Ethiopia in Smithsonian Magazine

There's an interesting article about the Ark of the Covenant question in the December issue of Smithsonian Magazine. You can find it here.
The author doesn't really solve the mystery either, but he does manage a brief moment with the guardian of the Ark and provide a little more background and speculation.

Pictures!

I made it home Wednesday night, which means (among many other things) that I can finally show you some pictures of the people and things I have been talking about.

This is not a great picture, but this is my Ethiopian family. Starting from the left: Matthew (Aman's friend from boarding school who happened to be visiting), Abraham, me, Melat, Aman, and Salem.

Donkeys. One of my favorite things about Addis. They're absolutely everywhere - carrying bundles, people, or just trudging along. You have to admit they're pretty cute.


This would be an example of the public transportation, which is an old pick-up with benches in the truck bed and a hard cover attached. When I first saw this death ride, I was like "man, I can't believe people actually get in those things." A few weeks later I was lining up to pay my 15 cents to squeeze in with 15 other people. Below is another shot of the "taxi" with a sheep riding on top. He seems fine with it.


This is the guy who feeds THE guy and the building that some believe holds the Ark of the Covenant. I think he may be doing some laundry.


Abs and I sampling the local brew in Axum.


This is what I've been eating. It's kind of hard to tell, but this is a plate of injera with different types of wat. Shiro, which is made of chickpeas but is nothing like hummus, is my favorite, but I grew pretty fond of most of them...just not the oddly popular kitfo or tripe dishes.


Melat and me at the top of Mount Entoto taking in a view of Addis.


These are some of the guys from the street boys house. Ermias, their mentor, is in the middle. One of my favorite things was interviewing these guys and seeing the remarkable transformation that has taken place in their lives. They are so sweet and fun in a way that makes it hard to believe the details of their pasts.


Melat and I are at the Girls' house for a party. Right after this picture was taken, the dance party began, which means they begged me to dance and then laughed hysterically when I obliged.

This is me with some of my best friends from my time in Ethiopia. Kate and Jessica, on each end, went to Carolina and live at the Cherokee house, so they were kind of my connection to home. Konjit, in the middle with me, is one of the house mothers at the Girls' House. We spent a lot of time together because she translated for many of the interviews. Near the end of time we decided to treat ourselves to dinner at the Sheraton, which, by the way, is the nicest hotel I have ever seen, anywhere. We chose the restaurant that offers a buffet, acted like small children whose parents went out of town without hiring a babysitter, and smuggled apples out in our purses.

I have many more pictures and stories, but that's a little taste. Just let me know if you want your very own personal slide show tour of Ethiopia.

Update to Wednesdays post (which was posted November 8)

I want to add a little update to my post about the women I see every Wednesday. I knew before coming here that I would not be saving Africa, but it has still been hard for me to see extreme poverty and pain and to feel like I can't do anything about it. I began feeling like the time I spent at the training center was pointless because I wasn't really helping in a sustainable way. I felt like I was working on fundraising materials that no one was going to use for an organization that is going to die in the next six months and whose beneficiaries are not much better off than when they started the program. I thought I was wasting my time and should spend my Wednesdays somewhere else.

I kept going back, mostly because I didn't want the women who hadn't been interviewed yet to feel left out. I'm glad I did because for each of the last three weeks, one of the women I interviewed revealed something major about what is going on in her life now, of which the director of the center was completely unaware. It's not any big epiphany, but it showed me that I am wrong to ever think something is a waste of my time just because I am not accomplishing my goals for that situation. Just because I think I am there to help with fundraising doesn't mean God's purpose can't be something totally different. Just a small, but good, reminder that God is wise and sovereign, and I am not.

Also, after I wrote this first part, but before I could find an internet connection, I went to a meeting of the center's board, and they approved a new budget I put together to allow the girls to receive training for full days for the remaining five months. This means they will have twice as much training, eat a good lunch everyday and have a consistent bible study and check in time. It's a small thing, but I was so excited I could hardly contain myself.

Happy Thanksgiving

I'm pretty sure I can guess basically how most of your Thanksgiving Days went, so I thought you might like to hear what mine was like…

Thanksgiving morning started like any other. The holiday hasn't really caught on here, maybe in part due to the complete absence of turkey…and cranberries…and sweet potatoes…and well, you get the idea. When I woke up this morning, I took a moment to accept the fact that I'd probably be eating injera for lunch and dinner, said happy Thanksgiving to myself and set out on a walk. As soon as I left the house, I noticed something was different. I could hardly see down the street for all the fog. I walked along thinking about how strange that was because I had never seen fog in Addis before and it's a really dry city, when I realized that the fog had a really fragrant, smoky smell. I kept looking for a flaming incense factory, but I didn't find it and no one else really seemed alarmed. When I got home, Salem explained that today is not only Thanksgiving, but also St. Michael's Day in the Ethiopian Orthodox calendar, and religious tradition dictates that everyone burn all the trash, grass, leaves, etc. that they can find. Who needs the smell of oven-roasted turkey when I have Ethiopians burning refuse all over the city?

So I spent most of the day in Salem's shop working on necklaces because she's a little pinched for time with the big bazaar coming up next weekend. My lunch was, as suspected, injera with potatoes and some sort of greens (imagine collard greens without the pork flavor). There was no nap and no football. That afternoon I was supposed to go to the girls' house to work on interviews for fundraising. I couldn't get a ride, so I decided to walk to a major road where I thought I could get a taxi (which in no way resembles yellow cab or red top cab or any form of legal transportation in the U.S.).

As I walked, I drew the standard chatter (including but not limited to "you. you."/ "how are you?" / "faranji, faranji." / "I love you." / "give me pen.") I was feeling polite today (after all, it is a double holiday), so I responded to most people, a move that made my day a little more interesting. One guy, probably about my age, started walking along side me. He started with "hi, how are you?" then asked my name and pretty soon he was keeping my pace and asking me about all sorts of things, like where I'm from, where I live, where I work, how long I'm here, and he told me he's a musician/student/former Rastafarian from Lalibela. I was starting to get a little uncomfortable, but my plan was just to be nice until I could get in a taxi and away from my new friend. Two minutes later I realize his plan is quite different. He's insisting that I come see his house, which he said was just around the corner, only for a minute, he wanted to introduce me to his uncle and somebody. I told him I was really sorry, but I had an appointment so…um, maybe next time. Oh, no problem. He says he will take me to my appointment and then we can come back to his house…and then he starts holding my hand. I tried to keep walking, but he comes right on with me and begins to explain to me how my name is Christian (common mistake here) and he is a Christian, so we go together. I'm like ha, wow, that is interesting, well, I should be getting a taxi now. He agrees. Great. Except that when we find one that is going to the area where the girls' house is, he gets in first, smiles and pats the open seat next to him.

So we ride to Haya Hulet together (p.s. The kid is still holding my hand. interlocking digits. Every time I wrench my hand free, he begins re-explaining some traditional Ethiopian greeting involving a high five or handshake and then he just keeps my hand). And when I get off, he comes too. I tried to say hey, thanks, see ya, but he was not having it. He walked with me wherever I went, and then he was like, "you know, I don't like Ethiopian women." I was like "aw, you don't mean that. They're really nice and pretty, don't you think?" He said no. When they are with you they are always looking for another guy, another guy. Always looking. Not him though. He is a Christian and only wants one woman. He sees me and I am beautiful and he doesn't look at anyone else. Only me. I'm not clear on this one because his English wasn't completely understandable, but I'm pretty sure he told me that since he goes to church a lot and today is a special church holiday and he burned his trash like he was supposed to, he believes that Jesus and St. Michael brought us together…so he will come to my appointment, then we will go to a café and back to his house. Then I tried to more firmly explain that really, that's not a great idea. My appointment is for all girls. No boys allowed. And it could last a really, really long time, so he really, really shouldn't wait. He didn't say much to this. Just kept holding my hand.

When we got to the girls' house, I kind of had to stiff-arm him to keep him from following me in the gate. He said he would just hang out in the neighborhood and wait for me. I said no, really, you shouldn't do that. He said oh, ok, well, I will come back and meet you here tomorrow. I said yeah, that's not going to work either. I won't be here tomorrow, kthanksbye. When the girls escorted me out a few hours later, I didn't see him, but I may wear a disguise next time I take that route.

I came home and ate, surprise, some injera and shiro by myself because while I was at the girls' house, the Fisehas were eating dinner at a St. Michael's Day party. Full disclosure: then as a consolation prize to myself, I came upstairs and ate two spoonfuls of Nutella straight out of the jar I have stashed in my room.

And that's how we do Thanksgiving around here.

Baking in Ethiopia

It's no secret that I enjoy baking a good cookie (/brownie/muffin) now and then, and I have really been missing my apron while I've been here. Last weekend I couldn't take it anymore, and I convinced Melat that we needed to bake. She got on board, but the consequence was that she had her heart set on peanut butter cookies, which would have been 4th or 5th on my list. Even so, I was excited. It took us a while to gather the ingredients, and as we did, I started getting suspicious. A lot of the most simple ingredients and food items we use in the U.S. are hard to find here or they're just a bit different. So when our cookie dough ended up with different butter, different brown sugar and different peanut butter, we found ourselves with very different cookies. In fact, they were a little more like dog biscuits than cookies. Each time we pulled out a panfull, we added something to try to make the next ones better…more butter, more sugar, etc. So we ended up with a bunch of different cookies, none of which were quite what I had in mind. I hope to try again, but I don't really think the Fiseha family was impressed with the first attempt.

Axum and Adwa

Last week Abraham and I took a trip up north to Adwa to visit the five elementary schools that he is trying to help support, and after we finished our work, we went to Axum for a couple of days. The area has particularly suffered from the wars and famines that Ethiopia has endured over the past 150 years and is close to the troubled border zone between Ethiopia and Eritrea, so it is pretty behind in terms of development, economy, infrastructure, etc. That said, I really loved being there and want to go back sometime (this seems like a good time for a side note to say that they may have a month or so long summer school for kids who want to work on their English. Volunteer teachers…and when I say teachers, I mean people who can speak English…would be most welcome). It was such a nice change to spend a few days away from the sometimes overwhelming capital, and I found I was more comfortable and relaxed than I am sometimes in Addis. I felt like we were really productive, and I got to do a little sight-seeing too.

A few snapshots of the trip:

Axum is known for its historical Christian sites. For example, many people believe that the Ark of the Covenant is in Axum. Naturally I wanted to get as close to that as possible, but there is only one guy who is allowed in to see the ark. When he dies, someone else is chosen. So then I made it my goal to talk to the guy about the ark…but that didn't happen either. But I still have to say that I feel pretty good about my first attempt at the ark. I stood across a ditch from THE building that supposedly holds THE ark, and I snapped a picture of THE guy who takes food to THE guy who guards the ark (because he can't ever leave). Take that, Indiana Jones.

One of the best things about going up north was driving through the countryside. It was so simple and beautiful. As we were driving through one teensy village, Abraham asked me if I saw a stick coming out of the ground with a can hanging on the top. I did. He asked if I knew what it meant. I did not. He told me that it was a signal that the woman who lives there brews beer and is selling it. So we decided to stop in and buy a round for everyone. Not that I'm claiming to be any kind of beer connoisseur, but it was a pretty nasty brew. I didn't drink most of it (and neither did Abraham), but it was a really funny experience to sit around with the woman and the six or so other villagers who were just shooting the breeze in her one-room house/brewery/bar.

I think I mentioned at some point that Ethiopia is famous for its coffee, and I have to agree, the macchiato you can get for like 75 cents here puts Starbucks to shame. We decided to try a Habesha coffee house near our hotel in Axum (long story short, Habesha basically means traditional Ethiopian). The coffee was good–they make it strong and thick, like motor oil—but even better was the in-house entertainment. There was a couple that travels around bars and restaurants singing songs for money. Since Abraham and I were the only patrons at the time, they felt free to concentrate on us. I didn't really understand what was going on, but apparently they were trying to personalize the song, which was difficult since they didn't know who we were. The woman mostly clapped while the man pulled up a chair right at our table and sang about how Abs is old and I have pretty hair. And for this we paid them 10 birr each (about a dollar).

Wednesdays

As much as spending time at some of the homes and being with the girls and boys is fun and encouraging, there are unfortunately some people and projects that do not have the same sense of hope. I spend every Wednesday at a training center for poor single mothers. They spend every morning at the center and learn to sew and embroider in hopes that they will be able to better provide for themselves and their children. But as I have been talking to them (through an interpreter), it seems like their problems are so extreme, numerous and overwhelming that it is hard for me to envision a happy ending for all of them. Many of them have similar stories. Their parents died young, and they had to drop out of school to support themselves and sometimes their siblings. They have children, but their boyfriends either left them or passed away. Many of them have HIV/AIDS, so their health problems have complicated their efforts to hold consistent jobs washing clothes, cleaning houses, or selling small items on the street. The new skills they are learning will probably allow them to make more money, but it doesn't seem like their lives are being transformed. It feels more like filling the crack in a dam with a piece of gum. I want to be positive about these women and their futures and I wish I could talk about them the same way I can about the girls and boys, but when I'm being honest, I have a hard time not seeing their problems as insurmountable and hopeless. I want to believe that they can get to a place where they are healthy and happy and are easily providing food and housing for their children, but they have such a long way to go.