Laughter

We started laughing about 5:00 this evening when Sara, Jill, Helina and I got in the taxi to go to dinner. Our driver Danny was taking us to dinner and with traffic, this was about a 2 hour experience. The 5 of us are crammed into a 1980’s Russian car with no defrost in the dark and rain. I can not even remember what we laughed about, but everything became funny. Mostly it was the language. We would try to learn Amharic and butcher it! My problem is there are gender specific words and I always get them wrong. Apparently the Ethiopians find this hilarious. My biggest blunder tonight was after dinner we were getting back into the taxi. A man opened my door for me and I wanted to say “thank you” in Amharic. But instead, I told the man “I like you”, but I used the female version. He just looked and me and I tried to correct my mistake, but kept getting more confused and finally ducked in the taxi embarrassed. This “door man” was very intent on watching me until we finally drove off.

Dinner was interesting and also was full of laughter. We met some of the Bethany staff, Blen, Hanna, Helina (girls) Fireo (man) and Helina’s husband. I was trying to teach them how to speak Canadian (there was a group of Canadians sitting near us) so we practiced saying “eh” at the end of every sentence. There was a traditional band and dancing. Crazy dancing. The dancers moved in ways that made me think of chickens, their heads strutting in all different directions.

We ate from one plate, one big engera, with Wat piled all over it. We would break off pieces of Engera and share everything. You only use one hand to eat. It gets very messy and there are no napkins. My favorite was the lamb, I tried some cheese that was horrible. After dinner they bring out a pitcher of water and pour it over your hands. Now your hands are not dirty, but they are wet.

About one block from home we turned to go down our street and there sat a 8 foot tall pile of dirt and rocks covering the entire road. This, I guess, is normal. So Danny turns around and takes the long way. The dirt/rock pile was for a house on the street. I guess it is o.k. just to leave your pile in the street. No one cares, no one is angry. Even today in the never ending traffic jam, people just sit and wait. There is little honking and no anger. I asked Danny about this and he said “what good does it do to be upset?” Words to live by.