Bonfires & Rockets

Rockets were ignited; the sound deafening and chaos erupted in the streets of Dangila. There was a sigh of relief when I finally made it safely inside the gates of my compound as darkness fell around me.  I stared for a moment at my red-stained hands and reflected on the pandemonium the day held.

I went to bed last night after double-locking my door and comforting my dog who was scared as small explosions popped loudly near my front door.  Around 3am I awoke to silence and was thankful for the peace it brought me, but at 5am the noise was once again inescapable.  I peered out my window and saw that fires were raging in the street and smoke filled the air. Time to join the celebration, I finally conceded!

Today was my first Meskel holiday spent in Dangila and it quickly had turned into my favorite.  Ethiopia has a lot of obscure holidays, but most are celebrated in the same fashion: coffee ceremony, killing a sheep, eating injera.  But Meskel proved to be a unique and wonderful reprieve from the monotony of holidays here.

Although the holiday is officially today, Monday, September 27, 2010 (Gregorian calendar, because let’s not forget we just rang in the year 2003 in Ethiopia), Meskel celebrations began yesterday.  All over town cone-shaped bonfires were built and children anxiously ran amuck in the streets wanting to set fire to them.  But their parents' warnings halted their pyro-instincts.

I visited neighbors’ houses all day yesterday, which officially started the holiday and the process of being over-fed.  At one house, “the house of 5 girls” as I’ve labeled them, I came in just as the henna mixture was ready for application.  I accepted the fact that my hand was going to get the same treatment as theirs without a word and enjoyed my girl-time with this wonderful family.  As I sat there letting the henna dye my skin I thought about how majestic the henna dye looks on habesha hands, blending the natural golden brown skin on the back of the hand into a deep red palm.  Then I looked at my pale hand and realized I’d inevitably look like a kid who stuck their hand in Georgia clay or Kool-Aid, but what could I do about it now?

Hands stuffed in my jacket pockets, I continued to visit neighbors and enjoy the atmosphere.  I stopped to hangout with some children on my street for a while and they showed me their clever invention made from an old metal pipe and a nail all strung together with wire.  If you scrape off the head of a match and put it in the pocket formed by pipe and nail, and slam it against a rock, it creates a loud POP sound.  Some kids buy fifty sentim “rockets” which create a much louder effect, but using matches proved cheaper, so most kids opted for this method of being annoying.

The kids and I watched as parents built the bonfire tower out of wood and wrapped it in fresh evergreen branches which by the end resembled a Christmas tree by both sight and smell.  They told me the bonfire would be lit at nine o’clock, which would normally translate immediately in my head (there is a six-hour difference), except for some reason 3am seemed an unfathomable meeting time and instead 9pm stuck.  It wasn’t until 8pm, after I returned home from watching the Addis Ababa bonfire igniting on ETV and reminisced in my head about my Meskel spend there last year, that it clicked with me that the kids meant 3am!  I immediately wanted to double-check because I wasn’t going to be the fool who wakes up in the middle of the night for nothing, but at this point I was home, in my pajamas, and safe from the raucous in the street.  My final walk home just 30 minutes before was filled with dodging little boys running up with their fire-cracker invention and popping it at my feet; no way I was going back out.

I went to sleep cursing the children who kept throwing the rockets over my compound fence which would then explode in noise on my porch.  At 3am I awoke without an alarm from a loud but comforting noise, rain pounding on my roof.  The street itself was quiet though and I easily put my head back down to keep sleeping.

Around 5am was the next time I woke as children screamed with joy and rockets once again began their popping.  I threw on a jacket and hurried outside, unsure what to expect.  My neighbors happily greeted me and handed me a small bundle of sticks.  The streets where pitch black except for bonfires ablaze on each block.  My neighborhood’s bonfire was just about to be ignited and I joined in carrying the flame from an already burning fire to ours.  We chanted yohey, yohey, yoho, yoho lead by an elder and danced in a circle around the Christmas tree-like structure, then we lit it with our bundles of sticks.  The bonfire went up in a blaze and smoke from the green branches filled the air.

Bonfires eventually turned into ashes and darkness turned into a beautiful sunrise.  Corn was roasted on the remains of the fire and neighbors began their holiday celebration together in the street.  The rest of today has been spent bouncing back and forth between neighbors to accommodate all the bunna invitations; there have been quite a few coffee ceremonies.  Despite the number of cups of coffee I’ve had to drink today, the caffeine couldn’t overpower my four hours of sleep last night.  What a wonderful holiday; it will end the only way a good Ethiopian celebration can end: with a deep sleep!

A Little Work and A Little Play

As it turns out, my trip to Addis last week was less exciting than I thought.  It was very Ethiopian, in the sense that nothing much was planned ahead of time, so much of the trip was spent showing up to meet with organizations without appointments.  I think it was a learning experience for my two colleagues and me.  I am very glad I decided to go despite the lack of organization; one more adventure that has made me step outside my comfort-zone.

I arrived back in Dangila just in time for a two-week meeting to start for all government employees.  While I was invited to attend this 14-day Amharic-language meeting, I reasoned my time would be better spent around town.  This past week has made me realize how much I depend on my HAPCO counterparts for translating and preparing projects around town.  Without co-workers to socialize with or an office to sit in, I have spent a lot of time exploring Dangila, like I use to when I first arrived.  I found myself walking out of my house one day with a To-Do List that read: Return movies to video shop, Buy bread, Stop by post office.  I thought to myself, if I close my eyes for a minute I might be able to convince myself that I am about to hop in my car and drive to Blockbuster, Kroger and the post office.

One of my days of exploration included finally renting a VCD from this video shop I often frequent to buy blank CDs.  For only two Birr ($.20) I was able to slip the new movie into my bag and continue my day around town.  Later, as I sat down to watch the video; I realize it is dubbed over in Amharic.  Now, if it was that simple I might have even watched it to learn a word or two, but dubbed is probably too professional of a word to use.  The normal audio was still present, only muffled a bit, and overtop was one man’s voice for all the characters, in rushed and awkward Amharic.  Needless to say, I will just consider that two Birr the cost of learning never to rent a VCD again.

Since a couple projects I’m starting require the assistance of my HAPCO co-workers, I’ve taken this break to spend some quality time focusing on the cultural exchange goals of the Peace Corps.  I have been accepting most invitations to drink coffee, and after a trip to the market Saturday, my friend Tizda is teaching me how to cook a bunch of Ethiopian food!  The better part of one afternoon was also spent trapping a mouse in my house. I'm still not sure why my dog, who loves killing chickens, couldn’t help me with this task. Only three workers are remaining at the health center during this two-week meeting, and lucky for me they are the ART nurses who are my good friends.  I have been visiting the health center just about every day to hangout with them and have them tell me how good my Amharic is getting.  Haha.  Those women are so fun, and quite the ego boost!  I’m very excited about tomorrow afternoon, when we are going to prepare a coffee ceremony at the health center together.

 

I have visited a new café, found a new shortcut to the main road, been to the home of a new neighbor, and met a couple great new friends.  It has been such a fun week in Dangila, and it is now “home” to me more than ever before, especially after arriving back from an exhausting trip to Addis.  While I was skeptical about the amount of work I would accomplish without HAPCO for two weeks, I have realized my ability to get around on my own and love my friends in town dearly.

Fitting into Dangila

There have been several incidents last month that happened in my daily life here that make me think, “I can do this. Dangila really is my home now.” Just writing that is sort of scary actually, admitting this town in Ethiopia is “home,” but I am loving life here for many different reasons. This blog is going to be several recent stories from life in Dangila before IST.



Coffee on the Porch

Last weekend the wife of my landlord came home for a visit. She goes to school in Bahir Dar and is rarely in Dangila, so I was happy to see her walk through the gate on Saturday morning. Within a couple of hours of when she arrives home, she usually prepares a coffee ceremony and invites a couple of neighbors over. I was not surprised when she came knocking on my door late that morning telling me to drink coffee. I was surprised that the coffee ceremony was on the front porch of the house. I thought to myself, “what a fun change of scenery!” The front gate of the compound remained open for the incoming neighbors, and plenty of people passing by the gate turned their heads as they walked to stare at my unusual presence.

A couple days later I was meeting with my Amharic tutor when he said, “You drank coffee on the porch.” While he meant this as a question, he said it as a statement. I began thinking, “He’s never been to my house. Does he even know where I live? How did he see me on the porch? Maybe he walked by and didn’t say ‘hi?’” I was puzzled to say the least. Finally, he says, “Yes, it was St. Mary’s birthday. It is customary to have a coffee ceremony on your veranda.” I celebrated St. Mary’s birthday and didn’t even know it!

I Am a Funny Girl

The HAPCO office where I work has three other employees: my supervisor, my counterpart, and our secretary. One day we were using the town’s car to visit five different primary schools in Dangila to assess their Anti-AIDS clubs. We had driven out to a very rural area to start, and made our way back to the urban-most area of town. It was just my supervisor, my counterpart and me, along with the driver, and since my co-workers speak decent English, I tend to speak in English to them. In the middle of our trip we were driving on a bumpy dirt road when my supervisor, Tilahun, points across a field to a dirt road no different than the one we were on and says, “The school is over there on the dusty road.”

I look perplexed and said, “Tilahun, which road is not dusty?”

They laughed and laughed and laughed. Almost every day at work now, a month later, Tilahun will tell me, “When I think of this day I always laugh. ‘Which road is not dusty?’ You are a funny girl!”

Dryer Sheets

I recently requested my mom to send me some dryer sheets in the mail. I have no dryer, or washing machine; I hand wash and line dry each item of clothes I wear, trust me. I made the request because my puppy always has a static-cling thing going on, so the dryer sheets come in handy to make sure she isn’t a complete dirt magnet. I have been using them for a couple weeks now when I examined the box I have been pulling the sheets out of—it pictures a clothesline drying clothes. I think to myself, “whoa! Can I use these with line-drying my clothes?” Oh, silly me… no, you cannot. The only instructions on the box are for a drying machine.

I have come to the conclusion that this advertising was suppose to appear as quaint or charming. I would not usually describe my washing days are charming, but there is something delightful about looking at a clothesline full of your clean clothes, admiring your work. I still am not quite sure why you would put this picture on the packaging though. I suppose it is more appealing than the picture of a dryer?