A Word from Our Correspondents in the Field

Walking to my last English Club meeting at Soloda School, I pulled my cautious don’t-want-to-trip eyes away from the rocky soil to enjoy what was happening around me. The wind was making it the perfect day, after months of 90+ degree weather; I was surrounded by green visions, green smells; our ever-present friend whom I was walking toward—Soloda Mountain—seemed to be straightening her back for me, like she was posing for a photo. And crossing the wet stones across the creek, I thought, “Is this really my route to work? I don’t have to drive 20 minutes down 615 or take the freeway—I get to cross over a creek.” So I wrote this haiku:

Days like these: the breeze

Pulls the eucalyptus trees

Down like taut sling-shots

and I was regretting that haikus, by nature, can’t be longer. Otherwise I would’ve extended it to read this way:

It’s—

Days like these: the breeze

Pulls the eucalyptus trees

Down like taut sling-shots

That I’m ashamed to count the hours until I’m back in America.

Truth is, Peace Corps volunteers have lots of days like this. Days where we feel mighty silly to have longed for a grandmother’s pot roast or Mom’s home-baked cookies (it has officially been one year since we’ve eaten home-baked cookies; consider this a few moments—then please plan accordingly for our approaching arrival). To long for home when we’re surrounded by beauty and newness and culture as old as you can find. Raw coffee beans, our favorite Ethiopian dishes, cows trudging through dusty market, old people calling us my sugar, my honey in this mysterious language we’ve grown to love—and we wonder, Can we just appreciate what we have? We’ve been given the experience of a lifetime, and some days we know it.

Other days we miss loved ones a bit too much, the infection we got from that meal took too big of a toll, the ceaseless harassment over-reached its monthly quota, or the delicious new batch of lemon-guava-ade my husband made had a little squirmy worm in it.

Why was I even in haiku mode on Monday? Because I realized Daniel really wasn’t too fond of my poorly-pitched, non-rhyming 10-minute-long odes to Taco Bell. This song series has been three-years-running, but it’s somehow even more annoying when the nearest Taco Bell is thousands of miles away and you’re not on the freeway looking for those food signs. Things that are amusing for every road trip aren’t as amusing in real stationary life. So I tried a new media and wrote a haiku to Taco Bell. I was so satisfied with the whole experience that I created a Word document called Taco Bell haikus, and plan to revisit this activity indagana, indagana. Again and again.

Several PCVs have said how unbalanced they feel—in a single day, their moods are all over the place. They can go from immensely delighted (watching the donkey bray and run from his master) to immensely ticked (watching the master catch up with the donkey and kick him in the face) in a split-second. We can be immersed in observing something glorious in front of us (old Tigrayan women with the most fantastic clothes, hair and tattoos, walking to market) that we don’t hear the kids calling to us from behind (to get our attention, they throw rocks or curse at us in English). If our moods are rollercoasterish in the span of a few hours, you can imagine what a week, or a month, looks like. Heart monitors: that’s what it looks like.

Peace Corps even has an official drawn life cycle of the volunteer. When our biggest plummets of morale seem to be common—like the 3-month mark, the half-way-through mark, etc.—they actually plan conferences for us, so we can have a long break among friends. Forces regroup.

To give you an idea of the things that run through our minds on a constant, wavering basis—we thought, what better venue is there for saying exactly what you think, than Facebook? We’ve compiled below some of our favorite recent Facebook posts from fellow Ethiopia volunteers, who will remain anonymous. We love our 200-some peers who have been reckless enough to embark on this same adventure. Simply knowing that our ranks are not two, but two hundred, somehow makes it all easier on those worms-in-your-lemonade days.

We’ve titled each entry, adding some thoughts of our own.

You wouldn’t believe the dreams we have here.

I miss running water so much that last night I dreamed I was sneaking into friends’ bathrooms back home & taking hot showers....

We quickly grow out of touch with American culture and trends. (Peter and Lindsay are preparing a You Tube queue of all the videos we’ve missed.)

ATTN people in america, #what'swith #peopleusing #80million #hashtags #intheir #facebookstatuses #lately #????? #catchmeup #byZway #babygoats #emily'shipsterglasses #frozenyogurt # Emily # Lauren

You need to keep your balance when toilets are actually holes in the ground—the walls help. (Disgustingly, in public restrooms it is common to see feces smeared all over the walls of the stall, because toilet paper is not often used here. Some Ethiopians use their hands, then wash them. Some use old homework; some use rocks: ouch!)

you're hilarious, latrine-door spiders. yes, i put my hands THERE on the door sometimes. yes, and also there. you've got it covered.

Bajaj flair is amusing. Whether it’s stickers of Jesus and Mary, or the pink fuzz hanging from the ceiling, or the mudflap that reads Shakira in the local alphabet, it is always amusing.

One of the bajajes in my town has "I hate you" painted in big letters on the side. Hoping I can snap a photo.

If only we had this problem in dry dry Tigray.

The upside to rainy season is that I don't have to go fetch my water from the stream. It floods in from under my door.

The cheapest U.S. motel instantly becomes Paradise. Just ask Debbie Luttrull.

Note how this Mekele hotel only crossed out a previous customer’s warning, rather than printing a new page or whiting it out: “Room 207 infested with bed bugs! Have a good day…”

nothing like coming back to your hotel room, turning on the lights, and seeing one thousand roaches scurrying around on your bed. Sweet dreams! At least it's not bed bugs, but then again, I won't know about that 'till tomorrow...

If only mosquito nets kept out those fleas and bed bugs.

While sleeping over at a fellow PCV's house my left eyelid was attacked! Yes attacked by an army of fleas! My eyelid is so swollen it looks like I ran into a door-knob...

Oh, the many uses of butter in Ethiopia. Our favorite: seeing Ethiopians with slabs of it on their heads, and a large leaf on top of it. Ironically, one year in and we’re still not sure where to find some ourselves.

So... It's popular to make coffee with butter here. I'm sitting that part out.

Is this Ethiopia’s version of sky-diving? If so, should I do it? Twice? This is a famous tourist attraction in Harar, Ethiopia, involving raw meat dangling from a small stick  between your teeth.

I fed a hyena with my mouth.

There is no OSHA here. Or any safety rules for anything. We have to sometimes dodge falling rocks that construction workers throw from the tops of buildings.

A good while back I was having tea w/ a friend, when he told me he was trying to get a job testing explosives for a company in Ethiopia. I said "Wow, that sounds like really dangerous work." He said "Yes, but it pays really good." .... And that was the last time I ever saw my friend Solomon. I guess he got the job.

We rarely have a clue of what’s going on in our communities. The bicycle man plays his foghorn siren every week, screaming angry Tigrigna down every street, and I still want to run for cover. It sounds like, “Run to your underground shelters!” but he’s really just announcing when we will and when we won’t have water this week. Valuable info we’ll never get.

It is not okay when your program manager calls you from the capital to tell you his brother-in-law called from your village to inform you that you should stay inside your house. There is turmoil in Aman as my PM put it and "Aman is treating the violence from yesterday again. Please stay inside." This would be a good time to know Amharic. oops! Livin la vida loca!! 14 months to go!

Rainy season in the south—where roads are blocked with mud for months, preventing travel—sounds ungodly.

"you will be taken to the dune sea and cast into the pit of harpoon, the nesting place of zarlac. In his belly, you will find a new definition of pain and suffering, as you are slowly digested over 1000 years." sounds familiar to my current situation

We feel most like we’re living in the Bible when people throw rocks at each other—and us.

So has anyone ever noticed on Beyonce's I am...tour dvd...when she's in Ethiopia she's crying...huh makes you wonder who threw a rock at her...lol j/k!

The Plight of the Ethiopian Female.  American women, we have no idea. Thank God every day that we’re considered at least close to equal with men—and are never regarded as workhorses.

Had my first parent/teacher conference today to talk a worried father into letting his daughter go to summer camp in July. I thought all was fine until my counterpart started yelling at him. After he left, I was told I would have to choose another student. The father was 'afraid' and said that his daughter is a girl and must stay at home and work. She was almost in tears while we were all talking. Poor girl. I think the father is lucky I can't speak fluent Amharic because I probably would have ripped him a new one.

Final words from our beloved sitemate.

Monkey!!! I may or may not have almost adopted a monkey...so I was almost home and I see this young guy with a baby monkey on a leash...mind u monkeys are not common in Adwa, Tigray. The guy said the monkey was hurt by the mountain? and he cared for it. Then I was trying to figure out what he was going to do with it. He wants to keep it, yay some people love animals here! I told him if he ever has to get rid of it I totally would raise it! But in the meantime he said I can come and play with the monkey whenever! He walks the monkey too. Good thing he is like a compound over. Crazy how I can be in the worst mood ever and hours later be in the best mood!

Ex-actly.

You Can Tigrigna!

If our neighbors say it in English, that’s how they say it. When we’re overheard buying vegetables from market, or having a conversation with a shopowner, bystanders will say in disbelief, “You can Tigrigna?” This is how I always respond:

Daniel’s response is a little less feminine.

After being nine months in Tigray with us, it’s time we give you a crash course in Tigrigna. (Since we’ve lost much of our English, if you want to communicate with us when we come home in 18 days, you’ll need to learn this s’ibuk k’wank’wa [beautiful language].) View the videos to hear our own botched pronunciations.

Lesson one: the Tigrigna h is really more of an hkhkhk hacking sound. According to our own Tigrigna instructor Gebre, “To speak Tigrigna, you must strangle Amharic.” If you’re not choking/growling, it’s not Tigrigna.

The Basics: Greetings and Leave-takings

How are you? (to a male) ------ Kamay leha?

Are you fine? (to a male) ------ Dahan deeha?

Are you fine? (to a female) ----- Dahan deehee?

Are you fine? (when you can’t tell the gender) ----- Dahan doe?

Are you all fine? (to many) ----- Dahan deehoom?

Are you fine this morning? (to a male) ----- Dahan doe hadirka?

Are you fine this afternoon? (to a female) ----- Dahan doe wa-illkee?

Have a nice afternoon/evening ----- Selam (peaceful) mishet, or S’ibuk (beautiful) mishet.

Have a nice day. ----- S’ibuk ma-alti.

Goodnight (to many) ----- Dahan hidaru.

Peace (for hello or goodbye) ----- Selam.

(If you haven’t noticed, when speaking to a male, end in the ah sound. When speaking to a female, end in the eee sound. When speaking to many, end in the ooom sound. When in doubt, use doe.)

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Pronouns

Lesson two: In the present and future tenses, each pronoun has its own tag word that comes after every verb, to identify who’s doing the action. It’s a be-verb/pronoun hybrid: something English does not have. But this is dropped in past tense.

Pronoun (English)	Pronoun (Tigrigna)	Be-Verb/Pronoun Hybrid Thingy
I	ana	eeyay
you (male)	nisiha	eeha
you (female)	nisihee	eehee
you all	nisihatkoom	eehoom
you (respect, male)	nisihoom	eehoom
you (respect, female)	nisihin	eehin
you all (female)	nisihatkin	eehin
he	nissu	eeyu
he (respect)	nissom	eeyom
she	nissa	eeya
she (respect)	nissan	eeyan
they	nissatom	eeyom
they (female)	nissatan	eeyan
we	nihna	eena

For example:

Yes, I know. ----- Iwa, ana ifalit eeyay. (verb and be-verb)

I like Ethiopian food very much. ----- Nay itopiya migbi bet’ami ifatu eeyay.

He is a very rude man (Memorize this one). ----- Nissu bet’ami baalagay sab eeyu. (Here you only need one verb, the be-verb.)

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Lesson three: While English is subject + verb + object, Tigrigna is subject + object + verb. This structure does not change when asking questions—only the inflection does. But when it is a yes or no question, you must add a d to the beginning of the verb.

For example:

You are tall. (to a female) ----- Nisihee nawhah eehee.

Are you tall? (yes/no question) ----- Nisihee nawhah deehee?

Where are you? (open-ended question) ----- Nisihee abay eehee?

Sidenote: Because of the handy be-verb/pronoun hybrid thingy, you can and often do drop the pronoun (nisihee), and are understood—similar to dropping the “yo” in “yo estudio” in Spanish because the conjugation in estudio tells you the pronoun is “yo.”

Some verbs do not take the d prefix; instead, as a separate word after the verb, you add “doe.” Allo (there is) is one of these verbs.

For example:

If you’re at a restaurant and can’t read the 231-character Tigrigna alphabet, you’ll need to ask the waiter what your food options are.

What all is there? (open-ended question) ----- Intay intay allo?

Are there tibs? (yes/no question) ----- Tibs allo doe?

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Lesson four: The word for “no” in Tigrigna is “ay” (“yes” is “iwa”). To make something negative in Tigrigna (in English “no” becomes “not”), you add ay- to the front of the verb, and   –in to the end of the verb, dropping the “be” verb.

For example:

I want mango juice. ----- Mango jus idalee eeyay.

I don’t want mango juice. ----- Mango jus aydalin.

He wants banana juice. ----- Nissu muz jus yidalee eeyu.

He doesn’t want banana juice (because he’s an idiot). ----- Mikniatum fara eeyu, nissu muz jus ayidalin.

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Fun Bonus Information

Thank you ----- yak’anyaylay or yahanyaylay (We’ve heard both, and even a mixture of the two)

You’re welcome ----- ginzabki, or ginzabka, etc., depending on gender and number. (Directly translated, this means “it is your money.” Many foreign languages—including Amharic—do not have an equivalent of “you are welcome,” the sentiment in English being that it is yours anyway, so you are welcome to it. Rather, Amharic and Spanish, for example, use a form of “it’s nothing, don’t mention it.” But Tigrigna does have the what’s-mine-is-yours language gem with its ginzabki, and we like it.)

* The “apostrophe s” of English that shows possession (i.e. Danayit’s avocado) is conveyed by a word in Tigrigna. Put the word “nay” (pronounced “nigh”) before the possessor: Nay Danayit abocado (the v sound is not in Tigrigna and is substituted with b when they borrow words from other languages).

*Where in Tigrigna is abay. You use this for saying where something currently is. But if you ask someone where they are going—essentially, to where?—you add an n. Nabay.

*Our favorite words that have infiltrated our English and I vow to say forever are ishy and gobez. Isn’t ishy just a far-more-natural and smooth way to say okay? It just flows over your front bottom teeth in agreement, and feels so right. Gobez means extremely clever. If our students answer us correctly and unexpectedly, our usual response would be Gobez! The first time I heard the word, it was day 3 or 4 in country (it is an Amharic word borrowed by Tigrigna, Tigrigna’s equivalent not being as cool; same with ishy), and a Mexican-American volunteer addressed our group of 70, saying, “Ya’ll are gobez,” and I just assumed it was really hipster Spanish. Hipster Spanish that I wanted to use forever.

Unfortunately, these cool-sounding words are as follows in Tigrigna: ishy = hiray; gobez = nifu.

(Speaking of day 3 and 4 in country, June 6^th marks our one-year anniversary in Ethiopia. Celebrate!)

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Baka? Wadihoom? Enough? Are you finished? Maybe you’ve already judged from the enormity of pronouns (fourteen), but you probably don’t want to get into verb conjugation. Abiyi churrak eeyu. It’s a big monster. But maybe you also noticed from the be-verb/pronoun hybrid thingies, that some pronouns share a conjugation—like they and he (respect); but this doesn’t make it any easier, does it?

Gina minalbash bizuh tidaleeoo eehoom—selazi, negarihna. (But let us know if you want more.)

Let's Head on Over to Perched on a Whim

Yesterday we were guest bloggers for Perched on a Whim, whose blogger Laura is one of my most dedicated and charming pen pals. We tell about the elegant and ubiquitous Ethiopian coffee ceremony. We trust you’ll wander and enjoy words from Laura as well.

Choose Your Own Adventure!

Loosely based on real events

A. You have spent a year and a half applying for Peace Corps. You’ve had your fingerprints taken at the local police station, your teeth have been X-rayed (twice), you've started an admirable collection of vaccinations, have made copies of every important document you own, have been interviewed various times, have written essays, have begun attending weekly Spanish TESOL classes at your church and were even caught in the language lab during a tornado as you studied Español with Rosetta Stone. After weeks of running to the mailbox every day, you return from dinner with friends one night to find the FedEx package at your doorstep. You scream frantically, jumping in the driveway with your spouse—setting off the barks of the neighbor’s awful dog—and rush into your apartment. You’ve since learned South America is out. You’re crossing your fingers for Africa. Tearing open the letter, you read Congratulations! You are invited to serve as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ethiopia.

Choose your own adventure! If you decide to accept the invitation, move onto section B. If you decline the invitation, your adventure ends here.

B. For the past year you’ve worked odd jobs (thanks to temp agencies, daycares, churches, and adjunct professor openings) and have lived with your parents. You’ve sold your beloved trusty car, packed your belongings into two attics and garages in two different states, and have advance paid over $5,600 on student loans, grants, and child sponsorships—taking care of every financial commitment for the next two years. You’ve bought and wrapped and hidden birthday gifts for family members to last the rest of the year. You’ve bought two year supplies of deodorant, wet wipes, and other hygiene products. You’ve spent a month typing up all your favorite Africa-proof recipes into one Word document. But your family and friends often cry when you excitedly gush about your upcoming departure. And you’ve been longing to expand your family for the past year. It’s a week before departure, and Peace Corps still hasn’t told you whether or not you’ll be with your spouse or alone for the first three months of training and living with an Ethiopian family. You’ve seen the 150-some-character Amharic alphabet online: it’s as foreign as it can be. You look at calendars that don’t even reach so far as your return. You swallow hard, and try to figure out the best way to fit those new rainboots into the hiker’s backpack.

Choose your own adventure! If you still want to board that plane, move onto section C. If your doubts outweigh your excitement and foolhardiness, your adventure ends here.

C. You’ve arrived! You’re getting used to injera and living with strangers who speak another language. You’re halfway through the three months of Pre-Service Training: 8 hour days of flipcharts and dry erase boards full of foreign alphabets, cultural norms, and diseases to avoid. It’s Field Day, the last day of your 2-week teaching practicum, and you’re leading Simon Says (or, Solomon Says). You faintly hear your phone ringing from your bag somewhere in the field. You answer to hear your mother crying: The baby is fine. But your sister is being rushed to another hospital. The epidural went wrong. She can’t feel anything from her waist down. Months go by, not knowing if you’ll see your sister walk again. And knowing you can’t see her anytime soon. Family and friends are filling her freezer with meals, taking turns with the baby, and she’s slowly recovering in the hospital. You don’t get the full story, or speak with her yourself, until a month later, as you listen and cry outside of a cupcake shop in the capital. The next time your sister calls you, it’s her turn to cry. Your younger cousin—and you’re so close to your mother’s family that this cousin is more like a brother—has been in a motorcycle accident. The helmet saved his life. He’s in a month-long coma with brain trauma. You want to visit him, to call your aunt and uncle and grandparents to cry with them, and you want hourly updates. You want to babysit for your sister and brother-in-law, drive her to Rehab, and freeze casseroles. Instead, you just hear bits and pieces. Being oceans apart, it’s inevitable that you only hear the big news—big progresses, big disappointments. But what are your loved ones’ daily challenges and small achievements as they slowly rehabilitate? What is going on? You have no idea. And no one remembers what they have or haven’t told you.

Choose your own adventure! If you decide to press on, you’re in this for the long haul, and your best option is to pray from afar, move onto section D. If you decide enough is enough, you have two beloved family members in dire need and you need to be with them, move onto section W.

D. After months of summer and then forced observation, you finally feel like a real working individual. It’s the first time you’ve felt busy in Ethiopia. Your schedule looks like this:

Monday: Soloda School English Club

Tuesday: Soloda School 8^th grade National-Exam-Prep

Wednesday: Adwa School English Club

Thursday: Maria Luwiza School for the Blind English Club

Friday: Adi-Mahleka English Club

*Additionally, for two weeks at a time, you work alongside English teachers at Soloda School, in the Teacher Mentoring Program, observing their classes and giving feedback, teaching their classes while they observe you, teaching together, then more observation and feedback. You also have trainings scattered throughout the months, to teach methodology.

Your spouse’s schedule looks like this:

Monday: English Class for 3^rd year college students

Tuesday: English Class for 1^st year college students

Wednesday: English Class for 2^nd year college students; Professional Development meeting with English teachers

Thursday: English Class for 1^st year students; English Class for 3^rd year students

Friday: English Class for 2^nd year students; English Club

*Additionally, he is organizing and recording native English speakers for a Listening Manual he created, to accompany the English textbooks.

You are “busy as beaver,” to quote an Adwa friend, but you find yourself wondering what sort of good Beaver is doing. Is he making a dent? In the abstract, you know why you came, why you’re staying: to carve for the suffering world a nice slice from your life’s pie. It’s the least you can do. But is the pie helping? Does its flavor and nutritional value even meet the needs of the world? Realistically, your pie has become English clubs. English, English, and more English. And yet you quiz a 7^th grader with 8 years of English behind him, on his colors, and he can’t even name red or blue. Can I still say that what I’m doing is worthwhile? you ask yourself. You know that in order for the people of Adwa, of Ethiopia, to be properly educated, the entire school system has to be reworked from the bottom up; and it could take decades. The problem is too big to solve anytime soon. You decide the only tangible good you are doing shows itself in who you’re employing and what causes you’re donating to with your Peace Corps allowance: the financial and relational difference you’re making for your neighbors. But couldn’t you do this from the states with a wire transfer?

Choose your own adventure! If you decide to discuss this dilemma with your spouse, seeking his wise counsel, move onto section E. If you decide your time is too valuable, and your single drop in this colossal sea of dysfunction is doing no good, move onto section X.

E. Over tea you prod your spouse: Do you think we’re making a difference? An important, legitimate difference? Is our teaching the poor grammar, grammar, and more grammar actually improving their lives? He doesn’t hesitate. Of course, he tells you. English is their ticket to a career, their route out of impoverishment. Think about it. If a kid doesn’t want to be a bajaj driver, a souk-keeper, or a farmer—if he wants to be a doctor, an engineer, a lawyer: what sort of textbooks for those fields would be written in Tigrigna? They need to know English if they want a good job. And we’re helping them get there. He makes sense; he always does. You realize you’re not just blowing hot air: you actually are a humanitarian, and what you’re doing is worthwhile.

You press on. Move onto section F.

F. You now have two gorgeous nephews to meet: Zachary Alexander and Samuel James. Likewise you have two gorgeous tomatoes sprouting from your garden kas bi kas (step by step). One morning both tomatoes—the only vegetable evidence in your garden—are missing. You find one on the ground nearby, with what looks like either a stab from a beak, (or a stab from Meron’s pointy teeth), in its side. “Elementary,” your spouse says, eyeing the neighbors’ chickens.

Choose your own adventure! If you decide to kill the chicken in revenge and retribution, move onto section G. If you decide to be passive-aggressive and eventually ask your neighbors to keep the chickens out of your yard, move onto section Y.

G. The chicken was delicious, the best doro watt you’ve ever tasted. But two days later you’re doubled over with a bacterial infection. Turns out, you were unaware that the chicken you thought you cooked for 3 hours only cooked for 1—the electricity, on its daily cycle, was turned off (and, hence, your stove as well), and you didn’t notice.

You must seek medical help. Move onto section H.

H. You take a bumper-car-like taxi to the nearest health center. When the bajaj comes to a stop, you assume the driver misunderstood. This is a…health center? you wonder. You approach the towering metal sign that lists all the offices. There is not a single English character printed on the sign, but your spouse can read the foreign alphabet. When he pronounces one of the lines, it sounds vaguely similar to something your neighbor said to you before you left. So you try that one. After waiting in various lines until you figure out the proper one, the doctor finally sees you. You mime to each other and use a translator (your Peace Corps doctor) via cell phone. The doctor prescribes Claritin and a Rabies shot. You refuse the needle—Really, sir, I don’t see how Rabies comes into all this—but the Claritin somehow works. You feel well enough to go back to work. As you walk on the school’s campus, one of your favorite teachers flags you down. She’s a sweet girl, younger than you, and she does a great job teaching the preschoolers. She begins crying, telling you she gives most of her salary to her parents, and asks you to give her money so she can quit teaching and begin her singing career.

Choose your own adventure! If you decide to become her financial sponsor and agent, move onto section I. If you kindly explain to her, Salary yallan; fakadana iya (There is no salary; I am a volunteer), move onto section Z.

I.  Funding the ex-preschool teacher’s singing career worked out better than you thought. You get a lifetime supply of the latest Tigrigna jams, along with bonus tracks of the ABC song. While overseeing the production of one of her new music videos (which involves four men in matching bright blue shirts and white pants shaking their shoulders in a grassy field), Ethiopia’s most beloved pop start spots you. It’s Teddy Afro! He says, Hey ferengi. Be in my music video.

Choose your own adventure! If you shrug and say Ishy (okay), move onto section J. If you’d rather have no part in this, your adventure ends here.

J. Teddy Afro’s music video that has you cameoing on a camel beneath a waterfall is a huge hit. It’s not only played in various cafes throughout Ethiopia, but it’s also playing in Indy’s Major Restaurant and Cleveland’s Empress Taytu. Your family is so proud of the talents that have brought you this far. Even prouder is the Ministry of Education, who views the video during a tea break. The Minister calls up the government, and one month later, you are elected the first American Prime Minister of Ethiopia. The only condition is you must rule from atop the famous camel.

Your unforgettable adventure ends here—for the time being.

W.  You’ve met your nephew and your name is on the all-nighter-swap schedule while your sister is in the hospital. You’re babysitting and cooking and helping them in every way you can. And it’s lovely. But you’re also homeless, jobless, carless, and wiping away tears whenever you get distracted enough to think about it. A dream deferred. In your cramped childhood bedroom, you’re missing your 3-bedroom villa with its expansive, tropical, and parrot-type-bird-filled yard. You crave injera and watt for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and this surprises you. You have few people to speak Tigrigna with—your spouse, and the staff of Indy’s Major Restaurant. The nighttime sounds of ambulances don’t quite compare to the hyenas. Your next item on the life plan is your spouse finishing his doctoral degree, but he hasn’t been in country to renew his GRE tests; neither has he begun applying to schools. You’ll have to tread water together for at least another year, doing something you never planned on or wanted. But at least you’re home, with family.

Your adventure ends here.

X. You are home in the USA’s comfortable embrace, drinking apple cider and eating green beans and everything else you’ve missed. Today you washed and dried your clothes in a machine. Immediately following your shower, when you scratch your wet arms, your fingernails no longer come away black (a sign that you’re living on paved roads). But five times a day your mind and heart feel sick. You’ve never started something you didn’t finish, with the exception of one batch of gingerbread cookies in ninth grade: the first time your pubescent nose met that unbearable scent of molasses. (You gagged into a scarf and turtleneck and called your best friend Elizabeth to come over and finish baking for you.) You’ve always been stubborn, reluctant to give up. How could you have left the grandest adventure of your life unfinished? You blew it. Hopefully you’ll forgive yourself—eventually.

Your adventure ends here.

Y. You never do get around to giving the neighbors an ultimatum: either they keep their chickens out of your yard, or they help you build a fence. Hereafter, your garden with its compost soil and fertilizer (thanks to your spouse’s newly-acquired composting skills) yields no fruit. There are no cucumbers—and hence, no pickles—or radishes, or snow peas, or zucchini, or dill, or mint, or cilantro in your future. Your gums start bleeding, and Where There is No Doctor tells you it may be scurvy, from lack of vitamins.

You must seek medical help. Move onto section H.

Z. She looks stunned and the tears stop. Did you—a ferenji—just say you had no money? Is it possible? She looks up at the sky. Is it falling? Yes, it is. The sky is falling on top of you, and you smile with relish—Henny Penny’s cousins who stole your tomatoes are getting their just desserts.

Your adventure ends here.

EASTER COMES TO ADWA

It was a holiday to remember. Sunday, May 5^th,  2013 meant more than Cinco de Mayo for American couple Daniel and Danielle Luttrull. A few years ago the couple celebrated Cinco de Mayo in Waco, Texas, by taking their dinner to-go from a sketchy but delicious “taco truck” on the side of the road. Last year the wife was helping to throw a Mexican-themed baby shower for her sister. This year their bedroom was filled with the unmelodic chanting of the neighborhood churches, broadcasted by loudspeaker throughout the town; chickens squawked and goats bleated for their lives at 4 AM, as all the neighbors awoke and began sharpening their knives. They were celebrating Ethiopian Orthodox Easter.

“Christmas morning is the closest thing—American—that I can compare it to,” Danielle said. “But there’s really nothing else like it.” Imagine a town where 93% of the population has fasted from meat and every other animal product for 55 days. They have eaten nothing since Maundy Thursday. And so, in the wee hours of the eve of Easter, sleep was nearly impossible. It wasn’t Santa who was coming—it was the delicious doro watt, kay watt, dulet, and tibbs (four beloved Ethiopian meat dishes). Saturday night Orthodox and Catholic Easter services alike began at 11 PM, and lasted until 4 AM—the release from mass signaling permission to break fast. No girls in flowered dresses would head to any Adwa church at 8 or 10 AM Easter morning; keep church for the night—Easter Sunday was for eating.

Hours before Easter, the Luttrulls received a text from another Peace Corps volunteer, Laura from Assela: “Twas the night before Fasika (Easter) and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, because they were all killed and cooked.” The Luttrulls were surprised, while planning a joint Easter meal with their neighbors, when the man of the house—Girimkil Mebratom—asked, “What time? One o’clock? Two o’clock?” Had Mr. Mebratom been referring to what the Ethiopians call “the foreigners’ clock,” this would have been more of what the American couple had in mind: the menu was calling for spicy chicken and goat stews, after all. But on the Ethiopian clock, one o’clock is 7 AM; two o’clock is 8. Danielle requested 8 AM, which was readily agreed to. With evening came Mr. Mebratom and his 13-year-old son to the Luttrulls’ door, holding two of their own chickens. Mebratom indicated the one under his son’s left arm. “Better. Fat. Daniel, test.” Daniel held the chicken, testing its weight. “Nay Teddy. ‘Ajoka, yikerta, ajoka,’ illu,” Mebratom laughed. (“Teddy’s chicken. ‘Be strong, I’m sorry, be strong,’ Teddy told the chicken.”) As the neighbors bid goodbye until morning, the Luttrulls verified the time. “Two o’clock?”

Mebratom: “One o’clock.” The breakfast hour for spicy stew had been changed: 7 AM it was. But for the neighbors who hadn’t eaten in days, and hadn’t tasted meat or eggs or yogurt or butter in two months—it only made sense that they would celebrate their Easter meal as soon as was possible.

Teddy’s egg-laying pet wasn’t the only animal doomed to an ill fate this Fasika. Thousands of goats were led by rope from market to homes Saturday, thousands of chickens carried upside down by their tied-together talons. The Luttrulls witnessed two rogue sheep bullet past them, tied together by the neck, like two children wildly escaping a dreaded three-legged race. Every family in Adwa would be preparing various kinds of meat Easter morning—most probably, at least one of the stews would come from a live animal, slaughtered in the family’s own yard. “Do you think there is a goat shortage after Easter?” asked Lauren, another Adwa PCV. Lauren’s Easter plans consisted of visits to four different houses, where she would be expected to eat a full meal at each home. The Luttrulls limited themselves to various meals with one family. Too many times the couple has been stuffed beyond Thanksgiving style, their hosts ignoring their protests and insisting they eat at least two plates of food. (Ethiopian definition of insisting: as the guest moves his plate away from the host, begging, “No! No! I’m so full!”, the host pulls the plate back towards herself and indignantly scoops heaping piles of seconds onto the injera. This provides conflict for the young Americans, whose culture had its share in saying, “Clean your plate! There are people starving in Ethiopia.”) While Lauren claims to not have perfected the art of refusing food, she’s discovered how to refuse seconds of the locally-made beer, sewa: “I put the cup under my chin, and block the opening with my hand, shaking my head no. It works.”

The second of the three core goals of Peace Corps’ mission is “To help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.” Official goals aside, it’s only natural that proud Americans would want to share their culture with their neighbors. So while the Luttrulls contributed to the Easter feast in Ethiopian ways—the coffee ceremony, monetary contribution for goat meat, making yogurt, supplying special Ethiopian liquor—they also added some American flare, making brownies in their makeshift oven, and guacamole (it was Cinco de Mayo, after all). If the brownies weren’t enough (according to Daniel, “They loved them! We’ll have to make them more often”), Danielle’s family sent them plastic Easter eggs from America. This resulted in what was most probably Adwa’s very first Easter egg hunt. It was at least a first for the seven participants, which is ironic given that as Daniel noted, “Easter egg hunts make more sense here. They haven’t eaten eggs in eight weeks. Also, since many of these children raise hens they have actually hunted for eggs before.”

The hunt was a definite success. According to Danielle, “The moment we said, ‘Go!’, they shot like bats out of hell. It was hilarious to see: even the 16-year-old dashed about the yard in a frenzy.”  The children appeared to love every minute of it. Within the plastic eggs were hard candies, fake tattoos, and coins. After each child collected their five, they cheered, “Hamushta!” (Five!), sat in the grass, and immediately took to their loot. “Hanti kirshi allani!” said Luam (I have one birr!), counting the coins from her eggs. It was evident that this birr held more value to her than if the Luttrulls had just handed her 5 birr, the approximate cost of the candy and coins in Luam’s eggs. Welcome to the fun and excitement of the beloved Easter egg hunt.

Mr. Mebratom had something to say of the matter. “Elly,” he repeated, demonstrating with his hands twisted together, and one hand emerging from within the other. “Elly and…rabbit,” he concluded, with the help of the 18-year-old. “Competition.” Daniel, watching Mebratom’s hands, hearing him say, “Under stone,” suddenly realized “elly” is “turtle.” “The tortoise and the hare!” Daniel said. “Yes, yes,” said Mebratom. “Meron, rabbit, the same. All children go, go, go. She sleeps. After five minutes, she go. She to find.” Meron, Mebratom’s 4-year-old daughter, had been napping at the start of the hunt, despite her brothers’ efforts to wake her by putting brownies in her mouth. A few minutes into the race, the bustle had woken her, and she sheepishly watched from the side of the house. When Meron, confused, wouldn’t agree to follow the others, Danielle picked her up to find the eggs together. After Meron’s first reach into tree branches for a green egg, her smile showed compliance. She was ready to hunt. The tale of the tortoise and the hare was being revived in Ethiopia.

As it turns out, when you set up camp in a place whose mother tongue is not your own—miscommunication is bound to occur, continually. Holidays are no exception. Danielle was making brownies at 4:30 AM (not because they bake for 2 ½ hours; but because one too many mic checks from the church stopped her sleep cycle at 3 AM). Daniel was awake making guacamole at 6. But when Misilal—Mr. Mebratom’s wife who speaks not a word of English—arrived with the main entrée that morning, she arrived alone. She held a plate of injera for two, and a bowl of doro watt. It looked more like a strange pizza delivery than an Easter party. The Luttrulls indicated all the seating, the pile of plates, the row of cups, and the dishes they made, saying, “Your family. We eat together,” and for reasons unknown, she insisted otherwise. The feast they had planned on suddenly became a quiet and disappointing breakfast for two. When Misilal brought them a bag of fresh raw meat, the Luttrulls realized this was the goat stew they had paid for.

“It was like an awful M. Night Shyamalan movie,” Danielle said. “Once it all went down, we started realizing how they had been interpreting everything all along—and awful interpretations. When Girimkil asked, ‘Our house or yours?’ and we said, ‘Our house,’ we thought we were inviting them. They thought we preferred to eat their food in our own home without them. A breakfast delivery. When we gave Girimkil a 100 birr note, and said, ‘For the meat tomorrow,’ we thought we were ensuring them a great Easter feast. They thought we were having them fetch us goods. We felt awful.”

But when the family showed up at the Luttrulls for lunch, the Shyamalan film theory quickly deflated. “So, was this the plan all along?” the Luttrulls wondered, experiencing yet another rollercoaster of misunderstanding that has become a weekly occurrence for them in Adwa. Instantly everything was perfect. Daniel and Luam (Girimkil’s oldest daughter, in the sixth grade) prepared “tibbs” together: goat meat, onions, and jalapenos sautéed and served over injera. For the first time the Luttrulls could feel the role reversal: they provided the meal, they served the meal, they ate last and little so their neighbors could feast—and it was their first Ethiopian holiday that no one had to roll them home for. “Unbelievably, I was even a little hungry,” Danielle said. “A few times I walked past the plate of extra injera in the empty house, and I tore off pieces, sprinkled them with salt and mitmita (hot pepper), and snacked on it. That’s when you know you’ve been here awhile. You eat plain injera with salt.”

To the untrained eye, the holiday bustle and happenings were evident in every corner of the town. Throughout all of Holy Week several people have been wearing rings weaved from palm branches. On Saturday thousands wore a single piece of grass tied around their heads like crowns. The streets were deserted on Good Friday, as several Orthodox Christians stayed at church from 6 AM until 6 PM. Colombian Sister Ruth of Don Bosco Catholic Mission claims that one of their volunteers mistook an invitation to an Orthodox service as an invitation to another Catholic church. Laughing, she said, “Ricardo thought that because the church has the same name as our school—Kidane Mariam—it must be Catholic. He did not stay the whole day. When he returned, we laughed. He did not know that there was only one Catholic church in Adwa.” But when asked how long her own Catholic Good Friday service lasted, she said, “It was 9 AM until 4 in the afternoon.”

It was certainly an Easter the Luttrulls will experience only one more time—in 2014. Everything was different, down to the Easter vigil. “St. John Vianni, pray for us,” was sung for them in Italian this year. There was no ham to be seen (Americans find themselves explaining what a pig is to Ethiopians). While they heard no “Happy Easters!”, they heard several “Melkam Fasikas!” (and one “Merry Christmas”). And there certainly weren’t any milk chocolate bunnies. But there was an Easter egg hunt this year in Adwa, Ethiopia—one so delightful and new for the children that the Luttrulls are already planning to introduce them to Christmas stockings this year, perhaps via old socks nailed to trees. “If there’s anytime for someone to visit us here, it’s Easter,” Daniel said. “It’s definitely worth seeing; and you don’t even have to miss your own Easter to see it.”

A look-see.

Hidden Pictures: Find the injured leg. The swelling is almost completely gone; the ankle is still getting there. This was our first visit to the hospital. We sat in what we thought was round one, the waiting room, for 25 minutes, before we realized the others who were waiting held pieces of paper. So we went to get our own piece of paper (i.e. register), and they saw us in no time.

My very first X-ray. I was ecstatic upon seeing my insides for the first time, and even moreso when the price came to one dollar. If it weren't so sketchy, we could make return trips and hang our assembled skeletons in our living room. But when I sat on the X-ray table, and the two techs ushered themselves and Daniel out of the room, with no word of instruction to me, and I looked up at the machine, alone and thinking: "Should they cover me? Should I close my eyes?", I immediately squinted hard and assumed I was probably becoming cancerous by the second. (But isn't that a beautiful tibia? I displayed it to the neighbors like a trophy, saying, "Sinus! Sinus!"--how they pronounce Science.)

Hidden Pictures II: Can you find the places where the Ethiopians normally eat/lean? I am tempted to break in one night and scrub their walls for them. Though Degna Cafe is one of our favorite weekly restaurants and milk supplier, we never sit against the wall.

We borrowed this letting-household-decorations-teach-English-to-neighbors idea from another volunteer. Once it's been hanging for a month, we'll rearrange them, test the kids, and give them candy once they get them all right.

Daniel trusted me with scissors. This is the Before picture. I giggled and gasped and "Sorry!"-ed my way through it, making him quite nervous. (Note the background: remember when our grass was green and flowing? This is what happens when rain checks out with no goodbye.)

After! Here is proof that it's in the blood. I come from barbers and hair dressers on both sides of my parents' family: all told, six. Though upon close examination, you'd find I'm not quite a worthy seventh.

 Last Saturday we hosted a Les Mis birthday party for Daniel (he's blowing out the candles on his brownies at this moment on camera). We made delicious French Onion soup with the works in honor of the French story, along with pizza and deviled eggs. We borrowed a projector from the college and watched the glorious new film on our wall. Pictured from left: Todd (PC volunteer, Axum), Christine (PC, Axum), Tirsit (Ethiopian friend, Axum), Lauren (PC, Adwa), Richelle (VSO volunteer from Philippines, Adwa), Sid (VSO volunteer from India/fiance of Adwa VSO volunteer Uziel, Addis Ababa).

Meron in her glory. This photo was taken this morning, as we shared breakfast and coffee with the Girimkils in honor of St. George's holiday. Meron--assumably warm--removed all her clothes and wrapped herself in this scarf of her mother's (later worn as a toga). At one point, she kept pulling the scarf off, revealing her naked self, to sing melodically, "Kidan aybilain, kidan aybilain": I have no clothes, I have no clothes. 

Tomorrow is Daniel's birthday! After my third small cup of locally-made Ethiopian beer today (they really don't take no for an answer; you should visit us and then try to refuse food or drink from our neighbors. Your stomach grows uncomfortable, and you begin to think your voice doesn't work--no one listens to your ardent protests), I thought, "This water isn't purified. If I get sick on his birthday, this would complete an awful tradition," thinking back to my birthday last year, Daniel sleeping off a horrible case of hives in a hotel room while I sat through an awful all-day training. But tomorrow is bound to be better. Daniel shares a birthday with our smallest neighbor Rhodas; she will turn one, but she is smaller than our 5-month-old nephew Samuel. We will host a combined birthday party for them. It's quite the eventful week: St. George's today, birthdays tomorrow, Easter on Sunday!

Want to see a photo of a six-year-old drinking the locally-made beer too? We think it weird that mothers give their babies breast milk and coffee in the same breath here (and that it's a for-everyone's-eyes affair). This is far stranger. You can see the cups of beer at their feet.

See Daniel's blog below, in case you mistake this one for the only new one. A twofer!

(Congratulations to Cameron & Wendy Moore of Waco, for winning our Peace Corps challenge! We'll be sending them half a pound of coffee for their various sacrifices of solidarity. Well done!)

Palm Sunday

 I’m often reminded of how developmental work is a conglomerate of cultures. Take Doug and Bahera Smith, two other volunteers at the college. His people came to America on the Mayflower, and he grew up in Boston. Her people came from Russia to Iran, where she grew up. They met, married, and raised their two children all over West Africa. Uziel, another volunteer at the college, is a Filipino who met her Indian fiancé in Ethiopia. They are getting married in Hong Kong before she moves to Sudan for a teaching job.

My work is a constant mixture of culture. Often this is difficult. There are literal differences and implicit differences between Western and Ethiopian time. Meetings can start thirty minutes late or can be canceled because of a holiday I didn’t know about or can end up taking an hour longer than I anticipated. And there are differences in communication. Simple subjects somehow balloon into immense problems of labyrinthine complexity. I ask, “Can we install sockets in the classrooms so teachers can use electricity?” and suddenly I’m Dante, wondering in a dark wood.

I’ve come to associate the problems of this cultural conglomeration with our church’s music, which normally consists of a Columbian monk on a dated Yamaha keyboard leading the congregation of, mostly, Italian and Ethiopian nuns in American songs. We can manage melody. The timing, though, incorrigibly oscillates between a synthesized polka and dirge.

Thankfully, my multicultural life is peppered with moments of exhilarating harmony: a student in his class’s adaptation of Jack and the Beanstalk pretending to play a traditional Ethiopian harp while singing Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” or Meron pretending to sound out Ethiopian fidel in an American children’s book.

Or our church’s Palm Sunday service, which began with an Italian priest reading the story of Christ’s triumphal entry in English before I followed a Korean nun in a procession into the chapel that was backed by the Columbian monk strumming a distinctively Latin-American rhythm on his guitar while the Ethiopian nuns harmonized in Amharic with “Hossana, Hossana in the heavens; Hossana, Hossana on the earth” and a wind swept by us from over the mountains and I thought, This might be what heaven is like.