So I'm heading to Gashamo for the week... look it up on a map. It's pretty remote and in the depths of Somali Regional State. I'm looking forward to a nine-plus hour car ride tomorrow on local roads. I'm armed with my camera, Somali dress, and a notepad. Hopefully the reward for a week off the grid are some "success stories", lessons learned and a case study of our various activities in that woreda. It's the heart of pastoralist country, so I'm hoping to get a camel bell or two, too.
Also, in case you were wondering, the infrequency of my updates has more to do with our infrastructure than my drive to share my experiences. The government is blocking access to some sites and blogger.com is one of them. All blog update at the time being are done with the help of my super blog assistant in Canada. Love you lots!
**edit-love you, too!**
Monday, May 31, 2010
Look how cute her markings are, and luckily her paws are pretty small
On Saturday afternoon Kaja and I were heading for a late afternoon coffee before meeting up with friends and colleagues for dinner. Walking down the street where we live, about two blocks from home, Kaja said something along the lines of "look!" pointing ahead of us. At first I didn't see what she was pointing at. But as we got closer, there he was, wandering all alone, a little puppy.
We both crouched down to get a better look. A little skinny and wandering the streets alone, we decided that this wasn't a good situation to be in as a puppy. We looked around for a bit, but no momma dog was in sight. After a discussion of what we should do (let nature take it's course, or rescue her; the sustainability issue when our contracts are up, etc), we decided that we should take him home and give it a shot.
So we picked up the little girl and carried her home to our compound. At home Kaja mixed up some powdered milk. We poured the milk into a saucer and he lapped it up right away. After a few cuddles, we resumed our coffee mission and left the puppy at home, wondering whether he'd survive, and instructing our guard to feed her the rest of the milk in two hours..
After a nice dinner with friends we had a nightcap (g & t) on the way home. After a drink we stopped at the office on the way home to get an old cardboard box for paper to make a little nest for him. When we got home the puppy was sleeping in between my running shoes by the door. Kaja mixed up a bit more milk and fed her again while I looked through my closet for a t-shirt or likewise for his bed. I decided the (white) COP15 polo t-shirt would be perfect, since I'd never wear it again, and I have more than one - should I change my mind. We gave him a few more cuddles before heading to bed, leaving the box beside the front door, hoping he’d make use of it and make it through the night.
At 5 am I woke to the sound of the puppy crying. A relief, since before I was falling asleep my mind had been turning over all the possible ways the puppy could die, including being snatched up by one of the kites that soar in the air around. There are lots in our neighbourhood. I crawled out of bed, threw on my Somali dress, mixed up some milk and went outside to feed the puppy. After about 15 minutes I decided to go back to bed, but back in bed sleep was impossible, so I jumped in the shower, appreciating running water - even if it was cold - after a week of bucket showers.
Kaja returned from a few laps around the stadium and after showering, we went on our mission: morning coffee, cheese at Rita "supermarket" and baby formula. We had decided the night before that maybe we should be feeding the puppy baby milk replacer and not the regular powdered milk. After coffee we walked to the supermarket for cheese and four pharmacies to look for baby milk, all unsuccessfully. We finally found the milk at little kiosk. The town was quite and the polling stations were too, so early in the morning on Election Day.
When we got home the puppy, which was sleeping in the little nest we’d made for him, woke up and looked both hungry and happy to see us. So after mixing up a combination of the powdered milk we’d been using and the new milk replacer let him lap it up, her little puppy belly growing with each gulp.
The rest of the day was spent alternating between the living room and the porch. We made a make-shift gate to block the front door with a sofa cushion and settled in front of the television for some news, lunch and relaxing. When exhausting the news on our four English news channels, I took a sofa cushion outside and cuddled with the puppy, who alternated between sleeping and peeing. Kaja joined the veranda hang out and a bottle of wine, music, books and cleaning up after the puppy were the order of the afternoon.
It’s Monday now and we’ve developed a strategy for breaking the puppy in and a feeding schedule. We’re not really too sure how well it’ll go, but we’re trying to get the puppy to use the toilet only on our little garden area and prevent accidents on the porch, which we’ve washed with a Dettol-rip off to try eliminate any scent.
When we come home we mix up some milk and wake the puppy gently and all cuddly then take him over to his feeding area. Once he’s lapped up the milk, we carry her straight to the garden for some elimination communication. I did feel a little silly crouching at the flowerbed repeating pee and poo to the puppy, and then praising him enthusiastically when she did it, but we’ve got to start somewhere. We had two successful go’s at it during the lunch hour which hopefully is more than coincidence. After eliminating, I take him to a basin with some water and wash her little puppy paws and splash some water on him to get him used to water and play with her on the porch. Hopefully it’s building some positive association.
Our strategy also includes yelping, growling and flipping her on her back when he mouths and “bites” us. It’s normal puppy behaviour but with not mother or littermates to tell him what’s appropriate and what’s too much, I guess it’s our job. And since we’re trying to make him the guest house dog, so he has someone to take care of him when we leave, teaching her good manners is essential, as well as making sure she’s not being aggressive or dominant towards the people she comes in contact with.
Today I enlisted the help of one of our many vets on staff to get some de-worming pills and other parasite control so we can make sure he’s healthy and happy and not sharing his milk with some tapeworm.
Now I’m off to the compound to see if we can repeat the elimination communication success of lunchtime.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Thursday, May 20, 2010
An SMS converation
6:22: Kaja - Hi ladies-running may not be best idea this morning – stadium is already guarded, movements restricted. See you in Office
9:07: Me - I can’t stop yawning
9:09: Kaja - What? You saying elga coffee didn’t do a job? Or CAHWs are that boring?
9:10: Me - Maybe I should have had two, like you. And CAHWs are getting very tedious
10:32: Me - Moo
12:56: Kaja - Still in Paradiso? Going for coffee? I will have a quick bite at corner but happy to join for coffee
13:07: Me - Still at Paradiso but just paid, then chat with Todd
13:08: Kaja - Ok. Good luck!
13:29: Me - It was okay, justing downing my buna to follow todd running down street, there was a camel parked outside here when we arrived though
15:01: Me - I feel like juice or fruit punch later
15:10: Kaja - Yum! Vitamins deficit?
15:11: Me - Think so even though tuna salad for lunch
15:22: Kaja - Rawda’s desk empty!
16:14: Me - Rain?
16:33: Kaja -RAIN!
16:41: Me - Power?
16:42: Kaja - Off!
16:43: Me - Strange! Result of rain/storn? Ots four days be election, this will not keep people happy
9:07: Me - I can’t stop yawning
9:09: Kaja - What? You saying elga coffee didn’t do a job? Or CAHWs are that boring?
9:10: Me - Maybe I should have had two, like you. And CAHWs are getting very tedious
10:32: Me - Moo
12:56: Kaja - Still in Paradiso? Going for coffee? I will have a quick bite at corner but happy to join for coffee
13:07: Me - Still at Paradiso but just paid, then chat with Todd
13:08: Kaja - Ok. Good luck!
13:29: Me - It was okay, justing downing my buna to follow todd running down street, there was a camel parked outside here when we arrived though
15:01: Me - I feel like juice or fruit punch later
15:10: Kaja - Yum! Vitamins deficit?
15:11: Me - Think so even though tuna salad for lunch
15:22: Kaja - Rawda’s desk empty!
16:14: Me - Rain?
16:33: Kaja -RAIN!
16:41: Me - Power?
16:42: Kaja - Off!
16:43: Me - Strange! Result of rain/storn? Ots four days be election, this will not keep people happy
Fly away
That little face-off I had with a butterfly the other day has led me to an "obsession" with the butterflies here. I discovered what I call Butterfly Row, this weekend. It's a little street with flowers planted in a long bed on one side of the street. Here the butterflies congregate in the early mornings.
After spending a little time around 10 am on Saturday morning trying to capture the butterflies for a while, one of the guys I met on the the street gave me this morning tip, so Sunday morning I was there at 7 am to spend sometime with the butterflies. The guys gave me a little metal stool to sit on and I spent a good 45 minutes photographically stalking the black and white butterfly.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Lunch Break
The air is hot and heavy at two in the afternoon. I’m in my three-hour lunch break and walking from home to one of the restaurants we frequent a few blocks away. Kiflu, one of our guards, stands up when I walk out of our gate. I put my hand out to gesture it’s okay, and turn it into a wave. He’s sitting with the guards from the neighbour compounds under the shade of a tree.
“How are you,” they all ask.
“How are you,” asks one of the regulars at the little shop around the corner as I walk by.
“Good, how are you,” I answer. I’m not quite sure who she is, but I see her often, and last night when I was buy cookies to break a larger bill for change, she was also at the shop, and made sure I got what I wanted, a package of Bourbon cookies, communicating with the girl (probably around eight) in the shop in Amharic.
The girl and her mother live inside the shop almost kiddie-corner to my compound. It’s a small metal booth about the four feet wide and six long. A barred window that has a metal flap to close it lets you peek inside at the wares on the shelves along the back wall. They’ve got all sorts of items. Tinned tuna, soap, the glucose biscuits I eat for my mid-morning snack. The woman who said hello was buying one stick of chewing gum in the shape of Juicy Fruit. She’s not very old, maybe in her late teens or early 20s, and speaks fairly good English. She looks familiar and I can’t decide if I recognize her from a restaurant in town where she maybe works or just from the shop. Another girl bought two small paper cones with some mysterious contents. I thought about asking what was in them, but changed my mind.
There’s a random herd of goats on the road too and no herder in sight. They look well fed and the teets of the female goats are heavy with milk even though I don’t see any kids in nearby. The women sitting against the wall on the left side of the street, on the same side as the shop, make a sound that sounds like drawing out the ‘st’ of start when the goats move closer to their little patch of shade. That sends the goats my direction leaving me to devise a strategy for getting past them. I’m not sure why, but goats make me a little uncomfortable, like they’re not to be trusted. Maybe it’s because they eat tin.
Further down the wide road is Peacock Hotel. It’s across from the stadium where we go running some evening under the fluorescent field lights. There’s a football field and a 400 m track. It’s home to Dire Dawa’s premier league team. On one side of the field are the covered bleachers; on the opposing are the uncovered bleachers. A seat under the shade costs 10 birr, and something like 50 cents for the worst seats on the other side.
I pass a man carrying a random selection of goods to sell; pink and green plastic flashlights, costume-gold watches, fly swatters, sunglasses, bangles or key chains or phone toggles. They are draped over his shoulders, arms and filling his hands. I wonder how often he makes a sale, and what people buy.
There are some men shooting pool under a pavilion at Peacock and I hear them saying, “you, you,” to me. I ignore them as I walk by. Sometimes I say, “you, you,” back when people say this, but mostly only to children whose usual response is laughter. Sometimes I say, “me, me,” but I’m not sure they understand.
I cross the main road going to Harar. The street I’ve been walking on is cobblestone until it meets the divided, paved artery. On the other side it turns into dirt, but I’ve never been down it. I take a left toward the restaurant and sigh internally when I recognize a mother and her kids sitting on the sidewalk a few meters from the gate to the restaurant compound.
The mother says “Emma”, and the children jump up, running towards me, saying, “Emma, Emma, Emma.” There are four or five of them, three grab onto my arms and I lift them from my sides, shrugging my shoulders. One of the boys says, “food,” miming bringing his hand to his mouth. I shake my head. They give up quickly and I don’t say, “beqa,” which means enough, like we do when the kids begging or selling chewing gum are too persistent.
Emma is one of my colleagues who used to live her. One of the first things she said when we went to this restaurant was, “don’t tell them your name.” This particular family is almost always perched right around the compound to the restaurant at lunchtime. I haven’t decided if it’s us farenji, foreigners, they’re there for, or everyone. Emma sometimes packs up of leftovers and gives them to the family after we’ve eaten. It seems like a kind gesture, but I have mixed feelings about the practice. The children look healthy and well fed, if a little dirty. Sometimes the mom is chewing tjat, a plant that’s grown all over this region and chewed for its stimulant effects. It’s considered an illegal drug in almost every country but Ethiopia, Great Britain and The Netherlands.
I sit at a table in the courtyard, under the shade of one of the trees. I’m unbelievably hot and can feel the sweat beading between my breasts. It’s days like this that make me wonder whether my mother’s loyalty to unpadded bras might be a result of living in Nigeria for nine years. Not that it does me much good; my undergarment wardrobe is hardly heat-friendly. For a minute my mind wonders whether my favourite online store would ship to Ethiopia. Then I wonder if I dare send them with the mail. My postal experience is limited to receiving one postcard.
The courtyard and restaurant are empty, except one table and it looks like they’ve already paid their bill. Had I come an hour earlier, it would have been packed with the lunch crowd. The waiter finally notices me, as I refuse to clap to get his attention, as is the practice here, and goes to get me a menu. I order a fruit punch without looking at it, it’s the reason I came here.
“One,” he asks.
“One,” I say. I’ve been known to eat two in one sitting, I suppose. Sometimes when we come here for lunch I have a fruit punch while the others have their mains, and then I have another when they have their dessert. The heat does something to the appetite and the sometimes the standard spaghetti and tomato sauce or omelette with no peppers I order at our two usual lunch places, just seems to be too much. The fruit punch comes in a glass bowl on a saucer with a lime and spoon lying on the side. The punch is a fruit salad with mango, papaya, banana, and a few other kinds of fruit. It’s a combination of sliced fruit and some that have the consistency of puree.
While I eat my fruit punch some of the waiters sit at a table on the porch and eat their lunch. They all seem to have changed from their black pants and white shirts to their regular clothes. Unusually I don’t have to ask for my bill, my waiter brings it to me after about 10 minutes.
“Sister,” he says as he hands it to me. I have a 10 birr note in my hand already, and he takes it immediately and returns with change, a 5 birr note — 38 cents or so for one of my favourite dishes. As I leave they start stacking the plastic lawn chairs from the courtyard table. I’m not sure if it’s because it might rain this afternoon, of if it’s a regular practice between their lunch and dinner rushes.
The family is gone when I come out of the gate. I suppose it’s not just farenji they’re after for the lunch rush, but they certainly are more aggressive to us. I cross the Harar road again and take the next street down from the one I came on. The office building is located between the two about four blocks down so I choose to walk back a different way than coming.
I don’t really have to turn to follow the dirt road towards the office as it’s diagonally from the restaurant gate. On the corner of the Harar road and the one I’m heading down is a group of people sitting and lying on a mat, tjat branches spread in front of them.
“I love you so much,” one of the men says to me as I disappear around the corner. I keep walking. Further down the street there’s a group of three boys talking to each other over a fence.
“How are you,” one of them asks as I walk past. I turn my head to look at them
“Fine,” I say. “How are you?”
They look surprised and answer, “Fine.” I smile.
The wide dirt road is speckled with small booths like the ones my neighbours live in and other small stalls that function as both shops and homes to many people. Lined against the walls of the compounds on either side of the street, they seek the shade of orange maringa and fuchsia jacaranda trees. They’re all tended by women, just like at my local.
I quite like the woman and her daughters that live in the one by my house. She’s a slight woman, always smiling. She’s rigged up an old piece of cloth along the side of her booth, using a few wooden posts and the corners of the booth. She has a little metal “stove” that’s the standard cooking appliance here. The design varies but usually there’s a depression on the top for coal. The few metal pans or kettle they use to cook the food are placed directly on top.
Under her tarp, our lady serves local men tjai (tea), buna (coffee), fool (a spicy dish made with lentils), and dinitsh (a dish made with peeled, boiled potatoes in cubes along with chopped fresh tomatoes, onions and spicy green peppers).
She has two daughters, I think; both go to school. Sometimes the younger one tends the shop with the mother sits on a stool on the side with her other daughters, doing what looks like a homework check. The youngest daughter who was tending the shop yesterday is quite good at English, and every time she makes change, she says, “the answer is” and then how ever much change I get, as she hands it me. Yesterday the answer was 42.
Further down dirt road, there’s a tall, thin Somali man wearing a ragged and dirty button-up shirt and the wrap-around “skirt” that men wear. It’s rolled up and I can see his skinny legs and knobby joints. He looks old with whitish hair and a weathered face. He stops and puts his hand out and says something in Somali. I shake my head and keep walking.
I turn the corner to the street our office building is on. It’s paved in the white, greyish, black-blue cobblestones that are a reminder of the Italian occupation under Mussolini. I also live on this street, one block up.
Our office is made up of two compounds. It was just one, but recently we took over the compound next door on the corner, because space was getting a little tight in the original four-floor house-come-office building. Gizaw, one of the office guards is standing outside. He takes his hat off and greets me as I walk through the golden doorway in the gate and into the compound, paved in reddish-stamped concrete tiles.
I’m back at work 2:25 pm, 35 minutes before we reconvene for office hours at 3 pm. Our two kitchen ladies at laying on the sections of green Harari sofa that are in the two office buildings, resting. The air is still hot and heavy, but the sky has turned from blue to grey. I turn on the lights and set the fan to four. I get a glass of water and sit at my desk.
“How are you,” they all ask.
“How are you,” asks one of the regulars at the little shop around the corner as I walk by.
“Good, how are you,” I answer. I’m not quite sure who she is, but I see her often, and last night when I was buy cookies to break a larger bill for change, she was also at the shop, and made sure I got what I wanted, a package of Bourbon cookies, communicating with the girl (probably around eight) in the shop in Amharic.
The girl and her mother live inside the shop almost kiddie-corner to my compound. It’s a small metal booth about the four feet wide and six long. A barred window that has a metal flap to close it lets you peek inside at the wares on the shelves along the back wall. They’ve got all sorts of items. Tinned tuna, soap, the glucose biscuits I eat for my mid-morning snack. The woman who said hello was buying one stick of chewing gum in the shape of Juicy Fruit. She’s not very old, maybe in her late teens or early 20s, and speaks fairly good English. She looks familiar and I can’t decide if I recognize her from a restaurant in town where she maybe works or just from the shop. Another girl bought two small paper cones with some mysterious contents. I thought about asking what was in them, but changed my mind.
There’s a random herd of goats on the road too and no herder in sight. They look well fed and the teets of the female goats are heavy with milk even though I don’t see any kids in nearby. The women sitting against the wall on the left side of the street, on the same side as the shop, make a sound that sounds like drawing out the ‘st’ of start when the goats move closer to their little patch of shade. That sends the goats my direction leaving me to devise a strategy for getting past them. I’m not sure why, but goats make me a little uncomfortable, like they’re not to be trusted. Maybe it’s because they eat tin.
Further down the wide road is Peacock Hotel. It’s across from the stadium where we go running some evening under the fluorescent field lights. There’s a football field and a 400 m track. It’s home to Dire Dawa’s premier league team. On one side of the field are the covered bleachers; on the opposing are the uncovered bleachers. A seat under the shade costs 10 birr, and something like 50 cents for the worst seats on the other side.
I pass a man carrying a random selection of goods to sell; pink and green plastic flashlights, costume-gold watches, fly swatters, sunglasses, bangles or key chains or phone toggles. They are draped over his shoulders, arms and filling his hands. I wonder how often he makes a sale, and what people buy.
There are some men shooting pool under a pavilion at Peacock and I hear them saying, “you, you,” to me. I ignore them as I walk by. Sometimes I say, “you, you,” back when people say this, but mostly only to children whose usual response is laughter. Sometimes I say, “me, me,” but I’m not sure they understand.
I cross the main road going to Harar. The street I’ve been walking on is cobblestone until it meets the divided, paved artery. On the other side it turns into dirt, but I’ve never been down it. I take a left toward the restaurant and sigh internally when I recognize a mother and her kids sitting on the sidewalk a few meters from the gate to the restaurant compound.
The mother says “Emma”, and the children jump up, running towards me, saying, “Emma, Emma, Emma.” There are four or five of them, three grab onto my arms and I lift them from my sides, shrugging my shoulders. One of the boys says, “food,” miming bringing his hand to his mouth. I shake my head. They give up quickly and I don’t say, “beqa,” which means enough, like we do when the kids begging or selling chewing gum are too persistent.
Emma is one of my colleagues who used to live her. One of the first things she said when we went to this restaurant was, “don’t tell them your name.” This particular family is almost always perched right around the compound to the restaurant at lunchtime. I haven’t decided if it’s us farenji, foreigners, they’re there for, or everyone. Emma sometimes packs up of leftovers and gives them to the family after we’ve eaten. It seems like a kind gesture, but I have mixed feelings about the practice. The children look healthy and well fed, if a little dirty. Sometimes the mom is chewing tjat, a plant that’s grown all over this region and chewed for its stimulant effects. It’s considered an illegal drug in almost every country but Ethiopia, Great Britain and The Netherlands.
I sit at a table in the courtyard, under the shade of one of the trees. I’m unbelievably hot and can feel the sweat beading between my breasts. It’s days like this that make me wonder whether my mother’s loyalty to unpadded bras might be a result of living in Nigeria for nine years. Not that it does me much good; my undergarment wardrobe is hardly heat-friendly. For a minute my mind wonders whether my favourite online store would ship to Ethiopia. Then I wonder if I dare send them with the mail. My postal experience is limited to receiving one postcard.
The courtyard and restaurant are empty, except one table and it looks like they’ve already paid their bill. Had I come an hour earlier, it would have been packed with the lunch crowd. The waiter finally notices me, as I refuse to clap to get his attention, as is the practice here, and goes to get me a menu. I order a fruit punch without looking at it, it’s the reason I came here.
“One,” he asks.
“One,” I say. I’ve been known to eat two in one sitting, I suppose. Sometimes when we come here for lunch I have a fruit punch while the others have their mains, and then I have another when they have their dessert. The heat does something to the appetite and the sometimes the standard spaghetti and tomato sauce or omelette with no peppers I order at our two usual lunch places, just seems to be too much. The fruit punch comes in a glass bowl on a saucer with a lime and spoon lying on the side. The punch is a fruit salad with mango, papaya, banana, and a few other kinds of fruit. It’s a combination of sliced fruit and some that have the consistency of puree.
While I eat my fruit punch some of the waiters sit at a table on the porch and eat their lunch. They all seem to have changed from their black pants and white shirts to their regular clothes. Unusually I don’t have to ask for my bill, my waiter brings it to me after about 10 minutes.
“Sister,” he says as he hands it to me. I have a 10 birr note in my hand already, and he takes it immediately and returns with change, a 5 birr note — 38 cents or so for one of my favourite dishes. As I leave they start stacking the plastic lawn chairs from the courtyard table. I’m not sure if it’s because it might rain this afternoon, of if it’s a regular practice between their lunch and dinner rushes.
The family is gone when I come out of the gate. I suppose it’s not just farenji they’re after for the lunch rush, but they certainly are more aggressive to us. I cross the Harar road again and take the next street down from the one I came on. The office building is located between the two about four blocks down so I choose to walk back a different way than coming.
I don’t really have to turn to follow the dirt road towards the office as it’s diagonally from the restaurant gate. On the corner of the Harar road and the one I’m heading down is a group of people sitting and lying on a mat, tjat branches spread in front of them.
“I love you so much,” one of the men says to me as I disappear around the corner. I keep walking. Further down the street there’s a group of three boys talking to each other over a fence.
“How are you,” one of them asks as I walk past. I turn my head to look at them
“Fine,” I say. “How are you?”
They look surprised and answer, “Fine.” I smile.
The wide dirt road is speckled with small booths like the ones my neighbours live in and other small stalls that function as both shops and homes to many people. Lined against the walls of the compounds on either side of the street, they seek the shade of orange maringa and fuchsia jacaranda trees. They’re all tended by women, just like at my local.
I quite like the woman and her daughters that live in the one by my house. She’s a slight woman, always smiling. She’s rigged up an old piece of cloth along the side of her booth, using a few wooden posts and the corners of the booth. She has a little metal “stove” that’s the standard cooking appliance here. The design varies but usually there’s a depression on the top for coal. The few metal pans or kettle they use to cook the food are placed directly on top.
Under her tarp, our lady serves local men tjai (tea), buna (coffee), fool (a spicy dish made with lentils), and dinitsh (a dish made with peeled, boiled potatoes in cubes along with chopped fresh tomatoes, onions and spicy green peppers).
She has two daughters, I think; both go to school. Sometimes the younger one tends the shop with the mother sits on a stool on the side with her other daughters, doing what looks like a homework check. The youngest daughter who was tending the shop yesterday is quite good at English, and every time she makes change, she says, “the answer is” and then how ever much change I get, as she hands it me. Yesterday the answer was 42.
Further down dirt road, there’s a tall, thin Somali man wearing a ragged and dirty button-up shirt and the wrap-around “skirt” that men wear. It’s rolled up and I can see his skinny legs and knobby joints. He looks old with whitish hair and a weathered face. He stops and puts his hand out and says something in Somali. I shake my head and keep walking.
I turn the corner to the street our office building is on. It’s paved in the white, greyish, black-blue cobblestones that are a reminder of the Italian occupation under Mussolini. I also live on this street, one block up.
Our office is made up of two compounds. It was just one, but recently we took over the compound next door on the corner, because space was getting a little tight in the original four-floor house-come-office building. Gizaw, one of the office guards is standing outside. He takes his hat off and greets me as I walk through the golden doorway in the gate and into the compound, paved in reddish-stamped concrete tiles.
I’m back at work 2:25 pm, 35 minutes before we reconvene for office hours at 3 pm. Our two kitchen ladies at laying on the sections of green Harari sofa that are in the two office buildings, resting. The air is still hot and heavy, but the sky has turned from blue to grey. I turn on the lights and set the fan to four. I get a glass of water and sit at my desk.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
The air is hot and heavy at two in the afternoon. I’m in my three-hour lunch break and walking from home to one of the restaurants we frequent a few blocks away. Kiflu, one of our guards, stands up when I walk out of our gate. I put my hand out to gesture it’s okay, and turn it into a wave. He’s sitting with the guards from the neighbour compounds under the shade of a tree.
“How are you,” they all ask.
“How are you,” asks one of the regulars at the little shop around the corner as I walk by.
“Good, how are you,” I answer. I’m not quite sure who she is, but I see her often, and last night when I was buy cookies to break a larger bill for change, she was also at the shop, and made sure I got what I wanted, a package of Bourbon cookies, communicating with the girl (probably around eight) in the shop in Amharic.
The girl and her mother live inside the shop almost kiddie-corner to my compound. It’s a small metal booth about the four feet wide and six long. A barred window that has a metal flap to close it lets you peek inside at the wares on the shelves along the back wall. They’ve got all sorts of items. Tinned tuna, soap, the glucose biscuits I eat for my mid-morning snack. The woman who said hello was buying one stick of chewing gum in the shape of Juicy Fruit. She’s not very old, maybe in her late teens or early 20s, and speaks fairly good English. She looks familiar and I can’t decide if I recognize her from a restaurant in town where she maybe works or just from the shop. Another girl bought two small paper cones with some mysterious contents. I thought about asking what was in them, but changed my mind.
There’s a random herd of goats on the road too and no herder in sight. They look well fed and the teets of the female goats are heavy with milk even though I don’t see any kids in nearby. The women sitting against the wall on the left side of the street, on the same side as the shop, make a sound that sounds like drawing out the ‘st’ of start when the goats move closer to their little patch of shade. That sends the goats my direction leaving me to devise a strategy for getting past them. I’m not sure why, but goats make me a little uncomfortable, like they’re not to be trusted. Maybe it’s because they eat tin.
Further down the wide road is Peacock Hotel. It’s across from the stadium where we go running some evening under the fluorescent field lights. There’s a football field and a 400 m track. It’s home to Dire Dawa’s premier league team. On one side of the field are the covered bleachers; on the opposing are the uncovered bleachers. A seat under the shade costs 10 birr, and something like 50 cents for the worst seats on the other side.
I pass a man carrying a random selection of goods to sell; pink and green plastic flashlights, costume-gold watches, fly swatters, sunglasses, bangles or key chains or phone toggles. They are draped over his shoulders, arms and filling his hands. I wonder how often he makes a sale, and what people buy.
There are some men shooting pool under a pavilion at Peacock and I hear them saying, “you, you,” to me. I ignore them as I walk by. Sometimes I say, “you, you,” back when people say this, but mostly only to children whose usual response is laughter. Sometimes I say, “me, me,” but I’m not sure they understand.
I cross the main road going to Harar. The street I’ve been walking on is cobblestone until it meets the divided, paved artery. On the other side it turns into dirt, but I’ve never been down it. I take a left toward the restaurant and sigh internally when I recognize a mother and her kids sitting on the sidewalk a few meters from the gate to the restaurant compound.
The mother says “Emma”, and the children jump up, running towards me, saying, “Emma, Emma, Emma.” There are four or five of them, three grab onto my arms and I lift them from my sides, shrugging my shoulders. One of the boys says, “food,” miming bringing his hand to his mouth. I shake my head. They give up quickly and I don’t say, “beqa,” which means enough like we do when the kids begging or selling chewing gum are too persistent.
Emma is one of my colleagues who used to live her. One of the first things she said when we went to this restaurant was, “don’t tell them your name.” This particular family is almost always perched right around the compound to the restaurant at lunchtime. I haven’t decided if it’s us farenji, foreigners, their there for, or everyone. Emma sometimes packs up of leftovers and gives them to the family after we’ve eaten. It seems like a kind gesture, but I have mixed feelings about the practice. The children look healthy and well fed, if a little dirty. Sometimes the mom is chewing tjat, a plant that’s grown all over this region and chewed for its stimulant effects. It’s considered an illegal drug in almost every country but Ethiopia, Great Britain and The Netherlands.
I sit at a table in the courtyard, under the shade of one of the trees. I’m unbelievably hot and can feel the sweat beading between my breasts. It’s days like this that make me wonder whether my mother’s loyalty to unpadded bras might be a result of living in Nigeria for nine years. Not that it does me much good; my undergarment wardrobe is hardly heat-friendly. For a minute my mind wonders whether my favourite online store would ship to Ethiopia. Then I wonder if I dare send them with the mail. My postal experience is limited to receiving one postcard.
The courtyard and restaurant are empty, except one table and it looks like they’ve already paid their bill. Had I come an hour earlier, it would have been packed with the lunch crowd. The waiter finally notices me, as I refuse to clap to get this attention, as is the practice here, and goes to get me a menu. I order a fruit punch without looking at it, it’s the reason I came here.
“One,” he asks.
“One,” I say. I’ve been known to eat two in one sitting, I suppose. Sometimes when we come here for lunch I have a fruit punch while the others have their mains, and then I have another when they have their dessert. The heat does something to the appetite and the sometimes the standard spaghetti and tomato sauce or omelette with no peppers I order at our two usual lunch places, just seems to be too much. The fruit punch comes in a glass bowl on a saucer with a lime and spoon lying on the side. The punch itself is a fruit salad with mango, papaya, banana, and a few other kinds of fruit. It’s a combination of sliced fruit and some have the consistency of puree.
While I eat my fruit punch some of the waiters sit at a table on the porch and eat their lunch. They all seem to have changed from their black pants and white shirts to their regular clothes. Unusually, I don’t have to ask for my bill, my waiter brings it to me after about 10 minutes.
“Sister,” he says as he hands it to me. I have a 10 birr note in my hand already, and he takes it immediately and returns with change, a 5 birr note — 38 cents or so for one of my favourite dishes. As I leave they start stacking the plastic lawn chairs from the courtyard table. I’m not sure if it’s because it might rain this afternoon, of if it’s a regular practice between their lunch and dinner rushes.
The family is gone when I come out of the gate. I suppose it’s not just farenji they’re after for the lunch rush, but they certainly are more aggressive to us. I cross the Harar road again and take the next street down from the one I came on. The office building is located between the two about four blocks down so I choose to walk back a different way than coming.
I don’t really have to turn to follow the dirt road towards the office as it’s diagonally from the restaurant gate. On the corner of the Harar road and the one I’m heading down is a group of people sitting and laying on a mat, tjat branches spread in front of them.
“I love you so much,” one of the men says to me as I disappear around the corner. I keep walking. Further down the street there’s a group of three boys talking to each other over a fence.
“How are you,” one of them asks as I walk past. I turn my head to look at them
“Fine,” I say. “How are you?”
They look surprised and answer, “Fine.” I smile.
The wide dirt road is speckled with small booths like the ones my neighbours live in and other small stalls that function as both shops and homes to many people. Lined against the walls of the compounds on either side of the street, they seek the shade of orange maringa and fuchsia jacaranda trees. They’re all tended by women, just like at my local.
I quite like the woman and her daughters that live in the one by my house. She’s a slight woman, always smiling. She’s rigged up an old piece of cloth along the side of her booth, using a few wooden posts and the corners of the booth. She has a little metal “stove” that’s the standard cooking appliance here. The design varies but usually there’s a depression on the top for coal. The few metal pans or kettle they use to cook the food are placed directly on top.
Under her tarp, my lady serves local men tjai (tea), buna (coffee), fool (a spicy dish made with lentils), and dinitsh (a dish made with peeled, boiled potatoes in cubes along with chopped fresh tomatoes, onions and spicy green peppers).
She has two daughters, I think; both go to school. Sometimes the younger one tends the shop with the mother sits on a stool on the side with her other daughters, doing what looks like a homework check. The youngest daughter who was tending the shop yesterday is quite good at English, and every time she makes change, she says, “the answer is” and then how ever much change I get, as she hands it me. Yesterday the answer was 42.
Further down dirt road, there’s a tall, thin Somali man wearing a ragged and dirty button-up shirt and the wrap-around “skirt” that men wear. It’s rolled up and I can see his skinny legs and knobby joints. He looks old with whitish hair and a weathered face. He stops and puts his hand out and says something in Somali. I shake my head and keep walking.
I turn the corner to the street our office building is on. It’s paved in the white and greyish cobblestones that are a reminder of the Italian occupation under Mussolini. I also live on this street, a block up.
Our office is made of two compounds. It was just one, but recently we took over the compound next door on the corner, because space was getting a little tight in the original four-floor house-come-office building. Gizaw, one of the office guards is standing outside. He takes his hat off and greets me as I walk through the golden doorway in the gate and into the compound, paved in reddish-stamped concrete tiles.
I’m back at work 2:25 pm, 35 minutes before we reconvene for office hours at 3 pm. Our two kitchen ladies at laying on the sections of green Harari sofa that are in the two office buildings, resting. The air is still hot and heavy, but the sky has turned from blue to grey. I turn on the lights and set the fan to four. I get a glass of water and sit at my desk.
“How are you,” they all ask.
“How are you,” asks one of the regulars at the little shop around the corner as I walk by.
“Good, how are you,” I answer. I’m not quite sure who she is, but I see her often, and last night when I was buy cookies to break a larger bill for change, she was also at the shop, and made sure I got what I wanted, a package of Bourbon cookies, communicating with the girl (probably around eight) in the shop in Amharic.
The girl and her mother live inside the shop almost kiddie-corner to my compound. It’s a small metal booth about the four feet wide and six long. A barred window that has a metal flap to close it lets you peek inside at the wares on the shelves along the back wall. They’ve got all sorts of items. Tinned tuna, soap, the glucose biscuits I eat for my mid-morning snack. The woman who said hello was buying one stick of chewing gum in the shape of Juicy Fruit. She’s not very old, maybe in her late teens or early 20s, and speaks fairly good English. She looks familiar and I can’t decide if I recognize her from a restaurant in town where she maybe works or just from the shop. Another girl bought two small paper cones with some mysterious contents. I thought about asking what was in them, but changed my mind.
There’s a random herd of goats on the road too and no herder in sight. They look well fed and the teets of the female goats are heavy with milk even though I don’t see any kids in nearby. The women sitting against the wall on the left side of the street, on the same side as the shop, make a sound that sounds like drawing out the ‘st’ of start when the goats move closer to their little patch of shade. That sends the goats my direction leaving me to devise a strategy for getting past them. I’m not sure why, but goats make me a little uncomfortable, like they’re not to be trusted. Maybe it’s because they eat tin.
Further down the wide road is Peacock Hotel. It’s across from the stadium where we go running some evening under the fluorescent field lights. There’s a football field and a 400 m track. It’s home to Dire Dawa’s premier league team. On one side of the field are the covered bleachers; on the opposing are the uncovered bleachers. A seat under the shade costs 10 birr, and something like 50 cents for the worst seats on the other side.
I pass a man carrying a random selection of goods to sell; pink and green plastic flashlights, costume-gold watches, fly swatters, sunglasses, bangles or key chains or phone toggles. They are draped over his shoulders, arms and filling his hands. I wonder how often he makes a sale, and what people buy.
There are some men shooting pool under a pavilion at Peacock and I hear them saying, “you, you,” to me. I ignore them as I walk by. Sometimes I say, “you, you,” back when people say this, but mostly only to children whose usual response is laughter. Sometimes I say, “me, me,” but I’m not sure they understand.
I cross the main road going to Harar. The street I’ve been walking on is cobblestone until it meets the divided, paved artery. On the other side it turns into dirt, but I’ve never been down it. I take a left toward the restaurant and sigh internally when I recognize a mother and her kids sitting on the sidewalk a few meters from the gate to the restaurant compound.
The mother says “Emma”, and the children jump up, running towards me, saying, “Emma, Emma, Emma.” There are four or five of them, three grab onto my arms and I lift them from my sides, shrugging my shoulders. One of the boys says, “food,” miming bringing his hand to his mouth. I shake my head. They give up quickly and I don’t say, “beqa,” which means enough like we do when the kids begging or selling chewing gum are too persistent.
Emma is one of my colleagues who used to live her. One of the first things she said when we went to this restaurant was, “don’t tell them your name.” This particular family is almost always perched right around the compound to the restaurant at lunchtime. I haven’t decided if it’s us farenji, foreigners, their there for, or everyone. Emma sometimes packs up of leftovers and gives them to the family after we’ve eaten. It seems like a kind gesture, but I have mixed feelings about the practice. The children look healthy and well fed, if a little dirty. Sometimes the mom is chewing tjat, a plant that’s grown all over this region and chewed for its stimulant effects. It’s considered an illegal drug in almost every country but Ethiopia, Great Britain and The Netherlands.
I sit at a table in the courtyard, under the shade of one of the trees. I’m unbelievably hot and can feel the sweat beading between my breasts. It’s days like this that make me wonder whether my mother’s loyalty to unpadded bras might be a result of living in Nigeria for nine years. Not that it does me much good; my undergarment wardrobe is hardly heat-friendly. For a minute my mind wonders whether my favourite online store would ship to Ethiopia. Then I wonder if I dare send them with the mail. My postal experience is limited to receiving one postcard.
The courtyard and restaurant are empty, except one table and it looks like they’ve already paid their bill. Had I come an hour earlier, it would have been packed with the lunch crowd. The waiter finally notices me, as I refuse to clap to get this attention, as is the practice here, and goes to get me a menu. I order a fruit punch without looking at it, it’s the reason I came here.
“One,” he asks.
“One,” I say. I’ve been known to eat two in one sitting, I suppose. Sometimes when we come here for lunch I have a fruit punch while the others have their mains, and then I have another when they have their dessert. The heat does something to the appetite and the sometimes the standard spaghetti and tomato sauce or omelette with no peppers I order at our two usual lunch places, just seems to be too much. The fruit punch comes in a glass bowl on a saucer with a lime and spoon lying on the side. The punch itself is a fruit salad with mango, papaya, banana, and a few other kinds of fruit. It’s a combination of sliced fruit and some have the consistency of puree.
While I eat my fruit punch some of the waiters sit at a table on the porch and eat their lunch. They all seem to have changed from their black pants and white shirts to their regular clothes. Unusually, I don’t have to ask for my bill, my waiter brings it to me after about 10 minutes.
“Sister,” he says as he hands it to me. I have a 10 birr note in my hand already, and he takes it immediately and returns with change, a 5 birr note — 38 cents or so for one of my favourite dishes. As I leave they start stacking the plastic lawn chairs from the courtyard table. I’m not sure if it’s because it might rain this afternoon, of if it’s a regular practice between their lunch and dinner rushes.
The family is gone when I come out of the gate. I suppose it’s not just farenji they’re after for the lunch rush, but they certainly are more aggressive to us. I cross the Harar road again and take the next street down from the one I came on. The office building is located between the two about four blocks down so I choose to walk back a different way than coming.
I don’t really have to turn to follow the dirt road towards the office as it’s diagonally from the restaurant gate. On the corner of the Harar road and the one I’m heading down is a group of people sitting and laying on a mat, tjat branches spread in front of them.
“I love you so much,” one of the men says to me as I disappear around the corner. I keep walking. Further down the street there’s a group of three boys talking to each other over a fence.
“How are you,” one of them asks as I walk past. I turn my head to look at them
“Fine,” I say. “How are you?”
They look surprised and answer, “Fine.” I smile.
The wide dirt road is speckled with small booths like the ones my neighbours live in and other small stalls that function as both shops and homes to many people. Lined against the walls of the compounds on either side of the street, they seek the shade of orange maringa and fuchsia jacaranda trees. They’re all tended by women, just like at my local.
I quite like the woman and her daughters that live in the one by my house. She’s a slight woman, always smiling. She’s rigged up an old piece of cloth along the side of her booth, using a few wooden posts and the corners of the booth. She has a little metal “stove” that’s the standard cooking appliance here. The design varies but usually there’s a depression on the top for coal. The few metal pans or kettle they use to cook the food are placed directly on top.
Under her tarp, my lady serves local men tjai (tea), buna (coffee), fool (a spicy dish made with lentils), and dinitsh (a dish made with peeled, boiled potatoes in cubes along with chopped fresh tomatoes, onions and spicy green peppers).
She has two daughters, I think; both go to school. Sometimes the younger one tends the shop with the mother sits on a stool on the side with her other daughters, doing what looks like a homework check. The youngest daughter who was tending the shop yesterday is quite good at English, and every time she makes change, she says, “the answer is” and then how ever much change I get, as she hands it me. Yesterday the answer was 42.
Further down dirt road, there’s a tall, thin Somali man wearing a ragged and dirty button-up shirt and the wrap-around “skirt” that men wear. It’s rolled up and I can see his skinny legs and knobby joints. He looks old with whitish hair and a weathered face. He stops and puts his hand out and says something in Somali. I shake my head and keep walking.
I turn the corner to the street our office building is on. It’s paved in the white and greyish cobblestones that are a reminder of the Italian occupation under Mussolini. I also live on this street, a block up.
Our office is made of two compounds. It was just one, but recently we took over the compound next door on the corner, because space was getting a little tight in the original four-floor house-come-office building. Gizaw, one of the office guards is standing outside. He takes his hat off and greets me as I walk through the golden doorway in the gate and into the compound, paved in reddish-stamped concrete tiles.
I’m back at work 2:25 pm, 35 minutes before we reconvene for office hours at 3 pm. Our two kitchen ladies at laying on the sections of green Harari sofa that are in the two office buildings, resting. The air is still hot and heavy, but the sky has turned from blue to grey. I turn on the lights and set the fan to four. I get a glass of water and sit at my desk.
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