By gavatron, click for Flickr Photostream

The way we often view poverty is represented almost perfectly by the photograph above. It’s there, and we’re standing off, just watching it. We see it, and we move along. The man on the corner, making his cardboard plea for work or money or booze. The man sitting on the street, too tired to even ask, but with a tattered cup or swiss-cheese hat sitting there, screaming silently, “Please. Spare a dime, quarter, nickle. Anything.”

But what happens whenever it’s not just on the street, where you can pass by without thinking twice about it. Tonight, my wife and I decided to go out to the local installment of a major Tex-Mex restaurant chain for dinner. This restaurant is only a few minutes from our house, and when we eat out, it’s a frequent choice. Tonight, though, was a little different than most. Shortly after we were seated and received our never-ending bowl of chips and bowls of salsa, a man walked in who immediately drew gazes from every table there. He was seated nearby.

While no book should ever be judged by its cover, I will admit that I immediately made my assumptions about this camouflage clad, greasy-haired, clearly weathered hardback which sat nervously at the table. He fidgeted in his pockets, stood up and looked around every few minutes, and it seemed he felt as out of place as he looked. He ordered a glass of water, and began perusing the menu. As his eyes flitted across the brightly colored pages, I could see there were two distinct, radically different, reactions. My best guess is the first was a result of reading the item descriptions. It was pure ecstasy. The second was a result of seeing the prices. It was utter disappointment.

His roller coaster facial expressions weren’t, however, my first indication that this man would likely be going without dinner tonight. As soon as he was seated, he removed his coat, by pulling out his arms and letting it drop to the floor. He looked around to make sure no one who worked there was watching him, and he carefully slid the knife out of its paper napkin sheath. The drawstrings of the top of the coat had become knotted together, so it couldn’t be opened properly. He used the knife as a surgeon might, carefully trying to undo the knot without breaking either of the precious cotton-cord tendons. In the end, he just sawed through it, both because he was unable to break the knot, but also because the wait staff was beginning its parade. In a gesture which made clear his inability to pay for a meal, he carefully resheathed the knife, so the bundle looked as undisturbed as he could make it.

It was clear the wait staff was unsure how to handle the situation. There was a steady stream of aprons walking past his table, saying hello and asking if they could get him anything. He talked with any of them who would listen. I could only hear bits and pieces over the din of the restaurant, but I heard enough. He didn’t have much money. His mother recently died. How much just for a taco? In the midst of all this, he nervously nibbled at the basket of chips and salsa brought to him, and the look on his face said he was just waiting for someone to ask him to leave.

The manager walked by and said hello to the man. Her grey pantsuit sharply contrasted his black hoody beneath black shirt beneath newly-sutured camouflage. That was the end of his warmth, his meager meal, and his water, I thought. I felt sorry for him. While the low 40s may not be cold to some, for anyone around Texas it certainly is. For anyone who spends all day every day outside it is. She smiled and kept walking, then something amazing happened.

Another couple sat at the table just behind ours. Apparently, the man sitting there was just as nosy as I was. he got up, and got the manager. They were close enough to our table I could hear what he was saying. “Excuse me, miss. That man there at the end of the row. I want you to give him whatever he wants for dinner and put it on my bill.” The manager looked shocked. “That’s very, err, cool of you. Where are you sitting?” The man motioned to his table, they separated.

The parade of wait staff hadn’t ended, and one waiter was talking prices with the man, who was clearly on the verge of tears. The waiter told him he could get him just a taco, but it would be 4.95. The man pulled a fistfull of change and began counting it on the table. Both of them realized it wouldn’t be enough, and the man hung his head while the waiter said, let me just go check on something. Near the back, the manager had gathered the wait staff, spoke with them briefly, and they all went back to their sections, casting knowing glances at each other as they went. Shortly, our waiter went to the man’s table, and asked him what he’d like to eat. The man, clearly ashamed, admitted he couldn’t afford it, but the waiter told him not to worry about it, it had been taken care of. Anything there on the menu he could have.

Even in the soft light of the restaurant, the tear that began running down the man’s cheek was unmistakable. He ordered, and, like a child, asked if it would be okay if he got a coke, too. The waiter gave a jovial laugh and told him sure.

I kept an eye on the man throughout the rest of our meal, and I couldn’t quite place the emotion I saw on his face. It wasn’t exactly happiness; it was more akin to that deep joy you feel. Not the giddy pleasure, but that overwhelming feeling you get when everything finally seems like it’s on your side. The couple who offered to pay also had their left-overs boxed up and given to the man. They also made a deal with the waiter, that while they didn’t have cash, they’d make an extra-large tip if he could give the man some money on his way out. They just had one request. They wanted to know the man’s name.

The waiter was more than happy to oblige, and he went and sat down across from the man. They talked for several minutes, and he told how he had spent 8 years in prison, but he’s out now and has put away that lifestyle. He talked about how his mother recently died, after he’d been taking care of her. The waiter went to get him some more coke and make his rounds. He stopped at the other couple’s table, told them the man’s name was Doug.

Doug got the best meal he probably had in days. He was able to come in from the cold for a while, and he even got what was to him a delicacy, a coke. What a sight. I’m young, but I’ve managed to turn into quite the cynic, but despite all that, watching that couple give that man something he so obviously desired but couldn’t have got for himself made me realize a couple of things.

First, people aren’t just a complete loss. In these days of litigiousness and self-absorption, it was a refreshing to see someone who cared for another human being. Second, it showed me how even though I view a single meal at a restaurant as so insignificant, to someone, it’s a magic salve.

I didn’t see if the waiter actually passed on a portion of the tip like he said he would. Typically, I would be prone to believe he didn’t. But tonight? I’d be willing to bet he did.

This one will be a little shorter than the others because I’ve been up for almost 24 hours now, and I’m a little loopy. I want these to be some semblance of coherent, so let’s see what we can do.

Our first trip away from Addis took us to the town of Debre Zeit. In Debre Zeit, we were to teach at a government-run school for what they called “change agents.” They had gathered 50-60odd students from villages all over the country to teach them agricultural technique, basic medical care, STD prevention, education techniques, business theory, and a number of other skills that would be useful in turning their villages into more laterally connected units from their original seclusion. The idea is to move away from mere subsistence to trade between villages.

At the school, we taught first aid, basic structural engineering, water purification, English, and several other things. Our last day at the school, we were approached by the head master, and asked if we could stay for just a little while after we were done teaching. We gladly agreed, and what a treat it turned out to be.

As we sat under a grove of trees, the sky greying as some clouds grew, foreshadowing the coming rainy season, a girl brought out a tray of popcorn (a popular treat there!), and began working at the low fire. She picked some berries off of the bush behind us, and began to roast them. To my surprise, the green and red berries she had started roasting were turning brown, and the subtle smell of coffee wafted through the humid air.

The girl, whose name I also could never pronounce and now don’t remember, as you can see, is beautiful. In fact, a great number of the Ethiopian people are beautiful. They all seem to share similar patrician features which bring such richness to their faces that I haven’t seen anywhere else. After roasting and grinding the beans, they made us coffee. I’m no coffee drinker, but I’d have to say, if I was ever going to be one, home-grown coffee would be the way that I would have to drink it. Nothing else could ever suffice after having tasted it once.

The coffee, we later were told, was no small gesture of thanks. The ceremony performed for us was usually to welcome esteemed guests into households, and that for the other couple of groups who have come to visit the school (Neither of the other two had come to work, they were mostly large donors to Buckner Orphan Care) had not been honored with the coffee ceremony.

There we were, seven college students, giving what little talent and knowledge we had, and we were met with a great honor in their culture. I still feel that glow of pride whenever I think about it.

NaBloPoMo entry #9.

Most of the pictures I have processed came from the Bantu region, which is the most remote place we stayed during our time there. If memory serves, we were there for four days, sleeping in the empty ward rooms of a clinic in the area, no electricity, a 2 burner gas stove with which to cook for 9 people, and all the mosquitoes you could ever ask for.

The scenery outside the barbed wire boundary, which during the days made me feel as if we were carnival fare: objects of gross fascination, spectacles of the macabre or something, as the kids (who were all, supposedly, supposed to be in school) stood staring at us for hours when we had some down time. Never being one to disappoint an audience, I took to entertaining them by juggling rolls of toilet paper.

A couple of families lived inside the clinic, and when we arrived, the smallest boy just stared wide-eyed as all of these white people piled out of the van. Until I got out. At that point, the boy ran and hid behind his mother’s skirts, at the site of this, well, mountainous mountain man. I’m a pretty corpulent fellow, and I have a large beard, and at the time, my hair was also pretty long, too, so I can’t really blame the kid.

After we pulled out the Frisbee and taught a few of the people there how to play (they were almost instantaneously better than we were), the little boy, whose name I could never pronounce and have now forgotten completely, decided that we weren’t so bad after all. He ran around with us, picking up the Frisbee and throwing it as hard as he could, usually resulting in the Frisbee’s landing about 3 feet behind him. Just thinking about it now curls my all too cynical lips into a smile.

After a couple of days, he warmed up to me, and rather enjoyed playing with my beard. He also rather enjoyed playing with my camera, and I was glad of his extreme youth, which allowed me to keep the camera just out of reach.

The boy was truly a joy to have around, and we all had a good time playing chase or peek-a-boo, or whatever other games we could play through both the language and age barriers. He lifted our spirits in the midst of some pretty heavy times on the trip, and his presence couldn’t have been more welcome.

More stories from Ethiopia tomorrow!

NaBloPoMo entry #8.

So, here’s some photos with stories attached to them. Enjoy!

First and foremost, for those of you who want the penny-a-word version, the trip was great. So, if you want to stop there, you can, I guess, but remember: I know where you live. Is he kidding? I don’t know!

First off, despite how jokingly you’ve used the phrase “Africa is far away,” Africa really is far away. Total travel time was approximately 26 hours each way. On the way there, I was awake for most of that because, well, I’m fat, and I find airplanes to be exceedingly uncomfortable. It didn’t really help that I was all a-jitter for the adventure ahead of us. The weirdest thing on the flight from Dallas to Frankfurt had to be flying into the sunset, and a few hours later, flying into the sunrise. I mean, sure, I’ve stayed up all night, and I’ve even watched the sun rise, but doing so in a plane was just a little surreal, especially considering that “night” only lasted a couple of hours.

Anyway, in Frankfurt, three of us got bumped up to Lufthansa business class, which rocked. Seats that recline all the way back, choosing the movie or whatever to watch, ahh. Bliss. Truly.

When we finally landed in Addis, we were all tired, but we had to go through customs and get our visas and all that fun stuff, but that was all relatively smooth. When we got out of the airport, it had been just over 26 hours since we had all met in Dallas. What a day that had been, but we were able to have one final adventure that day, however. When we got to the hotel, we were met by, or I should say we interrupted, a grand gathering, about 30-40 men were crowded into the lobby of our hotel watching the soccer game on the 15 or 20 inch TV they had there. The rancor grew silent as we came trudging in, 7 white college students, each carrying two large bags (one of personal effects and one of supplies). Amid the stares, we were quickly funneled upstairs to our rooms, where we each collapsed for the night.

The real adventure would, like the rest of this story, have to wait until tomorrow.

NaBloPoMo Entry #7

Last night, I had a very eye-opening experience. I received a call on my cell phone, which in and of itself is a big enough surprise, so I answered. The woman on the other end asked if she could please speak with Kathy. Not having an alter-ego named Kathy of which I am aware, nor having anyone in the immediate vicinity by the name of Kathy, I kindly informed her that she had dialed the wrong number. She was grateful for the information and hung up, assumedly, to try a new number.

I, it seemed, had assumed incorrectly. No sooner than I had laid down my phone did it begin to ring anew, the same number flashing on the screen. I chuckled at the poor woman’s confusion, and answered again to reassure her that she still did, indeed, have the wrong number. The next thing I heard was completely unexpected, unexpected as the giant foot was unexpected to those poor (and poorly drawn) cartoons of Monty Python.

The ensuing conversation went something like this:
Me: “Hello?”
Caller: “Are you married?”
Me: *pause* “No, I am not.”
Caller: “Oh, so you aren’t married.”
Me: “Nope.”
Caller: “Oh, well, I just thought you had a sexy voice.”
Me: *pause* “Ahh. Well, thank you!”
Caller: “Just wanted to call you back and tell you that. Good night”
Me: “Goodnight, then.”

So, ladies and gentlemen, if you were curious as to the pipes of Thursday’s Child, I can now say it has been said that these melancholic pipes of mine produce sound that has been described as nothing less than sexy.

I was completely unaware.

There are so many things that have happened recently to blog about, so whenever I’ve got some reliable internet access, I’ll post some more stuffs but, this is what I got for now:

This past Saturday, I spent the day helping my brother grind stumps. That job is about as exciting as it sounds. Basically, the stump grinder is a gigantic, heavy lawnmower-like machine, only instead of blades spinning underneath it, it has a giant grinding wheel sticking vertically out the front. That blade spins, and grinds up stumps left after cutting down trees. To get to that point, though, the trees have to be cut down.

Several months back, my brother had already cut the trees off to a few feet high. So, what we needed to do was cut those off a couple inches from the ground. Sounds easy enough, eh? I grabbed the chainsaw, and after almost cutting my own leg off getting it started, I got going. The engine was revving loudly, the chain was whirring, and adrenaline was flowing. I was man. I had chainsaw. I cut trees. Rowr.

I put the quickly spinning chain up to the wood, and to my surprise, the chain began spewing sylvan shrapnel in every conceivable direction (and some not so conceivable, I think). In a great show of male bravado, I grinned at the carnage. I’m still picking splinters out of my gums.

A little later, I was cutting through yet another stump and I apparently hit a knot, down in the wood. That bit, being harder than the rest of the tree, grabbed the chain and wrenched it from the bar. Much to my chagrin, my carnage-making machine had just been reduced to a paperweight. I grudgingly lugged the saw up to the table to begin the task of reattaching the chain (a task, by the way, I had never done before, but was certain I could accomplish). After a few minutes of admiring the mechanism, I saw how it worked, reattached the chain, and resumed my work.

I got out the the woods, started up the chainsaw again, and off I went. On that first stump after I reattached the chain, I quickly realized that this was much more difficult than it had been previously, and there was a lot of smoke now too. The smoke wasn’t coming from the saw so much as it was the tree. My brother came over, laughing, and informed me that I had put the chain on backwards.

I went to reattach it, the right way, when he said that he was about to take a lunch break, so I went with him. Upon our return, I reattached the chain, correctly, got back to cutting, and then I stacked all the wood up on the firewood holder.

All day, I had a running monologue in my head about how much I hated being out there, how much I was hot, tired, and just wanted to leave. It was hard work, to be sure, and I didn’t like it one bit. But, at the end of the day, as my brother was hopping in his truck to head home, I look back at the woods, and where there used to be a sea of trees, with 2-3 foot tall tree nubs interspersed. Now, there was a nice clean tree line, with just the full trees in place, not too crowded, not too sparse. We’d done well. I was hot, tired, and dirty, but I was mighty proud of the work we’d accomplished that day.

I immediately went home to shower and nap. ’twas a good day, indeed.

Like the weasel, love is wild. As a slightly overweight—soft I’ll say—male, the high school dating scene held a few challenges for me. But, as my grandfather always said, “Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then.” Find a nut I did.

Her name was Samantha. Her shoulder-length downy hair culminated, as one would reasonably expect, at the top of her scalp. That scalp reached almost to a foot below my own. Her emerald eyes sparkled when she smiled, or should I say grinned? Her pale lips never quite made that inverted parabola; rather they curled inward at the ends much like the Grinch’s smile did. She was a very fine nut indeed.

Our love started simply enough. She and I had several classes together and got to know each other fairly well. I invited her to church several times. The two of us began to talk more and more often, and those first sprouts of a blossoming relationship began to spring from the topsoil of shared experiences. I have always been one for romance, hopeless though it may be, so rather than “asking her out” directly, I wrote a rather clever short story in which the main character was a bumbling oaf asking a beautiful princess to be his girlfriend. The ending was left intentionally blank, allowing for Samantha herself to pen the fate of that bumbling oaf. Later that day, I received my story back with a hug attached, and so it was that things became “official.”

Samantha and I (it was mostly me) were plagued with all the loveable awkwardness that young puppy love awards such star-crossed teenagers. In the age where girlfriends and boyfriends were required to hold hands, I was an odd duck because the very prospect filled me with such paralyzing fear that I was not the one to make such a brave move, but am I ever glad she was braver than I in that respect. The tight intertwining of fingers even now makes my fingers twitch in delight. Each of her fingers sat gracefully between each of mine; the slight pressure of the stretch our hands had to make to accommodate the foreign phalanges gave me then and gives me now that warm fuzzy feeling that crawls from the base of the spine into the base of the brain. That warm fuzzy clouds any and all sane judgment, so be wary.

Things could not have been better. About a month and a half after I timidly “asked her out,”—as was the custom of my peer group—, I spent the day at her house lounging around the pool. Both our sets of shoulders had been drawn taut and painted red by the day’s relentlessly beating rays. The sweltering Texas sun made the pool a welcome refreshment to quickly parching skin.

We laughed. We talked. I was totally enamored with this girl. For lunch, we made my favorite meal: a warm, gooey pot of macaroni and cheese. We ate; we laughed; we talked some more. As the sunlight quickly waned, she and I were sitting nervous hand in nervous hand in her room. She asked what my favorite part of the day had been. I thought hard, hands twitching, trying to decide which particular moment was the best part of what had already seemed to be a perfect day. Out my answer came thudding dully to the floor saturated with that sap only puppy love can produce: “Everything.”
She giggled and I felt my face begin to burn. Burning hotter than its sunburn should, that sudden rush of insecurity that threatens faintness washed over me. And then it passed. I returned the question expecting, hoping for that same sap I had just delivered when it happened.

“When I did this,” she said.

I can still feel her hands gently grasping the sides of and turning my unbelieving head. There were ten nearly imperceptible tingles as her fingers gently pushed causing minute movements in my hair. Then, as equally unfathomable as it was expected, the painful scrape of sunburned nose on sunburned nose. Then with the softest of touches, the lightest of brushes, her lips and mine did meet: warm, moist, the slightly ferrous taste that only a kiss can bring. Then it was over.

Her face was a new shade of red— red as the digital clock on the table across the room that read 9:18—we both giggled uncontrollably as that mind-numbing warm fuzzy filled both our brains. My face burned ever more fiercely with a new found modesty being simultaneously created and destroyed within me. That night, that week, that month, these last five years, I have carried the memory of the soft, moist, warm first kiss.

From that point onward things went well for us. We were young, and the longer we were together, the more and more that puppy love grew into a Dalmatian, then a St. Bernard.

First-love giddiness left my mind swimmy and after a year of our relationship she decided that it was time for our love to come to an end. I went from swimmy to sunk in a matter of seconds. Having been thoroughly crushed by the loss of my first love, I withdrew. The warm fuzzies had faded; rather, it was a cold prickly feeling snaking up my spine, wrapping itself ‘round my stomach, forcing its barbs deeply into each of my internal organs before bursting forth to the indescribable horror of those around me as the gore of my heart spilled forth from the gaping hole left in my chest.

Although that particular event was one of the more painful events in my short lifetime, it should be duly noted that broken hearts do mend. Immediately after she and I had parted ways, I felt as if I was swimming in tar. Every movement I made only served to stick me faster in the quagmire. The year following our breakup was a year of torture. The barbs of the cold prickly dug deeper and deeper as I struggled through the flypaper valley I had found myself in. I had some good friends who dug deeply in the muck and mire to rescue their quickly sinking buddy, and those friends will forever have a debt owed them.

I was young. She was young. Perhaps it was foolish to think of things beyond our ages, but I will never forget the tingles in my hair, the comfort of the pressure of another hand in my own, that warm, fuzzy, swimmy feeling that enveloped my brain. My first love will always and forever hold a place in my now mended heart. Other nuts are out there, scattered on the forest floor, and this blind squirrel will keep searching for the perfect nut for me.

The next week, I couldn’t make the meeting, so I’m not sure what all was worked out there, but from the emails that began flying around—and I think there were somewhere in the vicinity of 700,000 by the time the thing was said and done.—I was still not at all certain that the thing would work. Then came Wednesday the 11^th of April, just 3 days before the banquet was scheduled, and everything was still in disarray. I voiced my concern to team leader, Jordan Callaway, after the meeting, and we went on from there, with my promise to continue to help as much as I could, even though I was prepared for, and expecting, failure.

I ended up getting up at 6:45 Saturday morning to drive to Dallas to pick up the food, and our resident Ethiopian, Asmamaw tagged along. Boy, was I glad he was there. The people were all speaking in Ethiopian, and I would have been completely lost had I been there alone. When we got to the Ethiopian church in Dallas, we were taken to the kitchen where we were shown two tubs of what appeared to be soup and I was floored. I bitterly and angrily thought that these people had just given us a gallon of soup to feed 150+ people, and they expect $125 for it? They must be kidding. Asmamaw seemed very happy, but Asmamaw always seems very happy. After that, I found out that I had to go buy Injera (Ethiopian bread). I was under the assumption that we were going to Dallas to buy a completed meal for $125, not that we were going to have to buy more stuff. I kept my mouth shut, soldiered on, and we made it back to Longview 7 hours after we had left. At that point, we had to begin preparing everything immediately.

At this point, I was unsure whether or not I thought the banquet might just happen, or if I still thought it was going to be an utter disaster. Sodexho, the food service company that serves LeTourneau University, was amazingly helpful. They allowed us to warm the food in their professional warmers, use their counter space to prepare the salad and the Injera, and gave us all sorts of equipment for free that we normally would have had to rent from them. As we began to unload the food in the kitchen, Asmamaw started telling us what was in it, and how to prepare it. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the soup we picked up was not just soup, but a full lamb dish. I suddenly felt much better about the money we spent to get it all. I’m sure if I spoke Ethiopian, I would have known all that sooner, but learning Ethiopian just hasn’t quite come up on my to-do list.

I spent the next couple of hours preparing food, ordering some volunteers about, and making sure everything was setup and ready to begin serving at 5:00 pm. At 4:50, I had to leave so I could shower and get ready for the evening.

When I returned, the food had been moved from the kitchen to the banquet hall, the sternos had been turned on about an hour before, and we were ready to keep the food hot and serve the arriving guests. The banquet went off without a hitch. Everyone who came (and there were about 120-130) was served, afterwards, the volunteers, musicians, and Project Ethiopia members were also served. This banquet, for which we had no idea how many people were coming and for which it didn’t look like we would have anywhere near enough food, was truly a fish and loaves situation.

At about 6:45, fifteen minutes after the banquet was scheduled to be over, I stood in the serving line, plate in hand, ready to enjoy my portion of the fine Ethiopian cuisine. Asmamaw came over and asked if we had anything left because someone just came in and wanted food. I looked down and saw that there was enough for just one more person, told him so, and began to scrape the last of the food out onto the plate to take to this final guest. When I set the plate down in front of him, I had a thought (surprising, I know). This meal had just served everyone here except for me. I, the one who, from the beginning, said it was going to be a failure, was the only person who did without. Now, I don’t know for sure, and I don’t guess I really will, but I cannot help but wonder if that was a moment where God just finally beat me over the head, saying, “Just have a little faith, you idiot.” That moment has changed my jaded outlook on the whole trip.

After some setbacks in fundraising, I decided that if I was going to go to Ethiopia this summer, God would have to provide a way, and like the banquet, I didn’t at all expect that to happen. After the banquet, my dad and I went to get something to eat because I was hungry and he wasn’t so fond of the Ethiopian food. My dad mentioned that he was thinking much differently about the trip than he was the last time we had spoken on the subject. I voiced my similar opinion, and he decided that he would support me to go. What a windfall.

Not only did God show me that I needed a little faith, but he also provided a way to go to Ethiopia. He’s a big God; he’s a good God, and he’s a God with a sense of humor, too.