To Build a Wall

I leave my sheltered life to wander out for sheltered food. I’ve just woken up from a nap and the plan is to find some food and head back to sleep. I haven’t been feeling well for about 24 hours. Nothing serious, just my digestive system failing to come to terms with something it’s been offered. I suspect there’s something else too. A lonely fatigue. Sub par health and unhappiness often go hand in hand, one egging the other on. For some reason I decide I need mushroom ravioli from the exorbitantly priced restaurant down the street. It’ll come to about 8 bucks with tax and tip. I haven’t been there for months, opting instead for a smattering of local restaurants, trusty Ramen noodles or peanut butter and jam sandwiches. I’m not sure my stomach will handle dinner’s richness, but in my partial wakefulness, I wander down the street towards it anyhow.

I take care not to look at anyone. I don’t feel like engaging people. Being engaged. A boy yells ‘Brendan!’ and walks toward me quickly. I can’t really avoid him, so I slow down, hold out my hand and offer the friendliest ‘salamneh’ I can muster. He grins, shakes my hand, and heads off in another direction. I’m slightly touched, and smile briefly, before settling back (willing myself back?) into my daze.

I avoid faces. I don’t have the energy to interact. I don’t have the energy to be confronted with the smiles of the people around me, who would never dream of eating where I’m headed. I don’t have the energy to consider the void of opportunity between us, which seems to engulf the neighbourhood and call me out on the street. I wish I was back in Canada. Cambridge. Anywhere where the differences between us would not be so stark, revealed effortlessly with only a skin colour and halting Amharic. Yes, there are rich Ethiopians. Very rich Ethiopians. But not many in my neighbourhood, one of the poorest in the city. And even the rich tend to hide behind walls as well, once they can afford it. In fact, the only photo I’ve taken today is of my wall, the cusp cradling shards of glass to keep thieves out. When I took the photo the glass was shimmering with the setting sun, and I loved it. Now it seems fitting that my only photo today has been of my barrier.

I consider whether I should have spent the afternoon instead at an expat-dominated barbeque. I decide that that brand of escapism would not have helped today. It’s not that I mind the people. Some are quite interesting, provoking intriguing conversation and sharing a common ground. I can honestly say that I like them. Others suffer from extreme cases of expat-itis. An affliction that bring upon an inflated sense of self-importance, false selflessness, and frequent conversation of one’s maid (do I pay her too much? I once caught her stealing toilet paper…). Sometimes I catch myself slipping into it as well. No, the escapism won’t work tonight. It would only come with nagging guilt that the respite is only brief, before heading back to reality. And so I’ve elected to hole myself up and emerge only for food.

Yesterday, a very similar trip through my neighbourhood was strikingly different. I had sheltered myself within headphones blaring Tool, and was thus happy and determined. My mind wandered freely. I marvelled at the beauty of people around me. Was I recognizing something that truly existed, or manufacturing romanticism? Either way, the people I passed seemed utterly beautiful. Especially the children and old people. The children betrayed a naive, pleasurable recklessness common to children around the world. Kids don’t particularly care whether they’re playing with oceans of Lego or a tin can on a stick; they’re just playing, with all of the imagination and abandon that it requires. They haven’t learned not to be hopeful yet. To temper their expectations. To weight their imagination with realism. And so the children were beautiful to me.

And the old people. For stitched into their faces was experience. Uncovered by cosmetics. Undiminished by safety nets. Accentuated by exposure. To life. To death. To struggle. This is what I saw, anyway. I saw contentment, frustration, fatigue. In lines and curved lips, in arched eyebrows and wrinkled foreheads I saw lives passed. In eyes I saw failures. Successes. Maternal love. Protection. Disappointment. All of this laid bare through the weathering of life as an Ethiopian. Was this really here or was I assigning it to the people around me from somewhere deep in my imagination? It didn’t matter: for me it was there, and even constructed beauty is in the eye of the beholder. As I walked, I fretted that I would have to return some day to a covered, tempered, hidden, suffocated beauty back home.

Tonight I see things differently. I try to not see at all, and to hide. The only difference, in fact, is my perception, otherwise everything else is the same. But of course, my outlook changes daily here. For a Canadian in Ethiopia, there are no 5/10 days. Only threes and eights. By the time this is posted and read, I will no longer be simmering in my despondent daze but riding high again, reveling in the beauty around me. It’s the cycle. It’s wonderful and tiring.

B