How Things Change

     Readers of this blog will remember our talking about staring not considered rude here in Ethiopia. You’ll remember that we live in a local neighborhood; out of the city a little bit and down about one kilometer of unpaved road. Most of the houses around are the typical one or two room stone houses surrounded by a wall. There are usually one or two outbuildings, sheds really, where the cooking is done and animals are kept. Most do not have running water connected to their lots and make regular trips to haul water from a local tap. Basic food items can be purchased locally and then hauled back home on the backs of the purchasers. Life isn’t easy.

     We live in a new concrete and stone house with a second storey and a big water tank on the roof. We have a reservoir tank at ground level that fills when the water is on in the neighborhood. Currently we haven’t had water service for almost a week and are living off the tank on the roof. Hopefully the water will be on for a few hours soon so we can fill our reservoir and pump it to the roof.

     Back to the rudeness of the neighbors: How things change. We now walk the same long block to the school every day. Now local children two or three years old come up to us and ask to hold hands. I have had them strung out three abreast on both sides of me: me talking to them in English and them talking Tigrinya baby talk and laughing, mostly laughing. One day recently when I was walking to school alone, one of them asked in Tigrinya, “where is the woman?” They’ve gotten used to the routine of walking with us.

     Another change is that the neighborhood people now smile when we walk and when the kids want to walk with us, their parents, grandparents, etc., smile at us. One woman even applauded as we walked by today. And, though I hate to admit to being an old softy, one little three year old boy at school today put his arms up for me to lift him and then gave me a big sloppy kiss on the cheek. This is truly a land of beautiful and happy children.

     On another front, the bamboo fence to cover our wall and give us some privacy is coming along well. I think my brother in law Roger Best would be interested in what these men can do with a bow saw, an old hammer, a crowbar, a hand axe, and a pair of old rusty pliers. Add some bamboo, some narrow tree branches they call lumber, and some wire they make a fence that is just as secure as the best chain link in the states. Their craftsmanship is admirable. It reminds me of the 1950’s before the advent of power tools.

     The latest on our residency permits is that we are going to re-file next week when our boss is in Addis Ababa for a few days before he leaves for the States. Jane has copies of her transcripts and I have a letter from our last employer. My transcripts may make it in time if they get mailed from my old school promptly. But even if we get the paperwork in order, we will probably have to go to Addis Ababa because the Immigration Department wants to see us personally and make sure that our pictures on the permits are in fact us. We’re committed to getting the residency, so we now look at the trip as a chance to take a mini vacation in Addis and see some friends we made there.

     Our driver, Gebre, and his wife finally had their baby Sunday night. What’s funny is that we have all awaited this little girl’s birth for two weeks now. She was overdue and Gebre was obviously getting tense. I joked with him Sunday about taking his wife for a ride on a bumpy road (we have a lot of them here). His wife was riding with us and they made a big thing about it, with everyone laughing. And the baby arrived that evening.

     School is going better for both of us, although how to improve verbal comprehension continues to be a difficulty. I’m on a slightly different tack right now, teaching vocabulary and then using the words in sentences and giving definitions. After I present thirty-six words, I’ll test the classes in spelling and word usage. This will be the first real test I give them and will tell me more about what they really know and what they can learn right now.

     There’s always more to tell, but I’ll quit for now. Thanks for your prayers and for keeping in contact. We look forward to every scrap of news from home and enjoy everyone’s emails. Keep ‘em comin’!