05.11.04

Andy woke up and spent the hour and a half before we left for the office in the bathroom on the toilet. He made a gallant effort to get out to the field, but needed to be dropped off once we passed the hotel on the way out of town. Last we saw of him he was running from the Land Cruiser to the public restroom in the hotel.

I had assured him I could handle the kids myself today, and had the kind help from Tadesse and Baileyin when we got to the village we were going to, forty minutes away. We pulled out the electric scale and bottled-water weights and tared the scale. We got the height-measuring stick and head and arm tape measures out. I thought I saw a baby waiting, so I pulled out the
rope and hanging scale, and tared that too, and the "measuing bed"--a board with a perpendicular footboard we press the screaming little kids down on to get their length.

Fortunately, we weren't that busy. There was only one family with two boys, six and seven. They weren't even scared. Unfortunately, as soon as I got done reading their measurements, I saw a funny little fuzzy sparkle right where the numbers on the measuring tape should have been. I watched to see what would happen, but it only got bigger. What a drag. These things always seem to start just as I've gotten into the swing of my day, gotten where I'm going. Usually Layton, this time Gebre's village.

I finally got the guts to tell Alemush that I also seemed to be getting sick, was there a way Tadesse could possibly bring me back to Soddo, and if not, fyi, I'm going to be useless to you today anyway as I can't see. Baileyin asked why I didn't just take some Ibuprofen, since we'd brought some for Wenchet whose jaw was swollen from an infected tooth--a cavity. I
explained I would once it got to the pain stage. Alemush considered for a sec--this threw a loop in the day's plans; thought maybe they could find a school where I could spend the day. I just said, whatever. I'll be here sitting in the car b/c there's not much I can do. Then the car started moving and she poked her head in and said Tadesse was just going to bring me back. We met up with Abayneh on the road, who took me into town. Andy was surprised to see me, and said I had freaked Abayneh out a little--he asked if we needed to go to the hospital. I couldn't think and couldn't talk right, and knew I wasn't making sense.

So then Andy took care of me and I lay down, then I barfed, then I slept. We were both in bed sleeping when at about 4pm Nadew thrust open our window saying, "What has happened! What has happened!" Since we were both lying there in our underwear, Andy told him firmly to please close the window. Nadew's concern would not be put off. Andy said, "Please get out! Close the window!" "Close the window?" Nadew confirmed. "Yes. Go out. Close the window." "Ok." Nadew closed the window and opened our door and came in.
"Andy what happened? Are you ok?" Again, Andy: "Go out! Close the door!" "You want me to close the door?" "Yes. Close the door." Whereupon Nadew closed the door, Andy threw on some pants, and stepped outside. Turns out Alemush called when the team got back to see how we were, and Nadew was the messenger.

I heard Andy tell Nadew he thought he got sick from the goat yesterday, but Nadew adamantly denied it saying, "No, I told you God has permitted us to kill goat like this." Andy thinks its maybe a bug from when he was poking around with the goat innards. My illness Nadew attributes to being scared while watching the butchering yesterday.

When we ran into the road engineers in the restaurant tonight, they also thought we had possibly gotten sick from just watching. The village guy said it happens to him: "I'm serious, when I see something with a lot of blood or if I see a man die in the street, I am very disturbed. I don't like to eat afterwards. It's true." Though they also were pretty astonished that we hadn't seen it before, and thought it funny when we were astonished that they
all had killed sheeps before.

The rules are, they tell us, that the killer can't be a woman, and must be fasting beforehand. This means they must eat no meat for a few hours before the deed. Also, in addition to saying, "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost," when you slit the throat, you must make the sign of a cross over the animal. When I asked how this was different from the way Muslims kill their animals, (they also say, "B'ism Allah") they said Muslims
cut all the way through a goat--will take the head all the way off. Christians don't eat meat from Muslims butchers here, and vice versa probably.

Nadew gave me a copy of the rooster butchering photo and it's hot.