Mark Takes Tigrinya On

So Marta is making me blog. Posting on this blog is such a daunting challenge that I am a day late in doing it. Sorry. But here goes.

“Farenji!!” (“Foreigner!”) We have heard this literally hundreds of times while walking as a family in Mekele. (We walk everywhere, and every time, I am a farenji.) But you know what? Though Marta has been known to turn and smile, I am in fact the only real farenji in our family. As I have explained to children here, Daniel, Eli, and Micah are ferki (half) farenji, ferki habesha (Ethiopian). Marta, as it happens, is not farenji at all. She is starting to cotton on, and no longer responds as a matter of course to cries of “farenji” when walking with me. Those are for me, thank you very much.

My farenji-ness shows in sunburns and lack of rhythm. But it also shows in language learning. Between being a farenji and being middle-aged, I have struggled with Tigrinya. Marta has an unfair advantage, of course; she has heard Tigrinya for much of her life. But the kids have also lapped me. I typically have to hear words many, many times, AND see them written down (phonetically, in the English alphabet), before they stick. As for the Ethiopian alphabet, forget about it. The boys, meanwhile, seem like magnets, and Eli has recently picked up the alphabet while hardly trying. They have a number of running jokes about my language slip-ups.

This is all to be expected — I am getting older and duller, and Tigrinya is not an easy language. But inability to communicate does not always sit well. I have had to rely on Marta in many situations: to save me in trying to communicate with our wonderful household help, Azeb; to translate in church; to communicate a key point to children at Operation Rescue, where we volunteer; to talk to the plumber. Thank goodness for Marta, but if I’m honest, it’s frustrating at times. And I probably rely on her too much.

With this as a partial motivator, Eli and I recently took an overnight trip to a town about 100 kilometers away to see a famous rock-hewn church. We had been to the area before, with my sister (see a previous post), but had skipped one of the most famous churches in part because not all family members, particularly mothers, were comfortable with reports of steep drop-offs on the climb to this particular church. I promised Eli that we would come back. But I specifically wanted to make the trip on public transport in part to prove that I could accomplish such a venture without the aid of Marta’s language skills.

Sitting on the ledge

The trip was fantastic. Eli was great company. We made the trek up to the famous cliff church, called Abuna Yemata Guh, relying solely on public transport. The drop-offs were as steep as advertised — I don’t think Marta would have done well there; I was a bit nervous myself. Eli skated along, though — no problems and no apparent concern. The views and the church interior were absolutely fabulous. What a place. Here are a couple of pics.

This is how most people navigate the ledge of
the 200 meter drop off

This is Eli on the ledge

And I even used my broken Tigrinya to some effect! I paid fares and obtained correct change. We got to where we were going. I helped French tourists order at a local restaurant. Fellow travelers were friendly, and I was able to repeatedly explain in Tigrinya that we are from America but staying in Mekele; we had visited the area before but Eli’s mother was a bit nervous about the climb to Abuna Yemata; and we had now come back to visit it. Though that was about the extent of it — any further questions and I had pretty much reached the limit of my ability to communicate in Tigrinya. And Eli caught me in a number of conjugation and other slip-ups. But hey, I didn’t hear him trying to speak! And practice makes perfect. Or something.

The nine Syrian saints who brought Christianity to Ethiopia

Painting on a pillar

Kids at Operation Rescue have also been great Tigrinya teachers. After helping with (semi) structured English teaching in the classroom, I often trade a few English words and phrases for Tigrinya help outside. One of Marta’s middle school students has even taken to giving me Tigrinya homework. I failed my first assignment — she wrote “good work” anyway.

Just yesterday, Marta and I attended an informal English class at a house that Operation Rescue runs for orphaned children, or those whose parents are completely unable to care for them. All children at Operation Rescue are from a disadvantaged backgrounds, but most live with a parent or extended family, and are at the project only during the day. But a limited number of children live together in a “cell house” up the road from the main compound; we were invited to visit the house. I again got valuable Tigrinya tips from children and staff. But even more impressive was the loving environment that was evident in the home. The children we met ranged in age from 6 to 17. It was so wonderful to see the older kids help the younger ones — you could tell that the kids there all love each other like siblings. And the staff is incredibly caring. It was a lovely visit; I’m sure we’ll be back.

As Marta has said, if you live in the DC area and want to drop a few children's clothes off at her house in Maryland so her dad can bring it out when he visits, let her know via this blog or facebook and she can get you the details. In our next post, we will provide some more concrete information for anyone who might want to contribute in other ways to Operation Rescue Ethiopia.

This week we were also lucky enough to host Kati and Cord and their three fantastic sons; Xavier, Paco, and Stani.  They came all the way from Austria to spend some time out here.  Kati and Marta met while studying French as teenagers in Geneva and have kept up their friendship since then.  It was great to have them visit Ethiopia.  Their positive outlook, open-mindedness, and appreciation for this amazing country were a great reminder for us of how lucky we are to be here.  And they brought chocolate and maple syrup for us, and lots of goodies for the kids at Operation Rescue Ethiopia.

Switching gears abruptly, Marta says I have to report that Hazal has now been caught by her family pretending to be paralyzed (she wasn’t). They all hate her even more. She threatened to jump into the sea and her birth mother said, “that’d be great.” She didn’t jump; only sulked some more. Poor Hazal. 

Note that as with many things here I know this only because Marta told me so. The soap opera is in Amharic. And if you think I am going to learn that in addition to Tigrinya … then you must have skipped to the bottom of this post for a Hazal update. See above.

P.S.  This from Marta:  She knows that she is not, in fact, a Ferenji, having inhabited brown skin her entire life.  But she is unfailingly polite and hates to ignore children who are trying to connect with the family, albeit in a strange way.

And Mark’s continued efforts to speak the language (more persistently than Marta) will be rewarded, if not in this life, then in the life to come.  For we all know that in Heaven, we will all speak Tigrinya fluently.  Except for Hazal because she won't be there.