Chocolate and... soap?

27 Nov 05

In my last full post I finished by remarking I hadn't had a full nights sleep in ages, due to the incessant barking of our mangy dog. I'm not sure if I ever posted a picture of this dog, so I'll add one now. When I first arrived in Jimma, the dog took to me almost instantly. I was a bit surprised, because as anyone who lives in a multi-colored community knows, dogs are inherently racist. I don't fault them, really; it must seem to them as if this pictured negative of a person is rather evil. I wouldn't say the dog and I ever became friends, but I was free to walk within his vicinity without a growl, and even received an occasional wagged tail to my scratching his ears. After I left during the threat of violence, something changed in my relationship with the dog. I don't know if he became angry with me for leaving him for so long, or if he somehow just realized I was white. In any case, we ceased to be friends, and I was no longer allowed to come anywhere near him. I even took the evening meal to him several times in an attempt at reconciliation. His wholesale animosity towards me grew during a time of increased agitation at night. The dog has always been a night barker, but during this period it became such that even the dog's owner - who previously had defended the dog on the grounds that he wanted it to bark at night - decided to get rid of it. At first we just locked the dog out of the compound. Every morning it would wait by the door, always wanting to come back in. For the most part it obviously loved its newfound freedom, but was learning that freedom came at the cost of painful hunger. The director of the NGO heard about our predicament and replied that he was wanting a dog to protect his compound; could he have it? YES! Yes you can have the dog, but only on one condition - you cannot bring it back. So, for the past few nights, I have slept unusually well. However, I never actually saw the director pick up the dog. Yesterday we ate meat in the house for the first time since I've been living with this family - 3 months. I'm not saying for sure we ate dog, but neither do I have any reason to believe otherwise.

Speaking of strange and disturbing foods, I'll mention two more. The first is a type of candy I've purchased here. Branded "Lefu," it seems to be the lowest possible quality Chinese export. Despite that the side of the triangular package reads, "Good Chocolate," this is perhaps the worst tasting thing that has ever entered my mouth. I can best describe its texture as wet cardboard, which closely resembles its taste. I sucked one piece for awhile despite its foul nature, just because I was so intrigued by what it is that I could be tasting. You'll notice in the top corner the label proclaims, "Almonds are coated in Chocolate." The nuts pictured on the bottom look more like hazelnuts than almonds, but in either case nothing crunches in this distasteful perversion of candy. I finally decided the taste was closest to, as I already mentioned, wet cardboard though with the subtlest hints of insecticide.

Contrast this with my shower two days ago. I accidently caught a mouthful of soapy water, and my to my surprise it was delicious. Now I don't know about you, but all of my experience with soap before now has taught me that it should not taste good. If memory serves me correctly, a bar of soap in the mouth was a common punishment in days gone by. So you can imagine the confusion this little revelation has caused me. I'm fairly certain it is soap; it produces suds in the way one would expect a bar of soap to do so, and it smells somewhat like lemon scented liquid dish soap we use in the states. I didn't know how to ask for soap in the supermarket, but I did make the universal shower sign by lifting my left arm and rubbing my arm-pit with my right hand. Granted, its possible the attendant thought I was asking for some kind of monkey snack, but I would think the people I live with would have mentioned to me that I'm bathing with a lemon monkey-bar. I am now curious if Ethiopians add sugar to their soap. If so this would explain why in the television spots asking for money for Ethiopians the children are always covered in flies. If you're curious what I meant about living in the rabbit hole, it's this: soap tastes better than chocolate.

Yesterday I took Gimetchis to the local pool. It has only recently been opened at one of the nicer hotels in Jimma, and costs an extravagant 23birr - 3USD - to swim. Gimetchis had never swam (swum?) before, and I quickly learned that teaching a 31 year old Ethiopian to swim is much harder than I thought it would be. Valiantly though we tried, we never succeeded in keeping him from touching for more than a few paces. I took the approach of walking along side him holding him up with my hands under his stomach as he tried to swim. At one point I felt like he was beginning to get the hang of things and released my hands from under his stomach. I can say with all honesty that I have never seen anything sink faster. I have always been taught that the human body will naturally float, but I am now convinced this is as false a statement as that soap tastes bad. He looked at me the way a child looks at their parent after they've removed their hands from the bike for the first time, resulting in a brief moment of success followed by tragedy when the child realizes the parent is no longer behind them. The only difference in Gimetchis' case is that there was no moment of success. He sank like a stone. Despite this, after coughing up some water he was ready to go again. At the end of the day he seemed to have enjoyed himself immensely and is ready to go again. Good for him.

This evening a representative from the head offices of Send-A-Cow in the UK arrives. We'll have dinner with him and the local representation tonight, and show them a few of our various projects tomorrow. I am hopeful for this project to succeed. If so it could mean a great deal to many families and impoverished people in the area. (I opened the website in the background to grab the URL for the link in this paragraph... apparently the site has various animal sound effects turned on and as I write I am continually hearing the barnyard sounds of cows and pigs.)

Finally, a word of greeting to any Italians showing up on the blog. I've received a link from an Italian blog. If any of you speak Italian, I'd love to know if I'm linked positively or negatively :-) . I will say that if any Italians are heading towards Jimma, let me know. I've made a friend here named Yewaleshet who was considerably disappointed to learn I'm from the states and not from Italy. He made friends with several Italian students (who nicknamed him Johnny) here a few years back and I don't think I'll ever be able to live up. He would be excited to know you're coming.

Peace,

Michael