“Melkam Genna!” “Merry Christmas!” Today, January 7, 2012, I had the opportunity to celebrate my second Christmas of the year. For all the confusion that can come with having two calendars, it is a sweet reward to be able to celebrate a surplus of holidays. I must say, Ethiopian Christmas is quite different than the American holiday. This morning I woke up to a text message from my counterpart (whom is also my neighbor) that read “breakfast…..sega bet?” meaning “breakfast at the meat house?” Aw yea! Let the day begin! One thing I learned quickly upon arriving in Ethiopia is that people here LoVE meat. Christmas day marks the end of a 40 day fasting period where Orthodox Christians have been abstaining from animal products. As someone who would take a plate of raw veggies fresh with dirt from the garden over a sizzling steak any day, this break from meat was actually something I rather enjoyed. There is a common dish called the “bayeonette” which is an assortment of meatless wot that has been available every day at restaurants. It has been a glorious 40 days with more bayeonettes than I can count! To break this fasting period, today was all about the meat! Many families split the cost of buying into an OX and divide the meat. For the past week the roads have been filled with OX..sort of similar to when the grocery store begins to fill with turkeys just before thanksgiving. The main difference being that where as the turkeys are frozen stiff, these OX have been roaming about, making walking to the suk (little shop) or to the office slightly more difficult. Today was a great day for the vultures who help with the post-slaughtering clean up! : )
So, we went to the meat house and ordered “T’ibs,” meaning a dish made up of pieces of (fatty) meat swimming in burburey (a red collection of hot spices) and oil over soggy injera. It was a feast. From here my counterpart, friend and I headed to another restaurant for some morning coffee. A delicious beginning to a food-filled day. We wandered back to the compound, read for an hour or so, and soon wound up at a coffee ceremony with popcorn, coffee, and a plate of injera topped with fresh raw meat and more burburey. This event was quickly followed by another coffee ceremony at another friend’s house where I found myself downing more raw meat, injera and coffee. The mother of the friend who’s house I was at soon invited me to her home and I graciously found a way to keep her from cooking more “t’ibs” under the strict condition that I must promise to return on Monday for my meal. I promised, feeling quite accomplished at dodging another meal in an effort to give my already aching stomach a little break, knowing there would be more food I my near future. : ) Sure enough, before long myself and some friends were at another house eating a plate of oh-so-delicious oil drenched meat. It was fantastic. I think being in Ethiopia has certainly taught me what it feels like to consume way too much coffee! Ha! As the 6 of us sat in my friend and his new wife’s 8X8 foot dormitory watching Ethiopian music videos and cheesy Christmas videos on Fox with Arabic subtitles, I realized in one day I had already consumed 6 cups of “buna.” Granted, the cups are tiny , but full of caffeine none the less and my head was certainly beginning to feel the jolt. It was like someone was sending electrical currents from one temple to the other. “Waaatteerr,” my mine was telling me. “replace this coffee and sugar with some refreshing water!” : )
As I sat down to write this blog update, I realized how accustomed to life here I have become. There is a lot to talk about- so many noteworthy things to express to those of you reading this back home, however, I am coming to find that so many things which used to strike me as eye-opening are now just a part of my daily life. As example, today I ate half a kilo of entirely uncooked OX..and maybe yesterday I hung out at the river where a bunch boys were swimming totally in the nude..before wandering with a friend through fields of t’eff, pumped some water at a hand well with rural women filling clay pots and then got chased by a snarling dog when we attempted to go for a jog next to a group of grazing sheep. No big deal—this really has become life as I know it. Today as I was walking down a dirt road in my town, littered with trash and dusty I was confronted by how normal this life felt. Now, this isn’t to say that I feel like a local.. the swarms of children yelling “heelen!!!” and “ferenji!!! Before coming up to hold my hand or simply touch me before running away giggling do a good job of keeping me aware of the fact I will always stand out. Everything I do, everywhere I go is constantly being observed by many eyes. This is the true fishbowl experience. That being said, it is amazing how adaptable humans can be. How quickly one’s reality can change and a new sense of order can become normal.
