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.