Tickets yellam, measles allé
We had decided to stay in Addis for Good Friday because of the church service and the performance, because Abebe told us the kids would really appreciate it. The next day, we were off to Bahir Dar on the first leg of our tour of northern Ethiopia. We would go to Bahir Dar, Gondar and Lalibela for 5 days and then come back to Addis and T and I would prepare to go to Uganda (with some kicking and screaming).
M had booked our taxi to the airport with Jamal, who called on Friday to ensure that we still wanted his services. “Remember, M, how you called me once and then told me you didn’t need me?” he asks. He is talking about the time we booked him to go to the dance performance out of town, but ended up getting the CHS van. We cancelled with plenty of time for him to make other arrangements. Stupid Jamal annoys me. He annoys me even more when we are waiting for him to pick us up at 5am and there is no sign of him and he is not answering his phone. Suddenly, the annoyance grows to an intense desire to poke him in the eye with a fork.
We end up calling Gonchu, Kate’s taxi driver, and he gets us to the airport in time for the flight but just barely. We are at the ticket counter, trying to check in when M and I hear the ticket girl look worriedly at her supervisor and say “yellam.” M and I start looking at each other worriedly, because yellam means THERE ARE NO TICKETS FOR ALL THESE FERENGE, more or less. Sure enough, the supervisor tells us there is no room on the flight for us. That’s it. There’s just no room. It is a busy holiday weekend and real people need to get home to their families. We get it, but why did we have to get up at 5am!?!! She can get us on a flight in the afternoon. She also gives us $10 each to get home, but only when we get American about it.
We head down Bole Road, thinking we can kill time until the flight. We try to get massages at the Boston Day Spa. No dice. We get coffee at Kaldi’s and decide we have to go home and sleep because we are all way too ugly to be awake right now.
We go home and sleep for some (many?) hours, and then decide to go to the little compound to check on the quarantined kids. There are about seven of them now, all lying on consecutive mattresses on the floor. None of them is looking well. They are feverish and sick and sad and I am miserable just looking at them. The nannies don’t want to give them too much water lest they pee themselves, but M insists that they get some. I sit with Six, who stares through me as if I’m not even there. The Good Boy sits at attention, blinking and licking his parched lips. I lie at the end of the beds with New Boy, who is just as sick. His nose is running and he is crying and sweating. I try to hug him and whisper that I love him. He coughs and tells me he loves me, and I try to tell him it will be all right. Then I try to tell myself the same thing.
The Best Friday
On Ethiopian Good Friday, we head over to the little compound, where there are kids everywhere. Kids climbing the walls, kids running around, kids sitting in chairs. Sneaky 1 is sitting with a bunch of the little kids like a big brother, Sweet Girl is posing for pictures with me, and the little kids are just running amok. For the holiday, there is a drama group coming to perform for the kids, so there are rows of chairs set up in the yard. Eventually, we all sit down to watch the performance. I sit next to Sneaky 2, who keeps giving me crazy looks and teasing me, and I try to get him to quiet down and watch.
After the performance, the kids each get presents. The presents are in no way fair. Some kids get really cool stuff; others get cheap plastic toys. The Charmer runs over, thrilled beyond belief, and holds up a bag of chips. “Look! Mexas!” he cries. He is so excited about his snack that he rubs his tummy and says, “Yum yum yum,” the way we do when we play Ten Little Speckled Frogs. You would have thought he won the lottery. Other kids, like Sneaky 2, are not thrilled, looking enviously at the others, and I wonder why they didn’t all just get the same thing. For kids who have to little, it seems unfair to give more to some than others. After the presents, there is a spontaneous gathering in the corner of the yard. We go see what it is, and it’s The Belly, The Boss and New Girl, having a race between two buckets. They are supposed to fill their cup from one bucket, walk it to the other and dump the water in, and then do it again until they finish. The Cuddler gets overly excited and drinks the water. Everyone laughs, and she cries. The Belly wins the race, though I’m still unsure what it was he did to win.
We leave the little compound, with the piles of chickens for dinner, and go to the big compound that night for church. T, M and I end up in different vans. I am in one with all boys, which is fine with me. I sit in the back row with the older boys, telling them about our trip and teaching them how to say things like “Go away” in Chinese and thank you in Thai. For the entire ride, I hold hands with Sneaky 1 and I consider the fact that a 12-year-old boy in America wouldn’t be caught dead holding hands with an old lady like me for a half hour. When we get to the church, the boys run between and and T, trading insults. I teach them how to say go away in Chinese, and they run over to tell him. He teaches them how to say crazy lady in sign language, and they run back over to tell me. This goes on until we have exhausted the silly things we know to say in various languages, and we have to go inside.
In the church, I sit between Surprise, one of the oldest boys at AHOPE, and two little girls. On the other side of the little girls is an older boy who makes an endless array of hysterical faces at me. I sit, with my arms around Surprise and the girls, and I think about how this is the happiest moment I have ever had in a church. Surprise has only recently started talking to me, and he has become one of my favorite kids. He is 13 and has been at AHOPE since about 2000. He is quiet and sweet and I love him. The girls are both about 10, and they are naughty. They whisper to me about the staff, telling me who they like and who they don’t, and when I mention the people they don’t like, they roll their eyes back in their heads and become highly dramatic in their disapproval. It is very difficult not to laugh. At the same time, the other boy, the Joker, sticks out his tongue and wiggles his eyebrows like a maniac, which makes it even harder to keep calm.
The service is neverending, and the kids and I start counting down the songs and prayers. We look down the aisle at T, who is now holding hands with Sneaky 1 (again, what American 12-y/o would ever hold hands with a man in public?! I love Ethiopia), surrounded by a bunch of other boys.
Halfway through the service, about 3/4 of the kids suddenly start whispering in Amharic and walk to the back of the church. It startles me, and brings me back to reality. These kids have HIV. They have to take medication. They are so healthy looking and so energetic that it’s tough to remember that they’re “sick”. The realization hits me hard. I’m sitting alone, waiting for them to come back, and I suddenly want to punch something, which would be wildly inappropriate in a church. The anger passes when they file back in, scooch back under my arms, and continue where we left off, whispering about how we will all be 800 years old by the time we leave.
On the way home, I am in the van with M and Surprise, and he asks if he can play M’s iPod with my portable speakers. We say sure, and then look at each other with horror when we realize what he’s going to play. He turns on Avril Lavigne’s song, Girlfriend. If it was the radio version, it wouldn’t be a big deal but it’s the unedited version in which she says a number of delightful words that the kids all know. And we’re in the van with Tigist, the highly religious nurse. So M starts talking REALLY LOUDLY to Tigist while I scramble over to Surprise to try to get him to turn down the song, just as Avril is yelling about being a motherf*cking princess. Surprise raises his eyebrows in fake horror as she says it, and I snatch the speakers away from him. Maybe this is why the Orthodox religion doesn’t allow secular music.
I’m still here
So it’s been months since I last updated this blog, and that’s mainly because I’ve been kind of sad, thinking about Ethiopia. The last few weeks we spent there were some of the best and worst of my life, and delving into all that emotion isn’t easy.
That said, I’m going to do it. So stay tuned in the next week or so, because I am going to finish writing about this trip and update you on what’s happening now. Really. I swear.
