One Week Left at Site!

Next Wednesday, I'll be hopping on a bus and leaving Huruta forever. Well, hopefully not. People keep asking when I'll return and I don't know what to say.  I have to finish my masters, then get a job, and save up money.  People here keep telling me five years is enough time, but who knows.

It doesn't quite feel real that I'm leaving, not yet, but I've noticed that as I get older and travel more.  I don't anticipate and look forward to things as much.  It didn't quite hit me that I was coming here till my mom dropped me off at the airport, and it didn't hit me how long 27 months was till I was sitting on my bed in my host family's house. I'm expecting things to be the same way here. I'm going around to houses for final meals and saying goodbye, giving away small things like extra spices, books, and kitchen supplies. Still doesn't feel like goodbye for a really long time. But I'll probably be holding back tears getting on the bus.

I am however, very much aware of the following:

Things I'll Miss When I Return to America:

ñ  My wonderful landlady, Dani, and her entire family who welcomed me with open arms

ñ  Yigibashal, a teacher, and her daughter Beti, who were also a surrogate family.

ñ  Going to a suk for bread, being told they're out, and then ordered to wait while they bought some form a store around the corner to sell to me.

ñ Wynshit and her family, for feeding me lunch and bunna every time I stopped by and Mita, the compound child for amazing hugs.

ñ  Visiting a suk, oh maybe every three months, and having the owner ask after my crocheting projects.

ñ  The ability to skip lines, be served first, and allowed to do things others can't because I'm a foreigner. As much as I want to be treated like those around me, sometimes ferengi power is awesome.

ñ  A pretty high life style, relative to others around me.  Most of the people I visit with don't have an electric kettle. Or visit the bigger cities on a regular basis. Or hit up the internet bet every week.

ñ  Bunna ceremonies, shokola t'ibs, tagabeno and other yummy food.

ñ  Playing soccer just to play. It got so competitive in the States.

ñ  Man, the starry sky in my backyard is amazing.

ñ  Juice. It's fresh here and oh so good. More like a smoothy than anything else.

Things I Won't Miss When I Return to America:

ñ  Being asked to personally sponsor programs because since I'm a foreigner I have lots of money.  I might be able to eat out more that you, Mr. Youth and Sport Office, but my shoes are still holey and I don't have that type of cash in my bank account.  Buy your own soccer ball.

ñ  Not having a sink.

ñ  Days of no power.

ñ  Doing laundry by hand.

ñ  The creepy night noises, though to be fair I'm pretty friendly with the compound mouse nowadays when he shows up.

ñ  Confusion about dates and times because everyone will use the same system in the States.

ñ  Roosters in the latrine. Or roosters anywhere crowing all the time.

ñA lack of logical thinking.

ñ  Getting sandblasted by dirt.

ñ  Being stared at, all the time.

Toothless

I am now the proud co-owner of Toothless.

No, not that one. This one.

I have finally, finally, gotten my hands on a kitten. The last time there was a batch, I knew three families with kittens but they were all claimed by other people. And so when a cat had kittens I made it very apparently to the daughter that I wanted one before they even opened their eyes.

Getting Toothless home was an interesting trial. There are no cat carriers here. So I wrapped her in a piece of an old curtain. Gotta protect myself from all four sets of claws! Beti insisted on carrying her as a sorta goodbye from her house to the school and Toothless was rather reluctant to leave her for her classes. She wasn't so happy with me when I took her. I got several stares as Toothless climbed up my chest to my shoulder and then when I tried to bring her back to my chest found myself holding her around the middle over my shoulder with her claws not detaching from my shirt.

Poor kitty. It was a good twenty minute walk through strange, cold territory and the rain did not help at all.

I had a moment of panic when I stepped into the compound. Originally I had been scheduled to take a calico cat from Beti's family, but in the last week she's disappeared. So I was given a black one and Dani freaked when she saw Toothless. She wanted nothing to do with a black cat, saying she didn't like them.

People here can be very set in their ways and while I don't want to say superstitious, do believe in absurd things.

I was very worried Dani would tell me to give Toothless back.

So I took Toothless into my pair of rooms and made some lunch, eggs to share, and eventually Dani came in to see more of Toothless's body then a head sticking out from the curtain wrap.

As I'm pre-writing this, Toothless is sleeping on the top of Dani's couch, so I think they'll get along well despite first impressions. I'm glad. I'll be away for a while to start the process of leaving (med appointments and trainings on what needs to be done before I hop on the plane) and it will be good for Dani to have some company.

I can't help but liken Toothless's process of getting used to the compound to my similar one of getting used to Huruta. There's the oh-yes-the-traveling-is-over-let's-explore phase. Followed by the pitiful mewlings that come with the I'm-so-far-away-from-everyone-and-can't-talk-to-them-and-can't-stop-crying phase. And then you turn all lethargic as you hit the I'm-depressed-and-have-no-one-to-talk-to-and-don't-want-to-visit-this-new-world phase. I spent a weekend laying on a couch or my bed with a book, not talking to Dani and Tadeck at all. Toothless just sleeps everywhere. Yes, she's a cat, but she was always more active at her house when I was over.

Still, she'll get over it. I did.

It's kinda funny how the process works in reverse too. The first three months are the hard because family and friends are always on your mind. The last three months are hard too because again you're thinking of your family and friends back home (though with anticipation this time, but you still can't call to bounce giddy beams off each other) and the ones you've adopted here (and it's a million times harder than saying goodbye to your mom at the airport cuz I knew I'd see her in 27 months but when will I ever see Dani and everyone else here again?).

I can't wait to go home, yet at the same time don't want to think about it because there's still much to do here. I have camps I'm planning, a few more English club lessons, and a trip to Harrar. I don't want to think of America, cuz then I wouldn't really be here and I have to be for the next three months. It's my last chance to experience it all, to commit things to memory and try to describe perfectly the smell of rain as it fills my house or to record the birds outside my window. And yet I have to think of America cuz I gotta find a house for grad school before I actually leave this country.

Nothing, apparently, is easy.

Unless you're Toothless because then people just bring food and stoke your back all day. Ah, the life.