last month, hearing Mama introduce Daniel at church as “her new son,” hearing the listener (who was a distant relation) inform Daniel, then, That you must give me a chicken, or watching Rebecca teach Daniel how to make matooke—even seeing the three of them in the same room, seeing Daniel in this context, period—was surreal. I found myself staring, dazed, trying to take it all in. It was lovely and beautiful and every good thing you could possibly call it.

            I don’t have the discipline to be a journal-er (which is why I try to keep detailed blogs of our 800 days spent in Abyssinia). But in Uganda, like in Germany, I kept detailed journals—knowing I couldn’t possibly process all the beauty and emotions that week, but would have to return to it later. And not wanting to miss a single detail.

         

         If Germany was a sight-seeing, place-oriented, historical sort of trip, Uganda was a people-and-culture-based trip. We mainly stayed in the same area—around my Mukono town (which is far larger than I remember or ever gave it credit)—to soak up our time with loved ones. For me, it was less of experiencing new things, and more like coming home. More like hunting down the familiar to make sure Daniel saw or tasted it. More like Wow! They’ve paved this road; it looks so different!, and Watch! I can still find the post office! and Here’s where we’d sit to watch Spanish soap operas every week, and Try this fruit! It’s the first thing I researched when we were placed in Ethiopia: Dear Google, does Ethiopia have jackfruit?! (sadly, it doesn't), and Here’s where I sat when I read that particular letter of yours, and here’s where I ran and hid to think it over.

Jackfruit on the tree

Jackfruit (fene) cut up

Jackfruit ready to be eaten

The Rolex--scrambled eggs on chipati--another new food for Daniel

            It was moving to see all that had changed, and all that had not. I kept marveling over the short distance from Ethiopia to one of my favorite homes; two hours, and suddenly there we were, with them, after six years.

            Several times throughout the trip Mom would say, “I can’t believe we’re sitting here, having lunch with Danielle and Daniel. Who will believe us?” She made me promise I’d send pictures, so they’d have proof it really happened.

            It felt like time travel. All of it felt important, because it was.

Our first meal at Mom's; Daniel's first time eating matooke

So many memories in this house! This time, with Daniel

Back at church with Mom

            And then there was the stepping over the threshold into Sharon and Michael’s life. I still remember where we stood on our Indiana college campus when I first asked Sharon (whom I had fatefully met when I found out there was a girl in my dorm selling her Super Nintendo system for 30 dollars) if she wanted to study abroad with me in Uganda.

            Fast-forward three years to the actual semester abroad, and a few months in, when she was falling in love with a charming Ugandan. The last time Daniel and I saw Michael was at their wedding in Michigan five years ago. We’ve seen Sharon one other time since then, when she was visiting her family in America.

            But to enter their home of five years, where they’re now a family of four, with their son Emmanuel (Emma) and daughter Michelle, was also surreal, and yet so natural. There she was, living the dream she held onto in college—living overseas, doing good work for God—and they were happy. It was a mantra in my mind that week: five years, five years. I think of our two in Ethiopia, and imagine all that Sharon has given up, and yet with a content heart, for half a decade.

            To see their home, their road, their town, the shops they frequent, their church, their close friends, Sharon’s in-laws—to get a glimpse of their Ugandan lives, was beautiful. Sharon is becoming more a part of that culture every day; she even speaks to their son in the endearing Ugandan-English sing-song tones. She loves Uganda, and Uganda loves her; this much is evident.

The lovely Mbabazis!

Michelle was such a source of joy for us the entire trip. Never has a baby smiled so often or so fully!

            One of our favorite days was driving to Jinja with Sharon and her family, along with Michael’s sister Judith, to spend the day at Michael’s grandmother’s home. We got to meet the in-laws! What lovely, gracious people, and what a marvelous meal they prepared for us.

In Jinja with Michael's mom and grandma

Danielle sporting traditional Ugandan dress

            It’s official: we two Luttrulls have now been to both sources of the Nile River. The famed river that runs northward has two mouths: one (the Blue Nile) in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, and one (the White Nile) in Jinja, Uganda.

Blue Nile Falls in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia

White Nile in Jinja, Uganda (with Emma)

            Another noteworthy fact: Uganda is HOT. We were reminded of summers at home in the Midwest, where Humidity is King. In Adwa, we have a more comfortable dry heat, similar to our years in Texas (in other words, thank God). But in Uganda we were so sticky and sweaty and uncomfortably hot, that we often took two cold bucket baths a day to stay cool and refreshed.

            Somehow Ethiopia never left us. Check out this guy selling posters. This poster of an Ethiopian woman preparing the coffee ceremony is all over Ethiopia (we recognized her); but we never would’ve thought Uganda had her too! We rushed on this guy with bubbly excitement, rapidly telling him we were from Ethiopia. Daniel proceeded to read for him all the Amharic script on the paper. All the while the man looked at us like we were crazy (which, well, made us feel at home). I wonder if this is how we’ll forever greet anyone who looks like, or is dressed like, an Ethiopian when we return to the states. This poor guy probably didn’t even know the poster was Ethiopian.

            In short, we had a fulfilling, rich time. A spiritual time, enjoying once again the miracle of Ugandan hospitality and refreshing conversation. A much-needed and much-looked-forward-to visit with my African family. (And the English! Oh, the English! They even had newspapers and radio shows in English.)

            When we first tore open our Peace Corps Invitation packet (after dancing and shouting in our yard, while the neighbor’s dog barked at our screams), and read Ethiopia, one of the first things we did (after jumping in our car to speed to Daniel’s parents’ house) was check the map: How near to Uganda?

            Our week in Mukono, Uganda certainly helped make my 2-year service in Ethiopia more worthwhile. Perhaps our Serukenya reunion was the perfect trade-off for what could have instead been—and was almost—two years of gaining fluency in Spanish in South America. Thanks, Ethiopia.