I have a few moments that undo me.

One happened on a see saw. It was tiny, plastic and yellow, and I was much too big, but I don’t let that stop me when it comes to playing with toys. A girl, pink shirt, puffy hair sat across from me. I touched her hair, then took off my hat, offered my curls. She accepted…and I don’t what happened, really, but in the next moment she had skinned her knuckle. She looked for me for sympathy and soothing, and I tried to help, with comforting tones, and a pretend kiss. But I couldn’t really kiss her hurt. She has HIV. The blood on her finger glared at me…I couldn’t kiss that littler girl’s booboo.

To make up for it, I accidentally broke the door on a little kid’s playhouse. I feel so guilty.

In my last post, I think I underscored the power of South Mercado. The day after, no one talked. We walked in silence. Most people had fitful sleep. When it came time to talk about it that night during debrief, a unwelcome silence blanketed the room. It lasted several minutes until someone spoke. Normally people are almost greedy to share. But South Mercado had done something to them.

I cannot give a sense of the place, but later I will try my hardest to deliver every detail the best I can. Now, I have obvious time constraints.

There is something intangible in the evil of South Mercado. Honestly, and I don’t think that I am using an unnecessary superlative, it is one of the scariest places I have ever been in my life. When my thoughts drift there, which they often do, I want to shudder and weep. It is so chilling…

We have returned to AHOPE three times now.  I am overwhelmed.  The children are radiant, and their smiles are bewildering almost in how beautiful they are, but half-hour or so, I realize where I am.  Surrounded by thirty children who all have HIV.  I hope that they don’t notice the sudden sadness.

But here is another thought I have about this whole dark world, about those children, about South Mercado, about the beggars who cross the street with shoes on their hands because their feet our gaunt-legged, about the kid how begs and tells me his mother and father have HIV–how he may be lying for money, but either ways it’s deep tragedy…My God is bigger than this.  He triumphs.  These things don’t even begin to compare.  It is my humanity that is so fickle, and when I look at that, well this all becomes a infinite mountain worthy of despair.  But if I listen to the songs I sing mechanically, “His grace is enough.”  Thankfully these problems are beyond my reach of solving.  I do such a poor job with the ones I assume are within my reach.

Food here is still wonderful, although my mouth is beginning to water for a real cheeseburger. The one’s here are so strange, with coleslaw and mayonaisse, and they aren’t the same. Unfortunately, the strange smells have continued. Often I am blamed for smells that don not belong to me.

Today, I said a farewell to two groups of street people that I had been working with. I realized that even though I have had my difficulties in working at my particular site, I have learned a lot from merely being in their presence. There is something surreal and tragic in the finality of the goodbye. I suppose there is always heaven.

I visited the bush on Friday, and saw several wild animals: an Oryx, a Lesser Kudu, a Salt’s Dik-Dik, a caged lion named Dolo, and monkeys. We actually stalked the monkeys and Josiah snapped some shots of them up close, at one point within ten feet of wild monkeys. I had a rock just in case, because I have heard stories, and didn’t want to have one to add to the mix.

Sadly, I heard quite a few comparisons to the Lion King, which is what I think many of us expected.  No elephant graveyards.

Also, my Lucky Charms hat fell into some majorly murky water.  I still haven’t washed it.  It may be too late.  So ends an era?

Last week, at a school, we acted out Jonah.  Phillip was the whale, and he ate me with his jacket.  Also, we did David and Goliath.  I slew Phillip with my one smooth stone.  I did not cut off his head.

Please pray that the Dark Knight is showing here in Addis.  A bunch of us want to go see it.  You know, enjoy the indigenous culture, all that jazz.  For real, pray that God will help us to leave graciously, to make the best of the time we have left, and to let God use us.  Surely He has more left.  We still have nine days.  Also pray for the BCF.  We have promised a six song set.  We only have 2 songs as of now.  A lot of pressure.

Also, if you are here, you may have received a facebook message with a few grammar errors in it.  Please ignore.  I make mistakes.  As I am sure there are mistakes in this post.  Those ones are a reflection of my true writing abilities.

Lastly, I want to say that the despair here is as thick as the pollution pouring black billows from the back of a bus, but there is also hope, so much hope.  That is what I want to bring home, although I’m afraid it won’t fit in my suitcase or my heart.

i don’t know where to start, really…

On Monday, I started work in an orphanage called AHOPE. We will be splitting our time with our original work site and the orphanage.

I don’t know how it started. I made some noises, three boys echoed me. I made a couple more noises. They echoed. I added a body gesture, they repeated it. Soon, I was waltzing around the orphanage yard, cawing, mawing, waving my arms, marching, and the kids were following the leader dutifully. At one point, I had about 20 imitating my everything…I even got them to tell Autumn that they were hungry and were going to eat here. Perhaps I misused my power. Do I regret it? Sometimes I lay awake at night…Leaving was a difficult endaeavor, as you can assume, with everyone echoing me, but I escaped.

The next day, was able to sit with several shoe shine boys, and able to pray with them. They are all boys off the street.

Then Wednesday. I am still recovering.

I returned to the AHOPE orphanage. My shadows were there, eager to imitate me. Such high flattery. I didn’t oblige them, but instead let a boy named Abraham drag me around.

And then we went to the other branch of AHOPE, for the children under 7. They are all so cute, and cuddly (and all the other smiley cliches). I had to coax a boy named Binyam to happiness, and then I couldn’t get rid of him. I plopped him on my lap and bobbed him around, and then added another boy (whose name I struggle to remember). Two little ninos juggled on my knees. Incredibly giggly, joyous faces.

Both of them have HIV. AHOPE only accepts children that are HIV positive. The second boy had a lesion on his neck and warts on his face, it was almost hard to look at…I wanted to weep…I have never experienced such privilege in my life.

That night, I walked the streets with a group of about six teammates. We met several boys who lived under a tarp against a wall.

Next, we walked the alleys of South Mercado. The alleys are paved of uneven rocks stuck in mud. Walls of sheet metals line these alleys, which stretch for kilometers. And women line the walls. Prostitutes, commercial sex workers, just sitting in doorways into huts which have little more than a bed and some posters on the walls. With two group members, I entered one of the commercial sex workers huts and talked with the woman. Her name was Jerry, a very nice woman. She indicated a curtain in the back. We lifted it to find a baby, Teguist, beautiful and asleep.

I don’t know what to do with that. With the whole day, with my entire time here. I realize how broken this world really is, and I just don’t know what to do with it. Jesus is obviously the answer, but if I am his body, what does he want of me? I know the basics, but when I look at Teguist, it all seems so much more complex than it used to. My tears aren’t enough. Sometimes they feel like all I have.

On a lighter note, still no sickness, and the food is amazing, although I have been emitting strange smells as of late. It have cause quite a ruckus.

I ate a Calzone that looked like it had eaten four litter Calzones. To all those skeptics, you would have been proud of my downing ability.

A little girl with braids turned around and I promise that the back of her looked liked the Predator. I can’t describe it any better than that.

Mainly though, I’m incredibly privileged. To have talked to Jerry, to have held those children. That God let me witness and partake in such things is more than I deserve.

Also, I will not be changing the blog title. My apologies.

Well so I have been here two weeks, exactly.  I know this because I mark it in my diary.  Not a journal.

So much has happened.  Oddly, we were making a point of dwelling on the Lord this Saturday, actually having a real Sabbath, which is something that I am not the best at practicing, when the good Phillip Harder runs into to my room and tells me that it is flooding.

Let me explain this as best I can.  There is an extremely small pondish thing off the side of the street dividing our compound–that is where the rain goes.  It would take a season of killer rain to make that thing flood.  So I what somewhat shocked when I heard Phillip.  Turns out, there is a little levy that runs alongside the compound.  I promise, I’ve never seen the river, but apparently the levy had a break, and soon much of the compound grounds were flooded.

I couldn’t help much.  I wanted to, but the water is hazardous for my supple Americanness, and so I did the best I could.  Obeyed and evacuated.  For three days we slept on lopsided cots and swapped manly stories, because now I didn’t just have one roommate, but instead 12.  A slight change, you know how it is.

So the now the water has receded (I honestly don’t know where it went) and we have returned to the closest thing I have to home, and I love it.  I can barely tell the water was here.

Other things: the work I am doing here is not always very effective.  I have learned to be content,  although this is sometimes…okay most of the time, difficult.  But I’m learning.  Anyhow, we travel one hour to the site.  We may work for an hour and a half.  Then we leave.  Mainly we talk to people that once lived on the streets, and whereas this is good, it doesn’t feel like much is happening.  So please pray that God would guide our group into effectiveness.  Even as I type that, I know it is a strange prayer.

Also, I have had a coffee ceremony, which was SWEET.  It is cultural, and I will explain it some other time.  Also, I still haven’t gotten sick.  Many dear friends have fallen to strange bowels, and that is explicit as I will get.  But know still fly high above all that murkiness.

God has shown me so much here.  I saw some kids playing soccer in the middle of a construction site with a half-deflated ball.  But they didn’t mind.

Another time, a woman crossed the road with shoes on her hand because her foot is deformed.

I got to explain the civil rights movement to a bunch of seminary students.  And they thanked me like I had given them a hundred dollars.  For simply explaining American history.  I don’t deserve moments like that.

I have also played in a two man band called BCF (Big Courageous Fernjis).  Our song Dry Mouth, Dry Heart was a smash hit.  You should hear it on the American airwaves soon.  Also noteworthy, I heard a Shakira song on the radio, Hips don’t lie, except there was an African verse thrown in the mix.  Weird.

My Ethiopian friends are so helpful.  They look out for us Americans all the time.  Hey, they even help us across the street.  I can’t how many times I have had a guiding hand on my back.  Sweet I know, but it does get frustrating sometimes.  So now us Americans sometimes joke with each other and guide each other across the street as well.  That is how we party.

My roommate and I shared a couple arguments as of now, but they have been minor and strange, and too personal to share here, as much as they make me laugh.  But for the most part we are good buds, and we laugh often, and then I tickle him, and then he gets annoyed, and then we go to Bible Study together, and he reads the Bible differently than me, which lets me debate, and if you know me then you know this is a gravy train for me.  Also, he is going to take me to his house sometime, which I am stoked about.

Once again, I don’t know how I sound in this blitz of a blog.  I won’t check it over, so ignore the mistakes, or else you are just hurting my feelings, and we don’t want that.

I cannot really tell you anything about Africa. Or Ethiopia. But I will try.

Right out of the airport, some men helped us put our bags into the cars…and ignorant we let them. Turns out they live like this, waiting for travelers, forcefully helping, and then demanding pay. But what struck me most were two men on crutches standing on the side. I now know that they were waiting to make eye contact with me because they are beggars, and that is what they do, but I didn’t know it then. And even now that I do, I cannot help but make eye contact with beggars. But in this particular instance, I shook hands with the first one, not knowing what I was doing, and then he held out his hand–the universal sign for begging…and then the other beggar hobbled over and did the same…

and I still don’t know what to do in that situation. I weep, I can tell you that much. Even now, when I ride back from this internet cafe, I will see things that will hurt to see, and that pain will hopefully leave a scar. I want these scars. This part of the world deserves them from me, because that means that I have truly lived in someone else’s experience. It also means that I will never forget, because the scars will always be with me. I think about scars a lot.

All is not woe, I promise. There is such beauty here, in eyes. In the Ethiopian skin, in their song, in their love for God. The food is exquisite, and I eat so much here (I think my ravenous hunger would honestly baffle those who know me.) I found an exotic orchid, alongside a wall, and it may have been the most beautiful flower I have ever seen. I won’t injustice it by describing it to you.

I went outside last night, near where we do our laundry (which is an adventure that I don’t have time to describe) and I was singing. A girl named Selam (peace) was doing her laundry. “What are you doing?” she asked.

“Singing to the moon,” I replied.

“It is so beautiful.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “We live in such a blessed and cursed world.”

“What do you mean?” she said, somewhat confused.

“Look at that moon. It is so wonderful as it shines on us. But even as it shines, the light falls on the homeless street people, some of whom will die tonight.”

That is what I think of this place. I am so privileged to be here. Every moment is undesrved. I wrote in my journal that I will never leave Africa. I may return to America, but I will never leave Africa. You cannot leave things that are in your heart.

I realize I haven’t really told you much about Ethiopia, just my thoughts. I am working with street people during the week, but we have only been planning, so I can’t tell you too much. My Ethiopian roommate is named Sami, and he is so patient with me, an ignorant ferenji (foreigner.) Sometimes I struggle emotionally, and not in the noble way you might expect. I am very selfish and cannot always see how God is working. I expected this trip to look a certain way, and it doesn’t, to be honest, which is good. But in the process of my expectations dying, I can just be a negative nancy. I need prayer for patience and grace in this area. I haven’t gotten sick yet, so please pray that I don’t, because that isn’t fun–we can be honest about that.

The gross part of me wants to tell you about the squattie potties, but I don’t expect that would be taken very well, especially by some of you that I value the most.

I went to a school the other day for children whose mother’s have HIV. I was only there for a short time, and they had such dirty hands, but they all wanted to shake yours, and touch my hat and curly hair…but I have never been happier to have dirty hands.

I walked past a beggar without eyes. Another without an arm. Another nursing a child. Another beggar was a child. No child should know how to beg. Another girl, named Lem Lem, sells us gum at the bus stop. She is glorious, but she should not be selling gum. Her smile alone is worth the 4000 dollars this trip cost. Another beggar had an extremely bloated foot. Another’s face was literally falling off. It is hard to look at, but I force myself to. I have looked away for far too long.

I don’t know what I can do here. My hands are only so big, and terribly unskilled. But my God is bigger than me. Without Him, this trip would amount to nothing more than a cultural experience, and that is a disgusting waste.

I heard that some prostitutes sell themselves for only 1 Birr. That is the equivalent of 10 cents.  This may be a rare exception.  But still.

I have so much to tell you. Really, I’m bursting…but I have already been here too long. Please, remember me in your prayers. Also don’t judge me for the sloppiness of this post. I am rushing to give you as much as I can.

P.S. there is nothing in this ps.

Welcome.  Likely you are here because you heard about my Ethiopia trip.  Basically, this will replace email updates while I am on trip.  So you can check this weekly, or daily I suppose, hoping that I’ve included tidbits of my life in Ethiopia.  Expect things like amazing stories from Ethiopia, poems inspired by the experience, and prayer requests.  As it looks now, we may have internet access weekly or bi-weekly, and I’ll update this blog whenever possible.  Hopefully, by then, the blog will have acquired a better title.  Currently, I’ve called it “Something More Creative Later”–which I don’t think is a bad title, but I think I can do better.  Then again, you may be reading from “Something More Creative Later” right now, in which case, I didn’t come up with anything more creative.  Life keeps going.

Please ignore my poor writing.  I anticipate that you will find extra words, missing words, misspelled words, incomplete sentences, awkward sentences, out-of-place commas…and all sorts of no-no’s for an Writing major such as myself.  I don’t have a good excuse for my mistakes, but I can almost guarantee that you will encounter some if you survive through more than one blog post.

I suppose that I should say more things, but right now I’ve overdosed on blogging, and if I keep going at this rate, I shall have to go the hospital for blog detox, and if that happens, I think that customs will keep me in the country, and then the whole point of this silly trifle of a blog will be lost, all my efforts will have been in vain, and heartbroken, I will never blog again, which I think we can both agree would be the greatest tragedy to humanity since the death of Bonaparte.