Peace In My Garden...For a Moment

The day after my landlord’s family moved out I found myself completely alone in my compound for the first time.  There were a couple weeks earlier this year when the family only had one girl helping around the house, and when she went to school I would be alone, but I was always expecting someone to show up any minute.  This time I was alone.  No one was coming or going.  I locked the gate from the inside and wasn’t expecting any visitors.

What do you do with a whole compound to yourself? I wondered.  I’ve had countless ideas throughout the past year and a half about things I would love to do if I were alone in my compound, but all of a sudden none of them were coming to mind.  I realized that I wasn’t just alone, I was lonely.

I found myself strolling around my compound trying to think of something to fill my Sunday afternoon.  That’s when I grabbed a shovel, headed to the front yard and started digging.  I think I took my inspiration from Barbara Kingsolver, the author of two of my recent reads.  My life fits in somewhere between The Poisonwood Bible and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle although far less extreme than either.  The latter has been one of my favorite reads so far (highly recommended) and had me hoping for just a moment that my mother’s green thumb didn’t reach a genetic dead-end with me like I thought.

Several hours later, I’d tilled an L-shaped bed in the corner of my small yard, putting that permaculture training from last year to use for the first time.  I felt so accomplished with myself, as if I’d truly been able to push loneliness out of my compound with a little gardening.  I walked around the corner of the big house into view of the door of my house and realized that I’ll never truly be alone. No, I’m not being sappy, I mean I literally can never be alone because the landlord left his mama and baby cow to live on my compound (and a guy comes by to tend for them daily).  My first lesson of living alone: never leave the door open and house unattended.

The baby cow stood in my doorway munching on my bag of tomatoes and I swear he was snickering at me.  I entered my house to find a disaster area that must have taken the cow over an hour to meticulously destroy.  In a nutshell, the majority of the mess came from him eating a bag of flour I had on my counter and then traipsing around my house leaving flour-drool all over the place. After quickly sweeping a pile of flour into my trashcan (the drool clean-up would take hours later on). Venturing into the backyard to empty my trash bucket, I was so livid that I swung the bucket to hit the cow and managed to crack my bucket.  Oops.

In one afternoon I revisited every high and low of the Peace Corps emotional roller coaster.  All in a day’s work, I figure.  At the end of the day though, I have a garden growing and while my hatred for the baby cow is also growing, I am learning to live with the cattle.  I also just found out that I will be allowed to move into the big house on my compound (which my landlord just vacated) as soon as we return from a “training” down south next week!  Hooray for triple the living space!

Unexpected Goodbyes

Where to begin? Some weeks pass and it seems like there is nothing significant to report, while others come to an end and I’m not sure exactly how I’m suppose to convey all my happenings.  This past week was the latter.

The week started out as normal: A little work, a lot of time to visit neighbors, but nothing out of the ordinary.  Until Lindsay, my closest neighbor from my group of volunteers (about one hour south), called to say that she decided it was her time to go home.  It is a personal decision we each have to make, every day, to stay or to go, and she finally felt it was time to say ‘goodbye.’  I of course made the day trip down to say my ‘goodbyes’ and help her with some errands around town.

The visit was sad, but necessary, and I was happy to spend some time with her in her town before she left.  One of my favorite things I was able to help her with was giving away some of her extra clothes to her Ethiopian friends.  The thing was, they didn’t know yet that she was leaving, they simply thought she was giving away some extra things.  They were so grateful and happy; Each left with just a few new items that undoubtedly doubled their wardrobes.  The excitement on each of their faces was priceless.  What came later was a little less heart-warming…

Lindsay and her dog, Sam

She finally let the cat out of the bag, telling the people on her compound that she was leaving, and that cat truly was the catalyst for mayhem.  People whom she loved dearly were all vying for everything she had left.  It was, in a word, ugly.  The families that you share a compound with are the people you interact with everyday, the people you love as your own family.  To see those people treat you like the rich white person you’ve struggled for over a year to distance yourself from, especially during your final hours, is hard.

In theory, the other Peace Corps Volunteers are no better.  We all came and took our turns looting through her extra stuff in order to empty her house.  We did it before Group 1 volunteers left also, and I know Group 3 will do the same with my stuff.  It’s the Peace Corps cycle.  Nothing is wrong with that.  So what is the problem when Ethiopians want the same thing?  I’m not sure.  Now maybe it will be less of a surprise when my turn comes in early 2011.

I returned home, a little shaken and heartbroken from the events in Lindsay’s town, only to encounter my own distressing trials.  Friday evening when my landlord’s wife called me into her house for a coffee ceremony, I expected nothing unusual.  I sat through the first two rounds as usual and only before cup three did my suspicions arise.  A crew of workers came in, parking a big flatbed semi outside the compound.  They participated in the final round of coffee and then, bam, started carrying out the sofas practically from beneath us.  My landlord’s family was moving.

You may have seen pictures in my recent album of the celebration I attended about a month ago at my landlord’s new house and ask yourself, ‘didn’t she see this one coming?’  The answer: yes.  But while I knew they were building a new house, and knew it was completed sans plumbing, they kept avoiding talking about their departure date when I would bring it up.  Indirect communication is common here, doubled by the fact that I don’t understand everything people say in Amharic anyways (my landlord does not speak English, nor is he a sympathetic listener when I speak Amharic), meaning that I am often out of the loop.  But this one hit me like a freight train.

The celebration last month as they finished building my landlord's new house.

And I couldn’t even tell you why, but as they loaded the last of their stuff into the truck, ready to haul it 5 blocks away (yes, their new house is just 10 minutes by foot from my house) I was holding back tears.  You never really appreciate things until they are gone, right? And while I’ve adjusted to the culture and people here, change is still hard.  I couldn’t help but feel a tad bit abandoned as they pulled away.  I thought they were my family; how could they just leave me?

My landlord's new house.

But as always, when necessary, we re-adapt, we create a new normal, and we figure out things slowly.

St. Mary’s: The Ethiopian Block Party

Time is flying by and already I find myself celebrating St. Mary’s holiday without knowing it, again.  Last year you’ll recall I drank coffee with my landlord’s family and neighbors on their front porch, only later to find out this is how they celebrate St. Mary’s holiday.  This year I knew it as soon as I saw it, but still didn’t realize the holiday was approaching until the rest of town was well into their celebration.

Unfortunate scheduling had me rushing to an appointment across town yesterday afternoon to tutor a couple of the orphan boys I met last fall.  I hadn’t done much in the physical movement department on my lazy Sunday so I decided to walk, taking the shortcut through back streets instead of the paved main road.  What I didn’t know from my celebration of the holiday last year was that those without front porches instead celebrate with neighbors out in front of their houses or in the yard within their compounds.

It didn’t take me long to realize the holiday was being celebrated, neighbors from every single celebration calling me to join their party.  I kept repeating my excuse, “I have an appointment, but thank you for inviting me! Happy holiday!” while taking a obligatory scoop of nefro in my hand as I walked away.  Nefro is the holiday specialty treat, a mixture of boiled beans, corn, chick peas and barley eaten by the handful.  A few more persistent neighbors wouldn’t accept my excuse and insisted that I at least sit down for a minute to celebrate with them.

After a few blocks of walking it was comical, literally every celebration bringing me a plate of nefro for me to take a handful from.  At any single point of my journey I had nefro in hand, barely finishing one household’s snack before politely taking some from the next.  It figures that about half way to my appointment my landlord’s family calls me, beckoning me to come drink coffee, and, of course, eat nefro.  I knew I had to go; I already missed their big Easter celebration with neighbors and felt horrible.  I debated turning around, retracing my steps back to my house right then, but thought the path of least resistance (without having to explain my sudden return to every celebration along the way) was to continue to where I was going, which was on the main road, and from there I could get a bajaj taxi back to my house.

The second half of my walk turned out to be the same pace as the first half.  Five steps forward, two steps back, one scoop of nefro, repeat.  I was impressed by how many of the celebrations had at least one person who knew my name, meaning there were hardly any “ferengi” calls.  I finally made it to the main road and waved down a bajaj, never making it to my appointment.  Luckily appointments here are easily rescheduled, and hardly ever obligatory.  And I didn’t disappoint my landlord’s family, whom I’ve come to think of as my own family.  I managed to turn a simple walk across town into a joint-celebration with more families than I can count, on a holiday I didn’t know was going on!

The Art of Eating a Mango

Most fruits don’t require instructions or advice. Most fruits don’t need technique and strategy.  But the mango isn’t most fruits.  Having never eaten a mango from its raw state before coming to Ethiopia, I know I will always associate mangos with this time in my life.  I can picture it now, nostalgically strolling through the produce department at an oversized grocery store in America.  Before Ethiopia I probably couldn’t have picked out a mango from a pile of fruit.  But now I consider myself an expert.

Mango season has rolled into town once again; right after the small peaches and right before the big rainy season.  Everything here is measured by produce and weather it seems.  As soon as the mangos make their way from the southern parts of the country where they are grown in abundance, the price begins to drop and you can’t walk three steps without having to dodge a mango pit on the streets.

Eating a mango (unless it’s cut, cleaned, and awaiting you in a plastic container in America) is typically a messy process.  It can range anywhere from a necessary hand-washing to necessary bath and a good ol’ flossing.  This makes it an awkward fruit to simply hand to someone as a snack when they are sitting in your house.  But in Ethiopia, it’s cultural to share what you have, and equally cultural to eat mangoes without cutlery.

The Ethiopian method comes in two forms: ripe and past ripe.  When the mango is ripened, people simply bite off sections of the skin to peel it and then eat the rest like an apple, except messier.  This requires a decent hand-washing and face-washing usually.  If the mango is past ripe (squishy) they bite off an end and just squeeze the juice and innards into their mouth.

The problem with the mango is that there is no place to hold the mango.  The first half is easy: peel and eat.  But the second half is where true innovation comes into play.  And by “innovation” I mean “messiness.”  As you start to peel the second half, it becomes necessary to try to hold onto the slippery pit, which is where the mess begins.

I’ve come to enjoy the messiness, and I’ve embraced the necessary post-mango-eating clean-up, which is a small price to pay for sweet, fresh mango.

Becoming a Runner

I’m not a runner. Never have been.  I stick to sports that require less than five minutes of intense exertion at any given time: 100m dash, competition cheerleading, diving, but never long-distances.  Living in the home country of some of the world’s best marathon runners though has somehow inspired me to at least try the whole running thing.  Each November Addis Ababa hosts The Great Ethiopian Run, a 10k featuring some of the best runners, and well, anyone willing to try their best.  I decided last November that I would love to run in the 10k this year, giving myself a year to figure out how to run long distances.  

In February, during my group’s Mid-Service Conference, they announced a run in May being hosted by The Great Ethiopian Run, in collaboration with the NGO Save the Children to raise money to help with healthcare for pregnant women in Ethiopia.  An opportunity to help and a motivation to continue my training? I was sold.  This run was a 7k, and was going to be held in Hawassa, about 4 hours south of Addis.  I had 2 months to become a runner.

sunrise in the countryside

Running to me has resulted in pretty bad outcomes so far in this country.  The couple times I tried last year I wound up with kids chasing me and rocks thrown at me, bringing my confidence down a bit.  This time I decided it would be necessary to sacrifice my habit of sleeping in until 8am and additionally I would find out, shed a bit of pride.  6am has slowly become one of my favorite times in the day.  Not initially, but once I started getting the hang of jogging I found my sunrise jogs to be the most peaceful time of my day.  Not to mention the fact that my dog, Arbay, loves the run more than anything.

My regular route is a 4k, and sometimes I’ll increase it to almost 6k, but I’ve found my pace, which is admittedly slow, but I am happy to say I officially enjoy running.  The first morning the kids who live at my turn-around point started running with me I wasn’t sure what to think.  The last kids who ran with me threw rocks at my dog and me, but I started talking to them and now they’ve become a crucial part of my routine.  The kids are 6-8th graders who live on this farm about 2k away from my house and each morning they run with me back to my house, books in hand for school and shoes-optional.  It’s humbling having children without shoes run faster than you.  But I also remind myself that I live at 7,000ft, which makes for a challenge, an altitude they’ve lived at their whole lives.

May 1st, the day before the run, a bunch of volunteers arrived in Hawassa, ready to support Save the Children and run our best.  My goal: run the whole race.  The 7k was scheduled for 9:30am, not an ideal time considering how hot Hawassa gets, but the 21k run was appointed the early timeslot, understandably.  

The morning of the race was lots of fun, Peace Corps staff came to support us and even brought us Peace Corps hats to wear; swag, finally!  We were all pumped up, and that was before famous Ethiopian runners Haile Gebre Selassie and Turunesh aired the horn to start the run.

We were off! The first half being a run next to the lakeside, and although the path was narrow for such a large group, the scenery was unrivaled.  

The brochures had told us there would be bottled water along the route, which I kept hoping to find, but to no avail other than some locals splashing welcomed lake water from buckets.  The 10am heat was beating down towards the end but I kept going and proudly finished without walking.  It’s officially the longest I’d ever run.  What a fun day! I am now looking forward to adding 3k by November for the run in Addis.

Some of us Group 2 folks after the run