Thanking Misa...Egziabiher...God

Being far from US soil during American holidays just doesn’t feel right. No decorations in storefronts, no anticipation of long weekends, no holiday greetings and no family gathered around. On the other hand, just because work and life continue as normal, that doesn’t mean these special days pass by totally forgotten. In fact, when the traditions of home cannot be observed in their entirety, we are presented with the challenge to either come as close as possible, or to create our own special memories/traditions. Sometimes our holiday reconstruction attempts fall flat and our minds drift back home, wishing we weren’t absent for yet another special day. Other times, however, our recreation of the holiday brings its own blessings and unique memories that will surely not be forgotten. Such was the case of Thanksgiving 2011.

 

Being in Addis these 4 weeks for the beginner translator training workshop, I knew that I had to get to know the Gmz translation team candidates on many levels (to help in deciding who would be hired for the official team). Therefore, I set up a routine to host the 9 Gmz translation trainees in our home for dinner twice a week, “Every Tuesday and Thursday evenings, you are invited to come eat some foreigner food, followed by a translation activity.” I didn’t realize at the time that one of these Thursdays would involve Thanksgiving dinner. Should we cancel our invitation? Forget the holiday altogether? Or combine them? Though intimidated at first, Andrea agreed to make a basic Thanksgiving feast – Ethiopian style. You see, turkey is imported and therefore RIDICULOUSLY expensive (over $100 a piece), therefore we opted for two plump chickens to accompany the baked veggies, mashed potatoes, two kinds of bread and 8 bottles of orange soda. Maybe not the full spread you’d expect back in the States, but I can assure you, that is a mighty special meal here in Ethiopia.

 

The guys arrived just as I was finishing the carving of the first chicken, and that amazing Thanksgiving smell greeted them at the door. Micah who had been tortured with these smells all afternoon was asking anyone who would listen, “Banana? Banana?” (that’s Micah’s way of saying, ‘FEED ME!’). We gathered around the nicely-set table (if I do say so myself), gave Micah some of the baked vegetables to calm him down and got out our Bibles. After reading the story of the one thankful leper (Luke 17), we turned to and read Psalm 75:1

 “We give thanks to you, O God, we give thanks, for your Name is near, men tell of your wonderful deeds.”

Jumping off of this verse, I introduced the common Thanksgiving tradition of each person “telling of God’s wonderful deeds” in our own lives. I began by thanking God for the privilege of a front row seat in seeing His word come alive in the Gmz language. Andrea followed by thanking God for the blessing of a new Canadian family living and working closely with us. Next, one-by-one, each of the Gmz guys shared. What was their thanksgiving? Although there was some variation, most of them highlighted being thankful for the dream that would soon be realized - God’s Word in the Gmz language.

 

With the final prayer of thanksgiving, out came the food. The chicken was cooked perfectly and quickly found its way from the serving dish onto the individual plates of hungry Gmz. The veggies made their way around the table as well, but the big bowl of mashed potatoes surprisingly sat undisturbed for a minute or two. Noticing their curious stares, I pointed at it and said “donaanzeya” (potato). Suddenly the table burst into conversation, “Those are potatoes? I thought it was butter…that’s A LOT of butter!” Once the food got on their plates and they overcame the strangeness of using silverware, things got relatively quiet as it was clear they were enjoying this special meal. And they must have liked it, for it didn’t stay around very long. For example, when Andrea brought out the platter with the second carved chicken meat (to the replace the first one that had already been devoured), this new plate hardly hit the table before several hands were reaching for the serving fork. Not more than 2 minutes later, I managed to snatch the last pieces of that chicken for Micah. A Thanksgiving feast without leftovers! Can you imagine?

 

As we moved from the meal to the discussion time, all of the guys agreed that this was a very good holiday, and that wasn’t just their full bellies talking. Once we were all settled in more comfortable chairs, I introduced the translation-related activity of the evening – the translation and retelling of the American Thanksgiving Pilgrim Story. Having downloaded and printed off 24 coloring book pictures, I slowly walked through the story describing the pictures of each event. When I finished, they, as a group walked through it again to confirm that everyone understood what the pictures stood for. Next, I broke them into three teams of three. Then, as teams, they practiced retelling it (each took 1/3 of the pictures). Finally, I invited them into my recording studio (ie. the kitchen) where I recorded their retellings for future linguistic analysis. “If someone makes a mistake or forgets a detail,” I said, “don’t correct them. I don’t care about accuracy; I just want complete sentences of natural speech.” Such freedom led to some interesting renditions, followed by bursts of laughter as soon as I stopped the recorder!

 

As the last team finished I glanced at the clock – 8:30pm – long after when we had agreed to be finished with such evening sessions. Not wanting to keep them out later, I quickly served up the Thanksgiving essential - pumpkin pie. They cautiously reached for yet another new food, but like everything else, once the first taste went down without a problem, the rest just seemed to leap into their mouths. Between bites, all of them were still talking about the activity and their team’s attempts to remember details, “Can we hear it now?” they finally asked. “Sure why not?” I thought, “No one is too eager to get home.” Replaying each of the teams’ stories was amazing. Hearing how some tellers remembered small details brought encouraging compliments. At the same time, hearing mistakes, stutters, and off-the-wall interpretations brought roars of good-natured laughter. Good team dynamics, good memories, and a good God who gave them to us. There certainly is much to be thankful for!

 

Thump, Thump, Thump!

Can you hear it? Well, if you spent any time eavesdropping on our house in Addis Ababa these days, you would no doubt hear the sound of feet thumping up and down the white marble stairs. Listen a bit closer and you may hear my lungs pulling in large gulps of oxygen, maybe the occasional thud of rocks tumbling over on each other in my backpack, or the faint whisper of CCR, Stix or Lenard Skynard echoing off my eardrums. These sounds are becoming more and more familiar for Andrea, Micah and our patient housemates as I am trying to take advantage of our month in Addis Ababa by getting into tip-top shape.

Why? Well, about two months ago, my older brother came through on a dream he’s talked about ever since he learned of our acceptance to work in Ethiopia. Being a family with the reputation of attempting crazy things (like marathons), physical fitness challenges have a certain appeal to us. What is the draw? I’m not sure. Some call such an addiction the “runner’s high,” while others call it nothing short of insanity. I, myself, enjoyed two back to back years in the loony bin of marathoners, but plagued by knee-pains, I somehow found enough sanity to declare my retirement from marathons back in 2000. However, I checked the records to be sure, and that official retirement speech said nothing about mountain climbing.

And so when my brother emailed last month “Hey, I have vacation time to use, are you up for Mt. Kilimanjaro?” the temptation of adventure grabbed me and immediately had me in a firm head-lock (thus impeding any attempt at clear thinking). I shot back my emailed response, “I have to ask Andrea first, but my knee-jerk reaction is ‘I’m in!’ just give me at least 2-3 months to train.” And so it began.

Addis Ababa, a high elevation city at 7,500 ft, gives me a good training ground and given my primary need for leg strengthening, I opted to climb up and down our stairs for 30+ minute workouts. Back in Gesas, we would walk to get water from the hand pump about 2/3 mile from our house. On such trips, Micah helped by slowly filling my backpack with rocks. Now, with my hiking books laced up tight, my rock-filled backpack strapped on, and classic rock music pumping raw adrenaline into my veins, I start my timer and hike. Thump, thump, thump. I guess there is one benefit that my family and housemates enjoy about this Kilimanjaro training. That is, all this exercise is forcing me to step up my well-established routine of 2 showers a week to 5 or 6. I guess, the 30 minutes of thumping, is a small price to pay for fresher air they are now enjoying.

 

Well Stocked

I couldn’t help but smile when walking down the baking aisle in Addis Ababa’s biggest and best supermarket/grocery store. The three of us were shopping for a long three-month stretch out in Gesas so we had a long list of supplies to buy and were already prepared for a double-shopping-cart spree. “Let’s see, according to this list we need three 5-kilogram bags of flour.” Ok, flour is one of those things that we actually have brands to chose from so I quickly scanned the prices until my eye was captured by one particular brand name – Wabko. “Hey,” I said to Andrea behind me, “I didn’t know that Wabco switched from making large dump trucks to now grinding wheat.” While Micah stared at me blankly, the joke was not lost on my wife who knew that my grandparents had worked for the Wabco company which has since been bought out by the now very well-known manufacturer of machinery, Caterpillar. Anyway, with Wabko flour’s competitive price, I plopped three 5-kilogram bags into my cart hoping that somehow I was supporting my grandpa’s pension plan. Moving along, we filled both of our carts without much of a problem and made our way to the checkout. Everything was nicely bagged up for us and so, pleased by the service, I tipped the young man who helped load it all into the back of our truck.

 

It wasn’t until we got home and I was recording our purchase in our financial notebook that I noticed a problem. For whatever reason, my Wabko flour had cost me over 750 birr (that’s almost $50)! Looking more closely, I saw that the checker-outer had scanned one bag and instead of typing in 3 for the number of pieces, she had typed in 15, which was the total number of kilograms. Now, as mentioned in a previous blog entry, there are no standard return policies here in Ethiopia and whoever came up with the ridiculous idea that “the customer is always right” would have been a terrible businessman in Africa. But, anyway, I thought, if anyone might have the slightest clue of these foreign business practices, it would be this fancy, new supermarket. So, I thought, a $35 refund was worth a try.

 

The next morning I drove across town and, with my three-foot-long receipt in hand, approached the worker I saw closest to the Wabko flours. With only one attempt at the explanation, she understood my problem and promptly led me to the cashier where the story was first repeated. Next, the manager-on-duty was called, the story was again repeated this time with the attention of many curious employees and customers. The manager then said “I am not the head manager, so come back on Monday morning at 11am and we will see what we can do.” I left hopeful, for no answer is often better than the immediate answer I was afraid I would find.

 

I obediently returned for my appointment and thankfully I found this same manager-on-duty. Upon seeing me with my LONG receipt in hand, she remembered, yet immediately apologized having forgotten to discuss my problem with the head manager. No harm done, for he was only in the back room and so, when he was called, I got to hear the explanation repeated a 3^rd time – great for strengthening my Amharic vocabulary. This was it, the top of the food chain and the point of decision. It was clear that he understood the mistake, but would he believe my story? He looked me in the eye and asked “What do you want?” Unsure of how to interpret that question, I asked for a refund. He thought for a bit before saying, “Refunds are difficult to do (because of the 15% sales tax having already been paid to the government), would you consider taking the additional 12 bags of flour?” Without Andrea’s voice of reason, I was pleased with the option of fair exchange, and besides I was funding in my grandpa’s retirement plan right? The stock-boy was called, a whole cart was filled with Wabko flour, driven straight past the cashiers and promptly loaded into the back of our truck.

 

I don’t remember the exact date of that adventure, but I do know that we are coming up on its one-year anniversary very soon here (it was early December 2010). So, how have we done? Well, those 75 kilograms (that is 165 lbs) have not only provided every gram of white flour we’ve used this year, but we are still sitting on seven unopened bags (35 kilos or 77 lbs). So, at that rate, it looks like we will be all set well into 2012. Anyone need flour? Could I recommend the Wabko brand? “I give you special price…”