09.20.04
Meet Nado, translator of all things Ethiopian; elucidator of all mysterious fruits; understander of needing all foods "well cooked"; harried, overworked, 22-year old waiter. He is there when we have breakfast in the morning and there when we have dinner at night. He is about my height or a little shorter, skinner and much much blacker with a fuzzy, mostly shaved head, and I admit, he made me nervous at first. He seemed way too eager to hang around our table and our first conversation included a lot of personal information and his question, "How do I get to America?" It is my experience that people who would have a good reason to emigrate to the United States know this information much better than those of us who blithely happened to be born to the opportunity do. This question, in my limited experience, usually leads to guilty excuses of why you cannot bring someone back with you, or sad discussions about how difficult it is and why you can’t give them the money they need to start pressing through the red tape. We also got a personal invitation to spend his day off with he and his friends exploring the area. Another red flag in my experience, and small, sturdy roadblocks went up in mine and Andy’s and Emily’s minds immediately.
But our standoffish suspiciousness was for nothing that night, apparently. He has been nothing but kind and helpful to us, and watching him work so hard makes me at least, feel like a slacker. Where I grew up, you shared work until it was done. It doesn’t seem right for him to be rushing all around while we just sit there.
Tonight he told us how to eat a hard, green fruit about the size of a golf ball that we bought from some women sitting on the side of the street. "You feel it, then bite it," he said. "Feel, feel it." He handed us a knife. I sliced off one end unsure of how to peel it. "No, first you must wash," he said taking it out of my hands, walking it across the room to the sliding opening in the wall where he communicated with the kitchen people, handed it over, brought it back dripping and carefully wiped it clean with a cloth napkin. The we feeled the whole thing and tried to bite it. A little sour, a lot of seeds, and not a whole lot of flavour. But oh man, a treat because it is FRESH. Haven’t had something fresh in awhile. We were both expecting to throw up tonight. Andy more because he ordered fried lamb from the menu ("We’re going to be here 6 more weeks, we might as well try everything.") which I believe we saw hanging in the back corner of the courtyard by the shed where one guy was washing clothes in tubs. It was just the center-most part of a carcass, hung from the back legs?, swinging gently while another man took hacks at it with a curved knife, slicing off thin bits of whatever would come off. Ugh. No Thank You.
Yesterday Nado answered questions about the huge tortoise we had found out in the courtyard. We thought we had discovered it, huge and slow moving and chomping down grass and flowers. I tried to lift it--heavy. Tried to flip it against Andy’s judgement. Wanted to see what it looked like from below. It craned its neck out to watch us and . . . hissed! I flipped it back over and we left it in peace. I swear I’ve had that same reaction. Now I know which former life it comes from. We told Nado we’d tried to lift the tortoise and his smile flipped into a frown on his forehead and he told us very seriously, "Very dan-gerous. You-reen, very dangerous. Hand crack. Break. You-reen hand crack." I had no idea turtle urine would give you a skin rash, if this indeed is what he meant. Why was the turtle roaming around? "Eat grass." Andy asked, "Is that what the goats are for too?" This didn’t translate well into pidgin English. I drew a picture to make it clearer. I showed a turtle eating grass. I showed a goat under a tree eating grass. Nado nodded, hesitating, pointing to each picture, "Yes, turtle eat grass." My goat and turtle did look pretty similar, I suppose. Annie could get it right.
This morning we introduced Nado to boxed breakfast cereal, some All Bran we’d brought down from Addis in the expensive import supermarket, having already had a taste of what our diet would be like while we’re in Ethiopia. It’s Kellogs from South Africa. He mixed us up some Nido milk last night and stored it in the fridge for us. We poured him a handful of it. He reacted much the same way we did to the seedy green fruit tonight; smelled it, asked us how to eat it, tried a flake, added milk, tried a spoonful, and politely left the rest. I told him, "In America, people eat this for breakfast everyday." I couldn’t tell whether his nods and smiles were polite incredulousness, or a smooth cover for not understanding what I was saying.
I don’t know the name of the kind of cows they have here, but it’s got a big, wobbly, jelly lump on the back of its neck like a reverse goiter that jiggles and rocks when it moves. It bugs me.
It’s already 11pm. I have to go to bed. Quickly before I forget:
Out in the villages today I saw a beautiful little girl with the worst lice I’ve ever seen. It was partly because the nits showed up so clearly against her dark tight braids and dark scalp, but they were incredibly thick especially around her ears and neck. I’ve felt itchy all day since. Please no lice. I’ve just got my hair almost long enough to go in a pony tail and I’ve done my lice penance in life. (I still remember how relaxing it was when everyone in my class had to go into the nurse’s office where she one by one went over our scalps with wood sticks looking for nits and giving us each a lecture about sharing hats and hairbrushes.) Next week, measuring and weighing kids and babies all day is going to test my gross out limits.
On Saturday night we had a blackout for a pretty good length of time--the town was silent for once, no music blaring--and we went outside to see what was going on. We could see the stars for the first time since we got here. Thick, with the cloudy stripe of Milky Way directly above us. I didn’t recognize the sky the way I usually do, and didn’t know how or where I could look for the Southern Cross, assuming it even shows here. We’re still nine degrees north of the Equator. This makes sun protection a very real part of our everyday. I try mainly to keep my long sleeve shirt on and my hat. We have every possible factor working against us when it comes to sunburn: lattitude, fair skin, on doxycyclene for malaria, and altitude. Though Andy hasn’t burned yet, his exposed skin has changed color dramatically and quickly. The two women who sit at the entrance desk and who laugh everytime we say anything to them in Wolaytinga brought us a candle. It’s what I’m writing by tonight. It’s somehow comforting and much nicer to write by than the bare weak orange lightbulb above our bed. It softens this place and doesn’t make the cootie wall look so cootie.
Everywhere I go I’m noticing gabis--their colors, their weaves, their weights. Could I make one? Could I weave? Would I die of boredom or frustration before I got good enough to make something I liked? I would like to learn to weave, but don’t have Heidi’s patience or Geo’s drive for superb craftsmanship.
I am also loving the handmade chairs and benches here and want to make some or bring some home or both. Our guidebooks say the Ethiopian post is cheap.
In the villages and in town the street kids wear literally rags. There are a lot of ways to keep rags over your shoulders. Even well dressed people in the villages wear very patched clothes, clothes that would be rags except they’re pretty patched. They’re practically quilted they’re so patched. Men here will wear a three piece suit around, and it’s not unusual to see someone out in a field with their slacks, vest, and jacket on while they plow with their forked hand tool. The kids, who chase after the van like loose dogs on country roads, usually just wear a shirt. Their muscular legs and everything else goes flying as they chase the cars getting way too close to the wheels shouting and laughing, "Feringhi feringhi! Feringhi feringhi!" Although today, we did stop at the compound of a family where most of the little boys were wearing pants. But each of their little flys were WIDE open and out of each was hanging their little privates. It was pretty funny. This place’s understanding of modesty I don’t have a grasp on yet, and I’m still fighting to the instinct to not let any of my hair show.
Now I really must go to sleep. Andy and I agreed we’d try to get up earlier tomorrow so we can read the scriptures together when we’re both not exhausted from the day. I’ll be exhausted from the night.
But our standoffish suspiciousness was for nothing that night, apparently. He has been nothing but kind and helpful to us, and watching him work so hard makes me at least, feel like a slacker. Where I grew up, you shared work until it was done. It doesn’t seem right for him to be rushing all around while we just sit there.
Tonight he told us how to eat a hard, green fruit about the size of a golf ball that we bought from some women sitting on the side of the street. "You feel it, then bite it," he said. "Feel, feel it." He handed us a knife. I sliced off one end unsure of how to peel it. "No, first you must wash," he said taking it out of my hands, walking it across the room to the sliding opening in the wall where he communicated with the kitchen people, handed it over, brought it back dripping and carefully wiped it clean with a cloth napkin. The we feeled the whole thing and tried to bite it. A little sour, a lot of seeds, and not a whole lot of flavour. But oh man, a treat because it is FRESH. Haven’t had something fresh in awhile. We were both expecting to throw up tonight. Andy more because he ordered fried lamb from the menu ("We’re going to be here 6 more weeks, we might as well try everything.") which I believe we saw hanging in the back corner of the courtyard by the shed where one guy was washing clothes in tubs. It was just the center-most part of a carcass, hung from the back legs?, swinging gently while another man took hacks at it with a curved knife, slicing off thin bits of whatever would come off. Ugh. No Thank You.
Yesterday Nado answered questions about the huge tortoise we had found out in the courtyard. We thought we had discovered it, huge and slow moving and chomping down grass and flowers. I tried to lift it--heavy. Tried to flip it against Andy’s judgement. Wanted to see what it looked like from below. It craned its neck out to watch us and . . . hissed! I flipped it back over and we left it in peace. I swear I’ve had that same reaction. Now I know which former life it comes from. We told Nado we’d tried to lift the tortoise and his smile flipped into a frown on his forehead and he told us very seriously, "Very dan-gerous. You-reen, very dangerous. Hand crack. Break. You-reen hand crack." I had no idea turtle urine would give you a skin rash, if this indeed is what he meant. Why was the turtle roaming around? "Eat grass." Andy asked, "Is that what the goats are for too?" This didn’t translate well into pidgin English. I drew a picture to make it clearer. I showed a turtle eating grass. I showed a goat under a tree eating grass. Nado nodded, hesitating, pointing to each picture, "Yes, turtle eat grass." My goat and turtle did look pretty similar, I suppose. Annie could get it right.
This morning we introduced Nado to boxed breakfast cereal, some All Bran we’d brought down from Addis in the expensive import supermarket, having already had a taste of what our diet would be like while we’re in Ethiopia. It’s Kellogs from South Africa. He mixed us up some Nido milk last night and stored it in the fridge for us. We poured him a handful of it. He reacted much the same way we did to the seedy green fruit tonight; smelled it, asked us how to eat it, tried a flake, added milk, tried a spoonful, and politely left the rest. I told him, "In America, people eat this for breakfast everyday." I couldn’t tell whether his nods and smiles were polite incredulousness, or a smooth cover for not understanding what I was saying.
I don’t know the name of the kind of cows they have here, but it’s got a big, wobbly, jelly lump on the back of its neck like a reverse goiter that jiggles and rocks when it moves. It bugs me.
It’s already 11pm. I have to go to bed. Quickly before I forget:
Out in the villages today I saw a beautiful little girl with the worst lice I’ve ever seen. It was partly because the nits showed up so clearly against her dark tight braids and dark scalp, but they were incredibly thick especially around her ears and neck. I’ve felt itchy all day since. Please no lice. I’ve just got my hair almost long enough to go in a pony tail and I’ve done my lice penance in life. (I still remember how relaxing it was when everyone in my class had to go into the nurse’s office where she one by one went over our scalps with wood sticks looking for nits and giving us each a lecture about sharing hats and hairbrushes.) Next week, measuring and weighing kids and babies all day is going to test my gross out limits.
On Saturday night we had a blackout for a pretty good length of time--the town was silent for once, no music blaring--and we went outside to see what was going on. We could see the stars for the first time since we got here. Thick, with the cloudy stripe of Milky Way directly above us. I didn’t recognize the sky the way I usually do, and didn’t know how or where I could look for the Southern Cross, assuming it even shows here. We’re still nine degrees north of the Equator. This makes sun protection a very real part of our everyday. I try mainly to keep my long sleeve shirt on and my hat. We have every possible factor working against us when it comes to sunburn: lattitude, fair skin, on doxycyclene for malaria, and altitude. Though Andy hasn’t burned yet, his exposed skin has changed color dramatically and quickly. The two women who sit at the entrance desk and who laugh everytime we say anything to them in Wolaytinga brought us a candle. It’s what I’m writing by tonight. It’s somehow comforting and much nicer to write by than the bare weak orange lightbulb above our bed. It softens this place and doesn’t make the cootie wall look so cootie.
Everywhere I go I’m noticing gabis--their colors, their weaves, their weights. Could I make one? Could I weave? Would I die of boredom or frustration before I got good enough to make something I liked? I would like to learn to weave, but don’t have Heidi’s patience or Geo’s drive for superb craftsmanship.
I am also loving the handmade chairs and benches here and want to make some or bring some home or both. Our guidebooks say the Ethiopian post is cheap.
In the villages and in town the street kids wear literally rags. There are a lot of ways to keep rags over your shoulders. Even well dressed people in the villages wear very patched clothes, clothes that would be rags except they’re pretty patched. They’re practically quilted they’re so patched. Men here will wear a three piece suit around, and it’s not unusual to see someone out in a field with their slacks, vest, and jacket on while they plow with their forked hand tool. The kids, who chase after the van like loose dogs on country roads, usually just wear a shirt. Their muscular legs and everything else goes flying as they chase the cars getting way too close to the wheels shouting and laughing, "Feringhi feringhi! Feringhi feringhi!" Although today, we did stop at the compound of a family where most of the little boys were wearing pants. But each of their little flys were WIDE open and out of each was hanging their little privates. It was pretty funny. This place’s understanding of modesty I don’t have a grasp on yet, and I’m still fighting to the instinct to not let any of my hair show.
Now I really must go to sleep. Andy and I agreed we’d try to get up earlier tomorrow so we can read the scriptures together when we’re both not exhausted from the day. I’ll be exhausted from the night.
posted by Johanna Buchert Smith at 3:39 AM
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