Teddy, Azeb, and Turkish Soaps

Okay, my friends - all two of you.  End of week three.  Here we are.  Mekele, Ethiopia.  Still.  Ha!  They haven't gotten rid of us yet!

In all seriousness, week three finds us remarkably well.  That is to say, we have no illnesses, have made more friends, hired some house help, and done the unthinkable - we got a dog!

Teddy enjoys a bone

As I told Mark when he realized the dog would be dropped off at our house within the half hour, "This is the year of living dangerously."  Now for some, living without a dog is living dangerously.  Not so for us.  The prospect of picking up dog poop, worrying about fleas and illnesses, and general bad canine behavior is something that made getting a dog a non-starter in the US.  But here in Mekele, the dog - who speaks Tigrinya and whose name is Teddy - lives outside.  No amount of puppy whining and cuteness will allow those big ol' paws to cross the threshold.  Although one day the little rascal did manage to sneak in the back door and lick my hand while I was watching a soap opera.  I ushered him out, lickety split.  Bless him.  He doesn't speak Amharic; the soap would have bored him stiff.  Back to the soap opera in a bit.  But yes, we named our dog after Teddy Afro, whose music serenaded us on our ride from Addis to Mekele.  He's a cute 8 month old German Shepherd.  And he's staying outside!

A distant relative who we "discovered" last year has also stepped boldly into our lives and has dedicated hours of her time off from work to show us how to be true Habeshas.  Her name is Rahel, and she was flabbergasted at my lack of a coffee set for the house.  We bought one, and it is sitting in my living room taunting me.  I, a coffee novice, will soon become that Habesha lady you see roasting, grinding, brewing coffee and carefully pouring it into tiny cups.  As we say in Amharic, wey ney.  My goodness.  Who would have thunk it?  This is a picture of Rahel selecting from various grades of coffee at the market.

Rahel inspects coffee

Before I move on from Rahel, it has to be mentioned that she managed to take Mark and I down to a part of town we'd never been to before.  In that part of town, it is possible to buy pretty much anything from a roadside stand.  We bought a bed and a mattress and she oversaw it being loaded onto the tiny three-wheeled bajaj that took us home.  I'm telling you, no vehicle has more of my respect than these little blue guys that put-put up and down this city with ridiculous loads on their roofs.

Why did we need a bed?  We needed one for Azeb, the young lady who we have hired to help us around the house.  Azeb was brought to us by a friend from church and let me tell you, she may be inexperienced and brand new to Mekele, but she is so hard-working and diligent that she makes me wonder how on earth I have survived without her all these years.  My only concern is that she has not been able to eat the bland, ferenji food I prepare.  Luckily, Rahel - our relative - had an answer to this problem, an answer that I think she believes will provide the solution to all of our problems; make only Ethiopian food in the house.  It's easy to be persuaded by an argument like that, especially if I'm not the one who has to cook it all the time.  So Azeb, Mark, and I went downtown today for the umpteenth time, this time to find tef - the grain that is used to make injera.  Azeb found some that she approved of, and it is being ground to powder at the mill tonight.  We'll pick it up tomorrow.  I, a mere injera eater, will soon be that Habesha lady pouring injera batter over a hot pan, making every blessed item of food from scratch as they do in true Habesha homes.  Wey ney.  Who, but who would have thunk it?  Wait, who am I kidding?  When we get home to Maryland I'll go back to buying my injera at the 7-11.

Azeb inspecting tef

Azeb and Rahel, indeed any Tigrayan that we meet has been charged with the solemn duty of speaking to us in Tigrinya.  Mark has been sustaining the effort to learn the language admirably.  Today, when some boys threw stones in his direction as he took a short jog, he was able to tell them in terse Tigrinya, "Cut it out."  Then he rehearsed what he would have said to their parents with our Tigrinya teacher; "These young boys threw stones at me."  But he has a forgiving attitude about many such offenses, I must say, and will probably have forgotten about it on his next run.  Me?  I refuse to run here.

As for Tigrinya, I have finally joined Mark and the boys at the table during their daily Tigrinya lessons as I have come up against - within a scant week - the outer limits of my Tigrinya and am in desperate need of proper conjugation of verbs.  Yonas, our teacher, is really very good and very patient.  It's always fun to hear him give commands in Tigrinya that must be obeyed; "Markos, ab terepeza la'li heres!"  ("Mark, sleep on the table!").

I take much more pleasure in my Amharic lessons, though.  These come by way of the soap operas which I promised I would return to way back when I was introducing you to Teddy.  I am permitted to change the channel from CNN for one hour a day during which time I sit very close to the TV and watch Turkish and South Korean soaps while shushing everyone.  These soaps are dubbed in Amharic and are wildly entertaining.  I've got my eye on an Italian one, too, but the people in that soap are really over the top good-looking, and I don't trust them.  I can't vouch for the Amharic I'm learning.  I can say things like, "Mehmet, I know your daughter Irsan has double-kidney failure. I can find someone who will donate a kidney for the transplant, but you must sign over all your wealth to me, first."  Or, "Jae Hun is not just a family friend, she's...your sister!"

These sorts of phrases might come in handy some day, you never know.  Meanwhile, we struggle on with language, resting assured that at least Teddy understands us.  "Kof!", we say, and he sits.  Sometimes.  He's just a beginner.  We're all beginners, really, in this house; us, Teddy, Azeb.  

Now doesn't that sound like the makings of a good soap opera?