Melkam Fasica!

15 April 2012

Happy Easter from Ethiopia!

To celebrate my first Easter in Ethiopia I returned to my home stay family who I spent 3 months with during training. After 8 hours on stuffy buses it was finally my turn to yell “WARAJJ!” (stop).  I stepped off the congested minivan, into the dark, and let the rain softly wash the public transport aroma off me. As I began to walk two smiling figures made their way towards me. My sister Nani and my uncle quickly embraced me and gave me shelter under their umbrella. We walked to our warm, quiet house where I was greeted with flowers and countless hugs, smiles and kisses. It feels great to return home!

Guz-Guz celebrated her first birthday since I moved and she
now has grown 6 teeth and can walk!

After 40 days of fasting the Ethiopian Orthodox Christians were overjoyed for Easter to commence. Orthodox Christian’s fast for over 150 days each year. Fasting here means not eating animal products, i.e. being vegan. Fasting is an important part of their religion and a major point of cultural pride; so you might be just as surprised as I was to learn that Easter is a massive blood bath. Having said that, I will now warn you that the rest of this blog is quite explicit and gruesome, and yes, we are still talking about Easter.

This picture was cropped. You're welcome!

At midnight my family broke fast by waking everyone up and eating “duro wat” the favorite dish of Ethiopians. Mr. Cock-a-doddle-do was sacrificed the day before as duro wat takes nearly 10 hours to cook.  I slept through the midnight feast but was again awoken in the morning at 6am, not too eat, but to observe the carnage. Though my family was eager to share this cultural experience with me, I declined my front row seat to watch the first victim, Billy Goat, be laid to rest. Outside our compound a large ox met his maker. For families who cannot afford their own individual animal they buy a large ox with 6-10 other families who all share the cost and meat.

After the deed had been done I took my fingers out of my ears and meekly walked towards my family who worked busily around the resting goat. Men are only allowed to kill animals in Ethiopian culture. My home stay dad Seyome announced a prayer to thank the animal and God for the nourishment and with haste Billy was laid to rest. Everyone was given a task to do. Nani collected the blood which was later grilled with the intestines and served with injera (actually quite tasty). My brother and uncle cleaned the internal organs and Seyome skinned the animal. On many levels it was an education experience for me. Not only did I learn how everything fits together anatomically, but my family explained to me which parts are delicious and how they are prepared for a meal. Just when I thought I was over the initial shock I was knocked back into it when my dad pressed his lips against the goat’s $@&#hole to inflate the bowels for easy cleaning. WOW!

For breakfast we had bread, injera, grilled meat, meet-meeta (spice) and wine. I was too in the moment to take pictures of our meal, but just imagine an enormous plate, nearly 2 ft in diameter, filled with small chunks of meat, rosemary, onions and peppers resting on top of injera. There were 6 of us around the table enjoying our FRESH breakfast. Having wine this early was a first for me, but it did compliment the meal and it was a better option than tela (homemade beer). Soon enough the gorshas began. Gorsha is another highlight of Ethiopian culture where someone hand-feeds you to show their love and respect. As the guest I was busy accepting food from everyone’s greasy fingers and trying to return the favor without getting my fingers bitten off. Never before in my life would I have thought such a gesture could be so affectionate and become sentimental; but this morning as I was being gorshad by a tableful of warm friends I felt an honest appreciation for Easter.

Nani breaking up the blood chunks.

Jack enjoying some goat blood goulash for breakfast.

My home stay uncle, brother and father skinning our Easter feast.

Mobaylii Koo Na Bilbiltii

13 April 2012

At 6:15 a.m. my ears are pierced with the ring of my cheap little cell phone. I stare sleepily as it wiggles and lights up demanding that I respond. Perturbed but curious I check the number to see if maybe my family is calling. +1259284--- no, I don’t recognize this number. A wrong number is especially annoying here because I don’t have the language skills to explain that I’m not the person they are trying to reach. Instead, if I answer they yell “hello” “hello” over and over again until I hang up. If I hang up or ignore the caller will ring me over, and over, and over, and over until they lose interest which can be a minimum of 6 phone calls. This is exactly what happened this morning. I didn’t recognize the number so I muted it and rolled over. After 4 callbacks I decided to press “answer” but not actually say anything or listen, just use up their minutes so they would be discouraged from calling back. I pressed “answer” and set the phone back down. After 3 minutes I noticed the caller had not hung-up. I put my ear to the receiver and heard eerie instrumental Ethiopian music on the other line. I listened for a while then hung up. We played this game over and over until my phone stopped ringing.

Often if someone wants to talk to you on the phone but they are too cheap to use their own minutes they will call you and hang up as soon as you answer. In theory this would entice someone to return the call in order to finish the conversation that hasn’t actually began. I understand the logic, and know that it is common in this culture, but frankly I find it quite annoying. Once at the bank someone was calling me in this manner and every time I reached in my purse to touch the phone the caller would hang up. It happened 5 times repeatedly and I got the feeling that someone was watching me.

Many phones have a feature called “fake call” where you can program your phone to call you at a certain time. From my experience here I would think this is most appropriate during a long, drawn-out coffee ceremony at your neighbor’s house or when a creeper is chatting you up and you want to escape. I have yet to use the “fake call” feature but I do find it amusing. If your phone doesn’t have a fake call setting you can just pretend you are receiving a call as I witnessed yesterday by a young man seeing me walk towards him on the street.

…Cell phone doesn’t ring, young man pulls it from his pocket and answers it swiftly as his friends snicker and play along…

“HELLO! baby. Where where are you?”

… brief silence as he pretends to listen to his imaginary girlfriend…

“I love you so much baby. Yes, you are my world.”

… drawn out pause as he tries to remember another phrase from an English romantic comedy movie…

“Yes I am going now to the market but I miss you. Baby I love you, come to meet me.”

Fun fact: In my county (known as a “woreda”) over 80% of people own cell phones but only around 65% have electricity in their homes. Cell phones are something of a new technology in Ethiopia and it is fun to see how people use them and become familiar. Most adults yell into the receiver no matter if they are in a loud room or alone in an open field. Being on the receiving end of this call is abrasive and frustrating. Cell phones also double as an mp3 player and many young people play their music of choice loud as they walk down the street or ride on a public bus. On such noisy trips, several volunteers, myself included, have worn headphones that were not connected to an mp3 player. This is a successful tactic to block some of the loud cell-phone music from harassing your ear drums and it also prevents people from making small talk with you when you are too exhausted to play the game of 10 questions. My fellow PCV Bree even goes as far to bob her head up and down, side to side to really convince people she can’t hear them and doesn’t want to be bothered.

Rude or not rude?

5 April 2012

          The last 2 weeks my environment group gathered in Hawassa for our in service training. We participated in various workshops to learn new technical skills, project design management, and also to discuss our cultural integration. One cross-cultural seminar we played a game to help us consider how American values are different than those in Ethiopia. The activity was called “rude or not rude”. This game was difficult because we are still learning to balance our American culture in Ethiopia. I found myself having to decide which scenario I thought was rude, in what context and if it even mattered in the big picture. I copied down the scenarios to share the opportunity for you to learn more about Ethiopian culture.

·         Charging a price (often double) for foreigners (common throughout Ethiopia)

·         Arriving late to a meeting without an explanation (common, but doesn’t apply to foreigners)

·         Wearing a knee revealing skirt in public (considered inappropriate in most of Ethiopia)

·         Seeing an acquaintance while eating and not inviting them to eat with you. (RUDE! Even if you eat in public amongst strangers you are expected to share)

·         Cutting in line at the bank teller window and looking at people’s account/transaction information (Common. One volunteer experienced a stranger asking the bank teller to announce the volunteer’s account balance because he was curious)

·         Asking someone about the strange appearance of their skin. (Common. Ethiopian’s generally have beautiful skin with few flaws or variation in color. If you have freckles or pimples Ethiopians will point them out and ask questions.)

·         Being critical of someone’s work during a workplace meeting (common and varies according to context)

·         Interrupting someone who is in the middle of a conversation to say hello (the interrupter is not rude, but if you don’t stop your conversation immediately and respond to them then you are considered rude)

·         Picking your nose (VERY common amongst all age groups as are snot rockets… ewww)

·         Insisting that the window on a bus stays open/closed (Ethiopians think that you can get sick (TB) from fresh air on public buses so they prefer the windows to be closed and will close your window if you don’t fight to keep it open. Even if they are sweating profusely or someone becomes sick on the bus they will not open the windows)

·         Clapping your hands at a restaurant to get the waiters attention (Not rude and often the only way you can get the waiter to give you attention)

·         Remarking about weight gain (Not rude)

·         Not washing your hands before a meal (Rude, but often people just rinse their hands without using soap so it isn’t really a matter of sanitation, just culture)

·         Not visiting a sick friend (Rude, especially if you don’t visit a family after a death)

·         Not allowing your neighbor to borrow cleaning supplies (Rude, things should be shared and value over people is higher than assets)

·         Not introducing others before you begin conversation (Not rude, even if you are walking with your spouse failing to introduce them to an acquaintance you meet is not common)

Photos from Hawassa

3 April 2012

Here are some photos from Hawassa. All of my fellow PC environment volunteers gathered together for training and to celebrate our 6 months in Ethiopia

Nap time at the orphanage

Me trying to discourage the monkey from joining our training.

My work counterpart  Zewditu and me at training

Colobus monkeys outside our hotel room.

Colobus monkey with baby (less than 2 weeks old) browsing a hibiscus plant.

Katheryn and me on Lake Hawassa for my birthday hippo excursion.

Proof that I did see hippos in the wild!