Lukas' Daily Life

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After School

Lukas writing…It’s Friday. The teacher gave us extra homework for the weekend. As the clock hits 3:15, everyone jumps out of their chairs and yells “It’s home time.” The teacher looks at the clock, opens the door, and everyone rushes out.

Some kids go straight home with either their parents or their driver, while others stay after school, because their parents or driver come later. Some take a line taxi home and leave whenever they want. Most of the 6th and 7th graders that stay after school, stay for after-school clubs. Usually, the only after-school clubs that anyone goes to are the sport clubs. Most of the 5th grade and younger kids go to the playground and play on the swings. We stayed after for school sport clubs while our dad came to lead us home. At the sport clubs everyone argues so much, but that’s not the worst part. They argue in Amharic, so we can’t understand or argue back.

When our dad comes, we head home. On our way home, about 6 doors down from the school we stop at a store and buy 5 lollipops, one for everyone. As we come out from the shop, a big truck passes and a lot of black diesel exhaust surrounds us. As we take our lollipops out of our mouth to cough, the exhaust goes away. We head under a bridge to a line taxi station. We find a line taxi going to the place we need to go and cram inside. Vasara and Rytas sit on Kovas and my dad to save money and space. Soon the car is full of people everywhere, 4 people crowded on 2 chairs, and some people sort of standing. The van finally starts, but soon we have to stop because a herd of 20 sheep cross the road. We start driving again and finally get to our stop. We get out and are suddenly surrounded by beggars. We try to ignore them and keep walking.

There are many people selling big corn. We buy 6. This is our first time to buy Ethiopian corn. It weighs a lot so Kovas holds it and does weight lifting with it. We keep walking for about 15 minutes and then we carefully cross over some old goat bones. As Vasara crosses, she shivers (she loves goats).

Lots of people wave and say t’ena yist’ilin which means hello. Soon we come to a soccer field. Well, not the usual field that has grass, metal goalpost, goal nets, and clearly painted boundary and goalie lines. The soccer field is more like a rock and dust pit with hand-made wooden posts, no nets, no lines --nothing except the flimsy wooden goal sticks. In that field you see small kids doing amazing footwork and soccer tricks. We bought some samosas (deep fried tortillas with beans inside) and watched the soccer team play for a while. We talked to the coach became part of the team. We finally came home after walking uphill for about a kilometer. Once we got back I looked at my watch. It was already 7:00 pm, Luckily my mom went to the video shack and rented a film for us to watch because it was Friday. I did my homework (which took 5 minutes, even though we had extra) watched the film, and went to bed.

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Comments

[Nancy Hejna]

Very real
Lukas and all of you, thanks for taking the time to make your daily life so real to all of us here in the US of A. I feel like I'm able to experience a little of Ethiopia through your wonderful writing. Ruta - thanks also for the startling, heartbreaking report on women there. So much work to be done. Take good care - Nancy

[Vija Sidryte]

Exhaust lollipops
Labas Lukai! I LOVED reading your incredibly descriptive and detailed entry. You write incredibly well, so well, that I could SWEAR I had a taste of diesel exhaust in my mouth! I bet it's unbelievable for you to think back to a regular old school day in Riverside and think about how different it is. It's so interesting to me how you described the soccer field conditions, and that soccer is soccer: you don't need a fancy field, perfect uniforms, and top-notch conditions to play and be good at the game. I hope all of you are having fun and learning some soccer-Amharic! :) Buckis tau! Vija