Swan Song, Part 2: Metaphorical Lemonade

Continuation of Swan Song, Part 1: My Pipe Dream…

Even knowing that I might fulfill my goal of creating a long-lasting project that will benefit people in and around Gondar, there is still another big issue that I have to face: the negative memories from my last few months in Ethiopia. As some of my previous posts have illustrated, my last few months in Ethiopia were the most difficult of my entire fellowship –from re-adjusting to the loneliness of Gondar after spending a wonderful week with the other JSC fellows in Israel, to sexual harassment not just from my student but from someone I liked and trusted, and ending with my illness and experience with the Ethiopian medical system, I didn’t get to ride out of Ethiopia on a wave of happy memories and list of goals completed. See, that’s the thing about graduations, goodbye parties, and final banquets: between the tearful speeches, slideshows of memories and milestones set to sappy, yet upbeat music, and hugs goodbye, you focus on the positive memories while any lingering negative memories suddenly have a slightly rosier glow. And in the wake of the phone call in which the decision was made that I would not be going back to Ethiopia, a decision that I know now was very much the right thing for my health, I suddenly found myself overcome with the fact that not only would I not get to say goodbye or wrap up my projects, but that my parting memories of Ethiopia were not remotely wonderful. As I said before, there is nothing that I can say or do to change what happened, but just because there was no going away party with speeches and slide shows doesn’t mean that I can’t reminisce about all the good times, and in doing so, remind myself that the way my experience ended wasn’t representative of my entire time in Ethiopia. So here are my favorite memories from the eight months I spent in Ethiopia, the memories that when I look back on this experience years from now, will be what I hope to remember above all else.

The feeling of accomplishment that I got from the little things, like telling someone in Amharic that my work was going well or successfully buying the fruits and vegetables I needed for the week. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that grocery shopping will never be so rewarding again.
The evening of the Ethiopia vs. Nigeria football (aka soccer) match that would determine whether Ethiopia would go to the World Cup the following summer. One of my friends had gotten a bunch of cheap Ethiopia jerseys, and everywhere I went that afternoon, people smiled at me, gave me high fives, and honked and waved at me. As my friends and I walked to the beer garden, one of them on each side of me and neither of them wearing jerseys, a passing truck driver yelled out: “You look beautiful! Only the one in the middle, not you two. Go Ethiopia!” That night, it didn’t matter that I was a ferenji, all that mattered was that I supported Ethiopia.
The progress I saw some of my students make over the course of the year, especially the kids who were troublemakers at the start.
“Galentines Day” was an event to remember
Eating way too many homemade cupcakes, cookies, and pudding while watching chick flicks with my friends in the middle of rural Ethiopia for Valentine’s Day.
Watching the incredible sunsets almost every night and going out on my balcony to look at the stars.
Any time I had a positive conversation with an Ethiopian, I walked away happy.
When Jason and I threw a Halloween party and asked people to dress up, I thought the lack of any sort of costume material would force everyone to show up in normal clothes, but seeing the creative costumes that my friends came up with (a care package, a hole in one, and so on) further reinforced not only how amazing my friends are, but also that we didn’t need expensive costumes and craft stores to do something fun. We even found some pumpkins to carve!
Swimming with whale sharks in Djibouti.
The times that my students laughed along with me in class, and the times that they participated in the lesson in a way that was respectful towards me as their teacher.
Spending time with my guard, Zelalem, and in particular, one night when I went out to hang out with him and we ended up dancing with the dogs.
Seeing blue, red, and orange starfish while snorkeling in Mombasa, Kenya. Later that day, a local teenage boy offered to show me a nearby village, and when I turned him down he said, “you know, you don’t get to see the type of life they have at the village, people cook over fire. Your hotel is like your everyday life.” And I looked at him and said, “I live in Ethiopia. That village is my everyday life. The hotel, with its pool and nice food, is a change for me.” That shut him up and it made me happy to defy the stereotype he assumed defined me.
The 2013-14 JSC fellows in Israel in Feb. 2014
The overwhelming amount of support that I got from my friends in Gondar and the other JSC fellows around the world. Sometimes talking about problems we faced just led to a massive outpouring of negativity, but other times it lead to really heartfelt talks and more support than I ever could have expected from people I had only known for such a short period of time.
One of my very first lessons at Fasilides Secondar School when Jason and I taught about adjectives. We passed out cut-outs from magazines and asked the students to describe, using adjectives, what they saw in the photos. Some of the students really struggled at first, but with a little encouragement, those same students were the ones energetically waving their hands to be called on to present at the end of class.
Making it to the summit in the Simien Mountains
The stars in the Simien Mountains, the thrill of seeing the monkeys in the mountains for the first time, and reaching the peak of the mountain we climbed the last day, even when the guide didn’t believe I could do it.
Funny Amharic to English mis-spellings or misunderstandings. “Lamp” (aka lamb) was all over menus, the tagline for the hotel near my house which was “where hospitality can be witnessed”, the man who barely spoke English but told us that his recent break-up was “psychological torture”, or the man who told me the weather in Gondar was suitable for human beings, and laughing with Jason at the hilarious ways in which educated Ethiopians could be so long-winded and verbose.
Learning to cook things that I used to rely on a mix for in the U.S.
A little girl in the pediatric malnutrition ward set up her dolls on her bed. This photo may not be reproduced for any reason.
Going back to the pediatric malnutrition ward the day after handing out dolls to the kids and seeing that one little girl had tucked in her doll, resting its head on her threadbare pillow.
Giggling with the girls in the gender empowerment club, or listening to their words of support after I was sexually harassed.
The time when I went with a visiting JDC Entwine group to visit a rural school outside of Gondar. I started talking with a few boys about their English classes, and soon a huge group formed of kids who wanted to share with me what they were learning in their English classes and talk about soccer. At a time when it seemed like every conversation I was having with my students was a battle, the hour-long discussion I had with those kids was refreshing.
Soon after the sexual harassment incident, when I was tired of all the abuse I got for being a foreigner, a group of little kids in my neighborhood chased my car one day as I was heading home, only to stand outside my gates and blow kisses at me.

As I write this, I know I could keep going and I am reminded of the positive moments in what seemed like months of frustration. I remember that although being sick was a frustrating experience overall, during that time teachers at school offered me all sorts of home remedies for getting better (garlic and honey? Blech) and a friend who lived nearby took time out of her busy schedule to bring me over mangoes and tomatoes. I remember students who didn’t seem to care at all about my classes standing outside their classrooms begging me to come teach them even though they knew I didn’t have lessons with them that day. I think of how one of my male students pulled me aside after class to tell me he was sorry that the sexual harassment incident had happened, and how my day was lifted by the air kisses of the little kids in my neighborhood at a time when I didn’t even want to go outside. I’ve found that the longer my list of happy memories grows, the more I find myself missing Ethiopia, a bittersweet emotion in and of itself as it is always coupled with the reminder that I would still be there if I hadn’t gotten sick.

I also know that I grew from all these negative experiences. Facing a lack of respect every single day for being a white foreign woman, I learned how to respectfully stand-up for myself, something that I wasn’t good at in the past (not the respectful part, the standing up for myself part). Too often in the past, when someone, either a complete stranger or a person close to me, wasn’t treating me right, I would get frustrated but never say anything. But living in Ethiopia taught me that sometimes you have to tell the person who says it is okay that you are constantly harassed for being a woman that in fact, it isn’t okay, or kick the kid out of class who repeatedly disrespects you. And while I’m not dealing with unruly teenagers or sexual harassment anymore, there have already been times since coming home when someone isn’t treating me right and rather than just walk away, I have turned to them and said “You know what? What you’re doing isn’t right.”

You may be thinking that I’m trying too hard to make lemons out of lemonade, but that’s what I went to Ethiopia to do (figuratively, anyway). This wasn’t an experience that is just a difficult part of life that I had to go through, like middle school or braces, it was something that that I chose to do. I chose to give up a good job, an incredible apartment, and leave people who love me in order to challenge myself. I even asked to be in a developing country. I wanted to come back to the U.S. a stronger person. And a life full of positive experiences doesn’t pose any challenges, doesn’t force you to grow. When you’re in the midst of growing pains, it is hard to be comforted by the fact that you are growing, and it wasn’t until I left the challenges of Ethiopia that I could begin to reflect on how the experience changed me. Just dismissing the last few months of my fellowship as a negative experience would have diminished my entire time there and shown that I failed in my goal to learn from the challenging situations I knew I would face. So yes, I am trying to draw out positives from what seem like overwhelmingly negative situations, but not for your sake, for mine.

While sitting through one of my brother’s many graduation activities, I thought about the importance of goodbyes, but also of not waiting until that final wrap-up to say and do what is important to you. It made me realize that as an adult, life no longer comes with set starting and ending points that everyone follows; instead, friends you’ve been meaning to spend more time with go back to school and move away, or you leave one job for another and can’t finish up a project you’ve poured your heart and soul into. That’s the thing about all those high school graduation speeches, there’s so much talk about living life to the fullest, but no one ever tells you that no matter how full your life is, sometimes life throws you a curve ball and you have to take a deep breath, think of whatever happy memories you had time to make, and move on.

And that concludes my swan song, the end of the wild ride I’ve been on for over a year, since it was last January that I decided to apply for this fellowship. I want to thank you all so much for taking the time to read my blog, it blows my mind that complete strangers are interested in hearing what I have to say. Many people have asked what I am going to do next, and the first part of that is getting my health back to where it should be. After that, I hope to work for an organization that provides humanitarian aid to developing countries around the world, preferably back in New York City since being away for a year made me realize how crazy I am about the place. I’d love to work on water issues, but it’s a small field, so it may be a few more years before I have the experience necessary to get a job in that area. I’m willing to talk to anyone and hear about all kinds of opportunities, so if you want to share anything, please leave a comment and I’ll be in touch.

Finally, if you or someone you know would be interested in the Jewish Service Corps fellowship, you can learn more here. Additionally, if you would like to learn more about the work of Dr. Rick Hodes as well as how to support him, you can find his website here.

Just in case you didn’t have a chance to do it while reading my last post, you can go to this page to learn more and support my initiative to build a well (or several!) in the rural areas outside of Gondar. If you’d rather take the old-fashioned approach, you can send a check made out to JDC to:

Clean Water in Ethiopia
P.O. Box 4124 New York, NY 10163 U.S.A.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment and I’ll try to answer you. Thanks again for reading!