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.
No comments:
Post a Comment