Disclaimer: I don’t know what goes on in other people’s minds, this I will fully admit. However, as I most likely leave my apartment in Harar for at least a while, I thought it would be fun to try to imagine what my zabanya (guard) thinks of my time there. I hope you enjoy the result.
We have lots of forenji in the apartment complex that I guard. Most of them are Indian and teach at the university. I am not sure what the strange woman does. I had seen here a few times before I met her, but we had never been introduced. She was always with her father, a fat older man who also worked at the university. He lived in one of the nicer apartments, one that always had water and usually had electricity all night. I can see their kitchen from my shelter. My shelter’s a sturdy little tent/hut made of strong tree branches and old blankets. I sit there for most of the afternoon and part of the night to guard the complex.
Ask the people who live here and they will tell you that I am almost always awake because I use a good portion of my money to buy chat, which is a stimulant. I am kind to the random dogs, cats, and goats that wander around the yard and I don’t let anyone: animal or human, start a fight in the backyard while I’m here. I’m a good guard.
Anyway, one day the old man moved out and his odd daughter moved in. I kept waiting for a husband to join her, but no one ever showed up, even though the lady is almost old. She seemed to have no children either. Even stranger, she sometimes dressed like a forenji man: in pants and a t-shirt. Other times though, she’d wear dresses even more rustic than the maids’. And, get this, these rural-style dresses left parts of her shoulders bare! And sometimes she didn’t wear a scarf over them. It was so hard not to stare! Then the next day she’d be dressed like a man again, with her hair wet even. Dressed like this, she’d purposefully walk around in the sun! Gross!
So the first day this woman first goes into the apartment by herself, I realize that her father still hasn’t paid me for the crate of Pepsi I bought him at his request. It was a cold a rainy night, very odd for our desert city, and I had wrapped myself in old towels and rags to keep warm. Also, I was chewing a whole lot of chat so that I would not fall asleep and get sick from the damp or bitten by the rats that seek shelter from the rain.
I got up and hailed the woman. “Good evening.” I shouted in my language.
“Good thank you.” The woman called back clumsily . She seemed a little alarmed at my presence.
I tucked a large clump of chat behind my ear, tightened my toga of towels and started to follow her towards the steps of the complex. Since she apparently didn’t speak my language, I tried hers.
“I take you.” I said.
The woman glanced over her shoulder and seemed surprised to see me standing only a couple of steps away. “What?” She asked.
“I take you to you house.” I say, and wave my arm towards the Pepsi in my tent. I could feel the chat making my movements jerky and my eyes hurt. They were probably quite large and red. “I bring you now.”
“Uh.”, Said the woman. “No thank you.”
“I take you! I like your father! Pepsi!” I was starting to shout. What didn’t this woman understand?
The woman began to walk up the stairs very quickly. She was holding her keys in her hand now. She seemed relieved to see that the hall lights were on.
I followed her long enough to see that she was going into her apartment, shouted “BAH!”, and then went back to my hut to get the soft drinks.
As I went up the stairs I could hear her locking the door. There was no way I had done all of this work for no pay. I was getting angry. I put the crate down in the hall and then beat on the frosted part of the door with my fists. “Pepsi! Money! Open door! Open door! I give! Money give me!” I shouted.
I could see the woman’s silhouette on the other side of the door. She was yelling “Go away!”, “Stop!”, and “Another day!” in my language with a terrible accent. Finally, in English, she yelled. “I DON’T WANT YOUR PEPSI GO AWAY!” so emphatically that I gave up.
“You father Tom say Pepsi!” I shouted at her one more time. Then I picked up the soda and went back out through the cold to my hut.
Later, she would tell me that she was sorry. She told me that she didn’t know the arrangement I had with her father. She didn’t even know that I was employed to look after the apartments. Her father had paid me well so I told her it was okay.
I saw her almost daily after that. She always said hello and seemed friendly enough. One time when I fell asleep, she woke me up and asked if I was feeling alright. She named one the stray cats “Patty It’s Short for Pathetic” and helped it survive by feeding it scraps.
One evening I was sitting on the steps with my wife and son. Even though my son is only four years old, he reads better than I can. He was reading me a story and the woman stopped to listen. She told me that my son was very smart and handsome. I was so proud of my family that I nearly cried.
She’s moving out this weekend. I will miss her since she was always interesting to watch. I was angry with her at first, but forenji are so strange that I guess it’s stupid to be too frustrated with them. Her father is apparently moving back but he seems boring in comparison. He doesn’t need a scarf for his shoulders! Either way, I’ll be here, chewing my chat, and waiting to see who walks by next.
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