The Culture of Hospitality

Every time I come back from being out of town I receive the warmest “welcome back!” from the society as a whole.  Almost every day now I receive some sort of invitation for lunch or coffee at a friend or neighbor’s house.  Ethiopians are truly the kindest people who embody the idea of a culture of hospitality.  But there was one thing I didn’t experience until just now, how this culture treats you when you’re sick.

I have to say that I am very blessed not to have been really ill at all during the past 17 months, in fact this past weekend was the first time I’ve ever even had a fever.  I felt achy enough to call in sick for the day, knowing I wouldn’t want to get anyone else sick in case it turned into something worse.  The phone call went something like this:
“I know I mentioned I felt like I was getting sick, and today I feel worse, so I’m going to stay home today.”

“Oh, Jennifer! I will come to visit.”

The notion that when you’re sick you’d rather be alone, sleeping, is completely foreign here (literally).  Ethiopian culture is that when you get sick, everyone visits.  I understand that sometimes it is nice to have a friend stop by to see if she could bring you something, but here it is cultural for everyone to stop by, just to make you feel better!  I kindly refused most self-invitations, insisting that I would be fine to just sleep, but politely not mentioning that having my entire office and other co-workers come to my home while I’m under-the-weather wouldn’t exactly help.  Imagine in America your boss showing up at your house 20 minutes after you’ve called in sick!

On top of my co-workers’ sympathy, word of my sickness spread like wildfire around my compound and neighbors all stemming from the 8-year-old daughter of my landlord.  She’s the only person I told I was sick when she knocked on my door wanting to play, and from then on every person on my compound (there are 8 others) needed to hear it for themselves.  I also realized that I don’t know the Amharic vocabulary for things such as fever, tonsils, and congestion.  Always an opportunity to learn!

Happy to report that 48-hours later I’m back to normal.  Luckily it was just a minor bug because I think the neighbors would have gone crazy in anticipation of me feeling better! I do love this culture though; everyone is always looking out for you!