Elias just shook his head as we watched them run off. “By tomorrow every boy in Awassa will know there’s a farenji giving away candy in this hotel. You will be like the Pied Piper when you go out for runs.”
I laughed and shook my head at the image of me with a trail of smiling boys running around town. “I only have a limited supply of candy, and I don’t have an evil ploy to lure little children. I’m also not afraid to say no.” I stuck my finger in the air to press my point. “And only those who can keep up with my lightning speed get the spoils.”
He threw his head back and laughed at my preening. He was flushed and sweaty, and I really wanted to run my hand over his face and chest. I settled for teasing him a bit instead. “And the Pied Piper? That’s a pretty Eurocentric analogy, sir.”
He smiled ruefully at my callout, but lifted his shoulder as he answered. “If something works, I’ll use it, and…” Now he was the one using a finger to make a point. “I will give the credit to whom it’s due…a not-so Eurocentric approach.”
“Touché,” I agreed. Elias was quick on his feet, that was for sure. I was already half-addicted to these sharp exchanges with him. I had to be on my toes with this man. “I’m only half colonizer, though. My mother’s from the Dominican Republic. It’s—”
He interrupted me before I went on to my scripted DR history sound bite. “I know about Hispaniola. One side of the island is Dominican Republic and the other is Haiti, the first free Black republic in the world. Jean-Jacques Dessalines is a hero of mine.” He smiled when he mentioned the Haitian general who led the slave rebellion in 1804.
“That’s right.” It never got old, connecting with someone over the pieces of who I was, which others rarely saw. Being biracial, I sometimes felt lost in an in-between world. I had to constantly make a space for myself where I didn’t necessarily feel like I fit in. For Elias to not question my claim on Hispaniola brought the warm feeling in my chest back with a vengeance.
We stayed silent for a few minutes until he jumped up from the grass and pulled me to my feet. I realized then that other than shaking his hand when we met, I hadn’t reached out to touch him at all. The warmth of his skin against mine made my stomach flutter. His eyes on me were intense, like he was trying to read every thought going through my head.
We looked at each other for another moment before he let go. Then he jerked his thumb over his shoulder, which I assumed indicated he was taking off. “I’m headed to shower and will grab a quick breakfast in the restaurant. Will you be ready to go in an hour?”
Right, plans for the day. For the job I was here to do, which didn’t involve messing around with Elias in the yard of the hotel.
I nodded as I started turning away. “Yes. I told Sam I’d meet him for breakfast to go over plans, but it should be quick.”
“Good. We should leave right at 8:00. We have to do a lot of driving today. I’ve also ordered some lunches and water bottles from the restaurant to take with us. There won’t be places to stop on today’s route.”
I looked at the time on my watch and gave him a thumbs-up. “That gives me about forty-five minutes, which is more than enough. See you in a bit, and thanks for taking care of lunch.”
I turned and started walking to my room. From the corner of my eye I saw Elias watching me, and his face had that intense look again.
Like I was something he was trying to figure out, but was afraid of the answers he’d discover.
I came downstairs to find Sam already in the dining room, leering at the woman sitting with him at the table. We’d met the day before, and he had been as much of a shithead as Bonnie has promised. Grateful that I didn’t need to be stuck with him in a car all day, I walked over to them, bracing for whatever asinine thing would come out of his mouth. I’d only spent a few hours with him and was already completely over his frat bro posturing.
When I got to the table, I first turned to the woman and offered my hand. She was tall and slender, with beautiful golden-brown skin. Even in her jeans, hiking boots, and long-sleeved Aid USA T-shirt, she was stunning. I assumed this was our statistician, who had arrived late yesterday and had not made it to dinner.
“Hi, you must be Tsehay. I’m Desta.”
She immediately stood up and grabbed my shoulder to do the double-kiss-and-embrace greeting that was compulsory for Ethiopians. My mother being Dominican, I was used to a kiss hello and goodbye, and after just a few days, I’d grown comfortable with the ritual. Ethiopians didn’t wave or do hurried handshakes. No, a greeting was a moment of pause and connection that said “I want to show you how good it is to see you.”
I responded to Tsehay’s greeting in kind. She beamed at me as we pulled back. “You’re like Habesha, Desta! With your name and such a proper greeting, you could fool anyone.”
I laughed at how serious she seemed. “I’m glad you approve.”
I turned to Sam, who had a puzzled look on his face, like he wasn’t one hundred percent sure what my agenda was with Tsehay. I did my best to suppress my eye roll as I went to sit down across from him. “Hey Sam, how’s it going?”
“Hey yourself.” I was almost impressed by how he could make those two words sound like a full recrimination. “I was just going over the survey with Tsehay.”
I glared at him, annoyed at his shitty pronunciation of her name. It was just seh-high, simple. Yet he somehow managed to butcher it. He’d done the same thing last night with some of the other team members we had dinner with.
“Just making sure she understands what we need to get out of the qualitative questions. We don’t want people to give us their life story. Just what worked and what didn’t about the program.”
He then turned to Tsehay and started speaking in that annoying enunciated English that some Westerners used when talking to locals in developing countries. Hammering every single syllable to death and sounding out every vowel and consonant, like they were teaching kindergarteners the alphabet.
So fucking condescending.
For the next few minutes, I watched Tsehay listen to Sam drone on with the mixture of weariness and boredom I’d seen on the faces of staff dealing with expats the world over. I could only feel for her, because as far as I knew, Tsehay was in the process of getting her doctoral degree in statistics. She’d also been working in the program we were surveying since the initial stages and was from this region, to boot. Why Sam thought he had to tell her how to ask questions to people she certainly knew how to speak to a hell of a lot better than he did, was a complete mystery to me.
When I couldn’t stand it anymore I interrupted him, my voice as polite as I could make it in my uncaffeinated state. “Why don’t we order some food before we start going over our plans, Sam?”
Without waiting for him to respond, I turned to Tsehay. “I would also like to get some input from you,” I said, pulling out from my messenger bag the tablet we’d been using to do the surveys. “What would you like me to cover while I’m out with my team? I’m not new to this kind of work, but you’re the expert here.”
She gave me a look which was a mix between an eye roll and a hint of “at least one of these assholes has an ounce of sense.”
We quickly ordered some food with Tsehay’s assistance and started working out details. Turned out she was indeed an expert, and had not only helped run similar surveys, but was going to be my go-to in cleaning the data from the field before we passed it on to Sam. While we talked, he sat in a disgusted silence since he was no longer controlling the conversation.
After we finished, we rushed off for a final run to our rooms before heading to our vehicles. But as I was walking out, Sam stopped me and ground out, “I don’t appreciate you undermining me in front of the local staff. I’m the monitoring and evaluation officer for this survey and I need to make sure I get the right information.”
I just kept walking and didn’t even bother looking at him when I responded. “How did I undermine you? I was letting Tsehay know I wanted to get her expert opinion on how
to run a survey in this region. Of the three of us, she’s the only person who’s actually from here, not to mention a statistician. It makes sense to make sure she’s on board with the plans for the day. Also, local staff is just staff, the same as you and me.”
He just glared at me and scoffed. “Whatever. If this is your way of getting into her pants, there are ways to do it without fucking with my survey.”
This time I did turn around so he could see I wouldn’t let him talk to me—or about Tsehay—like that. “First of all,” I said, holding a finger up close to his face. “It’s not your survey, it’s Aid USA’s survey that I’m being paid to work on too. Second, if I wanted to get into anyone’s pants I wouldn’t be coming to you for advice. And third, I’m gay.” I kept the “you fucking idiot” to myself, but just barely.
I spun around without waiting for his response. When I got to my door, I said as calmly as I could, “I hope you have a good day out there, Sam, and try to keep your assumptions to a minimum.” He just glared at me before walking into his own room.
It only took me a few minutes to get my stuff ready, and I was down by our Land Cruiser before the agreed time. All the guys in our vehicle were there too, so I delivered some atrocious Amharic in an attempt to say hello before we all got into the vehicle. The guys thought I was hilarious, so at least that was something. Neither Abraham nor Yohannes spoke great English, but they would be there to help with the surveys in the regional language. So in addition to driving us all over to day, Elias would be serving as translator between the guys and me.
We quickly got into the truck, and as we headed towards the main road Elias called my name. I immediately reacted. It was like every cell in my body was on high alert around him. Everything in me aligned in his direction. “Yes?”
“We should be on the road to Dilla soon. Once we’re on it, you can put the book on. Yohannes and Abraham both brought their headphones and said they’ll listen to their own music.”
I turned around to give the guys a thumbs-up before answering Elias. “Sounds good. Let me know and I’ll start.”
Last night at dinner I’d told Elias I had several audiobooks we could listen to while in the car. We would be on the road for many hours over the next five weeks, and he seemed pleased that we had a lot to choose from. He’d asked what book I wanted to listen to first, and in a moment of madness I’d blurted out Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. I hadn’t read the book before, but I’d gotten it after Lucía recommended it. What I did know was that it was a young adult novel with two gay main characters, and I was feeling more than a bit anxious.
Elias seemed pretty laid back, but there was no way to tell how he would react once he realized what the book was about. I distracted myself by looking out the window. Everything was intensely green at this time of year, and as we drove, we passed the occasional mango or guava tree heavy with fruit. As we got farther into Gedeo, the area we’d be surveying, I noticed the dwellings looked different than the ones we’d seen on the way down from Addis.
“So are these houses traditional to the area? I know each tribe has its own style,” I asked Elias.
He nodded, keeping his eyes on the road. “Yes, these are the Gedeo houses.”
I looked out at the window at the homes dotting the lush green landscape. They looked almost like beehives: round on the bottom, but the roofs were cone-shaped and very tall. They were all surrounded by plants that looked like banana trees.
“Are those the false bananas?” I asked, aware that the plants were a major source of food for many tribes in Ethiopia.
Elias tipped his chin in the direction of a house on the left side of the road. “Eshi, that’s ensete,” he said snapping the syllables of the Amharic name for the plants. “They look just like a banana tree, but they don’t bear fruit. We use the root to make bread.”
I looked at some of the houses as we drove; they seemed to be built from bamboo and mud. “Right, I heard it’s an important part of the diet here.”
“We eat it with the kitfo.” He said with a nod, but kept his eyes on the road.
“Just so you know, I’ll be asking questions whenever I see a new kind of house,” he laughed but his focus stayed on the road. I missed his eyes on me, which of course was just…not good.
“I’ll be happy to tell you if I can. My family is from the Amhara tribe in the north, so I don’t know all the types of houses down here. But we can ask the guys. They’ll know.” He smiled and spoke in Amharic to the guys in the back, who uttered a barrage of eshis and nods at whatever Elias told them.
After a moment we quieted down, and I discreetly ran my eyes over Elias. He was wearing his Ray-Ban aviators—which looked so fucking hot on him—and an Aid USA hoodie. His curls held back with the ever-present elastic band. His lips were a dark brown, slightly darker than his skin, and they were perfect. The thought of sucking that bottom lip into my mouth and making him moan as I nibbled on it had me squirming in my seat.
Thankfully Elias saved me from myself and spoke up. “I think we’re okay to put it on. We should be on this road for the next hour or so.”
“Oh, okay,” I said reluctantly. Suddenly, playing this audiobook felt like a life-or-death situation, but I just hit play and sat back.
It was what it was. If Elias turned out to be a homophobe, I’d ask to be on another team and that’d be the end of it.
Chapter 5
There was nothing to worry about.
From the first words, the story and the narration by Lin-Manuel Miranda enthralled us both. Every so often we would both grunt in approval or sympathy with Ari, the narrator, who was in the throes of discovering who he was. Growing into who he would be, and falling in love with his best friend. We were on our fourth day in the field, and as Elias started the truck and got on the road headed to lunch, he spoke while looking straight ahead. “Can we keep listening to Ari and Dante?”
We were about two-thirds into the book and I suspected that very soon Dante, Ari’s best friend, was going to tell him how he felt. My own coming out had been bittersweet. I’d decided to tell my parents after my dad came back from that last trip, which he never returned from. At that point it was more like the rainbow-colored elephant in the room, and I’d been sure my parents would be fine with it. It was just a matter of finally saying it out loud, making it real. But when my dad died, it became one more thing that would never be whole because he wasn’t there.
Elias cleared his throat, and I realized I’d never responded to his request.
“Sorry. I’ll start it. We only have like, two hours left, actually.”
“Eshi, we have about thirty minutes to the first site. We can listen until then.” There was a certain eagerness to his voice, and I wondered what Elias thought about the book. So far he’d said very little about it, but he listened intently, asking me to pause and repeat certain parts.
Would he be able to empathize with the helpless agony of knowing that saying the truth about yourself could cost you everything? Would he still be the kind and charming man I’d gotten to know in the past week if he knew I was like Ari and Dante?
I looked at him as he listened and tried to figure out the expression on his face. As the story unfolded, and the angst between Ari and Dante grew, Elias would grunt or grip the steering wheel, his brows knitted together. He looked…pained. As I observed his handsome profile, I wondered if Elias understood a lot more than I’d given him credit for.
I stopped the book when he slowed and put on the blinkers, approaching a hotel we’d eaten at a few times already. I turned to him as I reached into my backpack to get my wallet.
“Are we waiting for the others?” I asked, making him glance at the side mirror. His mouth flattened at whatever he saw.
“Looks like Sam’s team is behind us. I think Tsehay’s is already here.”
I could not blame him for his lack of enthusiasm at the prospect of having to sit through another meal with Sam. In the past week, he’d gotte
n more and more insufferable. He was rude to everyone, and just this morning during a stop at one of the field clinics, he’d gotten in the face of one of our government liaisons. Bonnie’s prediction—that he would probably do something to embarrass the entire team—was on point after all.
I sighed wearily as I saw the Cruiser drive into the parking lot behind us, dreading the conversation I needed to have with him about his interaction with the official. “I’m not in the mood for Sam’s bullshit today. The way he talked to Mr. Dawit was not okay. That man is in his sixties; I can only imagine how offended he was when Sam all but said he was wasting the nutritional supplements.”
I was trying to keep my voice neutral. From seeing how people acted around Sam, it was clear just hearing his name was a trigger for some of the team. I turned around to look at Yohannes and Abraham, and they were both glaring at the man in question as he jumped out of the Cruiser in wraparound sunglasses, looking like the very picture of the clueless expat jackass.
I fished my own Wayfarers out of my front shirt pocket and looked at Elias, who was tapping a message on his phone. He still had not said a word about my Sam grievances. When he looked up he seemed sympathetic, but I suspected, like every other time I’d complained about Sam, Elias would take the diplomatic route.
He lifted his gaze from his phone, and after what seemed like a series of deep breaths, he finally spoke. “Tsehay’s team has a table for us upstairs,” he said with a tight smile. “And as for Sam, it’s taken the team here years to build the relationship with the woreda.”
I nodded at the word for district in Amharic, knowing how hard everyone had worked on that partnership with the government. “I know, I’m sorry. I’ll talk to him. I can talk to Mr. Dawit too.”
Finding Joy: A Gay Romance Page 5