There can be no vulnerability without risk; there can be no community without vulnerability; there can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without community. ~ M. Scott Peck

Village house

Ethiopia is not what I expected.  The truth is, I am not sure that anyone could ever imagine what it is like until you experience it with your own senses. The sounds, the smells, the absolute essence of stepping back in time to the birthplace of humanity, none of that can be understood until you experience it. It is truly an amazing place.

The street near my school

Ethiopia is a contrasts in opposites. New, modern houses are built next to shanties.  Horses, donkeys, goats, etc share the road with cars.  Farmers growing teff to make injera and using wooden plows next to a modern university of stone and glass. Barefoot beggars share the street with men in Armani suits.  People precariously cross the highway, dodging between buses, taxis and livestock. Beautiful new buildings are constructed with scaffolding made from eucalyptus branches. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to any of it.  Some would call it chaos.  I call it humanity.

Church on the hill

The sights, sounds, smells, and tastes of Ethiopia are like seeing, hearing, smelling, and tasting time itself.  It is the oldest culture in the world.  Time is started at daylight, when the sun comes up, so dawn is 1 o’clock…a new day.   Every morning at dawn, the monks from a nearby church greet the day with chanting and drums.  I lay in bed and listen to the sounds as well as the oxen lowing in a nearby field. The smells of sewage are offset by the smell of freshly cut grass.  The sour taste of injera, spicy wot, and the most amazing coffee I have ever had in my life make all my taste buds come alive.

Eucalyptus scaffolding

Having always traveled as a tourist, I am realizing that visiting in a foreign country is very different from living in one.  It is strange and foreign land after spending my life in the sterile environment of the U.S., a place where everything seems so orderly by comparison.  In the US, I turn on a faucet and have clean drinking water.  I flick a switch and have dependable electricity.  I pay a bill and have reliable internet access. I want groceries and supplies for my home, I can get it all at one store. Life is easy in the U.S.

Shanties

In Ethiopia, life is harder. The internet hasn’t worked in 3 weeks at my school (I came to am American hotel and had to pay $15 for a day of wifi), the power goes out on a daily basis, shopping requires several stops to different stores and paying the ferengi [foreigner] price, and then there are the daily difficulties of acquiring clean water.  For me it is difficult but still easier than it is for most Ethiopians, because I have money and resources.  For the average Ethiopian, it is much harder. To offset the hardships, people here depend on each other.

Modern housing

There is a sense of community, history, and belonging that I rarely see in the U.S. where we don’t need each other for basic survival.  But in our isolation from each other, Americans also lose a sense of emotional connection that many (including myself) continually search for.  Connection and community are two things go hand in hand.  But to be connected, we have to be vulnerable to people.  We have to open up and show others what we need and we have to meet those needs in other people in our community. For many of us, this kind of vulnerability is hard.

Brooklyn

Charlotte

So I begin this year of renewal and transformation.  I am not convinced yet that I can do it, either the job I am being asked to do or just staying so long outside the U.S.  I am already missing my family terribly.  Spending the last week with Charlotte and Brooklyn has made me long for more time with them.   I long for a sense of community of my own.

NOTE: I had a lot of trouble with pictures today.  I forgot the cord to the camera that I had the majority of my photo on back at my apartment. So here is link to the ones I already uploaded to my drive. I will try to put the rest up later when I get back to an internet connection.  http://sdrv.ms/1dxhsFh