Well, I've now been in Ethiopia for around two and a half weeks. So, I've now been in the continent of Africa for two and a half weeks - a continent I always said I would love to take six months out of my life to explore if I ever had the chance. I don't know where that figure ever came from. I just surmised that you would need at least six months to say you even partially know Africa. So, I'm here for definite for three months. And I technically have just over three months after that where I have nothing concrete planned. I now suspect that what I have always wistfully wished for may actually be coming true... But, I'm just going to stay open to the events around me. Thankfully my presence has not yet caused social and political unrest (despite some apparent bets that predicted it would given my recent history with Nicaragua and Ecuador). So, I'm hopeful that I may have a lot more time yet to explore this amazing part of the world.
So, lightning can indeed strike twice. There is something about my time here in Ethiopia that echoes how I felt in Nicaragua over 11 years ago. It may be because I am exploring a new continent with a social, cultural, economic and political history very different from anything I've ever experienced before (just like Nicaragua all those years ago). But, I have those feels. You know what I am talking about... where something is actually touching your soul and you know that it is in control of you, rather than you being in control of it. Ecuador was a much needed transition... but Africa is where the real learning, transformation and healing is going to happen. I feel it in my bones. And it's just the start. In approximately one week's time I will be entering my first ever refugee camp. In a conflict area (on the border between Eritrea and Ethiopia) and passing through a number of conflict areas to get there. I am excited. I will have little time to process anything because my role here is so full-on... I will be training, mentoring, data collecting, analysing, networking and travelling across four refugee camps in less than five weeks. I will be leading a small group of local volunteers across this journey, most of whom themselves have never seen the inside of a refugee camp and will be passing through conflict areas where they might actually be in some danger due to their own ethnic and religious background. I have no idea what is in front of me. I only know it feels right...
Today I partially moved into an apartment that I will be sharing with another volunteer for the time I remain in Addis Ababa (likely another week) and then my last month here (likely late March to mid-April although I suspect I might actually be here until late April - there is a lot to do). It's a lovely apartment (basic, of course, but actually quite lovely when you restrict your parameters to that) and I'm looking forward to a different way of life here. Where I actually have to use the Amharic I have learned basically, and force myself to socialise with people who don't speak English well. I'm also extremely looking forward to cooking here. Oh my God... the FOOD here. I am a spice fanatic. A vindaloo is a load of crap... most Indians you speak to will tell you this dish is an abomination of what spicy food is supposed to be. The TASTE of the spices here... the berbere (Ethiopian chilli) and how the Ethiopians combine it with garlic, ginger, tumeric and cardamon... it's something else entirely. I'm in love... the injera (a pancake-y tortilla that is their staple carbohydrate), the wot (spicy sauce), the fuul (the best source of protein here without having to be a carnivore)... I could just go on and on. And then there is the coffee and the wine. I knew about the coffee (who doesn't?!?), but I did not expect the wine (thankfully, VSO's no drinking policy actually just means when I am working and representing VSO... so, I have been drinking... oh yes... moderately... but the beer and the wine is VERY GOOD). In all honesty, I am quite fascinated by Ethiopia. And the Ethiopian people I meet.
I am quite a tactile person. I hug. I kiss. I get right in your face and show you what I'm feeling and how I am feeling it. I feel very comfortable being myself here and don't feel I have to reign it in, like how I have felt for a long time in England. That it is too much. That I am too much. That I should somehow be passively aware of how my own energy may be impacting on someone else's self-esteem when, let's face it, it's their responsibility to sort out their self-esteem issues and my energy is actually helping to highlight that to them. **Sigh** This is what I loved about Nicaragua. It's that the rules don't really apply to me. That somehow I slip under the radar of normality because I am in a box labelled 'white, educated foreigner' which gives me a lot of room to move. It doesn't matter if I never end up in a different box. I can stay in that one and it is fine. I don't have that box in the UK. It's all a process of becoming... maybe I could be a mother; maybe I could be a wife; maybe I could be a professor; maybe I could be a best selling author. There's always another box; another process of becoming. But, here, I'm happy in that foreign, nomadic box where I hurt no one and no one hurts me (at least, on the surface). Maybe that's my lesson. Maybe I should take that box back to the UK (and how I feel inside it) and shut out all that noise around me. It's a hermit's life... but it's also not...
I'm learning about interdependency here. We all have co-dependent tendencies, even when you appear to be as 'independent' as I am. I swing. Oh Christ, I swing. Ask my exes. The resolution is always somewhere in the middle (but where you still have all the feels). As much as my Nicaraguan friends might shoot me for this, Nicaragua underscored that my 'independent' nature hid a part of myself that I was scared of... terrified of in fact. That I needed recognition. That I needed validation. That I needed to be loved. But, externally. Because I couldn't see what could be loved about myself internally. Those bloody Latin American men (and I'm thinking of one in particular) got that out of me. And I will forever be thankful for it. That I shouted, I screamed, I cracked and cried; and felt as if I might die... and then somewhere through all that I started to pay attention to myself and what I actually needed. That the most important relationship I would ever have would be with myself. That I could never really love another without really loving and validating myself first...
Ethiopia has its issues, but it isn't quite in the same league as Nicaragua when it comes to co-dependent relationships. There are a lot of extra-marital affairs here (I've been propositioned a few times already!), but the nature of it is different. I haven't fully put my finger on it yet... but I sense more interdependency here. Where people really support each other and it doesn't always mean you have to sacrifice the most essential parts of yourself to have that support network. I am here to heal. I have no idea what that will look like at the other side. But, my ideas about relationships are changing. And about independence. All I know is that it is where I need to be for now,..
No comments:
Post a Comment