EDSONATRA Honeymoon Suite, 12:30am, Sept. 24:
I woke up dreading that it was almost morning already. No – only the middle of the night. Not surprising considering I went to bed around 5pm (intending to take a nap but napping longer than intended.) I guess my sleep schedule is still off, but it’s also complicated by the total lack of physical exercise. I’m starting to feel pretty lazy and lethargic, sleeping more than waking. Not good. The first twinges of homesickness have arrived.
I’ll try to keep this journal entry short. There’s not too much to write… I’ve begun to miss Halle something fierce, after only one week away. I think it’s exacerbated by this cultural isolation. Even worse than just plain being alone, I’m surrounded by people but have difficulty having meaningful interaction with anyone. There are laughs and conversations, sure, but little really of note. Also I generally dislike being surrounded, besieged by people and it makes me feel… lonely? Oh Halle, where are you? What are you doing right now? Are you thinking of me? Are you missing me? I’ve been picturing us together again, holding each other, burying my face in your hair and smelling you with my face down against your head while we hold each other in the evening… Cooking dinner together, holding hands while we bicycle around our house, picking peppers from the garden, dancing alone under that ridiculous disco ball at Amvets, letting my hand brush against your leg at night while you’re sleeping just to feel your warmth… to know you’re there breathing, living, loving beside me. I wonder if you can feel that part of me that has traveled 8000 miles from my hotel room to watch you finish up the late shift at the GFS, sweat through your yoga after waking up, drink your coffee, talk with friends, stress over finances on the kitchen table. Oy vay, enough!
That damn dog started barking again, and it’s even more grating now that I realized he’s some rich arab’s pet! Arrrr…. If only I had a slingshot! Thankfully it stopped now. Shimeles took me up Entoto Road a ways today, and the rest of the university campus up that direction is actually very beautiful. There is a great view of the city, and it is one of the oldest parts of town, with wonderful grey stone buildings in the subtly flourished European style. The Ethnological museum is up there somewhere, but I failed to spot it. Shimeles did point out the American embassy though, and related the sad story of the thousands every day who spend their life’s savings to get the visa application, only to have 97% of them turned away visa-less and penny-less. I’m not as compassionate as most, so it didn’t wrench my guts, but a sad story nonetheless. Hmmm… what a cold hearted bastard: I don’t even feel ashamed when I cold shoulder the beggars in the Mercato. What’s wrong with me?
I love the flora and fauna here… it’s spectacularly different, and everything is elaborate, showy, and generally huge. The massive agaves behind the geophysical station are 20 feet tall and striped yellow and green, with occasional stalks almost 100 feet tall. There are great red-tipped grasses, and huge multi-colored flowers on vines and I can’t even guess at what most any of it is. I saw my first wild tortoises the other day behind the station, very old creatures, and Shimeles stood on the back of one while it plodded along to show how strong they were. Wow! I wanted to sit on the back of one while working on my laptop, for a picture, but didn’t get it. The birds are wonderfully colored, and their songs are new and enchanting, and of the insects I’ve seen, my favorite are the enormous black and white striped bees, an inch and a half long, which visit the hyacinths or hibiscus flowers or whatever they are, beneath my balcony.
I’m doing a horrible job taking pictures, by the way. No, dismal. No, abysmal! I’ve never been able to just walk around taking pictures of people like they are monkeys, and here, there is nothing really of note but the people. And even if there were, if I just wanted to, say, take pictures of the slummy buildings or the taxis belching smoke or the goats eating grass on the muddy median strip, I would also be taking pictures of hundreds of people, because people are everywhere here. It’s the things, of course, that everyone back home is just dying to see in my pictures that I’m uncomfortable taking pictures of: squalor, misery, beggars in the markets, the elaborately dressed Muslim women and the long bearded priests laying in the gutter with outstretched hand. The boys whipping goats across the busy avenue, the pokerfaced army men with batons and AK-47s, the young prostitutes waiting at the corner of dark alleys behind dance clubs… I know people will hate me for not taking these pictures to show them when I get back, but I just don’t think I can. And the Afar may not be much better: I’ve heard that the Afars will demand hundreds of Birr from you if they catch you taking their picture. I will try to be better, take what pictures I can… but this journal may be the best description of the trip you get, dear readers.
I’m almost done writing, but should mention that I’ve really enjoyed the old professors I’ve met at the Observatory, wonderful, eccentric old men who obviously love nothing so much as science, and have eagerly given their lives to it. And we met up with Shimeles’s old friend, who’s name was difficult and I’ve now forgot… and also his youngest brother, who still lives in Addis and has a nervous, twitchy personality that makes me think he is probably not doing so well compared to the rest of the family: his clothing is shabbier, his hands shake, and his big eyes are a bit yellowed and always darting about anxiously. But he is nice, and we talked a bit. Mikael. And Mimi, Shimeles’ wealthier, Americanized eldest sister, who is visiting Ethiopia for a month or two but will return to her accounting firm back on the east coast soon. She is nice, and talked to me at length, and we all had a nice lunch at Zola’s café together. Shimeles bought chat for Muhammed and had to borrow 200 Birr from me, which made me nervous when I found out it was for chat, but he paid me back quickly. I left a few hundred Birr in my laundry when I took it down this morning, and Kestet made fun of me when I had to go retrieve it: she said she’s never seen an American so nonchalant about the safety of his money, and told me if I didn’t watch it, I was going to have it all stolen pretty soon. (In truth, I left 2000 Birr sitting on top of my bed the other day, and the maid found it and turned it into the desk, for which I was quite thankful.) OK, I’m going back to bed. Maybe, if the winds are blowing right, we’ll actually be out of here by tomorrow afternoon, and maybe… Maybe! … we’ll get to set up the first receiver overnight at Awash. Army checkpoints and sleazy Afars… it’s enough to give a guy diarrhea! Oh, wait…