Market Day Quandaries

Today I am thinking of going to the market. I haven’t gone in months.

When I first got to site, I went every market day, 3 times a week. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday I would go with my plastic bag down the dusty road, through all the people and the shops to the place tucked back in the deep part of town. I’d follow the same path, stop for coffee at the same place. I’d greet the same people, and sometimes new ones. I’d buy carrots, tomatoes or onions, garlic, ginger, sometimes beans, once in awhile beets or potatoes. I’d always leave with a sack full of things and walk back through the crowded streets.
Women on the ground selling fruit from tarps would sometimes tempt me to stop and add something.

At home, I would experiment with cooking elaborate meals of stews and chili, or different stir fries.

After awhile I became exhausted of it. My appetite decreased, both for the food and the stimulation of all the people. I resorted to eating oatmeal and bananas, scrambled eggs… anything simple and available nearby.

Even now, I wonder if I’ll really go to market. It sounds daunting. At some point the novelty of being a novelty wears off. When you’re here long enough, you just want to live your own life, not under the guise that everyone projects of you. It can make you jaded, cynical I think. You begin to brush off a simple greeting, your mind so focused on being done and getting home. You question every hello as a possible request for money or sexual harassment. And deep down that part of you that really likes people, that loves to connect and socialize, gets stifled. It becomes lost and suppressed under your barrier of protection. I feel it. I feel it all the time. When I recognize it, I pull the barrier down, just a little. I smile at people. I take my time to crouch down and greet the kids. I look them in the eyes and ask how they are, what their name is. Then I repeat it back to them, as best I can, to show that I understand. They giggle at the sound of their name in my voice. Their laughter relaxes me, and I continue on a little lighter.

I realize that moments like those are passed every day. I just have to take the time. It’s about getting out of my head and letting others in. The requests for money, the lewd comments from guys who are high on khat… those will never go away. But I shouldn’t let them steal away all the moments of happiness that lurk inside the cracks.

A Stick in the Road

After a successful working weekend in Jimma, two volunteers and I caught a mini bus back to Agaro. It usually takes an hour, but this mini bus made an unusual stop. There was a giant branch-like contraption sticking out of the road and several people standing around staring. My gaze soon shifted to the left, where a giant power line was half tilted, ready to fall at any moment. I almost knew before I asked… is there power in Agaro?

No, they said. It disappeared.

There’s no telling how long a situation like this will take to fix. As an added surprise, both the water and phone network went down with it.

So Dave, Marissa and I arrived in Agaro with limited options. Our days went something like this:

√   Go to the market, come home and use the remaining water I have stored to wash and peel veggies for dinner. Slowly.

√  Pull down the small box of Christmas items from last year. Set up a mini tree, hang a few stockings. Stand back and admire.

√  Take quizzes from Oprah and Cosmo magazines. (Turns out we’re all romantics, and can keep our cool under pressure.)

√  Prepare dinner by headlamps and candlelight. (Part camping, part alluring ambiance?)

√  Explore Cosmo for all the new fashion, culture and beauty trends we’ll never be a part of.

√  Discover a million and one tricks to do with matches.

√  Visit the small local library… Read the Encyclopedia Britannica circa 1981, The Babysitters Club and several books on Karl Marx.

√  Find someone along the road selling coffee they made with a charcoal fire.

√  Do crossword puzzles from a book published sometime in the 1990’s.

√  Sit around listening to my iPod until the last of it’s battery is drained.

√  Read.

√  Read some more.

√  Discus options.

Agaro is really hot this time of year. We can buy bottled water for drinking, but as for washing our bodies, our clothes, our dishes… you begin to understand what a serious commodity water is. Going weeks without water, you feel hot and dirty. Your dishes pile up. You dream of cold showers and clean clothes.

So… our options: Stick around Agaro and go through the whole experience we’re all too familiar with. OR. Get on a mini bus back to Jimma, share a hotel and take a shower.

Call me a cheater, but that shower was amazing.

Where I are go

View from the other end of town

Yesterday, on my nightly walk, I decided to switch things up and go toward the opposite end of town. (Gettin’ wild and crazy over here, I know.) What I failed to realize, was how my routine was related to everyone else’s routine. This new end of town was not use to the farenji walking aimlessly toward the villiage. “You! Where are you go!?” they called out. Vehicals stopped to offer me rides. Kids came running from every direction yelling, “Farenji!”

To a degree, you get this everywhere you go in Ethiopia. But I had gone on enough walks through the other end of town to essentially bore them with my presence. People there usually greet me by name and then go on their way. This new influx of attention was overwhelming and a little stressful. Not exactly what I set out for on a leisurely evening walk. I noticed my mind immediatley recoiling, ‘big mistake.. you should have gone the other way.. big mistake.’

Then a quote (from Abe Lincoln) came to mind: “I do not like that man, I must get to know him better.”

This situation wasn’t about a particular person, but it was about a reaction. I felt uncomfortable and my immediate reaction was to retreat. What I should do, and what I’ve been doing since I got here, is think about why it makes me uncomfortable. When you learn the reasons behind it, you can get yourself to face it and eventually overcome it. I know that the added attention I get makes me feel like an outsider here. But the only way to get past that is to keep walking, and keep putting myself out there. Eventually they’ll stop seeing me as an outsider, or else I’ll get use to the attention. Either way, I won’t be letting the discomfort limit me. So tonight, I’ll go for a walk that way again…and teach some kids my name on the way.

Bless the rains

Rainy season has been in full force for a few weeks now. After a few months of non-stop travel, I finally made it back to site long enough to do some laundry. The thing about rainy season is though, it rains. And rains. And rains. So it took a few good days of hanging my clothes out, watching the clouds, bringing them in, waiting for the rain to stop, hanging them out, etc. before I eventually had clean clothes to wear.

The other thing about rainy season is mud. Lucky for me, Agaro has a paved road through town that makes walking less of a slip-and-slide goo fest. The dirt road to the market, however, requires my giant mud boots and a patience for getting dirty.

Aside from wet clothes and mud, I kind of like this season. The sun cools down behind the clouds and I actually feel kind of cold. (Fully realizing I’m screwed if I ever plan on re-visiting a Minnesota winter.)

I also love that the rain brings fresh everything. Almost everything is in season right now. Most abundantly are the mangoes that drip from every tree. The trees are rather huge, so the people on my compound have fashioned a giant wooden pole with a nail sticking from the end. Every morning the compound guard and a neighbor take turns finding the ripe mangoes and  leaving  them in my window. They certainly make me smile.

Sunday Dinner

Earlier this week I was approached by someone in town who wanted to talk. We had coffee, and by the end of the week I had met half his extended family and spent an entire Sunday having dinner at their house. I realize from an American standpoint, this seems rather strange. Maybe downright creepy. Here, it’s a part of life. Ethiopians have an amazing knack for hospitality and I’m consistently touched by their generosity. Though we’re separated by race, religion, language and ethnicity, I’ve never felt so close to family.
(And yep.. that’s a fridge in the background. Some families have it made!)

Growing

I have no urgent desire to be a parent or have kids. (Sorry Mom.) And my recent effort to adopt a kitten lasted one day. Here’s my last attempt at being responsible for a living thing. Since they won’t be peeing in my house or dragging raw meat under my bed, I’m feeling optimistic.