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Published: September 17th 2008
(child's sweet whisper) Inkou-tar-tash (tap, tap)
(child's voice) Inkou-tar-tash (tap, tap, bang)
(child's annoyed voice) Inkou-TAR-TASH (bang! bang! bang!)
(child's shout) INKOU-TAR-TASH (BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG)
(gang of children chanting & banging the gate) IINNKKOOUU-TTAARR-TTAASSHH!!!!!! (BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG...) Oh no. Please no.
It's 6.45am on Ethiopian New Year's day.
Last night was our New Year party and we got to bed at around 3am.
It's OK
. Ignore it and dig them (allegedly industrial strength) earplugs in deeper my son and they'll get bored.
Er, nope.
Did it work? Did they get bored?
Of course not! They're small kids. They *never* get bored of annoying adults.
Besides, them Ferengis handed out $50,000 in used birr (is there any other kind??), gold watches and 2 free Ferraris during "Bu-Hey" last week, there must be more where that came from. The more you annoy them, the bigger the pay out.
7.00am
INKOU-TAR-TASH
OK. A battle of wills has begun.
7.30am
INKOU-TAR-TASH
I can take it.
8.00am
(break for their breakfast)
Blessed sweet relief. It worked!
8.30am
INKOU-TAR-TASH
Sara goes Ethiopian
Trial run - from the frontHELL! they're back, refreshed, with all their buddies.
9.00 INKOU-TAR-TASH
Right. I'm seething. It's all going to end in tears.
Calm down old boy.
Just imagine how you can avoid this for the next Ethiopian knockout ginger festival.
Hmm, get a guard?
- No. Nowhere for them to sleep; and besides it's probably his own kids in the crowd. Get a large evil, rabid dog with a spiked collar, taste for human flesh and keep it half-starved on the front porch?
- Expensive. Might eat one of the cats. Might even eat us. Buy a car battery, or better still, connect the mains directly to the garden gate...
- INKOU-TAR-TASH (Bang-BUZZZT......)....silence is golden Oh yes Al, you evil genius. I'm liking this.
How much bell wire will I need? Is there some in the store cupboard? I can feel a plan coming together....
HANG ON! HANG ON!
AL!
You've come here to
*help* Ethiopians,
NOT electrocute their small children!!
Just breathe deeply.
IN with the inkoutartash.
OUT with the L-O-V-E...
9.30 INKOU-TAR-TASH (getting louder)
INKOU-TAR-TASH (eh?)
INKOU-TAR-TASH (how so?)
INKOU-TAR-TASH (that's outside our bedroom
window?)
INKOU-TAR-TASH (they let themselves in...)
INKOU-TAR-TASH (and are gathered like carol singers..)
INKOU-TAR-TASH (OUTSIDE OUR BEDROOM WINDOW!)
INKO-
GRRRRR-RIP(mosqueto net)-ARRRRGGGG-BANG(bedroom door)-BANG(front door)
(Naked Ferengi standing on porch)
WWWWHHHHAAATTT??????? WWWHHAATT???? WWWHHHAATT IISSS ITTT?? WWWHHHAAATTT DDOO YYOUU WWAANNT?????? (scared-looking kids dressed in Sunday best stumble for the exit as fast as childrenly possible while mad naked hung-over Ferengi with red eyes, yellow ear plugs and evil beer breath breathes stale alcohol fumes and spits strange Ferengi curses at them).
Happy New Year (aka. the plants are coming up) It's a tradition says Mulatu, our friend and professional shopper, with a smile.
Just like bu-hey.
The children dress in their best clothes and give flowers or pictures they have drawn in exchange for 50 cents or maybe one birr.
At
6.45am in the morning???? Fantastic.
Well apart from the fact kids are probably up at the crack of dawn, the whole of Assosa runs on a different body clock to us. People go to bed early and get up early, so 6.45am is probably a lie in. I used to wonder why this was, but I guess 24 hour, or even 12
Oh yes!
The full monty hour electricity is a pretty recent thing so when it gets dark, you go to sleep and when it gets light, you get up.
As townie Ferengis from the UK, we burn the midnight oil and like to get up just in time for breakfast and then work. Those extra few early morning minutes and half-dreams before waking up are the best bits of going to bed (yeah, yeah, ok, thought's like that say more about you, dear reader, than me :P)
So now we know what the form was we feel a little bit bad for scaring the kiddie-winks away. They were dressed smartly and had little pictures for us.
The bad feeling passed while Sara headed off to visit her bosses house for an early New Year's Day celebration at 10am and I tried to go back to bed.
No such luck.
Merely challenged by naked Ferengi and anticipating a battle royale, they are back with reinforcements.
There's kids outside the front gate, kids in the compound, kids round the side of the house. Kids on the roof, kids hanging off the neighbours tree.
Three times they attack in full INKOU-TAR-TASH
More bald bits than me...
Going Ethiopian - that's my excuse from now on :) fettle.
Three times I beat them back with NO! GO! BIRR YELLUM (no money)*
Back and forth the battle rages until Sara returns from her boss's house.
*As I have said before, if you start throwing money around at children, they'll be back every day for more, egged on by their friends and parents. Then it becomes twice a day or more and what started as a guilty oh-go-on-then treat of a birr or 50c becomes a nightmare of daily begging management.
I am happy to give out the odd fruit, like a banana (muz) or mango (uh, mango) but seriously, these kids want your cold, hard cash. It's sad but we are here to do a job and help out through teaching their parents skills, not by tipping their kids a birr or two daily.
Besides, although in overall Ethiopian terms our salary is good, we are at the lower end of the government pay scale (1,650 birr/month) and living in a grade 1 government house in a government housing estate, most of these kids parents will be earning more money than us.
The guys doing my job in BoFED (Bureau of Finance
A work of art
Thank-you Belatu (Sara's work colleague) & Economic Development) are on 4,000+ birr and the national UN volunteers earn 5,000 birr/month.
Shall I make myself sick? Sara is back, looking worse than when she left.
The food was mostly meat - it is a festival day after all - so she has eaten very little. And she has been drinking T'ella (the local brew - a sort of strong spirit/beer made from barley). Hair of the dog was clearly NOT the way forward.
Shall I make myself sick? (she asks as she enters).
On the children? (I say) It might work...
She has an hour to recover before we are due to visit Marta & Joseph's house (our serantaya, or maid) for lunch. And after that was an invite to Mulatu, the high school teacher's house.
I don't think she'll make it.
Resistance is futile They know they'll will win in the end.
They know we haven't travelled half-way across the globe to spend two years in Africa being mean to small children.
There is no guard (which says it all). There is no dog (which confirms it). And there is no electric fence (how
Qonjo tinish Ethiopiawit miste
(My beautiful little Ethiopian wife) dare I think that?)
Maybe we were a bit hasty (says Sara) I feel a bit bad again.
- But they were specifically targeting us (I say). Not once did they knock on our neighbour's gates - a UNV on 5k/month, an Ethiopian Airlines boss with his own 4x4 and satellite TV and our semi-detached man next door in similar grade 1 housing. Only us. Again and again. They look so cute.
- But it was 6.45am. Don't they know Ferengi's get more charitable as the day goes on? And their smart little suits and lovely dresses.
- Er, ok they did look a bit cute. The lone scout they send in does for me. It's the girl who sometimes runs alongside us on our morning runs. In plastic flip-flops, regardless of the weather she jogs beside the Ferengis with her smaller sister - in crumbling sandals - grin fixed to her face, repeating the only English word she knows; "yes".
In exchange for her hand drawn flower and a badly spelt 'hapy new yeer' message, I give her 3 birr, telling her to share it with her sister.
15 minutes
'mimi' in Sunday best
(she asked for the picture to be taken - Bekema translated) later she is back...
...With sister and brother and more hand-drawn flowers.
Rebuffed with a reminder of my earlier goodwill the gate stands silent for 30 minutes.
Sara answers the next knock and within minutes she is handing out small change to the same girls, their brothers, their brother's mates, cousins, friends and schoolmates.
Got any more small change (shouts Sara) and are there any biscuits left?
Just like English kids, they spurn the banana but the sugar/salt/fat-packed Ferengi shortcake biscuits disappear in less than a nanosecond.
We retire to bed for a late afternoon nap.
I start dreaming.
(child's sweet whisper) Inkou-tar-tash (tap, tap)
(child's voice) Inkou-tar-tash (tap, tap, bang)
(child's annoyed voice) Inkou-TAR-TASH (bang! bang! bang!)
It's no dream...
(child's shout) INKOU-TAR-TASH (BANG. BANG. BANG. BANG)
(gang of children chanting & banging the gate) IINNKKOOUU-TTAARR-TTAASSHH!!!!!! (BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG...)
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