Be! Be!

An Amharic word I have come to know well is "be," which means eat, as in "you, eat that now." One surprising thing about Ethiopians is how much food these people can put away and how upset they can get if you don't appear to be eating the same amount. These people are not fat and they don't really exercise, so I'm having a hard time figuring out where it goes. Whoever said that American portions are much bigger than portions in the rest of the world has never been to Ethiopia. It is rare that I am not confronted about my food intake during at least one meal each day. If I pause to take a breath while eating, they will say "Kristin. Be." If I eat all the food on my plate, but don't go back for seconds, they will say "You didn't like it?" or my personal favorite…"What? You aren't eating dinner (or whatever meal it is)?" A few weeks ago I went to dinner at someone's house and it was kind of a potluck, so there were a dozen or so different dishes. I start going through the line of food but I didn't take everything, and halfway through this woman, who is just observing people/me going through the line stops me and she's like "so, I noticed you didn't get very much meat. Are you are vegetarian?" I'm not sure if she was offended because I skipped the dish that she brought or if her husband is a butcher, but even after I pointed out the beef on my plate, she was really not happy with me. Later, she gets up from the dining room table and brings some of the dishes from the kitchen into the dining room and starts handing them to me. And I stubbornly, yet politely, continued passing them on. And still later, we were sitting around the table, almost everyone is finished eating, including me and the man across from me, who looks at me and asks "you're not going to eat?" I still don't have a good response for that. Suggestions are welcome.

While I'm at it, some of you have asked about what I'm eating here. All in all, it's pretty similar to what I expected. I'm eating a lot of injera, which is the traditional Ethiopian meal. It's a slightly sour, moist, pancake-like bread on which they scoop different meat or vegetable concoctions. My favorite of said concoctions is shiro, which is made from chickpeas and spices. My least favorite so far is called firfir. It's kind of like a spicy beef jerky that they made into a sauce that kind of looks like garbage. I know it can get much worse than that, but I've been pretty lucky. It's pretty easy to find a decent pizza, but some of the pasta sauces can get weird. i.e. one night at home we had pasta with a marinara-esque sauce that also had carrots, potatoes and sardines. That's not a recipe I'll be asking to take home.

...Coincidentally, after I finished writing this, I went to eat the lunch that the housekeeper Abebech packed for me (since I would be out all day by myself). It was not one, but two thick cheese and mayonnaise sandwiches and two bananas. All I need now is to find a friend who wants to eat the other half of my food so I can take home an empty lunch bag without feeling guilty.

Zed

One of the things I'm doing here when I'm not with Abraham is helping his wife, Salem, with her shop. She and her colleagues put on a Bazaar every year with almost 100 vendors offering Ethiopian jewelry, art, weaving, etc. So they asked me to help them with the some of the logistics, which kind of ridiculously includes communicating with all the vendors. I say ridiculous because a lot of them don't speak English. Yesterday I called a bunch of them who don't have email addresses to tell them how to get registration forms. I kept going through the whole spiel of "Hi, this is Kristin calling from the Designers and Artisans Bazaar, and I wanted to make sure that you knew that registration has started…blah blah blah. Then I would stop talking, and inevitably they would say "…hello?" So I would hand the phone to Melat. And so it went.

Even worse than that are the people who *think* they can speak English and call me with questions about the Bazaar. For example…yesterday, this guy calls me and after we establish who I am and that I don't know who he is, he says "What have you done about the bazaar?" I was like um...I'm sorry, I'm going to need a specific question. He eventually explained that he was calling on behalf of someone else I didn't know who had not received the registration form that was attached to the email that was sent out to all the vendors from previous bazaars. So, just to clarify I said, "oh, so the form was not attached to her email?" He said yes. I said, "ok, sure, I'll just send it again if you will give me her email." He said "you need her email?" I said "well, yes." Then he told me she doesn't have an email address…but he said he would give me his instead.

To be fair, I usually find it kind of difficult to understand people spelling their email addresses over the phone, but this guy took it to a new level. It went a little something like this. His email address was like 10 letters long and he just rattled them off really quickly. The first four letters were abdi so we have some issues on the b and d – e? d? b? g? Once we sorted that out, he continued with zed-s-r-a…, and I didn't realize a lot of people pronounce the letter "z" as "zed" instead of "zee." So I was like whoa, I'm sorry, what was that?

Guy: zed.
Me: like z-e-d?
Then he starts yelling.
Guy: No! zed!
Me: …
Guy: hello?
Me: at?
Guy: No! zed! Zed!
Me: z?
Guy: Zed!

Then he just keeps spelling as if I've gotten it. So he piles on a few more letters and asks me to repeat it. Clearly I got something wrong because he says no, and starts spelling again. When he got to the zed, I stopped him and was like I'm sorry, hold on just a second. I hand the phone to Abs who has been sitting in the car with me the whole time. He pulled over, and they yelled it out in Amharic, and we were on our way. Whew.

Group Houses (continued)

Another house visited this week is used for mentor training. Groups of twelve young men and women from all over the country spend four months living there learning from mentors and from each other about Christ while exploring how they can make a difference in their communities. In many ways it reminds me of the Fellows program some of us did at The Falls Church.

The final house I'm going to write about was probably the most touching. Obviously poverty is a pervasive and visible problem in Addis, and many children end up with nowhere to go for one reason or another. This house is used to rehabilitate some of the boys and young men who have been living on the street. I got to spend some time with a group that has been in the house for a little over a month and the transformation is amazing. Abraham translated as they told a bit of their stories, and although they have experienced so much hardship as long as many of them can remember, they were so thankful for where they are now. They are attending night school and they have full schedules during the day, which include physical exercise and games, chores, Bible study, English lessons and listening to guest speakers. Some of them spoke about their new relationships with Christ and his love and faithfulness in bringing them into the love of this family. Thinking of all they had to endure in as many as 13 years on the street and looking over their happy faces around the table, I was brought to tears multiple times and encouraged at the reminder that God has the power to redeem all people, relationships and situations.

Group Homes

I have now been to all four of the group homes. Each of them hold about a dozen people and are used for different purposes, but they all have a wonderful family environment in which it is clear that they feel loved and secure. The first home Abraham and his colleagues started is for boys who for various reasons were at risk of having to live on the street. They live in the house until they finish high school and then depending on their interest and ability, Abs and his friends help them into university or technical training. Many of the boys I met have been there for four years, when they first opened the home. They sang a song for me and to practice their English, they all told me what they wanted to do when they finished school. Their aspirations vary from doctor to pianist to engineer to running a home for kids like the one they lived in. It was encouraging to see that boys who have already been through some of life's hardest circumstances still have passions and plans to pursue their dreams.

In the last two years, they started a similar home for at risk girls. The girls I met had been there for about a year and everyone said they have already come so far. When they first moved in, they were really shy, reserved and unhealthy. The girls I met were beautiful, loving and so energetic. When I was talking to one of the women that stays there, a few of them ran in and pulled me outside to play frisbee, volleyball and jump rope. Then this little 12-year-old told me (partly in broken English and partly with hand gestures) that she wanted to give me a piggy back ride. I told her that wasn't a good idea and tried to get her to play frisbee again. But she was insistent, and thinking that maybe I misunderstood her, she kept trying to demonstrate with other girls and then said, "ok, now you." I was really regretting the fact that my Amharic lessons so far have not included the phrase "I will break you." Even after I gave her a piggyback ride, she would not be denied, so I reluctantly let her try. She was successful for about 3 seconds, I just hope she doesn't look like a question mark next time I see her.

I can't wait to spend more time there and be able to share their stories and sweet faces with all of you. And I will save the other homes for another post.

Teanastëllën (Hello)

I made it! Sorry for the delayed post. I arrived in Addis late Tuesday night, but the internet here has been a little tricky so far. It has been a good few days. I am starting to get my bearings in the city, but I am still amazed at how many people there are walking around all the time. I feel so blessed to be with Abraham and his family. They are all so warm and welcoming, and his daughter Melat is so fun. She has started teaching me Amharic, but I think it's going to be a slow project. I've mastered the word ishee, which basically means "ok," and I plan on inserting it early and often in many conversations.

And I am experiencing some serious jetlag. I thought I had felt jetlag before, but I was wrong. I can only sleep for a few hours each night, and although I almost never have an appetite at meal times, I get hungry at really random times.