Flipping the Narrative
Hands down Ethiopia has the best coffee in the world!
Earlier this year, I traveled to Ethiopia. In traveling around I met many people, farmers, restaurant workers, tourism employees, teachers, and fellow travelers. I didn’t know what to expect and I learned that by traditional Ethiopian standards, I knew nothing.
If I were to be plopped down in the middle of the Gondar highlands or the urban capital city of Addis Ababa, I would most definitely be lost.
I don't speak Amharic. I only communicate with the ten words and phrases I know, which doesn’t help when I travel outside the capital city, as there are 46 other languages spoken across the vastly diverse country.
I don’t have any land to grow my bananas, tef, sorghum, or corn.
I do not have any cows, goats, or chickens.
I don’t live with my extended family for communal and economic support.
I don’t have any children to teach my skills to, no extra hands to harvest crops and tend flocks or pass the time with telling stories, dancing, and singing.
As a woman, I don’t know how to make doro wat, the specialty chicken stew that is presented to visiting tribal members to show high honor and respect when strengthening alliances through marriage arrangements.
When we equate richness and success to dollar bills, in Ethiopia, I have a week’s worth of toilet paper.
I’m not blind. It’s difficult to see past the fly covered faces of the little ones with no shoes. I can understand why this is all that people see because the level of change it would take to make a difference, to cure the many illnesses, heal past wounds, and provide real sustainable solutions to economic and environmental challenges not just for Ethiopia’s 11 million inhabitants, but across the developing world is unfathomable.
“The ultimate souvenir is a broader perspective.”
Just as I would strike up a conversation at home with a Lyft driver, librarian, bartender or waitress, it didn’t stop me from chatting with people in Ethiopia either. Why would it? People generally want to tell you how they see the world and if you’re willing to listen, it is fascinating.
People are truly fascinating. These conversations will be better than you expect and worth more than anything you’d buy as a souvenir. Moreover the world will get just a little bit smaller. As we rush back to normalcy from this global pandemic, I’ve been thinking and making lists of the kind of world I want to come back to and, kind is certainly at the center of it.
Some drive, some walk. We’re all heading somewhere. It’s just important that we keep moving.
When your taxi driver insists that you meet his family!
During quarantine, I seized the opportunity to reconnect with as many people as possible, from Italy to Nicaragua who’ve at one point or another welcomed me into their home and shared their culture (food) with me. Those relationships can span miles and even years. Text messages and emails being sent thousands of miles apart connect us once again and those moments although fleeting, still account for something. Still account for the good in the world where a “Hey, how are you?” Is met with a “Good, how are you?” This simple exchange, although elementary is always felt with a smile and goodwill.
Everyone is in the same boat, from America to Zambia and it will be us who see this thing through. This is the common good; referring to the well being of an entity or a society as a whole. Defined by the Greeks, specifically Aristotle who supported that particular goods like justice, health, security, can be reached through communal action and dynamic participation of the society represented in the state. Even before the famous Greeks took the stage at the local amphitheater to lecture on the common good, Native American tribes were collaborating with one another for a hunt, determining where to migrate in the winter, and strengthening alliances. With the first step out of Africa, as a species, we’ve been surviving through cooperation.
To travel is a privilege; and to see this world is a series of experiences that show you a bigger purpose than yourself. Now, to be in isolation, unable to travel, it gives pause to see how our local communities and neighborhoods are shone in a different light. Of all the emotions that this pandemic has conjured, perhaps empathy is the most profoundly shared feeling.
The sky is the limit! Gondar, Ethiopia
Cooperation has provided opportunities for us to thrive as a civilization. The essential workers are the common good who exist and contribute to ensuring our basic needs are met, if not just simply available. A neighbor who dons a bandana and garden gloves as protective equipment to make sure that food is stocked on grocery shelves is the same person who has cleaned office buildings and homes. They are also the same people who are juggling family needs and an online logistics company to schedule deliveries of much needed supplies at the medical device factory. They are farmers, truck drivers, sewer treatment operators, trash collectors, small business owners. It is not about playing a role in society, but rather a defining integral position that provides for us all to keep living. Think about how many people have kept you living this week.
What an unusual time. This is so rare. In all the history of the world’s current population, a pandemic this scale has never occurred. This pause in our lives has never happened before until now. This virus unplugged the world's treadmill and instead of falling off, we've risen to the occasion to adapt, to research, to learn where before we filled our days with busyness.
We’ve been so busy.
Staying busy.
Sorry, I’ve been so busy, busy.
“Busy,” a word that now has no schedule, no pressure to perform or impress. A word that has been replaced with a myriad of other words expressing the collective unknown. Embrace these moments because we are the essentials in determining what our future will be.
I'm in awe and somewhat embarrassed that it has taken a pandemic to meet some of my neighbors. Just this morning, one of them brought over homemade focaccia bread, making the joke that it's probably not as good as the restaurants in town, but she had a craving for it and figured I might too. I can't wait until this is over to hug her.
I've been gifted all types of plants for my yard, a jar of homemade tomato sauce, books to read, bananas, paints that weren't being used, and oranges-- a shit ton of oranges that even I have happily shared and re-gifted because even when I’ve traveled in other countries the gift of nourishment is never turned down.
The gift of nourishment is never turned down.
Through this time, we are learning what is possible. We are adapting. Just like traveling to Ethiopia, I didn’t know what to expect and felt I had everything to learn. I saw things that I couldn’t put into words, but felt humbled by and more often than not inspired to be better, to do better. This virus is the enemy, not people.
Through this whole thing, I’ve become friends with a guy from Venezuela who has through modern day technology taught me how to put together this very website. In a time where travel is somewhat forbidden, I’m thankful that the universe has introduced me to him. From Squarespace logistics to better arepa-making recipes, we’ve shared travel stories and cultural norms, all of which differ in their own way, yet are tied to the human condition. I listened to how he defined an “emergency.” Growing up in Venezuela, he was accustomed to rolling power outages, no electricity, not enough food. An emergency to him is death, or darn near close to it. Emergencies in the United States right now are a temporarily closed bowling alley or not enough toilet paper.
How little the time has passed to adapt, learn, and flex our vulnerability muscle to realize what facilitates a true emergency. To realize that essential workers are still earning minimum wage and showing up for us, despite fears of falling ill or worse spreading it to family members at home. To hear that hospital workers, from custodians to ER nurses have worked tirelessly for strangers, without a day off, isolated from their family for fear of possibly spreading the virus. To read stories of patients succumbing alone, without family or friends by their side. To see corruption of elected officials who equate deaths to monetary gain.
What normalcy will we build to come back to?
The exchange of busyness for contentment. Understanding vulnerability as a strength and flipping the narrative where the word poor is never uttered from our mouths again. To see our similarities before our differences and to remain hopeful and persevering to the payoff of the unknown. Because this virus is the enemy, not the people.
I think it’s ok that we don’t know what to expect because we have each other and that is all that has mattered for the last four million years.