On Staying

A few hours ago, a plane left from Addis Ababa. People packed into the cushioned seats and readied themselves for the seventeen-hour-long flight back to the United States. Someone on that plane sat down next to an empty seat. The seat was reserved for me, back in September. I was not there.

I was five hundred miles away, near my apartment in Harar. I was having a frustrating morning. No one wanted to a give a ride to a unaccompanied woman who had wet hair, no shaw, AND was wearing pants. Eventually though, I was squished into a minivan with about fifteen other people and watching the dust-colored mountains fly past the windows.

"Any Way You Bless Me" by Fred Hammond and "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" by WHAM! kept playing on my ipod and it made me smile. I've been here for three months but every now and then I get this rush of feeling accompanied by the thought "Holy crud! I'm in Ethi-frickin'-opia! I'm really here!" It made me smile at the strange faces of the other passengers who watched me closely, but not directly, as we rushed towards the town of Alemaya.

As we traveled, I could feel that staying is the right choice, at least for now. If I had left now, I would have always have wondered what would have happened if I had stayed. I miss home, sometimes a lot. But I still have a lot I want to do here, and I'm pretty excited to see what happens next. I hope following God's will and not missing too much of the lives of my friends and family. But hey, it's guava season and Ethiopian Christmas is in ten days. Hopefully, I'm going on a pilgrimage tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Merry Forenji Christmas!

So we didn't go to Dire Dawa or sing for the nuns. It turns out that December 24th is the day of one of Ethiopia's biggest holidays: Nations and People's Day. So there were no buses for my choir. Here's the thing though: Our concert still rocked.

First we sang on the steps of the Administration Building, right in the center of campus. A small crowd gathered, filming us. Then a guard told us we had to leave. We sang "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" as we quickly walked away. We kept singing as we moved. An old man behind us clapped in rhythm while a younger man held his hands over his ears.

We stopped at the steps of a building between the nearby village and the center of campus and started singing in earnest again. The pastoralists who live in huts in the tall grass and care for the campus sheep came to watch us. During the call and response songs a group of men called back phonetically at our choir in each turn, imitating us with big smiles on their faces. My favorite moment though, had to be when a group of finely dressed Oromic dancers walked behind us. They did their traditional dance to our rendition of "Jingle Bells", waving their spears in unison. Everybody had a good time.


On Christmas Eve, I drank mulled wine and danced at friend's house. The top part of the evening occurred when the men realized that they could mix the dance to "Thriller" with their own traditional dances. It was a sight I doubt I'll get to see again.

I had my Christmas feast at a professor friend's house. She's from Cornwall and an excellent cook so we had authentic Christmas pudding at the end, with Cornish cream brought directly from England on top. She invited a family from the village over and they had a blast.

Afterwards, I went to an Indian professors house where we sang carols and tried her deep-fried treats. Her eccentric artist of a husband appeared and played festive polka tunes on a harmonica.

The didn't get many tangible gifts from this holiday season, but I got a ridiculous amount of intangible ones. It was difficult being away from my family, but I'm glad I got to see the holiday here. Merry Christmas everybody. And a happy New Year.

Green Christmas

"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas." I sing while dancing around with Miriam, a tiny baby. She's still underweight and for some reason the staff insist on wrapping her in at least three thick layers of clothing and a blanket, but she smiles.

We went to Dire Dawa yesterday to purchase a Christmas Chicken only to find that the shops were totally out. We'll be having Nile Perch instead.

Back at my house, I improperly reheat the beans my cook/maid left for me and make an interesting soup. The internet is working. I start volunteering at a new office at the university tomorrow. Life is good.

I miss my family. It makes me sad that even as I swayed around the infant room today there was not one holiday decoration. In fact, I don't think I've seen ANY holiday celebrations. My grandmother very sweetly sent us Christmas presents via DHL so we learned what she had sent because of the mandatory paperwork.

It is different. But where else can I we sing for the order of Mother Teresa's on Christmas Eve or have everyone tell us "Happy Christmas" but mean January 6th? Still, it would be nice if one person said "merry".

Singing in a Foreign Land

Yip yip. Duuuu-op. Snarlyip! "If you lose your hand to this, I'll never forgive you!" I think to myself just before the hyena lunges forward and takes the strip of beef off the short stick I'm holding at about eye-level. Juice from the meat runs down my hand and worries me. I don't want the dogthings to get confused. I'm crouched on a tablecloth-like fabric next to the Christian Hyenaman of Harar. He pulls another piece of meat out of a gory wicker basket and holds it over my shoulder. Two full-grown hyenas lunge at it and ram into my collarbone. It's like being hit with two, heavy, hairy, sides of beef. Under their rough coats, the hyenas are solid muscle. Oddly, the don't smell nearly as much as I thought they would.

I stand and the animals circle around me, nonthreateningly. I watch the juvenile. He's even stranger looking than the others. His upper lip curls back and he "sings" constantly as the older ones inevitably fight their way to more of the food. He sounds almost like a baby shrilly cooing.

"This girl sing like that lady!" My friend Bethlehem says to the men laying in her living room. "Sing that lady!" Bethlehem says so I sing a few bars of a very popular, considered "new" here, Celine Dion song that she dared me to learn. I receive a spattering applause and two offers of chat. We drink strong coffee. Then one of the men that I thought had dozed off turns towards us and asks, "Sing again maybe?" and I get Bethlehem to sing an Oromo song instead. We sit there in the incense-filled air and clap along.

"We want to sing out there but we don't want to." One of my "unofficial choir" members says. I ask for a show of hands and everyone agrees. There are about twenty of us. Most of the choir consists of young women who have never done any kind of performance in public. In fact, it's probably pretty fair to say that many of the people in front of me have been given that old "seen not heard" line pretty effectively throughout their lives.

An idea, perhaps the Spirit's, comes to me and I smile. "Well I'm On My Way!" I sing. It is the first line of a call and response song that I taught them. They sing the line back with gusto. "Off to Canaan Land!" I sing back, moving towards the door. Soon we are marching towards the center of campus. People join in just to see what we are doing. We sing carols in front of the campus fountain. I direct them with a pen I had in my pocket.

A policeman comes and stands behind us, just watching. They keep singing. Class is dismissed and hundreds of people walk by. They keep singing. A whistle blows. And we stop along with everyone else while the flags are lowered. A whistle blows again and motion resumes. I realize that it is twilight. They still want to sing. I feel so proud of them, it's ridiculous. I can't wait to take them to sing for the nuns and patients in Dire Dawa on the 24th.

Children in Batti and the orphanage know my name now and they know it because I sing. I sing to shut them up when they keep asking for money. I sing with them because I have nothing else to do. When I hear them call "ee-i-ee-i-oh" from "Old McDonald Had a Zoo" ("farm" didn't really work here) to each other I hope that maybe I even managed to teach them an English word or two. Sometimes they beg for song now instead of candy or birr. It is an odd sort of begging, but I don't mind it. I'm just glad I got a chance to be part of all of the music. It's nice and it's maybe even something to write a blog entry about.

Beautiful Heartbreaks

Warning: This one's a little depressing.

"Yeah!" the child cheers as she knocks the spoon away for maybe the thirtieth time. "Yeah!" I sigh and gather more corn mush on the spoon. "Yeah!" Knock. Splat.

I am sitting in a plastic chair in Mother Teresa's again. I'm attempting to feed the disabled child I have been calling Celine. I call her this because she loves to sing. She also has a much better aim then I predicted. An attendant comes by and tells me that Celine will only allow herself to be fed by a person of her choosing. Clearly, I wasn't it for today. "Yeah!" yells Celine. Splat.

I'm reassigned to another child with special needs. He likes my feeding him a bit too much. He puts his feet in my face and bites the spoon with his oversized jaw. By the time we're done, the floor and my shoes have also gotten a fair share of the meal, but the kid is happy and fed.

Meanwhile, my professor friend is having no difficulties. The child she is feeding occasionally shouts at her angerly, but then gets back to the task at hand. It was an honnor to be able to show a friend of mine around this place. She told me it made her feel humble to be healthy and whole-minded. It's true. I still think that this facility is one of the saddest, but most beautiful, places I have ever volunteered.

I started volunteering at a new place this weekend, too. Abenezer state orphanage was started by a Candadian (also named Elizabeth)and is only about a mile from my home. The majority of the children who liver there were abandonned. All have legally been declared "orphans of the state". Adoptions are rare and only come from international sources.

There is one child there, Daniel, who is probably only two or three weeks old. When I pick him up I feel like I am holding the world's most delicate flower. It's like holding baby bird, he's so small and fragile. The attendent who speaks English told me that they named the boy Daniel because he was left out for the hyenas, but survived. I never wanted to let him go.

Afterwards, I was introduced to the older children. They all stood at attention waiting for me to shake their hands. "Hello, my name is ___________. It is very nice to meet you." They all did this well except for one smiley four-year-old who kept running around me yelling "Mommy! Mommy!" and laughing.

I spent a few minutes with a woman who has leporacy the other day. She was begging in the market. She seemed incredibly happy there in a sunny patch near a patato seller and another woman seeling bark for incense.

How these places can be both so beautiful and so sad is a mystery to me. I never know what will happen next, or what exactly I'm supposed to be doing, but I know it is a blessing to be able to meet the nuns, children, and just everyday people of this place. I'm glad I got to be here.

Things Fall Into Place, Maybe

"Hey lady, buy my potatoes!" I look at the woman shouting at me. She's half asleep under a parasol. Her brightly colored dress and hijab stand out like flower petals against the orange-colored sand. I tell her "another day" in Amharic and she cackles.

Meanwhile two little girls run by kicking a round object that may have been a soccer ball at some point in time. "Chineeese! Chineeese! You from China!" They yell at me in English. It's probably what they would yell at any foreigner. Then they disappear among the tin and mud houses along the street.

I'm only a mile from my apartment, but I'd never know it if I hadn't just walked here. That's one of the things I like about the city of Harar, it can rapidly change and feel like many places (and times) at once.

Life in Harar is challenging, but I like it. I have to buy vegetables almost daily in a market that has been running for hundreds of years. Every time I go, I feel like I have just dived into a pool of people whose lives are very different from my own. It's loud, colorful, easy to get lost in, fascinating. I have walked through filthy alleyways where chickens and goats run in front of my feet and old women sell tons of beans in burlap sacks. I got lost in the part of the "plastics market" where the shacks are so close together there is very little light. There is a market that stretches for at least a half mile where it seems like everyone just sells bug-infested used clothing.

If I take the early morning and evening buses, the forty minute commute to and from my work is uneventful. I stare out the windows and watch the villages, camels, and events of other people's lives go by.

If I take the "line taxi" to or from work, God knows what will happen. I have been blessed, cursed out, proposed to, spat upon, propositioned, made fun of, made friends with, offered drugs, and been begged from on line taxis.

The first time I was in a "mosque shakedown" (no offense intended) I was riding next to a window that does not close all the way and a large man rushed my car door yelling "Allu Akbar forengi! Allu Akbar!" He friends yelled the same thing and started beating their hands on the metal of the old 1960-something model car. It was all I could do not to yell back. Now I know that this is how they collect money for the multiple mosques that are being built in the Jugol area. If everyone gives them a birr or two, the men start blessing everyone in the car or singing. This procedure has come to seem almost normal.

What I actually do at work is still in question. I'm still not officially working yet and I'm beginning to wonder if I will sign a contract with the university. It takes three months to get out of a contract and I don't know if I want to stay that long in a place that doesn't really have a role for me, at least not yet. I'm planning on traveling some too. And I'm still slated to volunteer at an orphanage in Dire Dawa. At the moment, I'm keeping my options open.

I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next. I am happy to have a steady place to cook, eat, and sleep. There's still a lot of downtime, but I still feel like I'm having an adventure. And now I need to get back to a place to stay before the hyenas come out and play.

Perpetual Adoration at Mother Theresa's

The newest member on my personal list of heroes (and heroines) asks my father and I to attend her convent's chapel of Perpetual Adoration for an hour. After a month of very limited church it feels so nice to just sit in a chapel and pray. We pray for the time, until a new shift of nuns comes in to replace the sari-wearing nun kneeling in front of us.

During prayer, I hear the sounds of the nearby alley. I hear families talking. Children laugh and the goats and donkeys make their sounds, but it seems quiet here somehow. In front of us, a starved looking Jesus hangs on a crucifix with the words "I thirst". He looks far more like the typical resident here then my father or I do.

The lead sister returned and asked if I could play with the children. They are having physical therapy today, but she needs someone to watch the rest of a specific group. They need to be constantly monitored.

On the way to children, a mute pregnant woman that I recalled from last time found us and gestured that she wanted to show us her other baby. I remembered her older child from my previous visit. The toddler whose crib she lead us to was not her baby. She proudly showed us this and three other sleeping children. "They are mine!" She gestured. "I love them."

"These are not your children." Said the lead nun. "But I am sure that you do love them."

The pregnant woman beamed and then wished us adieu. She had just wanted to show off the children.

Laughing, the lead sister took me to a poorly-lit room with seven children with profound developmental disabilities. They sat in plastic chairs and strollers, often tied into place with a white band of fabric under their arms. One child, who appeared to have Downs Syndrome as well as other difficulties, shrieked rhythmically and banged on his chair. The lead sister went over and started banging the rhythm with him and turning it into a song. The boy calmed down. "He's a great drummer." She said, "And look at this girl's smile!" The girl she led me to had cerebral palsy, mental retardation, and a great laugh.

"Their mothers leave these children at our gate." The nun said. "We raise them from infants. They are the true children of God. Comfort them for an hour. Be Christ to them. Come back any time you want to. God bless." and then she left me.

Immediately, a small, drooling child slipped out of his cloth band and nearly fell out of his stroller. I caught him, dried him, and retied him into place. He "slipped" again, to the same cramped and nearly out of stroller position, about every seven minutes while I was there.

The laughing girl spoke gibberish to me. I realized at one point that she was spoke in the regular lilts of iambic pentameter. "You're creating poetry for God." I said, and she laughed at life.

Every now and then one of the children would start shrieking or crying and I would go over and rub their heads, hold their hands, sing songs. When nothing else was happening, I would circle them and wave off the ever-present waves of flies.

Mentally "normal" children soon came by to listen to me sing and prattle to the kids in the dim room. We practiced English greetings. They kissed my hands.

There were cribs in the corner and a baby awoke and stood in one of them. I picked him up and walked with him while I helped the other children. When one of the attendants came by I asked who was supposed to take care of the little one. "You." She said. "He happy when you carry. You stay him." So I carried the baby too.

By the time the hour was up, I was tired. It was worth it though.

Later, we went shopping and got delicacies like butter, cheese, bread that isn't flat, and fruit juice. Beggars on the way back told me that they were hungry. I handed out small bills to them. I just couldn't walk around with a bag of fancy food while they asked for help. I didn't give them any of the food, and I'll probably (guiltily) ignore them next time, but hopefully I helped a little today.

When I gave an old, old woman one of the bills she pointed to Heaven and smiled. There was an infant tied to her back. I wondered what her story was.

On the way back to campus and my home here, I thought about the children at the hospital and the nuns who constantly pray and watch over them; how all of us are true children of God. All of us are perpetually seen and adored.

What a world. I'm glad I got to see this part of it.

Adventures in African Health Care

Disclaimer: Okay, so I'm recording this here because I'm trying to keep this blog at least somewhat accurate in recalling my time here and this was a somewhat important event. That being said, I got sick. So if you don't want to hear about it, go watch this clip of a kitten fighting a watermelon. Awww, so cute!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vmoZEaN_-o&feature=feedrec_grec_index

So yeah, I got food severe poisoning. I know what caused it. It set in over the course of about three hours. At five on Halloween, I'm making jokes about not having brought a decent costume. At eight I was ill. I declared myself unable to stay conscious and breathe properly at about eleven.

I paged my father, who knows people in the emergency clinic. He came to get me to take me to the facility only to find that I was having difficulty walking. We managed to get to the clinic and wake up a guard. They got me settled on the one bed that they have in the emergency room while a health officer showed up. The officer was one of the more exotic looking people I have met here. He was tall, had tribal scaring, and wore what looked like a tablecloth around his head. He was also kind, competent, and very good at managing a complex situation.

The officer prescribed a huge IV, a few shots in the IV connector thing of something polysyllabic, and glucose. My father left with an interpreter to go to the pharmacy for the supplies since there was no medicine in the health center. They woke up the pharmacist who sleeps there and came back with the materials very quickly. The IV didn't hurt, but felt very chilly.

I was very cold so a blanket was found for me. The blanket had fleas, but I didn't care. Everything else was very sanitary. I started to feel better after about fifteen minutes. I went home about two hours later.

I was completely dehydrated and still very actively ill when I went to the clinic. I don't like to think about what would have happened if such a good system wasn't in place. I am extremely thankful for all of the people who assisted me.

My health is almost back to normal now, although I will have to make some pretty important decision regarding my diet, at least in the immediate future. I know what made me sick ( a special "holiday treat" from the staff here) so at least I can avoid that. It blows my mind that the price of the medicine used to re-route what my body was doing and rehydrate it to a working level cost a total of US$5. What an adventure! I hope I never, ever, do it again.

Irony Tastes Like Frustration Flavored Candy

Six months ago I was telling immigrants that they needed to get worker's permits to legally work in the United States. Now I have to apply for a worker's permit to legally work in Ethiopia. I feel like this calls for some Alantis Morissette.

(and yeah, I realize that 90% of the situations in this song do not actually qualify as "ironic", but that's ironic in itself, don'tcha think?)




UPDATE: Barring some completely unforeseen event, the Ethiopian government has granted me a "green card" that is good for the next ten months. Thanks Ethiopia!

Mother Teresa's Home

It was one of those things that couldn't have been planned. Dad and I were in Dire Dawa, a hard-times desert city near the Somalian border where we frequently have work.

We went to mass, but Dad couldn't enter the church because of all of the incense and I couldn't properly wrap my hair for worship. So we stood outside and listened to the beautiful singing and chanting. I stared into the darkened sanctuary and saw that Mary had been wrapped in white cloth too.

We left when the people left. On the way out, we passed two very short nuns. We asked them were they worked and they said "Mother Teresa's with our 500 patients". We couldn't imagine a 500 patient facility within walking distance, but then nuns assured us that it was there. We should come visit some time. So we did, about three hours later.

By this point, we had picked up a family friend, I'll call him Ali, who is a very devout Muslim. He had been to the compound before and helped direct our driver there. "But please be careful." He told us "There are mad people there."

We arrived near the compound and the driver said he wasn't going farther, so we got out and walked to the big, steel doors that said "Mother Teresa's No Photographs of Video Filming." A guard opened the doors and then closed them behind us. We were standing in a sunny courtyard. A few people, obviously mentally-ill, wandered around talking to themselves or shaking. A couple of people wandered towards us. The guard went to find the nuns while we talked to the men.

I remember one boy, they don't do birthdays here so I can't tell you his age, but I'd guess about sixteen, who was very friendly. He would say something to use and then his gaze would wander off and he would stare at the air around us like it was suddenly full of dancing lights, a big smile on his face. Then, a moment later, he would be pleasantly surprised to see us there, still speaking with him.

"What do the nuns do?" Ask Ali
"They clothe me, they feed me, they take care of me." The boy said slowly. And then he smiled at the sky.

The nuns arrived, led by a European nun who I think was the convent leader. She talked about the compound as a hospital for the cases no one else would take. They come from all over the country. They come from off the streets.

She told Ali that they were looking for a health officer, Ali's field, and he immediately said he would help find someone for them. The head nun assigned us a guide, a large man in scrubs, who lead us from room to room.

Walking by the open door rooms, It was immediately clear that all of the patients here were men, that they were sorted by age and illness, and that everyone was clean and given their own bed. Different categories wore different pajamas. We were lead almost immediately into a room where the men where wearing red pajamas. "This is our
room for any type of multiple drug resistant TB" said our guide and mentally I was screaming "Eeeeek! Don't breathe!" but I nodded and stood next to a few of the patients. We also saw the Type 1 and Type 2 TB rooms and then I discretely used enough hand sanitizer to smell like alcohol all day.

We were shown the area where the violently mentally ill are kept. One ill man attempted to shake my hand and the guard very roughly shoved him away.

We went to the the HIV room and sat with the people there for a while. We went to a room full of old men where they all reached out their hands to us and we went from bed to bed, "Hello, how are you? Are you peaceful? Thank you. I am peaceful." as is the Ethiopian way, shaking warm fingers that felt like sinewed twigs.

I asked to see where the women where housed. The guard explained that normally he did not show this part of the compound, but since I was female, he would. He took Ali, Dad, and myself across the road to another compound. Here we first found a massive kitchen filled with gas-powered injera cookers and USAID grain bags. Then we saw the smaller facilities for the women. These were not quite as nice as the men's quarters, but they weren't terrible. Two male guards talked near the gate.

Again, we went through a jandice wards (geriatric and regular) and TB wards. We were shown the location for mental ill women but were not taken there. We glimpsed the ward for women who are mentally ill, TB positive, AND pregnant simultaneously. I closed my eyes for a second of prayer.

"And of course" Our guide said with a shrug, "We have children."

They did have children. Physically disabled and mentally ill children lay in large cribs. But the kids that got to me the most were the, for lack of a better term, "normal" children. These kids were children of the female patients. They didn't have enough clothing. There were no educational activities for them. They seemed bored out of their minds and I don't blame them. But it was better than being a street orphan.

On the way back, we walked through another geriatric ward. An incredibly thin woman grabbed my hand with a startling amount of strength and said something to me earnestly. All I understood was "thank you".

We were shown a garden before we left. It was a new project. It had a professional gardener who had done his job well and now the desert was blooming with vegetables and fruit trees. I walked through the garden and thought about the women and there children. I remember how many of the patients were washing clothing, or talking to each other, often without words. I thought about the old, old woman who had grabbed my hand. This place was hardly a ghetto, but "I Never Saw Another Butterfly" was playing in my head.

"Is this not a beautiful plac?" Said our guide, breathing in the garden air.
"When we die." Said Ali "God will ask us 'What did you do with my blessed ones, the ones I sent you to care for?' He will mean people like this. I will come back if only for that."

I know I'll go back to volunteer too. It is a beautiful place. There's so much sunlight and air there, among the dying people. The children were so happy to see us that I was afraid one child would have a seizure she was laughing and cheering so hard. Just sitting next to people made a difference. The nuns say they look forward to my going back. So do I.


If I Never Saw Another Butterfly
Attr. Celeste Raspanti

So richly, brightly, dazzlingly yellow.
Perhaps, if the sun’s tears
Could sing against a white stone…
Such a yellow is carried lightly
way up high.
It went away.
I’m sure, because it looked to kiss
The world goodbye.

For seven weeks I’ve lived in here,
Pent up inside this ghetto.
But I have found my people here,
The dandelions care for me,
And the white chestnut branches in the yard.
Only I never saw another butterfly.

That was the last one.
Butterflies don’t live in here,
In the ghetto.

Unique Solutions from a Unique Place

Disclaimer: These are not meant to be cruel, ethnocentric, etc. They are simply actual situations I've seen here and find interesting. Enjoy

PROBLEM: You lost the key to a lock.

SOLUTION: Try every key you own on the lock, even the ones bigger than the lock itself. Sigh when none of them work. Physically locate the maintenance person. He'll be an older man in a greasy blue coverall. He'll have a hammer in his shirt pocket and prefer to speak a tribal language you don't speak. Have the guy hit the lock with the hammer multiple times. Cheer when the lock disappears, then forget about said lock. Maintenance guy will then hammer a nail about five centimeters above the door at an angle. Turn this nail to the left to close the door, to the right to open. Hope that any potential thieves are really short.

PROBLEM: You, the campus cooks,have left over vegetables.

SOLUTION: This happens almost every day, so do what you do every time. Mix this vegetable matter, whatever it is, with white rice. Serve it cold as a salad for lunch. Consider how you can use left-over salad in supper's salad by adding more vegetables. Serve whatever left as part of an omlette for breakfast. By the way, when those white women don't show up for dinner, it's because they have the runs. Don't worry, it's probably not your fault.

PROBLEM: There's an intoxicated goat pissing on that stash you were planning to sell here.

SOLUTION: Yeah, common problem. Stupid goats. Growing and selling chat (drug grown in eastern Africa. The leaves are slowly chewed. Not considered illegal.) is hard work. Especially when you'd rather, you know, sit around chewing chat.
Make kicking gestures at the goat and yell until he leaves. If he's had a lot of beer and chat today, this may take some effort. Once the goat leaves, gather your chat in the burlap cloth you were sitting on. Hail a line taxi (minibus). Throw the chat on top of the line taxi rather insecurely and ride to the next town with a decent market. Look dramatically out the window every time the driver takes a sharp turn. Sigh when you see loose strands of chat go flying.

PROBLEM: You've managed to get a very hungry lion into a very small cage.

SOLUTION: Contact the agricultural college. Get them to sell you bull heads, the ones with the really big horns that would give Spanish people nightmares. Fling this at the lion. Train the lion to trust you. Learn to pet the lion and have it lick your face. Keep flinging bull heads. Laugh when that foreigner refuses to pet the lion, but congratulates you on keeping all of your fingers. By the way, that foreigner, she blames you for the reason she's vegetarian again.

PROBLEM: You want to be friends with foreigners.

SOLUTION: Yell "Forenji, Forenji!" at them and chase them. That always seems to get some sort of reaction. Failing that, grab their elbow briefly and say "You, you, you!" with a meaningful look in your eye. The common response to this seems to be "Oh, um, hello!".

First Sunday at Haramaya

I got lost this morning. There is nothing surprising in that statement. Haramaya University is a big campus and I simply turned left when I should have turned right. Still, I'm glad I made my mistake.


I wound up among the student dorms. I found the tucked away place where undergraduates pump water out of the ground and into cement sinks where they beat their colorful robes until the dust is worked out. I found huts made out of sticks and undergowth, smoking with the smells of cooking coffee, injera and rice.



Lunch was lovely. Dad and I joined two of the VSO volunteers in their apartment home for pot roast, rice, roasted potatoes, and plum wine. Despite the fact that there was no running water in the house, everything was clean, well-prepared, and delicious.

After lunch, I walked the half-mile road to the gate where the University ends and the town of Bati begins. My tutor was waiting there with her sister. I had walked through the immediately adjacent town of Bati before, but I had stuck to the main roads. My tutor quickly led me off them.

We passed really old walled streets where boys wrestled and little girls cheered them on. Herds of donkeys twitched their ears as we passed. People yelled greetings in at least three languages from their doorways. Everywhere we passed, the word "forenji" (foreigner)was muttered, whispered, shouted, or called.

Finally, we were at a bright blue house with a pile of shoes and broken stone in front of it. There was some confusion here(Forenjis never seem to take off their shoes, but clearly cleanliness called for it.) as I took of my Tevas. The inside of the room was so smoky that it stung my eyes. An old woman, two middle aged women, a teenager, and two todlers all stared at me as I entered the one-bedroom house. There was no water, but music videos were playing in the corner.

I was sat, leaning, against cushions in the front of the room, clearly the guest of honor. I was presented with a soda, a bottle of water, and cookies. As we spoke, I wrote down new words and the four year old kept throwing a 1 Birr note at me to see if I'd throw it back.

The other baby woke up and clammored around while I learned to count to ten and say the days of the week. The videos showed the same women dancing with the same men to songs that sounded quite a bit like each other. The coffee was cooked over charcoal and ground with a three-foot piece of rebarb. It was strong, thick, and sweetened by sugar from a paper cone.

Walking back to the campus, several of the boys yelled "forenji" at me and I surprised all of them by yelling back "habersha!" (local). It got a great laugh. So now I'm the funny one.

Yeah, I'm still as foreign as the day is long. I can crack a joke now, and I've got my flea bites, and I've had coffee ceremony, and I can apparently (albeit mistakenly) climb the hills without gasping from the altitude. So maybe, maybe, I'm just starting to fit in. A little. Possibly. Sort of. We'll see.

A moment of suspension, but not suspense

A few of the children of Haramaya's matenance staff and some kids from the near-by village of Batti have lined up against a fence to confirm a rummor. Yep, it's true, the white people float. Down below them, in the swimming pool, I and two VSO (like an international Peace Corps) volunteers splash and swim from side to side of the uncrowded deep end. I do a cannonball to gasps. Soon after a young Etiopian man copys the act, only his is much more impressive because he has to work up his courage. He dives in and stays under the water until he's reached the shallow end, since I don't think he can tread. I can barely hold my breath underwater here at all. I blame it on the altitute. So I float on my back as Ethiopian music blasts and people chatter.

I am officially in a state of "sitting pretty". I have my housing, food (to a degree. Hmm, cold injera and egg.), toliet, shower (to a degree. Yeay, cold water in the middle of the bathroom), telivision, and internet provided to me for free. Essentially, my schedule looks like I'm retired. It is unknown what job I will have, but for now, I'm allowed to go and do what I want. I'm certainly not complaining. I'm unpacked and happy.

On the other side of the fence, women stand. In my bathing suite, I walk past a woman dressed in several layers of cloth and holding an old metal jar. She fills this jar again and again from the public outdoor pre-pool shower that some rather beautiful men are *ahem* actually using as a shower.

She hands her jar to the women who fill a jerrycan. It's a reminder that the water is not working or available on all or even most of the campus. Somewhere, these women will use the water to cook rice over hidden fires. The kids will ask me for money and play tag around the statues instead of going to school.

They smile a lot, these women who cook and clean for us and then have their children ramble around the university because they can't afford to educate them. It's not ideal by far, but I hear them laughing and I'd like to think that they are happy too. Floating in their own way.

Haramaya

“Forenji. Here. Computer for you. All same. All good get.” I smile at the college student with the key. He nods at the room full of HPs and he goes back to dozing in front of his sports show on the television. It’s hard to believe I’m finally here, on campus. Figure I might as well write a blog entry.

I started today in Dire Dawa. DD as it’s commonly abbreviated is about what I expected to find here. Dusty streets filled with old walls, new shanties, beggars and merchants. Hot, savannah, and filled with mysterious alleyways and sites. At the aiport, black and white furry monkeys stared at us as we got our luggage.

Addis Ababa, where I landed and first saw this country, was much more urban. I woke each of the three days I was there to find the large “Slum Dog Millionare” sub-city to the left of my hotel bustling. Suave French-speaking professionals, backpackers, and women dressed in tight clothing but full hijab mixed in the streets and drank Italian coffee from shops that spilled out into the streets.

In DD we ate at a fine restaurant and saw the orphanage about which I have heard so much discussion. My father and I left DD via minibus. Loaded down with luggage we obviously looked like fresh targets. As soon as we got to the station, we were immediately surrounded by drivers who kept trying to take our bags, grab our arms, and yell at us. Dad yelled back just as loudly, demanding a direct trip and the “local” price instead of the more expensive fees for foreigners. They seemed to be surprised that he spoke Amharic enough to argue.

Once we were settled into a minibus, beggars and salespeople swarmed our windows. “Feed baby me sister! Buy chewing gum, miss?” until someone slammed the door shut and we were on our way.

The trip went almost straight up. We drove past schools where dozens of children poured out into the road, all dressed alike. We passed villages where women pumped water out of the ground next to stick and mud huts. There were camels, cows, goats, and donkeys. I stuck my face out of the window most of the ride and waved back at people yelling greetings.

Eventually, we reached a particularly poor and rough looking area. “This place looks pretty tough.” I said to Dad “Do you know it’s name?” It was our destination.

We were waved through onto the university grounds. Now I’m in the Resource Center where I will receive free room, board, and Internet until staff housing can be found for me. It’s a pretty sweet set-up. I look forward to seeing what happens next.

Final Countdown

It feels like a combination of this:

A little bit like this (Sorry no decent YouTube):http://grooveshark.com/#/s/Only+Hope/3L7BTN?src=5

And this:

And a little like this:


Does that make sense?

Packing

I look pregnant with materialism. This is what even "packing light" will get me: a swollen bookbag on the front of my torso and a hiker's backpack covering back. I'm almost as wide as I am tall like this. Every movement I make reminds me of the Jiffy-Puff Man on Ghostbusters. But hey, it leaves both my hands free and I can reach my passport and money easily. And I think I can get it all of my things into the big pack if I have to. Maybe. If I kick it a few times.

I have about five days worth of clothing, enough medicine to take care of any foreseeable minor sickness or injury, water bottles, chocolate and chewing gum, and (a gift from my mother) Where There is No Doctor. I've banned myself from reading more of this life-saving, but incredibly gory textbook because it makes me anxious. Wanna know how many ways people can suffer? It's got (thankfully, just sketched) pictures.

I'm also bringing books and music for the plane ride which will take anywhere from 12 to 22 hours depending on who I ask. I can't figure it out for myself because I'm not sure how the time zones work. At least it's a direct flight so I don't have to worry about lay-overs.

I've got about one day left to pack. One day to clean, double-check, and then go. I leave on Wednesday and go to stay with a friend of a friend in Herndon (which is apparently near D.C.). Then next morning, Helpful Lady (I forgot her name) takes me to the airport. If all goes according to plan, I will fly through the day and the night and land in the early morning in Addis Ababa.Capital city. We'll see how it goes.

PS Still need a better name for this blog!

First Post on this blog!

Hello everybody!
For those of you who know me, this is "that blog thing I'll get going for my trip". For anyone who pushed the "random blog" button, my name is Elizabeth and I'm going to Ethiopia.
A few things first: I'm going to Africa after participating in voluntary service programs for three years. To check out my time in Miami, Evansville (Indiana), or Sioux Falls (South Dakota), go to Elizabethmiamiblog.com
Second: I don't know what to call this blog. Right now it's "Dusty Feet and Duct Tape" but I will happily change it if something better occurs to me or is suggested.
Hooray, boring stuff over. Welcome to my new(er) blog.