From Beans to Beantown

So I’m officially announcing it here now: I’m moving to Boston. For at least three months, I’ll be an intern at a non-profit organization that is associated with the Catholic Social Worker movement. I’ll be cooking, working as an administrative assistant, and living in the community there. The political beliefs of the founders are a bit radical for my tastes, but I can stand behind their goal of helping others by providing food, housing, and emotional support and I think it will be a fascinating and fulfilling time.

This change in plans gives me about six weeks left in Ethiopia. In this time I plan on doing some amazing things: hitting a number of the items on my “Ethiopian Bucket List” if you will. I’ll try to keep updating this blog with my “adventures”.
As for now, this is my last day of work before I leave for Awassa, a lake town in Southern Ethiopia, for a few days’ Easter Break. I’m hoping to see a hippo!

I’ve been enjoying my time living on campus. I don’t have a maid here (a fact that my neighbors, even the poorer ones, don’t understand) so my day starts with collecting water at 6:30 in the morning and ends with the last round of dishes at 8:00 at night. Things like sorting rice and finding containers for grain storage take longer than expected but are amusing. I like knowing that all of the little details of my place: the sunny smells of the rug, the lousy taste of the beans, are my fault and responsibility. I’ve learned to like the quiet and the work of the upkeep. I think I’ll miss it.

Anyway, I’ve never been to Boston before but it sounds like as good a place as any to re-adjust to American life and I’m looking forward to living in community again. And of course, I’ll start another blog.

Because Home is Sometimes a Feeling

I am the only forenji and staff member here. The arms of the students rest heavily on my shoulders as the fifty of us form a moving ring of dancing and singing. Our heads are thrown back and we are bellowing out the words to, of all things, a remix of “Country Roads”.

Instead of ”West Virginia”, some of the students shout the names of their homelands: “Addis Ababa!” “Nazreet!” The music has been revamped with Ethiopic style saxophone and a heavy beat. I start a modified flat-foot and people follow my dance. For about three minutes, I am considered a good dancer for the first time in my life.

I shouldn’t have been at the party. I was there by accident. I may have to deal with the fall-out of being seen dancing (usually terribly) with students. Already, some of the women (who usually did NOT dance but sat in the chairs next to the dancers and whispered) laughed at me and called me something in Amharic. I don’t care. This was fun and I’ll hopefully remember it forever. For one song, I didn’t feel out of place here at all. In the middle of a crowd of strangers in a strange land, I was home.

Cross Cultural Contact (or lack thereof)

They are easily the most exotic people I have met here. I see them about once a day, climbing the hill up from the apartment complex towards the base of the campus. There's about a dozen of them, all women, mostly young. Their skin is sun-toughened and beautiful. It's the color of American coffee and glitters with the thin, gold bracelets and nose-rings they wear. The dress themselves in layer upon layer of brightly colored cloth. They don't speak English, Amharic, Oromo, or any other language I've heard anyone else here using.

All of these women seem to be related to the pastoralists that live right outside the campus. Once, I found a few of the grass huts out there, a hidden and camouflaged village. I was promptly shooed away.

Anyway, these women they walk West and I walk East and we pass within inches of each other every day. I say hello and they laugh and wave while we keep walking.

Two days ago, one of them stops and stares at me for a moment. I smile and nod. Suddenly, this young woman runs towards me for about two steps with her hand out.

I shake her hand and do the local shoulder bump with her (she initiated it) and she starts yelling in what sounds like shock. She grabs my hand and holds it up in the air, yelling words in her language. Within seconds we're surrounded by the rest of the young women. Many hands are reaching to shake my hand. They twirl my arm around, making remarks. They pressed their arms against mine, comparing thickness and color.

One girl tries to shake my hand but chickens out at the last moment. I think it was then that I realized that they had never touched a forenji before. This was something totally new for their community.

There's a shriek when they realize that my palms change color and have noticeable lines on them. They all press the skin to see it turn from pink to white. We are laughing about this when I hear someone yelling "Becka!" (Enough!) angerly. An older woman of their group had arrived. She was wearing a t-shirt (a sign of cultural adjustment) and looked angry. She shoved the young women away from me and then nudged me towards my home. "It's okay." I said. "Chigger yellem." (No problem.) but the woman was adamant.

Yesterday, when I passed the group of women the older woman was there too. When I tried to say hello, she clucked and shook her head sadly. I heard her hiss at the one woman who tried to wave.

Today, the young women were not there. Instead there were three new people and they did not greet me when I passed. They looked through me, like they couldn't see me. It was creepy.

I have no idea what has happened here. Someone broke a norm somewhere it seems. I miss my friends. I hope I didn't get them in trouble. I wish I understood.

UPDATE: They're back!

WAY LATER UPDATE:

About a week later, I'm carrying a heavy water basin on my head and I see one of these young women running behind me.  She's doing an impression of someone clumsily carrying a water basin. Her coworkers, watching her, burst out laughing and rush me from the bushes.  They take the bucket from me and we carry it together, chuckling and doing funny walks.  We must have looked like an Ethiopian edition of Monty Python for that quarter mile.  This happens again about a week later.

A week or so after the second time that they helped me carry something, I get invited to lunch. I'm walking towards my office and I hear a strange sound.  I see the older woman beckoning towards me.  She gestures that I should sit. I'm am grateful that I do not have a meeting I need to attend.

I am offered water from a large, cloudy, basin.  I thank them, but show them that I have a water bottle.  They give me spicy bread that seems to be a sort of injara, but not made from teff.  We sit and laugh and communicate semi-awkwardly in the grass about our clothing and hairstyles. The elder woman offers me a pull from a bag of chat and is surprised when I decline.

I go briefly to my house and bring back popcorn.  A cheer goes up.  We snack together.  Some men come and sit with us.  They ask me what I'm doing and seem confused by my answer of "eating". After about an hour we part ways.

These lunches (a second group of this culture started inviting me regularly as well) became a common thing.  I would bring popcorn or ground nuts.  They would give me the enjara, the same thing that they had to eat every lunch, feeding me until they sensed I was full.  Their level of generosity is something I hope to have some day.

I greatly enjoyed my time with these women although the staff and local residents couldn't understand why I would eat with them.  At one point, I was asked if "all this is for an anthropology experiment".  No, it wasn't. It was simply a joy.

Culture shock: What it Feesl Like

Everyone told me that it would take about six months for the culture shock to fully kick-in. For six months everyone has made comments like “You seem to be adjusting so well!” I’m not getting those comments lately.

The main part of what I’m feeling just seems to be an exhaustion to little details. I don’t want the strange foods, different people, and new languages to go away. I just want to press a “pause” button somehow; to take a commercial break. One day with running water and clean food would be enough to reset how I’m feeling, I’m pretty sure. As it is, all of the newness, which is no longer new, feels like a weight on my shoulders.

I’m in a good place here. This job has huge potential for growth. My coworkers are great people. But part of me just wants to curl-up and be in the United States for a little bit. I hope this passes soon.

How I Met the Forenji in Apartment A2

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.

My Daily Bread

The middle-aged man behind the ticket booth looks at up at me and asks “Dabo?” I nod and he smiles.

“How much?” Asks his assistant. She’s sitting behind the cake counter and I wonder if she’s related to the ticket cashier. She’s always here, and I wonder why she isn’t in school. I wonder if she has brothers in school. I wonder if she will go home this evening and have to work for several hours.

“Three.” I say, which is what I say almost every day. The ticket man throws three black plastic tabs under his counter and hails a teenager in a block smock. The young woman hands him a thin plastic bag and he goes running out of the back of the shop to get my bread. I don’t know where the bread originally comes from.

While the boy is gone, I pay the equivalent of eleven cents for the bread. I walk away with three relatively fresh bap rolls in the bag and head back towards my office. I like the swishing sound that the bag makes as I move. Also, for whatever reason, people make less comments about me when I’m carrying bread, which is nice.

This is what I eat during the day now. I eat roll for breakfast and one for lunch. At home, I’ll eat the simple but tasty meal prepared by my housekeeper and eat the third piece of bread with a little (precious) butter. With water and vitamin pills, it’s a plenty sufficient diet.

Now that this is my regular routine. It makes me think about the words “Give us this day our daily bread.” In the Lord’s Prayer. So much of life here is, for the average Ethiopian, filled with mundane tasks.

Every morning, right after dawn, I take a bus from the city of Harar to the main campus. We go through two major towns and about eight villages. I play a sort of “Bingo” during these trips. There is almost always a woman washing clothes in a large bucket full of dirty water. There’s almost always someone using the bathroom in public. People chewing chat with their eyes closed, pregnant goats, animals that have gotten loose, people deep frying things over coal braziers, cake sellers with a food trays on their heads, kids who have invented a new game or are fighting due to sheer boredom, and a confused looking police officer,laughing women....woman with a baby on her back while carrying something else, BINGO!

This place is always moving. People spend hours doing little manual things every day. If people can’t walk on their feet here, then they walk on their knees or hands to get to the store. But, dang it, they get to the store.

It’s humbling. I feel extremely privileged and lucky to get to go sit in a relatively clean and quiet office. When my housekeeper makes shero for me (a typical dish made out of boiled lentils) I know that she spent time picking through those beans so that I wouldn’t crack a tooth on a small rock. This is a task that I find so mind-numbingly monotonous that it can only do a small amount of beans at a time before my eyes hurt and I start to feel sleepy.

When I meet women who are my age but have three babies, keep their huts and children clean, and have to do all of the cooking and washing and fetching by themselves, I am in awe. Could I do it if I had to? Could I be happy if that was what my life looked like every single day?

I eat my breakfast bread at my desk. It doesn’t have much flavor, but it’s quick and filling. And I am incredibly grateful.

Timket (Ethiopian Orthodox Epiphany) Parade

Timket
There are some people who say that you aren’t really swimming if you just stick your legs in the pool. If you want to swim, jump in. I was thinking about that as the crowd swept me up into a mass of sound and hundreds of people dressed in white.
Ahead of us, a truck mounted with amplifiers and loud speakers blasted the voices of riders singing hymns in Ge’ez as we slowly moved down the street. Behind the truck ran athletic looking young men carrying large rolls of red carpet and women throwing grass. The priests were supposed to walk on this surface when carrying the icons. It reminded me of the afombras I had seen in Central America during the Holy Week processions.

After the carpet layers came the priests. These were big men in heavy-looking robes. Attendants held ornate umbrellas over them, shielding the icons the men carried from the sun. The icons were about three feet tall and showed an image of Mary, or Jesus, or a saint. People ululated as the pictures passed them, clapping joyously.
Behind the icons, a single man walked backwards, waving palms, to indicate that it was okay to walk in the middle of the path again.

We progressed this way for about a mile. We eventually got to an open area near a stadium. Everyone crossed themselves and looked at the ground for a second as we reached the entrance. One had to jump about two feet to get to the main area where people talked, sang, bought snacks, and stood around together. The whole place had kind of a low-key, high population density fair atmosphere about it.

I stayed for a while and spoke with some of the people there. Then I made the walk back. After the streets had emptied of crowds, people had brought their disabled relatives to beg. I saw a man twisted by polio. I saw an old woman who appeared to be blind. A filthy child approached me and told me she and her small brother had no money for food. I had no small bills to give her and told her so. I would have bought her an orange, but there were no venders nearby. I gave her a generic plastic bottle of water I have repeatedly used. It was nothing special, but she cradled it like I had just given her a nice baby doll. Then she asked for money again.
When I came home, my maid had cooked me an obscene amount of food. I’ll have leftovers for days. I sat there and ate my dinner thoughtfully. Outside, the day drew to a close, another experience to remember.