Hey Wiff!

One afternoon while working by myself in the kitchen, I heard a voice coming from the front door, “Hey Wiff!” Now for those of you who don’t know, “Wiffee” is the name that Travis has called me for the past six years. It stems from a “language” that he used to speak when he was in late elementary school. This “language” demanded that all letters used to spell a word must be pronounced and they be pronounced the same as in every other word (no letter can make two different sounds in two different environments). Yes, even as a youngen’ my linguistically wired husband (cough – nerd! – cough) was dissatisfied with the English orthography. Some hoped he would grow out of it, others of us have given up all hope!

Anyway, so my name around the house is “wiffee” or sometimes “wiff” for short so when I heard the familiar phrase, “hey wiff,” I simply responded from the kitchen, “Yea?” and waited for Travis’ reply since I was in the middle of something. The one word response, “Come!”, was not at all what I expected.  Hmmm, that’s strange. I poked my head around the corner to look out the front windows and much to my surprise there stood a tall, thin man, but his coal black skin told me that it certainly was not my husband! It was WoHis, one of our language helpers, coming in hopes of finding Travis.

Later that night as we laughed about it together, we put together the pieces. WoHis has been in our home many times, usually working side by side with Travis. We supposed that whenever Travis needed to ask me something (I was often in another room), he would turn and call out “Hey Wiff!” to which I always responded. Now WoHis is a sharp guy, who no doubt picked up on this “name” and since then has only referred to me as “Hewiff.” Hey, you can’t blame him, it actually isn’t too far off from Hewan, the Amharic name for the Biblical character Eve. Hewan is pronounced “Hey Juan,” so I’m glad I wasn’t called that.

“Her name is…” we held our breath hoping not to burst out laughing. You see, WoHis’ wife just gave birth to their first baby…a girl. Now, Gmz people often name their babies after current events and the coming of a new white family is often marked by the naming of children (hence there is a Wayne, Nicole, 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd John, etc.). Now, we never had the heart to tell WoHis that my name was not Hewiff, so, well you can see the anxiety in first learning his baby girl’s name. Her name is….EyGaziiya (which means either “mother of the grass/forest” or “like the grass/forest”). Whew! So, for now, I am still the lone Hewiff living here on Gesas mountain.