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.