Girls just wanna' have ....I don't know.

Piggy In The Middle

Girls, girls, girls....

The girls in the picture are playing some version of piggy in the middle.  They hurl the little plastic yellow ball (foreground) with all their might.  If it hits one of the girls in the middle, she's out, and has to wait for the next game.  I used to play a similar game when I was very little, but the girls in the picture are 14/15 year olds.  If they're not playing this game, they're playing their own version of baseball in which they bat the little ball with their hands and run like crazy around a group of "bases" that are so close together I actually hurt my knee trying to turn those tight corners; had to hop into "home base" on one foot.  No one cared because they will not stop for a simple tendon sprain.  Not even blood will stop them.

There are only a few things that will stop the game, usually temporarily.  One is if some younger girl is brave enough to join the game by stepping into the middle, or coming up to bat.  If that girl can jut her chin out just right, or lower her head, scowl and spit out words that are some version of, "I'm playing and you can't stop me so shut up!" and mean it, then she's in.  But it could mean that some other girl will storm off - usually to join another game of double-dutch, or piggy in the middle, but with a volleyball (that version is played for real, and is a good landing place for angry people).  Another thing that can stop the game is if someone's sense of justice is challenged.  Maybe a ball is smacked and it goes out of bounds, but there's some disagreement.  Or the pitcher manages to get the ball and beats a runner to a base, but there's some disagreement.

I wish I could describe both the intensity and the frequency of the disagreements.  The faces on those girls - you have to picture an angry kid in a Norman Rockwell painting.  They're like caricatures; their poses, their facial expressions - it's almost funny.  And then it's over.  I've seen girls look each other nose to nose, saying things like, "Go on then, do it.  Punch me.  See if you can walk home when I'm done with you."  Then five minutes later I'll see them arm in arm, looking over someone's shoulder at a cell phone.  It's nuts.

On the one hand, I've been reading a bit about how we in America have sanitized our lives of conflict.  We run from it.  And we teach our kids to run from it.  As a result, it could be that we just don't know how to have a respectful disagreement.  That's kind of sad, and kind of evident - if I'm anything to go by. On the other hand, these girls can have disagreements that are so dramatic that they almost belong in a Looney Tunes cartoon.  And just like that, the mess is cleaned up - just like in the cartoons.  Next scene - back to normal.  No one's head is flat.  No one's hair is singed off with smoke drifting off the scalp.  That can't be the alternative to our sanitized, conflict-free existence, either.

The way people - girls, especially - relate to each other here is something to behold.  The amount of physical contact they enjoy is startling.  When playing, the younger girls wrestle, just like the boys.  They don't mind dragging each other down into the dust and rubbing each others' faces in the dirt.  They run!  All the time!  I cannot imagine 14/15 year old girls in the States opting to spend their free time playing games that require constant motion.  I just can't imagine it.  They walk arm in arm, they braid each others' hair, they lie across each others' laps.  I rarely see a girl sitting even one inch apart from another girl.  And they can just as quickly fight like demons.

Sometimes, Mark and I walk home a bit dazed, trying to find the right words to express how we process things.  I had hoped - maybe not seriously - that I would have brought a Mother Theresa-like saintliness to every relationship I developed at Operation Rescue.  But as I walked home with Mark one day I just shook my head and told him how earlier that day, I had to extricate myself from the arms of two girls who really wanted me to go somewhere - I didn't even know where.  They were both talking in my ears, and I honestly felt man-handled.  And as I wrenched myself away, I said, "Likekun!"  This basically means, "Let go of me!"  One of them laughed, and the other said I was not to talk to her again, to which I replied "That is really fine by me." A proud, saintly moment for me.

But the next day their heads were not flat and their hair was not singed and we went right back to it, as if nothing had happened.  Every day is a guessing game, and maybe my friends who have teenage daughters are thinking "Welcome to my life". But every morning I find myself wondering what sort of ridiculous conflict I will find myself either watching or in the middle of.  And since Mark and I started a Devotions Club (stop laughing, it's actually much cooler than you think, especially when you factor in the fights) which only middle-school girls joined, we really do take a deep breath before our club meetings.  Most of the girls are in the pictures in this post.

I'll end with our most recent meeting.  K, a born leader and fledgling megalomaniac, is always the narrator.  As such, she always has the bible held close to her chest so that she can recall the specifics of the story for the actors in the club.  But she is not above occasionally shoving - say - Moses out of the way and saying, "Give me that staff.  This is how you throw it down!"  or "Are you kidding me, Pharaoh?  That's your reaction?  Move, dummy!  This is how you make an angry face!"

Well, yesterday, Pharaoh had had enough.  She'd just asked me some innocent questions about the order of the plagues that befell the Egyptians after each refusal to Moses' "Let my people go" request.  K, the born leader, was flabbergasted that one of the actors didn't have the story down, and  issued an insult that I didn't catch.  Moses and Aron wisely moved out of the way, and Pharaoh moved in for the kill.  I got in between them just in time to prevent Pharaoh's foot from connecting with K's shins.  K backed up against the wall, and - shielded by me - continued to taunt Pharaoh with a cheeky smile on her face and the bible held against her chest!  I mean, come on!

It all happened so fast that Mark didn't even see it.  And it's such a frequent occurrence that I haven't even told him about it.  Devotions Club.  Fight Club, more like.   Afterwards we went outside and as far as I know, K and Pharaoh, Moses and Aron all played piggy in the middle.  Probably the volleyball version.  I didn't stick around to see it.  I've learned that sometimes you just have to head home while your sanity is still intact.

But tomorrow the Devotions/Fight Club will present its third performance and it's going to be good.  We managed to make props this afternoon.  I was convinced to purchase some red food coloring - the girls are going to somehow dramatize the first plague when the Egyptian rivers and water sources were turned to blood.  I don't even want to know.  They have the bottle, though frankly, they don't really need it.  They could probably find a way to draw some actual blood during the performance itself.

Oh well.  It's all very entertaining.  And very draining.  I have to say, I come home and look at my boys and think, "I love these uncomplicated fellows very, very much."

"Baseball"

P.S.  None of these girls is as bad as Hazal.  In fact, the girls I write about are very sweet and loving, when they're not, you know, fighting.

  

On another note, if it sounds as if they boys haven't been coming as often, it's because Daniel and Eli have been getting a lot of school work done.  Also,  I think we have all hit what is known as the 6 month low.  Our good friend Nairy Ohanian, a counselor, told us to expect this.  I promptly forgot all about it until I mentioned feeling a bit down and angry to some ex-pat friends here and they said, "Ah, you must have hit the six month mark."  So we are letting the boys ease off for a bit and cover some school work.  How weird does that sound?  School work is a break...

The Smooth Ride

Well, we’re still alive. It’s been a while since this blog was last put into use, but now that we have a whopping 1/2 megabyte per second unlimited wifi connection at our house, the only thing standing between us and blogging is pure laziness. 

It has been a month since we returned to Mekele, and it’s more or less been a smooth ride. Settling in wasn’t nearly as difficult as it was back in August and September, and wow, we’re already talking about potential dates for returning to the United States.

But that’s still five months away. Right now, we are just enjoying our time here while keeping our return on the horizon, with some of us seeing it as sort of a light at the end of the tunnel, and others seeing it as a cause of dread. I will not say any names. We are well into our routine here, with schoolwork, Tigrinya lessons, and volunteering at Operation Rescue Ethiopia consuming the lion’s share of our time. The longest power outage has only lasted three hours or so (no match for those 48 hours from September 16th to 18th), our water situation has largely remained under control, and as for those stares and yells I wrote about back in October: meh. See the first paragraph if you’re wondering about our internet situation.

Some notable scenes we’ve witnessed:

Dad, my Grandfather, and I went to the local Orthodox Church on the night before Ethiopian Christmas (January 7th), and it was surreal. Seeing incense burning, the whole congregation wearing prayer shawls while singing in unison, just wow. What an ancient way to worship, one that probably hasn’t changed since the fourth century. Just imagine: people do this all night long here!

We celebrated Epiphany, or Timkat (January 19th) by going downtown with a British friend of ours, where we were among a sea of people waiting for a service, or for a dispensing of holy water- it wasn’t clear what we were waiting for, exactly. But, at least we talked to some other kids who were interested in hearing our Tigrinya skills. Just when we were about to leave, sprinklers came on, and the masses pushed and shoved to get their share of holy water. Being reminded of running down a mountain at nighttime surrounded by fire (Meskel, back in September), we decided not to join the madness this time around. And, naturally, the people who were emerging from the crowd all wet were young men willing to, well, push and shove. Afterwards, there were several processions of priests and singers on the streets of Mekele. Religious holidays are no joke here, man. 

However, I sometimes can’t help but let myself be taken over by frustration. This month, the language barrier has been what has caused me the most anger. It can also be difficult to feel at home at Operation Rescue, where kids are constantly running around, seemingly without a point in mind. I am reminded of the slogan from Chuck E. Cheese’s: “Where a kid can be a kid.” That’s exactly what Operation Rescue feels like, and man, when we get home afterwards, I feel exhausted. But I need to remember that all of these kids are from extremely disadvantaged backgrounds. For example, in our English class the other day, this one kid was being a troublemaker, and when Dad tried to include him in our game, some other kids said in Tigrinya, “He has nothing. [This kid] has nothing,” as in he’s one of the poorest kids in Mekele. These are the things that we must keep in mind whenever we feel that we are having a tough time here. There are other people who have it about a thousand times worse than we do.  

Meanwhile, I was just thinking about how now that we have wifi, given that it’s working (which it sometimes isn’t), I could just sit down and look up whatever I want. Just like in the U.S.! In fact, Eli and I are planning on waking up at 2:30 AM on Monday morning to hopefully see the Patriots lose the Super Bowl. I don’t know if it’s a bad thing because we were supposed to “unplug” this year, or if it’s a good thing because I don’t have to face internet withdrawal. I just hope that I’ll continue to fulfill our purpose here: experience a new culture and give back to the less fortunate.

When should we return to the U.S.? Before July 4th? After July 10th? It’s all complicated right now, but as I said before, it’s dawning on us. Between our arrival date (August 14th) and the first week of July, when we’ll probably leave Ethiopia, we are currently more than halfway there. We’re over halfway through our year in Ethiopia! Even closer is when our cousins from Kenya visit, and when we go to Italy and Austria for two weeks. As a certain movie character put it, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” That will probably summarize the next five months here.

P.S.: As I write this, Mom’s soap opera is on TV. One character literally just said “Hazal is cut out of the side of Satan. She looks like Satan.”

P.P.S.: Apologies for the lack of pictures (meaning none). We tried for hours to upload just three of them, at the smallest size, but were once again smacked in the face by our almost routine realization: in Mekelle, nothing is ever guaranteed.