New Year

Wondering what this year will hold for me- probably the first time in a few years where it wasn't obvious. I am ready to travel!! How do I make all my potential destinations fit into this year and still have a job at the end of the year???

Awanno is sad. All those people I knew so well, the trails I walked so many times, and things are changing. The Ethiopian staff left secretly, and there are no white people their either, for now. The tensions have risen- is it racial? or religious? and it makes sense that if the Ethiopian staff feels unsafe, and if the community cannot offer protection and safety, maybe we can't stay.

But I love Awanno so much, and I don't feel alive here like I felt there. (Not that I won't ever feel alive here, I just miss it!) Here is the entrance to our compound with our cute little guardhouse and Zenu guarding- hard to believe his name has come up in security breaches... I always wish I was getting the full story myself, holding a cup of coffee and listening to their Oromo, instead of getting the story 5th hand from an email sent by someone who doesn't know the characters involved.

Abba Milki

Was it only a year ago that Abba Milki died, and I visited his family so much?? Almost exactly a year.

It was January, and I was just back from Christmas at home in San Jose. Abba Milki Abba Ware, Hada Moaba’s husband, had been sick before I left. I asked how he was- I think I asked Tigain who we had picked up in Saja. I remember that meal, actually, Sandy, her mom, Amira and I stopped in Saja on the way in to pick up Tigain. Sandy had been gone for 7 months, so his wife of course fixed us a meal. It was so fun introducing Amira to Ethiopian, not an Ethiopian restaurant that caters to white people, but real deal Ethiopian meal with an Ethiopian family. We had some sort of really good injera meal, with coffee afterwards. So as we drove in, I asked about everything I could remember to ask about- I always wanted to be tapped into the village happenings, wanted to hear the “word on the street.” So the word was the Abba Milki was still sick. I was surprised that he was still sick- I expected that he would either be better, or that he would have died.

So I knew I had to direct my steps to his house. I know his wife well, and had been over there plenty of times. Amira and I went, and found ourselves back behind the bamboo screen, in the dark, fumbling for our low stools. Hada Moaba was sitting next to him, and he looked gaunt and wasted in the dim firelight. He was lying down, responsive but barely. I don’t remember what we talked about. But it was real, real illness, real lines of stress on her face, real sense of despair and death in his voice. His brother Kasim was there, and Kasim was friendly to me, explaining that Abba Milki couldn’t eat much anymore.

Have I written about my last visit before? I decided to take watermelon over. I went looking for him to find him at Abba Raya’s house, next door. The mood was so solemn. I sat down on a stool, but noticed they had strung a blanket across the dividing area- where the tarp/grass/prayer/no-shoes area usually starts. There was, I think, one or two other people sitting out on the stools, but a relative or someone I knew came out from behind the blanket, and I could see that Abba Milki was back there, with his brothers and wife sitting around him on the floor. After a few minutes, they pulled back the blanket and asked me to come sit with them as they sat around Abba Milki- unconscious, clearly he was near death.

Did they feel like they had to? Was it a part of obligatory hospitality? I don’t know. I don’t think so. I felt like they were letting me into their lives- their lives that were full of grief now. He was so still. Kasim kept putting his hand on Abba Milki’s stomach; they all knew he was near death. It was beyond watermelon. Kasim tried and said his tongue refused. I just sat there. I had asked to pray for him the previous visit, but didn’t feel the need to do anything like that- before, they had agreed to let me pray but it made them uncomfortable. Today, I just wanted to be there. I just sat there- there was very little conversation between them, or to me, and I wanted it that way. I am not here to be entertained or treated as a guest. I am just here, with you.

Finally I left. He died that night, and I felt like I came close to them- I got to be a part of that piece of their lives.

Here I am with Hada Moaba, Abba Milki's widow, just before I left for good. She grabbed my hand and arm and insisted on making me her own coffee, wouldn't accept an invitation to my house instead. I hope someday she understands why I lived in her village....