catching up...

I am not writing, or processing, or thinking too much. Seems like I am just sleeping and working and feeling sluggish.

New York City... haven't ever been that direction before, but headed out that way and saw Boston, too, a few weeks ago. Jennifer is a fun traveling buddy, we're trying to do some major cities together... where are we so far, Addis Ababa, Nairobi, Mombasa, Boston, New York City? Weird assortment.

Yazid. One of my favorite people in Ethiopia. When Jennifer said there was a team going over to work on the HIV project in Addis, I couldn't help picking some stuff up at Marshalls and sending it over. And I sent a pink fuzzy sleeper for Yazid's baby.

Ramonda said she just noticed that besides knowing Amharic, he was just a good worker. He started out as her gardener, but eventually started working in her house, and because her main worker. He did laundry, cleaned house, and learned to make bread, pita bread, cinnamon rolls, tortillas, and pizza dough for her. She said she spent lots of time talking to him, and even trying to help him read Oromo.

But Ramonda had left a while before I arrived, and I didn't even know who he was for the first long while I was there. I remember Ramonda coming down and saying she was having lunch with him, and I felt weird for not knowing someone she was so close to. He wasn't really around our compound at that point.

Somehow I met him, I think about last summer, and realized he could cook all this stuff for us. He cooked cinnamon rolls and bread for me one day, I think it was when Vicky was around, and I really enjoyed his company. I paid him 12 EB ($1.50) for the day.

When Esther Lee came with her family, she hired him. Maybe she had talked to Ramonda in Addis about it so much that she felt pressured, I don't know. It was never really that smooth of a working relationship- Esther and Yazid. She almost "let him go" at the beginning because he wasn't working right, but she didn't want it to hurt her husband's evangelistic ministry. She kept him on, and things kept working relatively smoothly, though I didn't feel that much "love" there. I was enjoying interactions I had with him, but I wasn't his employer, so there wasn't any real potential for tension.

His wife had a baby, and I had such a great visit with them. The new mom, her mother-in-law (Yazid's mom), and some other lady, we just sat around and talked, no pretense, no move to try and make coffee for me, just talked. I loved it- they asked me, what is better, your country or ours? I love that question. Super relaxed, and they loved the little baby clothes I br0ught.

Yazid wasn't around when I dropped by, but we talked about it later. Easier to talk to him because he knew Amharic, not just Oromo like the women, but also had been around white people enough to understand us. I told him what a nice time I had and he said, yes, it was nice, but only one thing was wrong- we didn't serve you coffee. He was very concerned that I be offered coffee. So I came back another time with Kristine (she wanted to visit too) and we had coffee.

We were bonded. But Esther told me she suspected Yazid had been stealing from them- they were missing Ki-Yung's nice pen, and the dictionary, and a few other things. I tried to be understanding- Yazid is not working in my house and I am not missing my things- but I was so sad, and didn't want Yazid accused of stuff like that. I knew, though, that she was debating whether or not to fire him.

Apparently, sometime in there, they had some sort of issue over paydate- whether or not he was paid in the middle of the month or the end. Esther, who spoke good Amharic, came to me and asked if I would translate so they could work out their problem, and said Yazid had asked her if I would come and help them communicate. So I showed up one day, perched myself on her kitchen counter, and the three of us talked. It wasn't a language issue at all- Esther's Amharic is better than mine- but I think Yazid needed someone he knew would hear his side. In Amharic, a "shemagalee" is usually what you call an old man, but the word sort of means "mediator"- someone to listen to both sides of a dispute.

So I listened to both sides, and they came to an agreement even though it was a petty issue. As we left, Yazid said, "thank you for being the shemagalee."

And right after I left for the US, I heard that Esther had fired him. I was sad, even though I knew it was coming. I wanted time to go sit with him, just have him over to the patio for coffee, or go sit with him in his house with his wife and new baby and talk. Who else will do that? At least Kristine gave him the pictures I printed for him in Addis.

So, no wonder I sent a pink fuzzy blanket sleeper to him with the group from Boston going from Ethiopia. That is the only love language I have, and I love and miss that family- Yazid, Kamaru, and Hada Ambasa.