The Jennifer Show

Do you ever get that feeling that someone’s staring at you? Their eyes burning a hole in the back of your head? Yep, I’ve had that feeling for eight months now.  It’s kind of like I’m on The Truman Show, well, The Jennifer Show, and everyone knows where I am or what I’m doing at all times.  Trying to get out of town without everyone knowing is like climbing over a pile of pots and pans without waking the dog sleeping beside them.

This past week HAPCO hosted a “Community Conversation” training for 42 townspeople, which means I sat through a lot of lectures in Amharic.  I’m there to support HAPCO though and I’ve enjoyed being a part of the trainings.  My supervisor, Tilahun, who is running the training, is nice enough to help me translate a session on possible ways they could help with HIV in Dangila, and ways I could help too.  For one session though, trainees were told to record for one hour their surroundings using just one sense- sight, sound or touch.  A few then presented later what they recorded, and let’s just say a lot of people mentioned me in their report.  Luckily I didn’t make an appearance in the “touch” reports.

One person focusing on sight noted that “during the tea break everyone was watching Jennifer.”  One sound observer mentioned that “people were often talking about the ferengi.”  I’m pretty famous.  Six months in Dangila and I’m still the talk of the town.  Luckily for the most part, people yell my name instead of “Ferengi” and I have regular shops and restaurants that know exactly what I will order, and how I like it served!  It is a lot more of a home for me than six months ago, but I haven’t been here long enough to lessen curiosity.  I’m not sure I’m willing to stay until the day no one is curious about me anymore. I think that would take a long, long while.

Dangila Market.

Speaking of me stirring up curiosity, I never draw a bigger crowd than when I make a trip to the market.  Today I went for the first time in about a month, because while I enjoy the challenge of the hectic market scene, I only convince myself to go after the memory of the previous trip wears off quite a bit.  I wish I had an aerial view of the market when I arrive; surely, you could see the crowds of people shift to follow me wherever I turn.  I’m always at the eye of the storm of people at the market.  Luckily, I know the prices for most of the produce I want to buy, so I am rarely ripped off, but everything about the trip is a hassle. Today especially since there was rain all during the night the entire marketplace, which appears three days a week in a big field, was a mud pit. More about the circus of the marketplace later; now I have to return to a HAPCO training, yes, on a Saturday!