Back home

As the taxi made its way to the Addis Ababa airport late Monday night, I looked out the window and tried to memorize my last moments in Ethiopia - I saw the glitzy shopping malls on Bole Road with people begging outside on litter-strewn, torn up sidewalks.
I said to myself, "I'm still here. I'm still here," knowing that in a matter of hours I wouldn't be.

The airport was busy. Hundreds of Ethiopians who came home for the Orthodox Christmas (Jan. 7) were heading back to America and Europe.
You might think that since everyone has assigned seats on the plane that people would get in line and wait their turn to check in.
Not in Ethiopia.
Everyone was pushing and shoving and trying to get through the automatic doors of the airport at once. Once they made it inside with all their luggage, they pushed each other (and me) trying to get to security first.
As a few women elbowed their away ahead of me in line, I sighed, "I'm still here. I'm still here."

When I boarded the plane and saw the British stewardesses with their hair in a tight bun and their little blue Mary Poppins hats, and I saw the leather seats and the clean, white walls of the plane, I felt a wave of relief.
For days, knowing I was going home, I felt nostalgic for all I'd seen and done.
I've been all over the world, but there's something about Africa - I feel something I can only describe as tenderness for the place and the people.
But when I boarded that plan and took my seat, I was so happy to realize that the dirt and the begging and all those doorless, muddy, hole-in-the-ground toilets were behind me.
And looking around at all the white faces, I realized I would soon slip back into that comfortable anonymity that comes with being part of the majority. There's a lack of privacy that comes with being the minority as everyone notices when you walk into a room or when you pass them on the street.

From Addis to Beirut and again from Beirut to London, they played the romantic comedy "Crazy, Stupid Love." I watched it both times and both times I cried through the whole thing knowing I was going to see Charlie in a few hours.
The two Somali women next to me pretended not to notice.
I knew they were Somali because I recognized their language - a rapid fire, clicking, glottal language - from the time I spent in southeast Ethiopia.
They told me that they lived in London.
Somalia has been at war in some form or another since they were children, they said. If people could leave the country, they did.
The Somali diaspora is all over Europe and Canada and the states. The woman sitting next to me said here sister lives in New Hampshire. She said the biggest Somali populations are in New Hampshire and Minnesota.
I told her that I met Somalis outside Harar and drank camel milk. They were so happy. Camel milk is at the center of the Somali diet.
She said there are camels in Holland, so she can get camel milk and frozen camel meat in London.
She told me that the next time I am with Somalis, I must try camel liver.
"It's delicious. The smell and the taste are different from goat liver," she said.
We walked off the plane together, and said a warm goodbye as they went to baggage claim and I headed for my flight to Chicago.
I didn't realize it until later - when I was sitting in a terminal full of American college students heading home from a Christmas break in London - that was the moment I really left Africa, saying goodbye to the Somali women in the Heathrow Airport.

Leaving Ethiopia

I fly out of Ethiopia tonight at 11 p.m., bringing this great trip to an end.

Things I will miss about Ethiopia:

* The many friends I made - ferengi and habesha. 

* That little intake of breath people take at the end of a sentence.

* Fresh squeezed orange juice and banana and avocado smoothies. 

* Greeting people with a handshake and shoulder bump. 

* The lighting of incense whenever they serve you coffee.

* The coffee.

* The daily kindness of strangers.

* Huge fig and sycamore trees.

* The shape of acacia trees on the horizon.

* Ethiopian time (everything moves slower here)

Things I won't miss about Ethiopia:

* "One birr."

* "You. You. You."

* "Ferenji!!"

* Shiro. Please, no more shiro.

* Ethiopian time (everything moves slower here) 

Things I missed about America:

* Charlie

* Hot showers

* Flushing toilets

* Cheese

Fighting monkeys for my breakfast

With my breakfast, they gave me a big stick, but didn't tell me why.

It didn't take long to figure it out. I was still swallowing my first bite when two monkeys, both carrying babies on their stomachs, flanked me.

I looked at one and she pretended to be nibbling on a fern and then looked away from me as if she was just another breakfast guest. 

When I seemed distracted, she inched closer - actually smacking her little monkey lips. I just touched the stock and she backed away.

Then I noticed the other monkey was practically in my lap contemplating a grab and run. 

We started a dance - I would take a bite, they would inch closer, I would touch the stick, they would back away. Repeat. 

It made for an entertaining, but stressful breakfast. 

For the final chapter of my trip, I decided to visit Awassa, a lakeside resort town between Arba Minch and Addis Ababa and home to hundreds and hundreds of monkeys.

I met a Peace Corps volunteer who lives here and has been showing me around. 

Awassa is the capital of the Southern Nations - all the tribes in the Omo Valley (more than 50) are governed here. It's also a hot spot for wealthy Ethiopians and a tourist stop for foreigners not far from Addis. 

The streets area wide and paved. They sidewalks are cobblestone. There are crosswalks and glass buildings and ice cream.

The Peace Corps volunteer hasn't seen the rest of Ethiopia but I keep telling here she doesn't know how lucky she is to be posted in Awassa.

It's been a nice ending to my months in Ethiopia - sitting by the lake in the evening with by American friend. 

It's a good mid-point between village life and home in Texas and I imagine it might keep me from being too weird when I get home because I've had a shower, some English conversation and a fresh mozzarella, basil and tomato salad. 

Leaving Konso

I left Konso early in the morning. Everyone on the farm was still asleep except for the old man who danced that night with his machete. We said a warm goodbye and I walked into town.

Even though the sun was barely up, the bus station was packed with people going to Arba Minch. There had been a teachers' conference in Konso the day before and everyone wanted to go home. The teachers were dressed in traditional Ethiopian clothes - long skirts to their ankles, white cotton cloth covering their heads and shoulders - but they were all wearing suit jackets.

There was a crowd, but no bus. A biology teacher from Arba Minch patted the ground and said, "Come, wait with us."

Her kindness and our friendly conversation lulled me into thinking that I would have an easy time that morning. Little did I know. 

The first minibus pulled into the yard. The door opened and the crowd rushed for it - pushing, elbowing, in one mass. 

As quick as that, the bus was full, the door closed and they were gone. 

Still, about 60 people stood in the empty, dusty lot. 

It was a shock to be left behind like that. I knew if I was ever going to get out of Konso, I need to steel myself and be ready to fight some old ladies.

When the next minibus pulled in, I was ready. 

In a move that is probably the single greatest accomplishment of my life, I ran to the bus with the crowd, threw my bag onto the roof and dove in. And maybe I only got one part of one bun on a seat for the three-hour drive, but I was in.

I was feeling proud and relieved and ready for the door to close, but it didn't. People kept pushing their way in. There were nine seats but by the time they finally pulled the door closed, there were 23 Ethiopians and one American taking up every inch of space. The windows were opened so body parts could dangle out.

A man next to me looked at the tangle of people, looked at me and laughed. 

"In Ethiopia, transportation is difficult," he said. 

Even though he was still in his 20s, it turned out he was vice president of his regional council and he was visiting the south to see what they grew and how in hopes of leading agricultural efforts back home.

As we drove, he pointed out the different crops - mostly sorghum and bananas - and told me what he knew about them. His narration distracted me from the fact that my knee was bruising from a suitcase that had been placed on my lap and that my other leg had completely fallen asleep. I couldn't move part of my body. 

Then the bus stopped in the middle of a village and the door opened. Somehow they squeezed three herdsman in and the conductor rode on the outside of the bus, standing on the lip of the door and hanging onto the luggage rack.

*****

When I first came to Arba Minch, it looked like a small, dusty town on the banks of two beautiful lakes. 

Approaching it from the other direction after staying in Konso, it looked so shiny and clean and modern. 

I took my first hot shower in weeks. The dirt that came off my body turned the base of the shower brown. 

Clean. I went to the hotel courtyard and ordered french fries, a bowl of tomato soup, a cold beer and a Sprite. 

I relaxed into my new-found luxury and watched the people walking by. 

I saw a line of men and something about them seemed out of place. They were carrying single-serve bottled of Gatorade, like the ones you buy in the convenience store in the states. 

The thing that made it so strange is that you can't buy Gatorade in Ethiopia. 

As I wondered where they found it, I remembered reading an article that the U.S. has a drone base in the area because of its proximity to Somalia. I realized I was seeing members of the U.S. Air Force heading to work. 

Culture shock

I guess what I was feeling was culture shock.
Someone described culture shock as the disorienting feeling you get when you expect one thing to happen because that is what has always happened and you get the opposite.
It was Christmas day and the owner of a downtown Konso restaurant invited us for lunch.
As soon as we sat down to eat, there was commotion outside. People were running down the street from all directions toward the traffic circle. They were shouting and waving to each other to follow.
I thought it was a terrible car accident.
I thought it was a parade or some kind of cultural display. Whatever it was, people were excited.
Everyone in the restaurant ran to the door to watch whatever it was.
I asked.
"There's a man with a monkey face," he said.
The American with me - sure we misunderstood - laughed and said, "OK. I guess I would go see that."
We laughed at the ridiculousness of the idea.
I've never had my laughter shut off so quickly.
My heart sank and I felt sick.
A man walked by the restaurant followed by people. He had Downs Syndrome. He was mute, someone said. His attention was focused on an old cassette Walkman he was carrying. He seemed oblivious to the pointing, to the crowd. He was dressed in nothing but a long, torn tank top.
A man in the restaurant asked if I would take a photo.
I hated Ethiopia in that moment. Their reaction was so naked and childish and cruel and unembarrassed.
I had to get away from them, to be alone. I barely touched my Christmas lunch.

*****
Fortunately, I could not hide from Ethiopia forever because I had plans to eat Christmas dinner with a neighbor.
Even though the neighbor is Muslim and even though it isn't a holiday in Ethiopia, he wanted us to have something special.
The neighbor is a farmer and the owner of shops in town. Unlike the mud and straw homes of so many others, his home was made of concrete with many rooms, electricity, a TV and cushioned chairs to receive guests.
The people he invited to dinner were a veritable Konso Rotary Club, the town's movers and shakers - a doctor, a teacher, business owners.
They spoke perfect English and wanted to talk about politics, health care and the state of the world. And it was a chance to ask about all the cultural things we had witnessed but not understood.
They served a soup made of sesame harvested from the farm and local honey. Delicious.

We learned:
* The Konso people have elaborate rituals surrounding death. When someone dies - someone important to the tribe or the family - a statue is carved out of wood in their likeness and erected on their grave or inside the family compound.
Great care and ritual is taken to pass life and power from one generation to the next.
Within a family compound, you can tell how many generations have lived there by the tall stone markers encircling the home.

We learned:
* That in the Konso culture, the women do most of the farm work.
Many time during my stay here, Konso man pointed to the women and said, "See how hard they work. See how much they carry." They seemed proud of it.
And I would see the old women stooped and walking slowly up the hill with loads of firewood or bags of potatoes on their backs.
* Until recently girls were not allowed to go to school.
"The family sees that the girl will grow up and marry and join her husband's tribe. So there is no reason to invest in her."

The sun went down and the electricity went out and we sat in the dark by candlelight.
The teacher decided to tell us a folk tale from the Konso culture - a story parents tell their children.
The moral of the story was that everything has a purpose, even if it isn't obvious at the time - waste nothing, be grateful for everything.
The story was long and detailed and the telling of it lasted almost an hour.
And my mind wandered in and out of the story as I watched the shape of the man's shadow on the empty wall behind him - moving and flickering with the candlelight.

Christmas in Ethiopia

Christmas morning. Woke up early and used my pocket knife to chop down four banana leaves to make four Christmas packages for the other Western farm workers.
In Ethiopia - where the calendar is 13 months and they just celebrated the millennium - Christmas isn't until Jan. 7.
I walked to town the day before Christmas and bought the things I could find for presents - candles, a box of matches, a bracelet made of melted bullet casings and a package of biscuits. Wrapped it all in banana leaves and set it under the mango tree.
Waiting for me under the tree: A mango, a tea bag, a pen, a photo of an old car taken in Hungary by one of the other farm workers, and a half full bottle of Nepalese brandy. No wrapping paper to throw away.

Another day on the farm

I woke up this morning, my first full day on the farm to the sound of the muezzin call to prayer and the sound of a hundred roosters echoing across the valley in answer.
And the sound of a rooster right outside my door.
Through the window, the leaves of a banana tree.

*****
... Is this what I imagined when I pictured myself in Ethiopia?
There I was standing at the top of a mountain of cow dung holding open a burlap bag while Bahrdin shoveled in manure.
That morning, we climbed into the back of a pickup truck and drove to the home of a nearby farmer.
As we filled bag after bag with manure for the garden, a crowd slowly gathered to watch me work.
I could only laugh.
As I walked onto the street with a huge bag of manure on my back, a man asked as casually as if I was sitting in a cafe, "What do you think of Ethiopian culture?"
"It's great," I said. "The best."
What else could I say?

*****
Another first today - used my first machete.
Even though my mind kept picturing myself accidentally chopping off my foot, it was fun to wield that much blade over my head, crashing down onto a fallen papaya tree.

*****
Learned: to burn cow and goat bones in the fire, then crush them while still hot into bone meal for the garden.
Learned: to grind corn and wheat with a mortar and pestle for the chickens. The Ethiopians use a hollowed out log and a yard-long stick to crush the corn - the same way they crush the roasted coffee before they brew it.
I watched one woman pounding corn into a fine meal and the other women stood around her clapping the rhythm as she pounded.

*****
Since I've just been traveling from place to place, I haven't gotten into the day-to-day rhythm of the Ethiopian life. But here at the farm, I am working six days a week like everyone else. Sundays off.
So Saturday night, I felt the excitement - like everyone else.
We finished work and everyone gathered outside the kitchen.
They passed around a plastic bottle of homemade "chugga" - a fermented sorghum drink.
It tasted familiar but I couldn't place it - like a thick, bubbly yeast and bath water smoothie. I pretended to like it.
Then someone shouted and everyone started clapping in a rhythm and the dancing began.
No instruments. Just voices repeating the same phrases over and over.
Unlike the dancing in the north - which is all shoulder movements - the Konso dancers use their whole body.
The neck moves forward and back. Stomping the feet and shaking from the mid-section.
They run toward each other and stomp in the center, then run back to their places.
The kitchen staff pulled me into the dance and a woman smiled, "This is Konso!"
Then the best part ... an old man - a man who goes out of his way to greet me in the morning and who sits quietly next to me in the shade during breaks - danced into the circle. He was holding a machete in one hand. He held it in the air as he danced, stomping and shaking the machete and smiling a smile so huge that I couldn't help but laugh out loud and smile back.

*****
Village life. All day as I work in the garden, I can hear people singing or spontaneously break into a rhythm - clapping their hands and one woman shouting. When I stopped to listen, someone said, "The farmers in Konso do everything together."

They all say, "I want to come to America." But I wonder if they would like it. I think they would be lonely.

Once a week, they have village work days and if you are a member of the tribe you are required to participate. If you don't show up, there is a fine. If you don't pay the fine, you are ostracized.
Being cast out - it's the worst thing that can happen. If you are caught stealing, one man said, you are sent away from the village, forever. You can go to another village, but they will know that you are an outcast and life will never be the same for you.

*****
Spent hours pulling cotton seeds from freshly picked cotton.
Sat with two Konso women who were doing the same task.
They taught me some Konso words and we would sing the words to each other so I could remember them.
Since those were the only words we had in common, when the silence dragged on for too long - we would smile and sing each other's names.