Last days in Ethiopia

This upcoming text was actually written over a few weeks… this could be explained by the lack of power in the last weeks, the cold that kept my fingers from moving, the Internet that wasn’t working due to a broken cable in Sudan (!) and some other discomforts… Anyway… Things changed quite a lot in this time… As I am writing this, I had my last buddy teaching this morning and will have my last ESL and FLE classes later today… Before I get to the school for this last english class, I will reply to some messages I got from some of my students yesterday as some of them were crying… This is definitely something to expect for each of the volunteers, but the reasons which these kids cry for are not for being spoiled or anything… For some of them, as they clearly expressed, we litterally become their families…

So this is what is going to happen tonight… the last ESL class and the beginning of hundreds of goodbyes… In the last days, due to different factors I was feeling ready to leave this place and I was feeling very peaceful about it… With the feeling that I had done all that I could do… And yesterday, I got very confused about this whole experience… For some reasons that I don’t want to state in this text… And I guess that as you read this, I feel in a totally different way… visiting my mind to see all the smiling faces that I met during my stay in Debre Sina… but I’m not there yet… I will try to finish the stories that I started to write about… But just before doing so, I would like, once again, to thank everybody who supported me morally and financially in this project!

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I just had a cold shower… after a freezing night… I actually slept with my tuque on and a lot of clothes… I know that this was probably not the best idea, but after yesterday’s freezing day and freezing evening, there was no way I would take any layer off… I am slowly trying to recover from a cold, but mostly from a weekend during which I did nothing else except sleeping… This wouldn’t have been that bad if I had stayed home… but I kind of ignored the way I was feeling when I went on a bus on Saturday morning to a very hot city thinking that it would solve everything… I got there and found the energy to have a fresh avocado juice but the rest is to be forgotten…

I remember walking in the market place – I actually considered buying one traditional scarf hoping to find some comfort in it, but I wasn’t feeling like bargaining at all… and the price was ridiculously too high… I was mostly following the two other volunteers – trying to focus on some positive things when a woman came behind me and tried to open my backpack… we went away expecting her to quit begging us for some money or anything that she was asking for… she followed us hitting each of us (mostly me) with her stick… a huge bunch of kids also followed us telling us that this woman was a street mom and was also a little bit crazy… crazyness could probably be explained in many different ways here… in this case, I would say she was desperate…

The last week has been full of different emotions… I had some of the best moments so far here in Ethiopia but I also discovered different new things about the local culture… The two previous weeks had been cold and rainy… I even saw a few snowflakes before they turned into hail… but not normal hail… as if I was in slow motion and all this hail was falling on me in accelerated motion… it was absolutely crazy… in only a few seconds, the whole pavement was frozen, everybody except Aliez and me had disappeared so we started to do some figure skating on the main road… we were wearing our rain boots that everybody make so much fun of… I keep telling them that my boots are beautiful but they still don’t look very convinced… Then the hail turned into rain… we almost had to swim home…

The sun was back at the beginning of this week… and because of all that confused weather – this is actually the harvesting (supposed to be dry) season and Ethiopia is completely dependant on its local production of food – the high school was closed all the week so the students could go and help some of the farmers who asked for help to harvest their fields… this started on Tuesday and I decided that I would try to help so I joined the students and got to a teff field… (teff is the crop that ethiopians use to make injera) We went in the box of a pickup truck with dozens of students and drove down the mountain to the fields… Tessa, Aliez and me got a machette (a big and very sharp rusty curved knife) and started to cut the teff… It didn’t take long for Tessa and me to cut ourselves… There was already a line up of kids waiting to get bandaids… I was thinking into how much trouble a canadian school would be for doing such thing… considering the transportation and the risk in the use of such tool… but I guess that the motivation was good enough… it’s all about survival…

Then started a sequence of unplanned but very interesting events… As a personal project, I continued what some previous volunteers had started – a boys’ club… about fifteen boys aged between 12 and 18 meet at least once a week to discuss some of the issues that are part of their daily life… Their president is a grade 11 student called Mekonnen… This boy is extremely aware and interested in everything and seems to care a lot for everybody… He invited me for a coffee ceremony at his place… I had heard about many people dying for many different reasons in Debre Sina, but this was actually my first direct contact with someone that had had to overcome the death of some of his family members… his brother has passed away last year and both his parents also died in the last years… so there he lives with his sister – he has other brothers and sisters who moved to different places – and they had me over at their place telling me what their parents left them and how they now make their living… they also showed me some family pictures as other friends were also coming for the coffee ceremony…

The next day, Thursday, I went to another boy’s place… Sammy actually lives right in front of us – so we meet him and his mother everyday… he is the vice-president of the boys’ club and is also one of my ESL students… I had taken him for a meal the day before and in exchange I told him that I would come over for some Talla the next morning… Talla is an alcohol made from corn that has a sweet taste… His mother makes it and a lot of people go to their place every morning to get a glass of it… I had a first glass and before I even noticed, his mother had filled it up… Later, she started to make some coffee – so I attended my second coffee ceremony in two days… I met this boy this morning… he had a shovel on his shoulder and told me that he was going to clean his sister’s grave because tomorrow is the anniversary of her death…

This day went on as I was feeling closer to the community learning how they lived, what they were going through everyday… I gave my english class this evening followed by my french class… I am still teaching in the darkness except the light provided by the candles that I bring everyday… I can hardly see my students since my headlamp is sitting on the front desk (blinding me) so they can see what I write on the board… french is the language of love… and this romantic atmosphere makes it even nicer… or maybe I’m just making it up…

On my way back home, I recognized the oldest of three brothers walking home… then I saw that he was carrying his youngest brother – who actually turned 1 year old a few days ago – followed by the third brother… they saw me and invited me to their home... I decided to go at least to make sure that they were all fine… I was actually surprised to meet their mother and she asked me to stay for dinner… Their house is really modest – two very small rooms… I sat on the bigger bed as the kids were asking to sit beside me… Tewodross is 1 years old, Tadiku is about four and Tibuko is maybe nine… (Many people – because of the lack of education – are not really sure of their age… and the age of the people is really difficult to guess…) Tibuko is mostly in charge of his two brothers full time… he is actually an awesome big brother as he shares everything he finds to eat with them in the most peaceful way… he carries his youngest brother on his back wrapped in a scarf… our instinct tells us to tell him to be careful but he probably knows more about raising a baby than all of the volunteers together… I don’t want to make any judgement, but I admit that I was really surprised to see their mother at home and even more surprised to be asked to stay for dinner…

This whole situation is difficult to describe as it is something that I had never really experienced before… I was offered a corn as Tewodross was asking me to share it with him… His mother told him that it was mine… Everything was in amharic and I managed to understand most of what was said… I mean… The context was making things very clear… The mother sent Tibuko buy some injera as Tadiku went out to buy some gas for the lamp… while two of the boys were gone and the mother was making some food in the other room, I saw Tewodross going to a desk and pooring what was in a paper cone in his hand… he came back to sit beside me and I saw that he had taken all the sugar and had started to lick it… I thought it was cute… Later, Tibuko had to go out again to buy some sugar… A few minutes later, Tibuko put a huge plate in front of me with an injera in it… it expected it to be for everybody but it was finally all for me… I ate it with a spicy mixture – called wat – as the boys were eating in their own plates and also feeding me – which is a common thing here… the kids like to feed the adults with their hands… I was completely full when I was served more wat and did everything I could to finish it… I was stressed that I could not finish my plate but I managed to eat most of it…

Then, the mother started to make some coffee… so started one more coffee ceremony… as doing so and breastfeeding the baby, she started to tell me about each boy’s father and the story behind each of them… I didn’t understand everything… I understood for sure that the baby’s father was a violent man and she forced him to leave… he is now is Addis Ababa working in a coffee place… I am really not sure about Tadiku’s father… She pointed the sky while talking about him and also mentioned some amount of money… I couldn’t make the connection… she also told me about Tibuko’s father who left for another city for a reason that I didn’t understand while this little guy’s eyes were getting wet…

We had the first coffee. Tewodross went to bed by himself followed by Tadiku… They actually share the same bed… This is what I had thought when I entered the room with only two beds… Tibuko also sleeps in the same bed which probably has half the size of a single size bed… I had the second and the third coffee as I was pretending to myself that I could understand the way they were living… Finally, the mother walked me back to the compound and went somewhere else leaving the boys by themselves expecting God to protect them…

On Friday, I went for a walk with Aliez and we decided to walk in some paths were we had never been… A boy called Milion recognized us and invited us to his place – so we met his mother and his aunt and we were all set for a coffee ceremony… His father actually attends my french classes – but as I mentioned, I could not even recognize him in the street… Once again, we used all we could in amharic to express to our hosts how grateful we were to be there…

Milion walked me home… on the way, I stopped to buy some fried donuts… When I was really close to the compound, I was called by another of our neighboors, Deni (also one of my ESL students and member of the boys’ club), who invited me to join a farewell party for one of his friends who was about to move to a different city to study or to get some work… I was served a plate of bread and fruits, a glass of Talla and a cup of coffee… I was not hungry at all neither did I need anymore coffee… but this place was cool and all the people there so nice… Aliez and Tessa joined the party a little bit later… I still had to go teach english and french…

When I came back from french, the girls had taken the initiative to have the three little boys over for dinner… they had some pastas that they would have been supposed to eat with some cutleries… but this was asking too much… the scene was really funny… later, their mother came by to get her children… This very long and exhausting day finished at the hotel where I went with Tessa to have some tea – but her friends – whom she had a coffee ceremony the same day – joined us at the table to interrupt Tessa explaining me how it is for them to work as a waitress – sex worker in this hotel… I went back home and fell asleep in a matter of seconds…

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The next Saturday morning, I had a meeting with the boys’ club after which the two girls and me went for an afternoon trip to Shoa Robit… the girls had met a girl there the week before whom they invited for a dinner the next time they would meet her… So we did go to her place as I was starting not to feel too well… maybe some thing I ate, some bug or the exhaustion… I was introduced to this woman and she decided to take us to a different city that I totally forgot the name because I started to have a migraine that forced me to try to sleep and to ignore everything… All I know is that we got to a hotel where I did nothing else than sleeping and looking miserable… the next morning, there was a ceremony in Debre Sina at a newly built church so we had to get up at 5AM to get on a bus back to Debre Sina… It took us about 2 hours, but these two hours were not the most enjoyable ones so the only thing that I thought about was to get back to my bed… so I missed the ceremony where there were apparently many thousands of people…

The next Monday was a weird day… Tessa took the initiative to cook some pastas for us and the EDA staff… So I was eating in the office with some other people when, between two bites, our local program manager mentioned that a teacher from the school where we give our classes had died the same morning… and after the next bite, she explained that he had been sick for three days, went to a hospital in Addis Ababa, but nothing to do… and the cause is unknown… we kept eating as I wasn’t sure if I would digest this news properly… I mean, not the news in itself because death here is something that is part of life… but more the way the news was said… as a random fact… and actually, in my understanding, this is almost what it is for the people here…

Before the end of this lunch, another news came and found me shocked… the fact that because of the working conditions, four teachers had resigned at the same time at the end of the last week – which means that they didn’t go to the school on this sunny Monday morning... something I didn’t understand… I couldn’t get enough explanation to understand these people’s motivations…

The next Wednesday was the anniversary of Sammy’s sister’s death… we were invited for a dinner at their place…

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On the next Monday, we will leave Debre Sina… this day will be the World AIDS Day… there will be a orphans auction in the town… and there will also be a campain for being tested for HIV… our YCI group is organising a parade on Sunday to try to bring awareness among the population… I am not sure of how aware the people are in here... people talk about it a lot and there are many paintings, posters, signs around the city so sensibilize the people about it… I still doubt of the serious of all this… Here is the reason why I have this feeling: the two girls and me facilitated a two days workshop with a group of 15 people from the region… they all seemed to know the basics of the virus and its transmission ways… but they kept talking about these sharp objects that they should avoid… we tried over and over again to lead the discussion and their focus on some different ways of transmission… even if they didn’t express it clearly, I left this workshop and these hours of talking and discussing and teaching with the feeling - I sincerely hope that I am wrong – that they didn’t believe us or that if they did so, they didn’t register the information… or are not convinced or enthusiastic enough to share it with other people… which was our ultimate goal…

So even if the organization of this whole thing meets a lot of obstacles – I really mean a lot – there is a drama that is going to be performed in the main square – where the people from Debre Sina had their millenium celebrations last year on September 11th (which is the first day of the year obviously for them)… this drama involves different kids from the community… there will also be the local band performing… and other activities… the kids in the parade will be wearing t-shirts and holding different signs with different messages… the slogan for this year is – KEEP THE PROMISE, FIGHT AIDS. To make these signs solid enough to survive to the walk and also to the kids, I had to go pick up some sticks… I went on the stinkiest paths imaginable… Ethiopia is actually one of the most fecally infected countries in the world… I could write a lot about it, but I won’t… but some people had looked there for wood a long time before me since people cook and heat their houses with the wood that the kids pick up… so I finally found someone whom I could borrow some pieces of wood from so I went to his backyard and started to take branches from a mountain of dying and drying cut trees… as I was taking the last stick, I started to feel some things crawling all over my body and starting to bite me as I was starting to move and to become nervous… then I saw tons of ants climbing along my legs, my arms and getting to my chest and my neck… these ants are crazy, not really dnagerous, but their bites do really hurt… so I gave the sticks to the boy telling him to hit me as hard as he could… I am not even sure if I was joking or not… but I needed something to be done… there were about ten people staring at me – like it always happens – whatever we do wherever we are, they stare at us – and I ran in the house to take off my clothes trying to get rid of the ants… then I ran home filled a big bucket with the coldest water ever, locked myself in the shower and soaked myself with this water half panicking because of the cold and half laughing thinking of what the ants were thinking about this… anyway, nto my whole body is itchy because of the millions of flea and ant bites I got… and there is almost nothing to do against it…

So, there should be one last blog entry about the end of my trip here in Ethiopia in the next two weeks… Meanwhile, I thank you for reading me and hopefully get back in touch with you soon!

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I had my last ESL class followed by my last french class… I’d just like to mention one story… about this girl who wrote this message for me yesterday… about the fact that she was sad that we were leaving and that volunteers become her family members… I wrote her back on the back of her certificate about life in general… that it can be challenging but that we always have the power to choose the things we want to remember from the people we meet to continue to look forward… in the second half of this last class, I just took the students to a coffee place to have bread and tea… she was about to tell me something but she didn’t manage to do it… she took a piece of paper and wrote that she would mention this to her parents… she handed me this piece of paper and as I was reading it, she looked to the sky and cried… it is going to be very difficult to leave this place and all these people that we met… I expect to feel guilty for leaving… even if I know that I shouldn’t… so here are the lyrics of a song that I listened many times tonight…
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Dis-leur que le ciel les entend
Dis-leur que la chance les attend pour qu’ils rêvent encore
Dis-leur qu’ils n’ont rien fait au temps
Dis-le aux petits comme aux grands
Pour qu’ils rêvent plus fort

Si tu descends
Dis leur qu’on n’est pas encore prêts
Mais qu’on pense à ça sans arrêt
Et que si on revient ce ne sera pas la main ou la tête vide
Dis leur que l’hiver nous apprend
Qu’il a raison de nous temps en temps
Et qu’on ne tiendra peut-être plus longtemps

Dis-leur qu’on arrive
Dis-leur que tant d’autres nous suivent
Dis-leur qu’on n’est plus qu’à quelques pas
Et qu’on est par milliers
Avec ou sans papier
Des marchands de rêves
Des marchands de rêves

Dis-leur qu’ils ont droit au bonheur
Et qu’un jour ce sera eux les meilleurs
Pour qu’ils restent dignes
Dis leur que demain est à eux
Qu’ils fassent à la misère leurs adieux
En dépit des signes

Si tu descends
Salue le courage de nos femmes
Salue la grandeur de leur âme
Et tu diras à nos mères qu’on arrive
Chasser leur chagrin
Tu diras à nos pères qu’on attend
Qu’ils montrent enfin leur grand drapeau blanc
Ce qu’ils auraient dû faire depuis longtemps

Dis-leur qu’on arrive
Dis-leur que tant d’autres nous suivent
Dis-leur qu’on n’est plus qu’à quelques pas
Et qu’on est par milliers
Avec ou sans papier
Des marchands de rêves

Si nous avons quitté c’est pour revenir gagnants
Si nous avons quitté c’est pour revenir plus grands


Dis-leur que l’hiver nous apprend
Et qu’à force de vivre on comprend
Qu’on ne tiendra peut-être plus longtemps

Dis-leur qu’on arrive
Dis-leur que tant d’autres nous suivent
Dis-leur qu’on est plus qu’à quelques pas
Et qu’on est par milliers
Avec ou sans papier
Des marchands de rêves

Dis-leur qu’on arrive
Dis-leur que tant d’autres nous suivent
Dis-leur qu’on est plus qu’à quelques pas
Et qu’on est par milliers
Avec ou sans papier
Des marchands de rêves