Sylvia's Journal

It is July the 10th and July the 5th at the same time here. It is both 2009 and 2001 and as I write this, it is 11 o’clock and it is also 5 o’clock. It remains utterly confusing to have two calendars operating side by side in this society. Sometimes there is a helpful (EC) placed after the date or time, which means Ethiopian Calendar; but more often than not it is assumed that we know. When people say they were born in 1976 does that mean they are now 33 or 25? It is amazing that I haven’t heard much about collisions between those different ways of measuring time. Somehow people who deal with the non-Ethiopian world are managing this just fine.

I checked out of the hotel but not after giving the manager a piece of my mind about customer service. He nodded in agreement and invoked again the excuse of rationed electricity. An argument that doesn’t hold since (a) it is a predictable event (every other day) and (b) all hotels in the neighborhood have generators and an uninterrupted power supply for their guests. He looked at my bag as asked, “are you checking into another hotel in town?” I would have liked to say yes but I am leaving town.

Over break I talk with Pierre-Marie about his ambition to become president of Cameroon. He is serious and studies Obama. He needs a platform, or manifesto, and I have offered to mindmap his ideas while waiting for our plane tonight. I am proud to be his first campaign worker. We agree he should start small, like Obama, maybe run for a district assembly seat first. His ideas are wonderful and sincere – he does remind me of Obama, the same smile and the same quiet way of talking about his dreams, which are quite similar to Obama’s. This is why I took a picture of him under the Obama poster at the Bahir Dar airport.

Maybe he will also write a book, even though it will only reach the intelligentsia. Cameroon has a large illiterate and poor population that would willingly follow anyone who promises TVs and other material goods in exchange for a vote. Pierre-Marie is offering self esteem and pride instead and a kind of bootstrap-self reliance, but what would that be to a person without work and an income? And then of course there is the challenge of having to deal with the powerful oil and mining lobbies with their deep pockets and good lawyers; but if Obama can become president of the US, why not a president Pierre-Marie of Cameroon? Our motto here is ‘everything is possible.’

I am watching the local facilitators grow in front of my eyes. They are ‘getting it,’ and see how this program is different from other leadership work they have done before. They are seeing how each session builds on the previous and how the pieces connect. They have started to challenge old habits and sloppy thinking practices. This is my last day of coaching them and I am very happy; my job here is done. I can move to Afghanistan knowing that the Ethiopia leadership program is in good hands.

We celebrated the very high note ending of this first workshop in Pierre Marie’s government-owned-fancy-but-badly-maintained hotel with a pricy and mediocre meal ($6) and then made our way through thunder, lightning and rainstorms to the tiny airport. Because of the weather we ended up waiting there for hours which we passed by watching a grainy Ethiopian TV channel while the electricity cycled off and on. For periods of time we’d sit in the dark after which the nominal security checks resumed. Any person with bad intentions could have slipped in without anyone noticing, but everything felt quite safe in a small town sort of way.

When we arrived at our hotel in Addis the nightclub was throbbing at full speed. It was 1 in the morning

I am starting to get the lunch routine: large quantities of finely cut meat and chicken deposited on the rag-like injeera bread, eaten very quickly as if one’s life depended on it and then a visit to the espresso machine for a much more leisurely after lunch macchiato. Eating is more of a functional activity than a social activity. Some of the people who have visited the US commented on how long Americans spent in restaurants. Not here.

The restaurant where we ate Wednesday night’s meal is called the Friendship restaurant. It serves a house injeera dish, friendship firfir, chicken pieces, egg mixed in with pieces of injeera on top of injeera. Last night’s new dish was Ethio-Italian fusion: spaghetti with injeera, eating with one’s fingers. Kids would love it here!

I am beginning to learn the names of the various local dishes. At first they all looked alike. I can now detect the raw meat dishes that are served amidst the cooked meat at lunch during the workshop. Since we are holding the workshop in the dirty hotel, I am not touching those. This seems the prudent thing to do, even though I did like the ones I tried last week in Addis.

The Friendship restaurant is an example of Ethiopian entrepreneurship. The owner is a lecturer about entrepreneurship at Bahir Dar University and clearly knows his subject matter. He started with a small eating house which has now become one of the more popular dining establishments in town. When we got there it was full and when we left it was still full of people eating injeera or pizza or spaghetti. Even last night, with electricity missing, it was full with people eating entirely in the dark. We went elsewhere, preferring a meal we could actually see.

At lunchtime I joined a zonal governor and a regional health economist. They talk about leadership – what else – and then about Obama. They had both read his two books and cheered him on long before most Americans decided he was the right person. They brushed aside his African descent as of minor importance; instead they admired his stance towards change, his sincerity, his courage and moral character. You’d think he is their president, so proud are they. It is nice to hear that people here feel America has brought them good things, for a change, like Obama and Michael Jackson.

The group is beginning to thaw a bit. I notice a little more energy on our second day. The shy people (the two women and some of the men lower in the hierarchy) are starting to participate more. The facilitators are realizing that the quiet nature of people is not entirely an immutable fact of life and depends to some degree on their own behavior as facilitators. It’s a powerful lesson about change and taking things for granted – we are going straight against the grain of a long process of acculturation. I am pointing out things they can’t see because they are so used to them being the way they are. We are trying to instill a habit of questioning the status quo – it’s a little revolutionary. Some of the people get that and see the potential.

The facilitators have a tendency to drift back into what I call ‘priest behavior’ – passionate lectures with raised finger to emphasize their message, make a point. Everyone falls right into position of passive listener. It feels familiar and comfortable and we argue a bit about whether it is good or not. There is a tendency to patronize people: punish late comers (the facilitator is the one who punishes) and reward those who arrive on time with a prize. I remind them that this is a parent-child relationship with people who are otherwise adults and ask them if that is what they want. No, they don’t but had not realized that that is what they were doing. These are very deep-seated habits, created way back in grade school and never questioned since. The pervasive religiosity in this country, with its paternalistic language, supports this way of thinking and being – flocks, sheep and shepherd, father and son, obedience, good and evil.

After dinner we went to a tiny night club, its 25×25 feet floor space occupied by at least 50 people sitting (very) closely together on tiny stools drinking beer or Coca Cola and watching traditional music, song and dance. The artists performed in a space no larger than 3 feet by 2, with waiters and incoming and outgoing patrons squeezing by. Sometimes the audience had to duck to avoid the dance props (umbrella, sword and stick). The songs, I was told, used to be about politics but now they are about sex. All the foreigners were singled out for sung comments, producing much laughter. Pierre-Marie and I smiled as if we got the joke and pressed the expected 10 Bir bills in the singer’s hand.

Back at our dark hotel Hana and I tried to negotiate a late check-out but the desk clerk was unmovable about the 11:30 AM check out time (“I will have to charge you another night after that time”). After all the lousy service I managed to get myself worked up about his rigidity and unhelpfulness and angrily climbed the 3 flights of stairs in the pitch dark, fueling my anger even further. I vowed to write a scathing review on the virtual tourist and trip advisor sites, joining many other negative reviews. The concept of customer service is not in use here. I don’t think they realize they should try to avoid getting customers like me so upset.