On the eve of the Olympic opening ceremonies, I called my Ethiopian host family in Welliso. My momma answered and had barely enough time to say my name, before my little brother swiped the phone and yelled excitedly into the receiver, "Christen! The Beijing Olympics start tomorrow!"
Throughout much of the Western world, mention of Ethiopia recalls the images of pot-bellied starving children and skeletal adults that were broadcast during the terrible famine of the mid-1980s. Perhaps occasionally, the name sparks association with fine coffee. Often, it sparks nothing at all. Once every four years, however, Ethiopia has a chance to shine brightly on the world stage for a distinction that is undeniably worthy and universally commanding of respect: supremacy in the gruelling sport of distance running.
This August, the eyes of the world will be on these Games in China. Some will look on in pride, seeing the emergence of a strong and modern nation into the ranks of the global elite. Some will watch in anger, indignance, and disgust as the Olympic torch is taken up by a government marked by heavy-handed oppression and a dubious record of human rights. But amidst all the politics, the posturing and the protest, there will be one bright-eyed Ethiopian twelve-year-old - and millions of others like him - watching in breathless anticipation for a chance at victory, for that moment that will exalt him with his country into the limelight of international glory where they will be seen without pity or trivialization, where, most importantly, they will be SEEN.
I will watch these Olympics on behalf of the dedicated athletes and the ordinary people to whom they mean so much. I will watch for the sake of those remarkable stories that unfold to captivate and connect us all. I will watch for my awesome little Ethiopian brother. I hope you will, too.
15 July 2008: And Back Again
I slept in awkward spurts lying on benches in the airport and stumbled semi-deliriously through check-in, security, and onto the plane. I must have strung together some amount of rest, though, because I was alert enough this time to actually see our descent into Khartoum, even awake enough to humor the flight attendant by taking the 5 A.M. breakfast offering. Khartoum appeared much as it had been described to me: "hot and dusty." As we took off again, I tried not to think about the disasters that had recently taken place on the same runway.
My first experience back in Addis was that of three men push-starting the line taxi heading into the city. Welcome home.
It's a little strange to be back. It's not so much coming from Egypt back to Ethiopia; rather, it's seeing my best friend again after so long, reuniting with that part of my life, feeling that longed-for connection to home, and then having to leave it all behind again.
On the other hand, it is nice to be back in the place that I know. It's nice to feel competent again, to fall back into the "don't-mess-with-me-I'm-not-a-tourist" swagger. It was good to settle into my little house again, to see the familiar faces around town, to be greeted by name out on the streets, to be told I was missed in the community, even to be told in the curious complimentary fashion of Ethiopia that I was looking SO good and fat after my vacation! It feels good to feel that I belong.
My first experience back in Addis was that of three men push-starting the line taxi heading into the city. Welcome home.
It's a little strange to be back. It's not so much coming from Egypt back to Ethiopia; rather, it's seeing my best friend again after so long, reuniting with that part of my life, feeling that longed-for connection to home, and then having to leave it all behind again.
On the other hand, it is nice to be back in the place that I know. It's nice to feel competent again, to fall back into the "don't-mess-with-me-I'm-not-a-tourist" swagger. It was good to settle into my little house again, to see the familiar faces around town, to be greeted by name out on the streets, to be told I was missed in the community, even to be told in the curious complimentary fashion of Ethiopia that I was looking SO good and fat after my vacation! It feels good to feel that I belong.
14 July 2008: Final Day and Departure
I woke up the next morning to say goodbye to Suzanne as she left for the airport. It was an abbreviated affair; neither of us is a big fan of goodbyes.
My flight not being set to depart Cairo until 3:30 the following morning, the girls were good enough to let me tag along with them through the day. I walked with them around the city, glad to be able to see areas that were new to me (though also painfully aware of the big blue hiking pack I was toting through the crowded streets). While they went off to a meeting, I hung out in a trendy café near the American University, drank iced lemonade with mint, and finished up my postcards. In the evening, I met back up with them at the center where they teach English, and their boss invited us to see their newest center on the other side of the city. My last image of Cairo was gathered as we drove with him across town at the close of day: a fiery sunset over the Nile silhouetting a commercial skyline, with two of the Great Pyramids just visible in the hazy distance.
At the new center, we were surprised to find a quaint little grassy backyard, where we were seated like VIP guests for dinner at plastic tables amidst the flower gardens. The girls' boss had bought us each a strand of jasmine from a street seller on the drive over, and we wore them in our hair and felt like perfect pixies as we dined on hotdogs, hamburgers, and hibiscus tea in our secret garden.
It grew late, and the girls and I finally parted ways, they to their home and I to the airport. Their work colleagues helped me obtain a taxi at a fair price, and generally showed unbelievable kindness to a strange girl that had stumbled into their lives for an evening. Along the drive, I chit-chatted with my driver, Mohammed, who was all smiles and so pleased to hear that I had had a wonderful time in his country. It was a long way from that first uncertain taxi ride into the city.
As I watched out the windows, the lights of Cairo streamed past me and faded into the night in the rearview. I felt truly sad to be putting it all behind me.
My flight not being set to depart Cairo until 3:30 the following morning, the girls were good enough to let me tag along with them through the day. I walked with them around the city, glad to be able to see areas that were new to me (though also painfully aware of the big blue hiking pack I was toting through the crowded streets). While they went off to a meeting, I hung out in a trendy café near the American University, drank iced lemonade with mint, and finished up my postcards. In the evening, I met back up with them at the center where they teach English, and their boss invited us to see their newest center on the other side of the city. My last image of Cairo was gathered as we drove with him across town at the close of day: a fiery sunset over the Nile silhouetting a commercial skyline, with two of the Great Pyramids just visible in the hazy distance.
At the new center, we were surprised to find a quaint little grassy backyard, where we were seated like VIP guests for dinner at plastic tables amidst the flower gardens. The girls' boss had bought us each a strand of jasmine from a street seller on the drive over, and we wore them in our hair and felt like perfect pixies as we dined on hotdogs, hamburgers, and hibiscus tea in our secret garden.
It grew late, and the girls and I finally parted ways, they to their home and I to the airport. Their work colleagues helped me obtain a taxi at a fair price, and generally showed unbelievable kindness to a strange girl that had stumbled into their lives for an evening. Along the drive, I chit-chatted with my driver, Mohammed, who was all smiles and so pleased to hear that I had had a wonderful time in his country. It was a long way from that first uncertain taxi ride into the city.
As I watched out the windows, the lights of Cairo streamed past me and faded into the night in the rearview. I felt truly sad to be putting it all behind me.
12-13 July 2008: Cairo, Alexandria, and Cairo Again
On the morning of our arrival back in Cairo, Suzanne and I dumped our bags at the hotel and hopped the Metro to the Coptic section of the city. Wandering through the Coptic Museum, I was fascinated by the peculiar religious mixtures that emerged in the wake of Christianity's appearance in the region. Christian mythologies mingled and merged with those of ancient Egypt and Greece, John and James beside Horace and Anubis beside Leda and the swan. I will say, though, that the shock effect of 5, 6, and 7 A.D. falls somewhat flat after a week spent amidst wonders from a few thousand years prior.
We went back to the hotel and hung out with those still remaining from our tour group, who were set to leave that night. We sat around and watched whatever happened to come on the English-language movie channel – I think Fatal Attraction (through which I slept, my apologies to Mr. Redford) and that one with Deniro and a very young Leo Dicaprio. An Axe Body Spray commercial came on, and we had to explain to our Egyptian tour guide what "bow-chicka-wow-wow" meant. ("Bow-chicka-wow-wow" apparently does not translate across cultures.) Later, we applied this new vocabulary when he left to go visit a "girl friend" at another hotel.
After finally saying goodbye to the others, Suzanne and I caught a few hours of sleep in their vacated hotel rooms before heading out early to Alexandria. Our tour guide had helpfully arranged everything for us, securing a car and dictating a day's itinerary to our driver. He had requested a small car, which apparently was not available that day, so we had the rather awkward experience of being chauffeured around just the two of us in a spacious 12-passenger van.
Alexandria is a beautiful seaside city, described to us a having a "distinctly Western feel." (I think this refers to the TGIFriday's in the downtown.) It provided an interesting contrast to Cairo. Mainly, though, I think I was just thrilled to see the ocean again. We toured the catacombs, Pompey's Pillar, the shoreline citadel, and the enormous Alexandria Library. At each stop, our driver would drop us out front, go to park our small personal bus, and promptly pass out in the reclined driver's seat, leaving us to sheepishly wake him upon our return.
I'm not sure whether it was the fact that we were two foreign women traveling around alone or if it was a distinction of the city itself, but Suzanne and I got more attention in Alexandria than we had anywhere else. Waiting in line to enter the Library, we attracted a pack of adolescent Egyptian boys, who somehow managed to entertain themselves for 20 minutes by speaking to us across a significant language barrier in broken Arabic-English. Walking through the citadel, I was followed relentlessly by one Egyptian man in particular, who wanted to take a picture with me. When, in hopes of getting rid of him, I finally assented and asked him for his camera, he said, "Oh no, I don't have a camera. It is a photo for you!" Thanks…but no thanks.
We ended the day by splitting a pricy (by our African-volunteer-and-in-debt medical-student standard, at least) seafood dinner and strolling down the trash-strewn beach that abutted the sapphire-blue ocean. As we drove away from the city, I tried to keep the sea in sight for as long as possible, storing up memories to take back with me into my landlocked life. Our tour guide called us once, ostensibly to check up on us, though I think he really just wanted to brag about his night. ("Bow-chicka-wow-wah-wee-WOW!!" was, I believe, the exact word he used in telling me.) Two hours later, we were back in Cairo, boarding the Metro out to our accommodations for the night.
In true Peace Corps Volunteer spirit, I feel, I both began and ended my Egyptian tour by imposing myself upon strangers tenuously connected to me through mutual friends. This final night's stay was with some friends of a PCV friend who, also in keeping with Peace Corps spirit, were living with an Egyptian host family on the outskirts of the city. This proved to be one of the most colorful, authentic, and memorable experiences of my whole trip.
Upon our arrival at the house, we shared tea seated together on the family's living room floor, the three women of the family, two little girls, and the five of us Americans. Our three hosts answered in Arabic all the family's questions about Suzanne and me, and we smiled and nodded and tried to look as agreeable as possible. I realize how much the Peace Corps experience has affected me by how little I'm bothered being in the midst of totally incomprehensible chatter. In fact, I could have sat and listened to them talk all night, just observing the scene, soaking in the moment, picking up words here and there and storing them away. Such has been much of my life in Ethiopia.
A cassette player was produced from the back bedroom, and before we knew it, tea time had broken into a belly dancing party. Washtubs and metal pots were beaten like drums in rhythm with the music, and we each took turns making fools of ourselves as the sassy little six-year-old daughter dragged us up in turn in front of the gathering. That is to say, the rather more Caucasian among us made fools of ourselves, while getting to see displays of incredible talent from the others. It reminded me very much of all those nights spent dancing in the living room with my host family in Welliso – except that now it was my hips, rather than my shoulders, that I was attempting to gyrate in ways that I believe are truly beyond my physical capabilities.
When the music and the laughter finally subsided, we bid the family goodnight and retreated to the girls' wing of the apartment, where we talked late into the night about our different experiences abroad. It was a perfect last night in Egypt, in my mind, one that felt less like tourism and more like traveling. It exemplified all the things that drew me overseas with the Peace Corps in the first place, all the things for which I have gained an even greater appreciation since.
We went back to the hotel and hung out with those still remaining from our tour group, who were set to leave that night. We sat around and watched whatever happened to come on the English-language movie channel – I think Fatal Attraction (through which I slept, my apologies to Mr. Redford) and that one with Deniro and a very young Leo Dicaprio. An Axe Body Spray commercial came on, and we had to explain to our Egyptian tour guide what "bow-chicka-wow-wow" meant. ("Bow-chicka-wow-wow" apparently does not translate across cultures.) Later, we applied this new vocabulary when he left to go visit a "girl friend" at another hotel.
After finally saying goodbye to the others, Suzanne and I caught a few hours of sleep in their vacated hotel rooms before heading out early to Alexandria. Our tour guide had helpfully arranged everything for us, securing a car and dictating a day's itinerary to our driver. He had requested a small car, which apparently was not available that day, so we had the rather awkward experience of being chauffeured around just the two of us in a spacious 12-passenger van.
Alexandria is a beautiful seaside city, described to us a having a "distinctly Western feel." (I think this refers to the TGIFriday's in the downtown.) It provided an interesting contrast to Cairo. Mainly, though, I think I was just thrilled to see the ocean again. We toured the catacombs, Pompey's Pillar, the shoreline citadel, and the enormous Alexandria Library. At each stop, our driver would drop us out front, go to park our small personal bus, and promptly pass out in the reclined driver's seat, leaving us to sheepishly wake him upon our return.
I'm not sure whether it was the fact that we were two foreign women traveling around alone or if it was a distinction of the city itself, but Suzanne and I got more attention in Alexandria than we had anywhere else. Waiting in line to enter the Library, we attracted a pack of adolescent Egyptian boys, who somehow managed to entertain themselves for 20 minutes by speaking to us across a significant language barrier in broken Arabic-English. Walking through the citadel, I was followed relentlessly by one Egyptian man in particular, who wanted to take a picture with me. When, in hopes of getting rid of him, I finally assented and asked him for his camera, he said, "Oh no, I don't have a camera. It is a photo for you!" Thanks…but no thanks.
We ended the day by splitting a pricy (by our African-volunteer-and-in-debt medical-student standard, at least) seafood dinner and strolling down the trash-strewn beach that abutted the sapphire-blue ocean. As we drove away from the city, I tried to keep the sea in sight for as long as possible, storing up memories to take back with me into my landlocked life. Our tour guide called us once, ostensibly to check up on us, though I think he really just wanted to brag about his night. ("Bow-chicka-wow-wah-wee-WOW!!" was, I believe, the exact word he used in telling me.) Two hours later, we were back in Cairo, boarding the Metro out to our accommodations for the night.
In true Peace Corps Volunteer spirit, I feel, I both began and ended my Egyptian tour by imposing myself upon strangers tenuously connected to me through mutual friends. This final night's stay was with some friends of a PCV friend who, also in keeping with Peace Corps spirit, were living with an Egyptian host family on the outskirts of the city. This proved to be one of the most colorful, authentic, and memorable experiences of my whole trip.
Upon our arrival at the house, we shared tea seated together on the family's living room floor, the three women of the family, two little girls, and the five of us Americans. Our three hosts answered in Arabic all the family's questions about Suzanne and me, and we smiled and nodded and tried to look as agreeable as possible. I realize how much the Peace Corps experience has affected me by how little I'm bothered being in the midst of totally incomprehensible chatter. In fact, I could have sat and listened to them talk all night, just observing the scene, soaking in the moment, picking up words here and there and storing them away. Such has been much of my life in Ethiopia.
A cassette player was produced from the back bedroom, and before we knew it, tea time had broken into a belly dancing party. Washtubs and metal pots were beaten like drums in rhythm with the music, and we each took turns making fools of ourselves as the sassy little six-year-old daughter dragged us up in turn in front of the gathering. That is to say, the rather more Caucasian among us made fools of ourselves, while getting to see displays of incredible talent from the others. It reminded me very much of all those nights spent dancing in the living room with my host family in Welliso – except that now it was my hips, rather than my shoulders, that I was attempting to gyrate in ways that I believe are truly beyond my physical capabilities.
When the music and the laughter finally subsided, we bid the family goodnight and retreated to the girls' wing of the apartment, where we talked late into the night about our different experiences abroad. It was a perfect last night in Egypt, in my mind, one that felt less like tourism and more like traveling. It exemplified all the things that drew me overseas with the Peace Corps in the first place, all the things for which I have gained an even greater appreciation since.
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