Saturday and Sunday

Sunday

 

Today was a relaxing day, a real day of rest. The five SIL members who are currently here in Asosa met for praise, reflection, and prayer in the morning, then my housemate, David, and I played some board games and watched a movie. I also walked around town a bit and took some pictures of all the freshly painted walls and all the flags and other decorations that are visible around town. The “bajajes” were again not running, presumably so as not to block the path of all of the SUVs, which are ten times more numerous this weekend than they were at the beginning of the week. Small groups of important people are being transported from place to place in SUVs; larger groups are moved via full-size buses that look pretty new. I’m not seeing the buses any more that I thought were providing public transportation in place of the bajajes.

I found a bajaj parked yesterday, so I took a picture of it to give you a better idea what they look like. (See photo below.) Sorry it wasn’t open so you could see the inside, but there is a bench seat in the back that seats three people comfortably (at least by local standards), and there is a seat beside the driver, so normal capacity is four passengers.



You can also see in the photos I’m including with this post the split-bamboo fencing that is common here in Asosa. Many homes and businesses covered up their fencing of this type with tin—some say they were forced to do so—so I’ve included a picture of a place where this happened. In the picture showing the teal and yellow sheets of tin, there is a bamboo fence behind the tin. In the picture of the road that runs near the house where I’m staying, the lines were painted just last week. They already look like they’ve been there for quite some time.

Split bamboo fencing:

 

Below is the tin façade:

 

Newly painted lines on the street:

Saturday  Half Day of Word Collection

The “bajajes” are running again after only one day of ‘suspension.’ Rumor has it that Friday was the day all of the VIPs were scheduled to arrive, so the motorized tricycle taxis were banned from the roads for the day. Today they were back in service, a number of them flying the national flag and/or one of the nine regional flags. A few days ago, I saw one that was flying so many different flags, I thought it would create enough drag to impact the vehicle’s fuel economy. I’d like to take a lot of pictures, but there are so many people in uniform around to provide security during this event that I’m scared of inadvertently taking a picture of something that someone thinks I shouldn’t and having my camera confiscated.

Because we won’t be able to meet to collect words on Monday, we had everyone come for half a day today. The participants were very good about it, but we could tell that everyone is feeling tired. Progress these past few days has been quite slow, as it is very hard work for these individuals to spend a whole day (or even half of one) thinking about their language. Language is something that they use without reflecting on what they’re saying, how they’re saying it, why they choose to say it that way, and so on. Asking them to focus on abstract topic after abstract topic is something that they’re not at all used to, so it wears them out much more quickly than it would those of us who are used to tasks that require a lot of mental energy.

At the end of the morning, just before we dismissed them for the long weekend, I tried to give them a bit of a pep talk. I explained to them that doing something that one is not used to is tiring. For them, thinking about their language is draining; but if I went to work in the fields with them, they would see that I would be tired long before they would be. I told them that, after five weeks away from home, I was tired and ready to go back home and be with my family again. But because I agreed to come here and lead this workshop for another week, I will honor my commitment and give of my best for yet another week. Similarly, as they have promised to work for two weeks to collect words from their language for a dictionary, I encouraged them to honor their commitment and give of their best for the week that remains. In the meantime, I told them to go and have fun for the next two and a half days, enjoy the festivities, and come back on Tuesday refreshed and recharged, ready to finish what we came here to do.

In the afternoon, David and I went to town to try to find flour, so that I could cook what I had planned for the evening meal. An SIL couple with a toddler have arrived in town, so we invited them to join us for macaroni and tuna, which requires flour as a thickener in the sauce. I had been looking in various shops for packaged flour, but without success. This time I decided I would just go from shop to shop, specifically asking for what I was looking for. This is the second time (out of two attempts) that that strategy has worked well for me, as the first place I inquired had it (in a sack on the floor under the counter where I couldn’t see it from the outside). The places where I’ve found first the macaroni, and now the flour, have surprised me because they didn’t look like places that were likely to have what I was looking for. ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’ applies here, I guess. (These ‘shops’ are ones where you don’t go inside, but simply conduct your business through a front window which allows you to see in—but apparently not to see everything that is inside.)  We were five adults who gathered around 6:30, entertained by Fletcher, the lone child in our midst. We enjoyed the meal and fellowship together, and now plan to organize our own worship service together tomorrow morning.

Kevin Warfel