Hello friends --
Here is the long-promised update on my life here so far. Catherine --
would you forward it to Katherine? BIG, if this is not quite right
for the FML, let me know and I will edit it.
So far things are great. Very much like they were the May-June. Some
processes recovering my 8' x' x 20' container and declaring it for
duty-free status drag on, but actually it is rather interesting, since
it seems to be just a matter of going through the routines. It's
similar to many things here -- it takes some doing to find out how
and where to get things accomplished, and frequently that involves
many trips around the city, dealing w all sorts of people -- friendly,
for the most part, but of course not each one.
The latest task I started (this aft) is getting internet set up at
the house. It turns out that I can get DSL because I have an official
business. Hooray!!!!!
Our house is great, though the yard (called "compounds" here) is a
wasteland of flat cement. My heart failed when I first saw it. But we
shall go out of town on a plant/tree-buying expedition and keep them
in containers for when we move. This is a rented place.
The ferret pen also desperately needs some greenery. It is just a
square of flat dirt, and only about 10- or 12-feet square. Of course
it is much better than nothing, and they had a dig fest the other day,
with Ada, my little white girl, leading the way beside Philippe, my
former bad guy, trying to get under the cement barrier at one edge.
Improving the compound and the ferrets' outdoor setup has been put on
the back burner till I get my Customs tasks completed.
I did buy a bidet today, though. My bathroom has one, but it doesn't
function, so we will carefully remove it and install the new one -- and
then put the old one back when we leave. I got used to bidets when I
got here in '68, and I love them and yearn for them when I don't have
one. So this has worked out very well. In the US these things cost,
at minimum, $150. Here it was abt $22. Of course that was minus the
plumbing, so it's not an accurate comparison. BUT!
It is a great house -- oldish, and a little bit shabby like the last
one, but it has a huge livingroom, a zillion bathrooms -- three full
ones and a partial, three bedrooms in the house and others in the
"service area" where we are now giving a big tiled room to the ferrets
and another one to the cats. Those two rooms are connected by another
smaller one that has a door to the outside and off of it is one of our
three (!) kitchens!
One kitchen is in the house, and the third is in a far corner of the
service area -- a dark little room set up for making injera over a wood
fire. We bought a nice little refrigerator and a 4-burner gas stove w
an oven, plus one electric burner.
The two people who work with/for us are a relative and a friend of the
family. It is great to be taken care of and to be giving them work.
It's very hard to get work here, even with skills and education. As
you can imagine, I pay quite well above the normal but I stay within
the local scale as well. The odd thing -- and the wonderful thing --
of it is that they are also friends, and we go along as a family. We
all say that we have an excellent household, and I don't sense anything
peculiar about the relationships. It sounds too good to be true? I
don't think so!
Tsige, a 36-7 year old woman takes care of the cooking and some of
the cleaning. She is a terrific cook. One of her specialities is soups
made w/ vegetables that have been chopped very fine, so the soup has a
texture. I am talking about Very fine pieces -- it is a great texture.
For example, yesterday we had carrot-potato-tomato-gwyomen (something
between spinach and a mild kale)-andHeavenKnowsWhatElse --very tasty
and very satisfying. W/ it, we had injera and a sweet eggy white bread.
Then, in addition, we had doro wot -- a chicken stew that, to me, is
something between E Indian and Moroccan food. Also side dishes of
various vegetables -- one was gwyomen, another a mix of potato and
carrot and cabbage. Ghee is a main oil/butter substance.
I am already loosing weight and, better yet, bloat.
Seesai, who's maybe in his early 30's, takes care of the (pitiful
little) garden areas and the animals -- all 18 of them. What a relief
to have all that work lifted from me. He is a gentle person and plays
with the animals, cradles the small ones, embraces the large ones, and
keeps their bedding and everything else completely clean. He is often
very merry w them too.
He and I had a good time yesterday afternoon -- all eight of the
ferrets were running, jumping, chasing and and playing w toys -- I
haven't seen that in some time. This happened in the three tiled
rooms. At one point, they tried to incorporate Tsahai, our very young
tortie female cat, but she didn't care for it at all.
[Second post, Part 2]
I can't tell you how delightful this all is! Ababa, my old friend
(together between 1968-72, and intermittent letters and time together
since then) and I are always hugging and telling each other how happy
we are and that we love each other.
Similar happiness with her daughter Saba. Saba's 26-7 and is in law
school, thanks to a contribution of Catherine, a dear Bay Area friend
of mine, to her education when Saba was a teen. Catherine's help let
Saba go to a good school instead of the lousy one she was scheduled
to go to the next semester.
We four women share our jewelry. Every day is marked by choosing what
of it to wear. For example, I brought my big collection of earrings,
pins, necklaces, etc. We have the same tastes! Sparkle and color reign.
We all sleep in the house, not the service area, btw. Now that the cats
are used to the place, they have been given free reign of the house and
compound, and we have rigged up a place in the cabinet in their room
where their food is out of the way of the dogs.
We'll be using the three rooms for the business -- probably one for the
quilting machine and fabric storage, and one for the sewing machines
and tables -- we'll see. The ferrets will have a playpen in one room,
and that will give them lots of human contact. They'll also have a big
cage in the front hall of the house.
I plan that at least 50% of the people working for it will be women
over 50 yrs old. So far, that's Ababa and me, with Tsige and perhaps
Seesai making up the rest for now. Ababa has just taught Seesai how to
wind skeins of cotton yarn into balls. As I said, work is hard to come
by in Addis, and being an older woman myself (66 on Jan 31!), I like
to give others like me a hand.
Ababa has a little general store, and the yarn will be sold there. In
1996, shortly after my mother died, I came over here intending to give
her a hand, using some of my inheritance to set up something to let her
leave her dead-end job at an egg factory. When I came, I found that she
was very sick -- on her way to dying of an undiagnosed ulcer. This trip
was with Catherine. We went looking for a hospital/MD w expertise, and
Catherine and I were appalled. When I was here in '68-72, there was a
good 7th-day adventist hosp (Emperess Zauditu) run by Ethiopians and
Americans and Europeans.
There was a hideous government here for 17 or so years, starting in '74,
and the medical situation must have suffered terribly. It was a brutal
time. I escaped it by chance, leaving in '72. And it had been ousted
only abt three years when I rearrived in '96.
Well, we did find an MD who diagnosed the ulcer, but there was no
Flagyl available. When I got home I sent it and she recovered and is
fine. She is a small and very energetic person.
As you can imagine, this bonded us a lot more, and also her very large
extended family and circle of friends are so welcoming to me here in my
new life. When I came here last May-June I was amazed. I have helped
a few people in my life in a major way, but by and large after it was
over they -- and therefore I -- forgot about it. At first that
disappointed me, but I decided long ago that that was normal. This is
entirely different -- such a warm welcome and attention I get! It is
not at all creepy -- just a happy appreciation.
I can't tell you what a difference this is from my life in
Hornbrook!!!! GAwd. Having faith in life is a wonderful thing. Seems
too good to be true? I dare to say I don't think so!
Like they say, Wherever you go, there you are, but it is so much easier
to notice and forgive your faults and sometimes make some changes in an
atmosphere like this.
Eventually I will set up a blog or something with pictures, but for now
I haven't the extra time to do the image sort, etc. Also a few friends
don't use the internet. Instead, for now, I have some CDs with pix and
little videos that I'm going to send my sisters and then try a round
robin w people sending the discs along to other family and friends. If
you want, send me your physical address and I will put you on the list.
If not, I'll tell you when I have something online.
Most of the videos are of TimKut -- the Epiphany/Baptism-of-Jesus
holiday last weekend. There are many of these holidays through the year
where people get together. This one is one of the biggest, and you'll
see and hear church rituals, including dancing and singing. Bear with
the videos. I have hardly ever taken any, and they are a bit rough.
Esp when I forgot it was video and turned the camera around to make a
vertical rather than horizontal shot and v versa!
[Posted in FML 5860]
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