Ohhhh Kandi! (Awkward in every culture…)

Ohhhh Kandi! (Awkward in every culture…)

            For those of you who know me (even just a little bit) know that I can tend to be a little bit on the awkward side…ok, or maybe sometimes a lot. I knew that some friends back home would get a little laugh out of some of my most recent embarrassing moments since I’ve been in Ethiopia.

            For our first full week here as a team, we were living in a hotel in Dukem. We ate three meals a day downstairs in the restaurant and spent the rest of the time confined to the lobby of our floor…so, it wasn’t very hard for us to make friends with the hotel staff. Eto, the guy from the front desk, and Zeriun (“Zet”), one of the waiters, became two of our favorite people at the hotel. When they found out that we were Christians, they completely lit up with excitement! They were both involved in YoungLife, a Christian student ministry, and they loved talking to us about Jesus! They even tried to help us with our Amharic and told us that they would be more than happy to practice it with us when we finish the language school. One Sunday it was nice and sunny outside, so Grams and I decided to stay downstairs after lunch and enjoy a macchiato on the porch while we read, journaled and wrote letters. Zet came over to our table and picked up my bible and began asking questions. Then he just pointed and said, “2 Corinthians 5:17.” I quickly turned to it for him and he pointed and said, “SEE…I AM A NEW CREATION!”I jumped out of my chair, gave him the biggest bear hug (forgetting how culturally inappropriate that was – and especially more so since he was working) and said, “YES! You are!” I thought for sure that I had freaked him out just a little, especially since other people in the restaurant were looking at me like I was crazy. Don’t worry…my hugging didn’t stop there. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the ‘handshake/shoulder bump’ or the ‘handshake/kiss on alternate cheeks three times combo’ greetings. I keep trying to give ‘real’ hugs and I keep getting rejected.

            In language school we had 2 different teachers, Ebisse and Jallalie. On the first day of class, Jallalie ran into me outside the classroom, put out her fist and said, “Salem.” I paused for a moment not knowing what to do, but then I confidently ‘pounded’ her fist, said “Salem” and headed back to class. When I got in the room I asked Christina if Jallalie was just hip with her ‘fist-pounding’ or if I was supposed to do something else and she busted out laughing. Apparently I was supposed to politely shake her forearm. Needless to say, she pretty much avoided all physical interaction with me until the last week or two of the class…when I finally wore her down and forced some hugs out of her. It probably helped that she also had to see water come out of my nose one day when I got so tickled about something in class that I had to run out of the room with water spewing from my mouth and nose. (There’s nothing like a good nose-spewing in class to humble you and remind your classmates how mature you really are.) Sometime in the following week I also got to entertain the masses on the sidewalk when we were walking home from class. It had been raining really hard and heavy that day (just like every other day), so there was a lot of deep standing water on the roads. I was apparently the only person lost in my own world because everyone else saw the big truck coming right for us and got out of the way…while I just got covered (from head to toe) in the yucky water it splashed up as it sped by. Then when I turned around to notice the guys laughing behind me, I tripped on the rocks in front of me. Yep…just as cool as ever.

            There are probably countless other incidents, but I’ll just leave it at those for now. As you can see, not a whole lot has changed…I’m still about as smooth as sandpaper.