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Published: April 29th 2011
Most days, like most people, the routine of life doesn’t warrant a lot of notice: get up. eat cold toast. drink coffee. talk to carly. talk to cat. read. take bus to work. work. take bus home. eat dinner. talk to carly. talk to cat. read. sleep. Repeat ad nauseam and ad infinitum. By and large, life isn’t much different in Addis Abeba, Ethiopia than Santiago, Chile or Kansas City, MO. Nine months in, or whatever we are at, the new, the bewildering, the wondrous, and the uncomfortable - all that makes one viscerally aware of the fleeting present - has become banal, routine, and mundane. The epistemological crisis of confronting the so-called ‘other’ has faded into habit. Undoubtedly, this is somehow beneficial for the business of living, but it makes life inherently less interesting. Luckily, every once in a while, the preposterousness of the present comes crashing through the habit haze. This isn’t on the level of, say, the ‘revelation’ of the virgin in burnt toast, but some days, it is ridiculously clear I am not in Kansas anymore. Yesterday was one of those days.
6:30pm. The iridescent cobalt sky is daubed with wispy pink fringed clouds. Dusk is falling and a sliver of moon hangs on the horizon. It’s what Steinbeck called the hour of the pearl, “the interval between day and night, when time stops and examines itself.” And at times, people do too. I’m in the smurfy-blue mini bus, weaving through the four-lane eye-sore of Bole Tele toward the monstrous green domed Medhane Alem Church. There are no street names, only landmarks. Bole Telecommunications is on the left, a blue corrugated sheet metal fence on the right. There’s Mera, the local bar. Wait. Count to three. Now. ‘Waraj Alleh’. The mini bus lurches to the side of the road. The sliding door clatters open, and I crawl over the other passengers onto the sidewalk. As my feet hit the street, the blue donkey is already in motion, the crier leaning out the window rhythmically bawling the ‘Bole Bet’ destination into the gathering night. The nasally call blends with the noises of passing cars and the blistering harangue blaring through the loudspeakers of Medhane Alem church. The compound is three blocks down, but I need some red peppers, kari ferneji, and a couple of beers. It’s only a five minute walk, but you have to run the gauntlet.
Within moments, the staccato slap of running plastic sandals brings the swarm of kids who patrol the sidewalks. Each holds a cardboard lid in which a multi-flavored assortment of packs of chewing gum and kleenex packets are carefully arranged. Though they see me everyday, they are undaunted in their enthusiasm or their certitude that today will be the day I need ‘mastika’ or ‘soft’. Or perchance, today will be the day they get their grubby little hands in my pockets. There is a general frenzy of hand grasping, shouting, and bouncing as I wade through the moat of bodies and arms.
Reaching the street-side market, the kids relent and vanish down the sidewalk. This particular market shop is indistinguishable from the other eight on the block, but it is conveniently located next to the beer shop. Fluorescent lit pumpkins, carrots, red onions, mangoes, bell peppers, and limes spill out onto the sidewalk on one side; on the other, the red towers of St. George’s beer cases frame the soft glow of the window. I go to both often enough that I may no longer be paying ‘ferenji waga’, foreigner price, but you never know. The kid selling vegetables wears a long blue smock and has a friendly toothy grin. “Salamno, mister” he says as he rises. We shake hands and do the Ethiopian shoulder bump - grasp hands and then slightly leaning forward, knock right shoulders. I ask him about the ferenji kari and get the Ethiopian version of ‘uh-huh’; a short sharp intake of breath, somewhere between a gasp and a drag on a cigarette. Half a kilo of red peppers costs less than a dollar. Next door, at the window, the kid is working rather than the bald guy. He comes out, repeats the greeting and the shoulder bump, and then disappears within to grab a couple of cold Dashen out of the fridge.
As he hands me the change, I feel the eyes. Searching, they have found me and are burrowing into the back of my head. I turn around. A young woman, a string of blue dot tattoos running in parallel lines down her jaw line, has spotted me. These tattoos have something to do with Jesus, but I have not figured out what. She has one kid balanced on her outthrust hip. Another clutches the folds of her dirty skirt. She stretches out her hand, nudges the kid to do the same, and begins the imploring ‘Hello. Hello. mister! Mister! MISTER!‘ mantra. Although responding is an invitation, I tell her, ‘Xabir yis tish’, some nonsense about God providing. I would assume that life would have taught otherwise, but like everywhere, desperation and god-fervor are bedmates.
Walking on, the mother and babe fall in behind me. The kid circles around waving her hand at my knee. A gentle tapping. A couple more gum/soft kids appear and join in the pestering. Up ahead, huddled in their blankets, shrouded in the darkness along the side of a wall, a cluster of mothers await. In front of each, copper coins piled on flat pieces of cardboard gleam in the puddled dirty caramel street light. At the sound of foot falls, the beseeching eyes swing toward the sound. The woeful ‘Hello. Hello. Mister. Mister. Hungry.‘ dirge rises from the shadow gathering strength as I near. In choreographed synchronicity, arms shoot out of the blankets tracking my passing.
Nearby, a khat-head is sprawled out, seemingly dead, asleep on the edge of the sidewalk. Another slumps against a wall desperately clutching a little plastic bag full of stems and leaves. He chews maniacally at the leaves packed into his cheeks and stares vacantly into the world. Though only a mild stimulant, if you chew the khat often enough and long enough, it turns your brain to jelly. And in Addis more than 40,000kg is consumed daily. In their stupor, however, a random ferengi never cuts the haze.
Twenty meters down is our dark nameless street. It is featureless except for the white ‘Geerloft Refrigeration’ sign and the young ladies that gather below it. Most nights, a gaggle of micro mini skirts and high heels hang about the mouth of the street fishing for johns in the pools of light cast by passing cars. Unlike the kids, they have mostly stopped paying me any mind. Only the new girls offer their services. The regulars just give a flitting hello and giggle.
Once off Bole, it’s a sedate two blocks to home. The traffic noise fades, and it is as if the departing sun has drained the venom from the church loudspeakers. Now a melodious chanting greets the coming night. Twilight envelops the street, the last of the day glinting in the looping razor-wire on the compounds’ high walls. In the shadows, guards huddle in front of the gates talking in muted voices as they await the returning LandRovers. Somewhere just out of sight, a herd of goat hooves clicks and clacks across the street. Two white shrouded women pass silently. A bird cries. Oz, the neighboring Ethiopian Magic Farm’s dog, appears. And I am outside our gate. Assuredly not in Kansas anymore.
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anonymous
non-member comment
Sounds quaint.