A Time To...

by Ronald Louis Peterson

  “Al, seriously, how many times in your life will you be in a position to help save thousands of lives? That’s really what this is about. I know it’s a big responsibility, but I’m confident you can do it. In fact, I can’t think of anyone else better. And don’t worry. Kilimanjaro isn’t going anywhere. Save it for another time. A time ...”

  “OK.” Al closed his eyes and bit his lip. “I think you should work in sales when you leave Peace Corps. Tell me what I need to do and where to go.”

  “You’ll be in charge of all the trucks and their cargoes coming and going to and from the drought area’s largest relief site in Dessie. There are eight to ten thousand people being fed there alone. Another thirty to forty thousand are being fed at the other shelters, scattered throughout the area. They’ll get their relief supplies—food, blankets, clothes, and medicine—from the Dessie warehouse that you’ll manage,” Bill said as he shook Al’s hand.

  “Who will I be working with?” Al inquired.

  “You’ll be replacing someone from England. You’ll have an Ethiopian assistant and a crew of laborers, the healthier men living in the shelter. Oh, and before you ask, I don’t have a vehicle for you to use. You’ll have to take a public bus to get there and horse-driven taxis to get around town.”

  “Not even a motorcycle?”

  “Sorry. I’ve got a feeling the next time I see you, when you return in twelve weeks, that you’ll be a changed man,” Bill said as he patted Al on the back and walked away.

  “Yeah, hopefully for the better,” Al said to himself. “Hey, Bill! Don’t I need keys to the warehouse and some kind of proof of who I am and what my assignment is? You know, so the guy keeping the inventory now turns the books over to me?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll let them know. You just have to show up. The keys and the books will be waiting for you.”

  “OK,” Al replied. He was surprised at the informality, the lack of red tape involved, and the swiftness with which the assignment was made, considering that red tape was what held together the Peace Corps-Ethiopian government relationship as he knew it. This must have been a special case.

  That night in his modest Addis hotel room, not far from the city’s piazza, Al had a restless sleep.

  Where would he live in Dessie? How would he respond to so much human suffering in the place where he would live and work for the next twelve weeks? How would the people respond to him? The questions couldn’t be answered until he spent some time there, but they poked at him through the night. In the morning, he still had no answers, just a resolve to do the best he could under the circumstances.

  On his way out of the hotel, a groggy Al bumped into Brenda, literally, when he turned the corner to enter the lobby. She was on her way to meet Carl and Jim to begin planning their Kilimanjaro adventure.

  “Oh, hi Al. Why are you packed? We’re not leaving until tomorrow?” she asked, referring to the duffle bag Al had strapped over his shoulder.

  “Hey, Brenda. I’m not going. Something unexpected came up. I’m headed in the opposite direction, north to Dessie.”

  “Dessie? Why? What’s happening there?”

  “Well, the UN has its main famine relief shelter in Dessie, and I was asked to manage its warehouse of relief supplies.”

  “Come on, really, where are you going?”

  “I’m serious. I went to the Peace Corps office yesterday to get clearance for the Kilimanjaro trip and Bill Walker told me they need someone right away to do this. I was really looking forward to conquering Kilimanjaro, but he’s pretty persuasive.”

  “Wow. I couldn’t do that. Just seeing photos of starving people is hard enough,” Brenda said, shaking her head slowly.

  “You’re lucky Bill didn’t see you first. I think it was one of those timing things. I’m trying to prepare myself for anything.”

  “Good luck. Let’s get together at the end of the summer break and compare notes. I’ll leave a message on the office bulletin board about where I’ll be then.”

  “OK. I’ll want to see photos of your trip so I’ll know what I’ll be getting into when I go.”

  “I don’t know if I’ll want to see photos of where you’re going, but take some just in case.”

  The sun was just coming up at Al’s back. On a whim, he decided to walk to the bus station instead of taking a taxi as he had always done before. It would take him just over an hour to get there. The more he walked, the longer his shadow appeared in front of him. It grew the closer he got to his destination. Walking helped clear his mind of the questions that had kept him awake last night. The sights, sounds, and smells along the way provided welcome distractions.

  As he passed a long line of tailors working their pedal-powered sewing machines, which hummed with activity on the sidewalk, he glanced at their work. All of them were following the same simple patterns and using the same sturdy fabrics to create the same baggy pants and shorts for men and boys, as well as the same formless, simple cotton dresses for women and girls.

  A couple of the tailors looked up from their work as Al passed and asked him in Amharic if he’d like them to make him some clothes, but before he could answer, they broke out in good-natured laughter. Al got much the same reaction as he walked past a tejbet (honey wine bar). “No thanks,” Al said with a smile. “Too early. Maybe later.”

  A couple more blocks up, Al sniffed the air to smell the distinctive aroma of fresh baked bread mingled with the harsh odor of burning charcoal as he approached a bakery. Al entered it to buy a couple rolls that he could eat on the bus if he got hungry. The rolls, like the loaves of round bread, were displayed either on shelves behind the counter or in the glass-enclosed case under the countertop in large woven baskets.

  “Two small bread please,” Al said, in Amharic, to the man behind the counter, while pointing to the rolls.

  The baker took them from one of the baskets in the case before wrapping them in a sheet of old newspaper and placing them on the counter.

  “How much?” Al asked.

  “Twenty cents,” replied the baker before yelling something to someone in the back room.

  Al placed a quarter on the counter and said somewhat surprised, “In Nekempte, two small bread cost only ten cents.”

  The baker slid the rolls in front of Al and said, “It’s not the same bread. This is better.”

  Al put the bread in his duffle bag, smiled, and said under his breath in English as he turned to walk away, “It looks the same to me. I guess this is special bread.”

  “Yes. Yes. It is special bread,” the baker said in English as Al walked out. “You will see.”

  CHAPTER 54

  Self-Discovery

  The longer Al walked, the more eyes he seemed to attract. It had been about half an hour since Al last saw another foreigngee. He never liked being the center of attention. Maybe walking to the bus station was a bad idea, he now thought.

  “Mr. Al, how are you?” came a friendly voice from behind him. Al turned and saw Bekele, the shoeshine boy who had introduced him to Affork, the goldsmith.

  “Oh, hello, ah ... ahh ... Berhane, no, I mean Bekele,” Al said, somewhat flustered.

  “Yes. My name is Bekele. You remember.”

  “You surprised me, but I remember. Thank you again for taking me to meet Affork. I liked him. And I learned several interesting things,” Al said as he continued walking.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Dessie. I’m taking a bus to Dessie.”

  “Why? You live in Nekempte?”

  “Do you know about the famine? People are hungry in the north because it didn’t rain there for a long time.”

  “Yes. I know. I know. It is very bad. Many people die.”

  “But now countries from around the world are sending food to feed the people. They need someone to manage the food and supplies for the hungry and the homeless in the famine area. So I volunteered to do it until school starts again.”

 
Bekele nodded affirmatively as if he understood, but still had a puzzled face.

  “You don’t understand?” Al asked. “Famine? You don’t know this word? It means no food to eat for many days ... weeks.”

  “I understand what you say. I don’t understand why you do this. You are American. You leave your rich country to come to my poor country to teach and feed people, strangers. Why?”

  “I have asked myself that question several times this year. Last night the answer I got was that I’ve come to discover who I really am. Do you understand?”

  “I am a shoeshine boy because that is what I do. You are a teacher and someone who helps the hungry because that is what you do,” Bekele replied with a shrug of his shoulders.

  “But you won’t always be a shoeshine boy, and I won’t always be a Peace Corps volunteer. I want to know the me of today and tomorrow. In Ethiopia, I don’t have a history, so people can’t define me. I’ve got a clean slate,” Al said as they approached a group of people huddled around two young men who were standing on the hood of a car parked. They were talking to a gathering crowd of mostly men and boys who were not dressed or groomed as well as them. The pair was wearing hooded sweatshirts that covered their heads, making it difficult to see their faces.

  “What are they saying?” Al asked Bekele.

  “They are university students. They are saying to these people that our government is not good,” Bekele interpreted in his broken English.

  “They can be arrested for that, can’t they?”

  “Not now. Look over there, across the street. Those two men standing on the corner are Addis police.”

  “How do you know? They are not wearing uniforms.”

  “I know because one of them is my friend’s uncle.They work together.”

  “So why don’t they arrest them?”

  “Because they think the same as the university students. All Addis police think same.”

  “What about Haile Selassie and his military? They won’t like this.”

  “Yes, but the police have the power now in this place,” Bekele informed Al.

  Some of the crowd then begin hooting and hollering a distinctive Ethiopian chant.

  “Why are they doing that?” Al asked Bekele.

  “The students tell people, ‘Ethiopia first! Ethiopia first!’ They mean only Ethiopians must help Ethiopians make their problems go away. They tell them about Zemacha, an idea to have university students go into Ethiopia’s villages to teach people there new, better ways of living.”

  Bekele’s face suddenly became concerned and he told Al, “You go now.”

  “Yes, I should go to catch my bus,” Al said as he walked away.

  “Wait! Don’t go!” shouted one of the university students in English.

  It got Al’s attention, and when he turned his head to look at the students, they were staring at him.

  “Go,” Bekele said under his breath to Al. Now, everyone in the crowd had turned around and was staring at Al, too.

  “My friend, if you remember nothing else from your time in Ethiopia, remember these two words: Ethiopia first. They probably don’t mean anything to you now, but one day soon, they will,” one of the university students advised Al.

  Al paused to collect his thoughts for a few seconds before answering in Amharic, “They mean ‘Go home, foreigngee,’ yes?”

  “Ha ha. So you are Peace Corps, a teacher, but the schools here are closed. You are needed more by the students in America,” he told Al in English.

  “I have other work to do now until the new school year begins,” Al replied in English.

  “No! You don’t have work to do in Ethiopia! We can do all the work here,” the other university student shouted as he pointed to the crowd around them.

  “OK. Then who’ll take the next bus to Dessie to manage a warehouse of famine relief supplies?”

  “We wouldn’t have a famine if the puppet American government here did its job,” shouted the other student. “America could have prevented the famine and didn’t because it wants Ethiopia to stay poor and dependent.”

  “No. You are wrong, but I don’t have time to talk with you anymore. I have a bus to catch.” Al patted Bekele on his back and walked away. After a few steps, Al turned his head back to Bekele and said, “Hey, Bekele. Do you know Tarzan doesn’t live here?” Al then smiled a smile so big it grew on Bekele, who tapped his heart in delight.

  “You know, I guess I didn’t come to Ethiopia with a clean slate after all,” Al told Bekele, shaking his head as he walked quickly to the bus station. Al was preceded by his ever-present shadow, which seemed to tell Al that he could never really go anywhere to have a clean slate, because even strangers think they know him just by the shadow he casts.

  CHAPTER 55

  Shadows and Light

  When Al boarded his bus, there were just a few empty seats toward the front. He took the first that he came to, slid over to the window, and placed his duffle bag on his lap. Within a few minutes, the bus was full. The last seat, the one next to Al, was eventually taken by an elderly man wrapped in a traditional gabi, a long, hand-woven cotton cloth worn like a shawl, covering his head and upper body. Al greeted him in Amharic with a respectful, “Good morning. God be with you.”

  The old man, somewhat surprised by the greeting, smiled tentatively and returned the traditional greeting in Amharic as he settled into his seat.

  In an effort to put his seatmate at ease, Al tried engaging him in small talk using all the appropriate Amharic he knew: “Where are you going? Where do you live? What do you do?” But the old man appeared confused, as if Al had been speaking Chinese, before he told Al in Amharic,

  “I’m sorry. I don’t understand?”

  Too tired to repeat himself with better enunciation, and figuring he had already accomplished what he had intended, Al said, “Never mind. Enjoy the trip to Dessie. I am very tired. I will try to sleep.”

  The old man smiled and nodded before Al closed his eyes as the bus pulled out of the station, which was really just a big dirt field enclosed by a wire fence. The six-hour journey would soon leave the black-topped roads of Addis and arrive on the rocky dirt roads that would take them the rest of the way up the mountains of Ethiopia’s highlands, where Dessie sat.

  Al slept for about an hour, until the road got rougher and his head bumped against the window. Upon waking up, he was a little disoriented until he turned to his seatmate and suddenly became very disoriented. Sitting next to him was a young man about eighteen years old. Al did a double-take and wiped his eyes with his free hand.

  The young man smiled at Al and said in English, “You sleep good. Hello. My name is Haile Marium. What is your name?”

  “Oh. Ah, my name is Al. Hello,” a somewhat startled Al replied.

  “Mr. Al, you are American? Is that right?” Haile Marium presumed.

  “Yes, American,” Al confirmed.

  “Very good. I thought so. I don’t know what it is, but there is something different about Americans. I like it. I want to go to America some day.”

  “You speak good English, Haile Marium. Why do you want to go to America?”

  After thinking a moment, Haile Marium said, “In America, people can do what they want. They are happy.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “The YMCA in Addis has a library of American books and films. I read them and watched them for many years. I learned about famous people like Abraham Lincoln, President Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and other people.”

  “I see. Where did the man go who was sitting here?”

  “I asked him to change seats with me. He was happy to move. Foreigngees make him afraid.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Old people remember when Italians took over Ethiopia. They don’t trust foreigngees.”

  “Old Ethiopians are not the only ones who don’t trust foreigngees.

  Have you heard the phrase ‘Ethi
opia first’ that the university students use?”

  “Yes, I know it. But I don’t agree. Americans and others can help Ethiopia. We need help. I don’t think we can make Ethiopia a better place by ourselves.”

  “You are a student?”

  “Yes. I was going to graduate from high school this year, but not now because of the teachers’ strikes. I hope to graduate next year and then attend a university. My dream is to get a full scholarship to a university in America. If not, then I will attend the one in Addis.”

  “I hope you get a scholarship because you won’t have many friends at the university here.”

  “Ha ha. Yes, unless things change.”

  “So you want changes? What changes?” Al asked, expecting to hear something like “I really can’t say” to avoid getting into possible trouble for speaking out against the government, but Haile Marium surprised him.

  “We must copy America and be a capitalist democracy. Then we are rich. Everybody is educated and have good jobs. We have much food to eat, are healthy, and live long. If we are sick or hurt, we will have many doctors and hospitals, like in America. We will all have cars, beautiful homes with electricity, good clothes, TVs, and running water to drink. We will go on vacations to Disney World and take photos with expensive cameras. Yes, we will live like Americans and will be very happy.”

  “You make it sound so good. Is that really the place I have lived all my life? Then, why am I not happy? Why do I feel I need more?”

  “More than that? Impossible. How? What more is there?”

  Al closed his eyes and scrunched his face in an effort to come up with an answer. “I don’t know. Let me try to explain. I would be happy if I never have to stop at a red light ... if I only had green lights when I drive my car.”

  “I would like to have that problem.”

  “Maybe that is a bad example. I just want things to go my way all the time, or at least most of the time.”

  “If I have all you have in America, everything would be going my way.”

  “No. No. You don’t understand. I’m not talking about material things, like modern conveniences and what money can buy. Yes, they are nice to have. They make life comfortable, but once you have these things, to be really happy, you need to do something with your life, something that satisfies you. So when I say I only want green lights on the road and things to go my way, I’m really saying that I want nothing to keep me from doing the things that make me happy. But in America, there are lots of distractions—people and practical concerns that get in the way. I think I’m just trying to tell you that even if Ethiopia becomes rich like America, you probably won’t be as happy as you think. It takes more.”