The ultimate betrayal
On Monday, the kids are bad, and I feel terrible. I sit in the preschool class, being slapped by two of them for no good reason, feeling as if I am about to pass out. I’m not sure why they are all grumpy, and to be honest, I am feeling too wretched to care. It feels like a miracle when class ends for lunch. I am sweaty and feeling faint and don’t know what is wrong with me, and I go home and pass out for three hours. Somehow, I make it to big AHOPE to teach the English class, but T and M teach the class as I watch, sweating in the corner. By the time class has ended, it is pretty obvious that T, M and I are all sick.
The culprit? The mozzarella cheese we had on Sunday night in the beautiful tomato and mozzarella salad M made. Cheese, how could you betray us this way? We spend the entire week alternating who is sickest, and lying around watching TV. We are not pretty.
On Wednesday, M and I are feeling well enough to go into the office to say goodbye to Matt and Amanda, who are going back to Minnesota with their son. When we walk in the courtyard, New Boy is running back and forth across the pavement, screaming and waving his arms. When he reaches one wall, he turns around and runs back the other way, shrieking like a banshee the whole time. Amanda shakes her head, telling us he’s been doing that the whole day. Good news! New Boy isn’t depressed, he’s just crazy!!
In other news, there is a new boy called Big D, who has arrived at little AHOPE during our absence. He is about seven, tall and gangly. When I tell him hello, he hugs me. I love him immediately. As we wait for lunch to be served to the kids (we still can’t eat anything), I sit in a chair with The Writer beside me. He looks at my calf and cries, Wolfrum! You are very fat! Then he looks at his tiny little calf and says, tinnish. I am very small. He then plays an adorable little game where he points to my giant leg and says tudluc (big) and then his skinny little one and says tinnish. Tudluc, tinnish. Tudluc, tinnish! Dude, you are Ethiopian. You’re meant to be small. I am American! Fat is all we have!
We continue being sick until Friday, when T and M feel better and I still feel like death. We go to the clinic, where I see Dr Mekonnen Tibabu, a lovely man who asks me lots of questions about my bowel movements (or lack thereof). He then asks me for a stool sample, and I am forced to ask him if its okay if it’s not solid (it is) and then forced to produce one (which is not solid). Never in my life have I so pitied a lab technician. The good news is that its just plain old food poisoning, and he gives me some pills for my stomach and my throat, which he says is angry and red. I hadn’t noticed, what with my EXPLODING STOMACH.
Naked from the waist up
Because we are old and tired and exhausted, M and I decide we deserve massages. And we do, don’t try to argue with me. We have booked appointments at the Boston Day Spa, and we get in the buses to Bole, and I crow the entire way about how I know the way to get there. And then, suddenly, it is the end of the line and we haven’t seen the friggin’ spa. We end up walking back down the road double time, and M has to call the spa on her phone to tell them we are going to be late, and I can tell she’s trying not to punch me.
It turns out that we end up sitting in the waiting room anyway, before they can take us. Thank goodness for African time. The massage is very good, except that I tell the masseuse to use hard pressure and when she rubs the thighs, I think they might fall off. Then, she leaves the room and closes the door. Right, I think, it’s over. And so I am standing there, clothed only from the waist down, when she comes back in. Oh, no no no! she cries. She makes me take off my pants and she rubs me down with a warm towel to get the oil off, and no, it is not at all weird or humiliating, thank you. Please know that M did the exact same thing, so she is at least as idiotic as I am.
We go back across town, soaked in oil, to go to little AHOPE, where the people from Kate’s orphanage (including Amanda and Matt) are visiting. No one at AHOPE knows they’re coming, so when they arrive, all the kids are napping. We all stand around awkwardly as M gives them a tour and the nice couple from Iowa gives me the package they brought from my mother, and then we all decide to go to big AHOPE. Amanda and Matt haven’t been before, so we are excited to introduce them to the big kids. The other couples take a quick tour with M, and then head on their way, but Matt and Amanda spend hours there with us, playing the rock-jacks game and crashing around on the soccer/basketball field.
On the way home, a little boy named Ermias runs up to us to hold our hands. His mother laughs and waves goodbye to him, and he walks along with his sticky hands in ours. We decide to buy him a Mirinda, since we are buying some for ourselves, and when M hands it to him, he has a look of pure bliss on his little face. Two other little kids immediately appear, so we buy some for them, too, and as we walk up the road to our house, they clutch a bottle in one hand and wave madly in the other, crying goodbye! goodbye!
Everyone is crazy
The next day is Friday, which means the teachers come in to hang out with the kids. We are making puzzles out of photocopies of the children, which works moderately well. There is only a little bit of shrieking over scissors and glue sticks, and only a couple of shoulders being shrugged when it’s explained that we have to share.
But I make a breakthrough when I am holding hands with Happiness and he drags me past New Boy. We pause, and I hold out my hand to him, and he takes it. Granted, he looks at me and my hand as if I am a leper and his arm will rot and fall off at any moment, but he takes it anyway. And so we stand there for a while, completely still, holding hands and hoping we all keep our limbs. For the record, we do.
In the afternoon, M and I teach English class with the first graders, using the same game we tried earlier in the week. Kids are assigned animals, and when I read a story with the animal’s name, they have to make the animal sound. The first graders like it even more than the younger kids, and soon it completely dissolves into pandemonium. The boys are roaring and barking and making whatever sound it is that elephants make, and most of the girls are standing back, looking at them with disgust. The girl who told me B was crazy in the pool looks at the boys and rolls her eyes at me. Hoodlum ibt, she says. EVERYONE IS CRAZY! Yup, right again, sister.
After dinner, we head to the Dagim Millennium to have drinks with Kate, Amanda and Matt. It’s the second day in a row we have gone out with Kate, who is clearly disappointed with our lame social habits (though we are pretty impressed with ourselves for being SO SOCIAL). Over drinks, we teach Matt and Amanda some of the little Amharic we know, and we tell them about cute Ethiopian tricks like throwing the shoulder. For a while, we almost feel cool, until double digit hours roll around and we have to go to bed, before midnight. Again.
FERENGE!!!
On April 2, M and I come out of the preschool class to find T grinning like the Cheshire Cat. Abebe has told him that England is being allowed into the Euro soccer championships because Spain has been expelled for some reason, and T is psyched. M and I pretend to understand the excitement, and then, later, try not to keel over laughing when it turns out it was an April Fools joke, a day late, and T is pouting and shrugging his shoulder.
M and I go back to the house to take a nap and T meets us later to go to big AHOPE. For some reason, everyone is super friendly on the streets. We pass a bunch of kids who see us and yell FERENGE! When I yell back hello, habesha (hello, Africans), they crack up and start yelling goodbye, ferenge! over and over. Then we meet a guy on the street whom we see most days. He is on crutches, and when we walk past, he pauses to shake our hands. We introduce ourselves and he tells us he is in ninth grade. On the way down the hill to big AHOPE, we pass the daily soccer game that the kids play on the big hill (don’t even ask me how they do it). Again, play is stopped so that they can point at us. The little girl across the street from AHOPE yells ferenge at us, as is her daily ritual, and on the way home, we pass a pool hall where men hang out the window to remind us that were white. Thanks, guys. We noticed.
The next day, I am playing lion with the kids when I notice the new boy watching. He is still perched on his step, away from all the other kids and the staff, and especially the scary ferenge. But when I chase the kids, yelling my lion yell like some kind of deranged lunatic, he laughs. When the kids chase me back, yelling like equally deranged lunatics, he cracks a smile. Just when I’m starting to think there’s hope for him, he ends up on a tricycle and the other kids run over to push him or take it away (it’s hard to tell when you don’t speak Amharic) and he sits on the bike, screaming. I shoo the other kids away and rub his back, and he looks up at me, terrified. I’m not sure whats scarier, the creepy whitey or the dozens of kids trying to take his new toy.
I am crazy 1
On Tuesday, my cold has kicked in full swing and I spend the morning lying in bed, moaning whenever T comes in the room. The rest of the time, I try to sleep but end up reading David Sedaris instead. Later, as I am walking alone, a little girl asks me for money and I say no. When I come out of the supermarket, she is still there, waiting for me, so I give her a birr. She runs away happily, but soon enough, I hear her shoes scraping on the pavement behind me. When she catches up to me, she tells me thank you in English and I ask her name in Amharic. Her name is Desta, she tells me, and then she asks for some more money for clothes. I tell her no, and when she runs away, I notice she is running back to her mother. CRAP! This is why I never give money to kids! As I continue my way home, she catches up to me again and chatters away in Amharic. I have no idea what shes saying for the most part, but I know shes asking for money or food. When we get back to the house, I ask Eyob whether I should give her some bread. He shakes his head no, but stands in the gate for a while, speaking to her.
In the afternoon, we have our first class with the kindergarteners, and it runs the gamut between excitement and complete pandemonium. A new child has arrived, and he is devastated to the point that his cries stop the game right in the middle. Everyone in the room turns and stares at him, and some of the kids crawl over to his chair, where one of them tries to kiss him to make it better. After a while, he calms down and sits quietly, holding a picture of a lion drawn on construction paper. Afterwards, we walk over to the older kids compound, where four boys try to braid my hair at once as we play two truths and a lie. I tell Sneaky 2 that I have five husbands, and he crosses himself dramatically, and then tells me he has seven wives. They tell me they have hundreds of parents, dozens of wives and children, and that they were born in America.
We move inside when it starts to rain, and T and I play thumb wars with the boys and call them names. We have just learned the word for crazy, and I tell Smiley that he is Crazy 1. He laughs and laughs with his glorious toothy smile, telling me I am Crazy 1, and then sits down to spaghetti. He calls my name repeatedly and when I look over, he holds up a giant spoonful of pasta and gives me a thumbs up, looking as though he should be in some kind of cheesy Mentos commercial.
After dinner, T tells the story of the Emperors New Clothes, and before he does, Abebe warns him to speak slowly so that he can translate. M and I laugh as T enunciates better than he ever has in his life, and as he speaks, the Braider plaits my hair into eight tiny braids. I try to keep my head still as I tickle the boys backs and they try to tickle my arms in response. I wonder how much money I would need to make to adopt 80 Ethiopian children.
47 lies and a truth
In class with the third and fourth graders, M and I play two truths and a lie, and try to get the kids to tell us what were making up. It starts out fairly innocently, with us saying things like My name is Bambi, I was born in America and I am married to T, but ends up morphing into 47 lies and a truth.
We go to dinner with Amanda and Matt after class, and T and I try firfir, which is injera soaked in injera. Its okay, but nothing near the delicacy we have heard about. Ethiopians eat firfir for breakfast, which is an entertaining thought, because its about 59 pounds of injera. T decides to eat his with a fork, and the waitress reprimands him and tells him to eat it with his hands, like me. I take this as definitive proof that I am a master hand-eater.
On the way home, M, T and I are walking in the dark when a little toad jumps out in front of M. She tries to shoo it off the road so it wont die, but its a disbedient little amphibian and it just hops around her feet. We crack up laughing, and as we walk down the street like deranged lunatic ferengis, a man walks past us and yells F*CK! This only makes us laugh harder, and when we tell him he has said a bad word, he walks away, yelling it over and over.
Partying, pouting and painting
On Friday, the kids are grumpy. Seriously grumpy. Borderline bratty. In Ethiopia, when kids are pissed off, they shrug one shoulder, stick their bottom lips out and stare at the ground. We are getting a lot of shoulder throwing. It is not that cute.
A couple from Kate’s adoption program shows up to bring some donations, and they end up staying for the going away party for the little girl going to America. They’re named Amanda and Matt, are from the Midwest, and are young. Younger than us, but older than M, which makes them just the right age for us all to hang out with. They come to dinner with Kate and we all talk about AHOPE. Kate’s heard that we make the children eat off the floor and that they are all mistreated, which we find hilarious, if totally inaccurate.
When Matt and Amanda go home, we go out with Kate. We go to her guest house, which is a few blocks away and is full of glamorous golden couches, and drink beers on the roof. Then we call Kate’s taxi driver, Gonchu, to take us to a club called Harlem Jazz. Gonchu is older, and lives with his mother and sister. He also drives at a snails pace, weaving all over the road. At one point, a taxi flies past us, and Gonchu tells us that the driver has had too much to drink, because he is driving so fast. I consider giving Gonchu a vodka shot so that he will drive fast enough to get us to the club in the same day.
When we get to Harlem Jazz, its packed with people. Kate, being 22, starts dancing immediately as T and I sit awkwardly with our drinks, feeling exceptionally old and white. At one point, there is a dude doing the Gurage dance, making the hand chopping motion with one hand as he clutches an entire bottle of gin in the other. When the music stops, he tells us he is a tour guide and offers us a ride home. Thanks, dude. We’re all set.
On Saturday, Kate invites us to go to the Crown Hotel with Matt and Amanda and the one adoptive mother in town. They have a buffet dinner and some excellent dancing, including T’s favorite, the booty dance. The booty dance involves a hot woman shaking her badonk at a man, who sits on the ground and scoots either forward or away from her. In a nutshell, it is the greatest dance ever.
On Sunday, we go to Little AHOPE to paint the kids nails. It’s total pandemonium, and the kids go crazy for the polish. A bunch of them have us paint their fingers, and then they run away and remove it, coming back with the little bottles, and when we say no, they throw the shoulder.
The one exception is Sweet Girl, a kindergartener I don’t know very well. She sits next to me quietly as I paint her fingers and toes, and she is so good that I decide to try out my I love you in Amharic. I tell her awadashalo, and when I do, she lights right up. She moves closer to me and tells me she loves me repeatedly, and I know we are going to be good friends.
One little girl, Six, has just had surgery to remove one of the tiny sixth fingers on her hands. I ask to see it, and when I point to the hand that is now missing the finger, she grins at me and points to the other hand, which still has the extra finger, as if to say, Stupid ferenge, there’s still one on this hand! Then she holds out the remaining six-fingered hand so I can paint each nail.
Amanda and Matt come over for the finger painting, and when they arrive, a bunch of the kids immediately start wooing them. The reader starts doing calisthenics around the salon, Princess starts doing her adorable little princess routine, and New Girl cozies right up to Amanda. Their plan works, to some degree. A few days later, Amanda starts talking about adopting from AHOPE.
Shoulder bumping
After B leaves, we feel a little guilty about moving into her room, but not so guilty that we don’t do it immediately. Its nice to have our own bathroom and not have to go in and outside, locking our doors every time we do.
We go to the CDC to paint again, and when we leave, a group of kids sees us and runs toward us, screaming, FERENGE! When they approach us, they shake hands with all of us and ask me for a photo. As we walk up the street, M and T hold hands with the kids as I take pictures.
When we get back to the house, Eyob the guard tries to teach me the shoulder bump. In Ethiopia, most people chest bump, shaking hands as they pull in to bump chests. The shoulder bump is exactly what it sounds like, but I have never done it before. I won’t lie—I am psyched to be shoulder bumping. I feel almost Ethiopian.
After class, we meet up with a girl who works for another orphanage. We get her number from an adoptive parent from the other program who comes to AHOPE. She tells us the girl, Kate, is lonely and needs friends. It turns out that Kate actually wrote us a note that said I have no friends. Please call me. Apparently, the woman decided not to give it to us, which is tragic.
When we get back to the house with Kate, Eyob refuses to do the shoulder bump. And I am sad. So sad.
Bye Bye B
At little AHOPE, the little boy with the chalk on the first day approaches me. Write, he whispers. I go to my bag and tear out a piece of paper, then fold it into quarters. I also take my pen and put it in my pocket. He and I sneak off to the corner of the room, where I hand him the paper, James Bond-style. He slips it into his pocket, then reaches behind my back for the pen. He skips off, thrilled with our secret exchange.
After the English classes at big AHOPE, we all decide to go to a local Italian restaurant for dinner. Genet joins us, despite the fact that she is clearly sick and exhausted. She is devastated about B leaving us, and keeps saying things like B gone, no laugh! We try to convince her that we are funny too, but she doesnt buy it. At dinner, she looks as if she is going to pass out into her food, but she manages to stay awake long enough to make it through the meal and take some pictures of B with her camera phone.
After dinner, Yidni arrives to take B to the airport. We all climb into the van, and its a quiet ride to the airport. We walk her to the security line and then, B is gone. We get back into the van and try to make conversation, to account for the rather deafening silence. We ask Yidni about his kids, and joke about B being wolfrum. When we compare her belly to The Bellys, Yidni turns to M and asks which kid she likes better: Happiness or The Belly. Before she can answer, he says, The Belly, right? M pretends to be horrified and says she loves them equally. (This is a big lie. She likes Happiness best.)
Party all the time
For Tuesdays program, we have Bs going away party. It starts with the typical crashing around the yard, dodging basketballs, chasing each other and getting braided. The boy who tried to drown me at the pool joins forces with the boy who called me wolfrum, and one will distract me as the other tickles me from behind. I name them Sneaky 1 and Sneaky 2, and they cackle and tell me I am Sneaky 3.
For the story, M tells The Wreck of the Zephyr. The kids are riveted, except for one. I sit next to a little girl who looks like my cousin Pip, and I tickle her back as M talks. I am two people away from M, and on her other side is the girl who told me I am not konjo. The Honest Girl leans behind M and raises her eyebrows at me in the way that Ethiopians do, as a greeting. Unlike the people on the street, Honest Girl raises them repeatedly, over and over, and I try not to fall off my chair laughing. I look across the room, and T shoots me a look like the ones I used to get in high school for talking too much. Theres nothing I can do, though, because every time I look at M, Honest Girl is behind her, eyebrows twitching.
For Bs going away, there are songs and the kids present her with a card. B gives the kids a speech about how much the kids mean to her, and how sad she is to be leaving. M tells B how much she will miss her, and I silently agree. T always says that B is so young and energetic, and I wonder what things will be like without her exuberance. I can tell the kids are wondering too.
