Community

Well hello!

I have been compiling a list of things I thought I might write about in this post.  Some of the possible topics of discussion included the cake I baked on the stove top using Ethiopian spiced butter and bananas (I commented to my brothers that it taste like tibs - fried meat - married banana bread), the mud of Mekele, homeschooling, top five restaurants of the week (yes, we eat out a lot), and language lessons.  All of those topics will have to wait, because the overwhelming theme of the week has been "community".  Here I will post a picture of a few friends we have made in Mekele and then tell you a little story.  This picture was taken at a Sunday afternoon worship service in the home of Greg and Elizabeth (EJ) Spencer, who are leaning up against the counter.  Heading towards the table is Sarah, an aid worker at the Mekele Youth Center.  On the right is Charlotte, and standing near Greg is Karen. Karen and Charlotte have both worked with healthcare in Tigray.

So, the story (it's short, I promise):  Last year at Blair High School, I was called down to the main office because a young fourteen year old girl freshly arrived from Ethiopia could not speak English and had a few questions about how she was supposed to eat lunch.  I went downstairs and discovered, using my very rudimentary Amharic, that the girl's father was maybe doing some paperwork to maybe get her set up so that she could maybe participate in the free and reduced meals plan.  Until that paper work had been sorted, she was told, she could not eat lunch at Blair.  She asked how long it would take for the paperwork to go through, and we told her it would take about a week.  "Just have your folks pack you a bit of lunch!" I suggested gently while I walked her to the cafeteria to wrangle some food out of the manager.  She kept a very straight face and nodded. I left her in the hands of students from the Ethiopian community at Blair and moved on with my day.

I tell that story because I feel we have been in that girl's shoes for two weeks, now.  And if it hadn't been for our stint in Mekele - a place where we knew virtually no one and understood basically nothing about how things worked - I wouldn't be forced to recall with shame my casual suggestion that the girl just pack a lunch and bring it with her.  To begin with, where would she get the food?  Someone who's used to eating injera most meals may not even know what a packed lunch in the US looks like.  What do you pack it in?  What kind of materials do you need?  How much do they cost?  Do you stuff it in a plastic bag?  If so, what kind?  Ziploc?  Large, small?  Paper bag?  Where do you get those?  Lunchbox?  What is that and where do you get it?  The nearest Target can't be reached on foot, and if you're in Takoma Park somewhere, maybe you have no idea where the nearest Giant is, or what Giant even is.  The simplest thing for a homegrown American kid in America becomes an enormous hurdle for the foreign kid.

We are the foreign kid in Mekele.  And it really, really, really sucks sometimes.  I can tell you that every single person in this family has shed tears during the course of the last couple of weeks because each waking moment has been spent so completely outside of our comfort zone. Nothing seems straightforward.  Shopping is an experience that frazzles the brain and exhausts you.  There is no Target.  So consider this; imagine you want to buy clothespins (because you have no washer/drier in the house).  You have to find the mode of public transport that will take you to the right part of town.  Then you have to find the right type of shop.  Then you go to three or four of these shops and ask with your broken Amharic and nonexistent Tigrinya if the shop sells "those things that you put on wet clothes to put them in the sun outside", or "those things that do this (squeeze your fingers together) to your clothes after washing", or some other awful translation of something that makes people lean forward and furrow their brows at your ludicrous language.  And then they all say "No, we don't have that."  So you go home with a flyswatter instead and consider that a small victory.

Being the foreign kid is HARD.  I have such a deep, profound, tear-inducing respect for those students who come into my high school in the States without a word of English, lunch money, or friends.  Look at them by the end of the year and they've found their people, they're eating lunch and listening to Drake and speaking more and more English.  The ones that make the most progress are the ones that found their own communities.

The people in the picture above have become, in a very short period of time, our community.  They have given us Chinese food, oatmeal cookies that don't taste like spiced butter, strawberries (!), and more.  Sarah spent an entire day taking me around town, showing me the post office and how to get a post office box, where to find red meat and have it ground for you, and - glory of glories - where to find cheese.  She didn't even get mad at me for breaking her toilet flusher.  Greg and Elizabeth are hosting our boys for tacos and a movie night at their house as I type.  They sent someone to our house  earlier today to help us replace our gas canister so we can use our stove more efficiently.  Okay, it was a typical Mekele ordeal (wrong canister bought, had to be returned, etc. - who knew not all cooking gas canisters were not standard in a city this size?).  To sit with these folks last Sunday, listening to a Tim Keller podcast and singing familiar songs was to be reminded of the good things that make a home a home.

Listen, we're so happy to be here, so lucky and so incredibly thrilled for this opportunity.  I just had to share how disorienting and exhausting it can be to be the new kid, and how warm and sheltered it feels to be in the care of a community.

That said, let me tell you of the gentle landing Mekele has given this new kid. First, no one laughs when I speak.  God bless them, because I know I say some very stupid things.  Second, if you go into a shop during lunch and ask for something, you will find the shop owners gathered around a plate, eating injera, and they will often invite you to join them.  Third, today, when I was searching for the right canister, the bajaj driver who was going to give us a ride home, came into the shop and huddled with a group of us to help sort things out.  When I didn't have enough money, he pulled a wad of cash out of his pocket and handed it to me.  Don't worry, I paid him back, but where else can you imagine a cab driver doing that?

So, Mekele will be our wider community someday soon.  Until then, we'll let these kind folks who once were the new kids ease our way into life here.  The progress is real.  After two weeks of eating the most delicious Ethiopian food you'll ever taste in your life (that's a promise), Mark and I were ready for a good old-fashioned burger tonight.  It had an egg and the traditional karya (chili pepper) in it, but it was fine by us!