The Nature of This Injera Beast

My friend Becca will be boarding a plane tonight to start her long journey back to America and her home. After two years she is going home. I think about the day she will have today. Her last day in Ethiopia. What will she think about while counting down the hours till she will no longer call this place home. Will she think of the moments that stand at the forefront of her memories? Or will she search hard for the one she may have forgotten? What will she think constitutes a good last meal in Ethiopia considering she is going to the land of plenty? Will she be sad or lonely in this moment knowing that none of her brothers or sisters in arms is going with her this time?

                I know that I am happy for my friend. I long for that moment when I step off the plane and I know that around one corner is my family who I haven’t seen in over two years. The excitement of knowing the familiar but having been changed so thoroughly that it seems you will see it again for the first time. I’m talking about the drive from the airport to your home which you've done more times than you can count but this time, is different. My friend will think about a lot today but I hope she thinks of how much we will miss her from our lives here and how happy we all are that she has succeeded where we haven’t yet.

                I first met Becca when she was visiting our city for the day and stopped off to have lunch at our dearly departed “Italian” restaurant.  The “Italian Restaurant”, as we called it because an Italian man owned it, was a hard place to find. Come to think of it, I’m not sure who found it first. One of the great mysteries of our time here I suppose. After providing patronage to this place once or twice most of the volunteers in Tigray were familiar with its semi-secret location and came at least once or twice per week. Becca happened to come in when we were eating lunch.

              

  I knew she was a Peace Corps Volunteer immediately and I knew more specifically that she was an environment volunteer. All environment volunteers have a certain “dirty” look about them like they’ve been rolling around in the mud all day or planting trees. She was wearing an Ethiopian soccer jersey and some sort of headband used to hide her 6 days not washed hair (a custom I am now used to).  She was smiling, a lot. I know most Americans are known for smiling too much and I’m not complaining, I like this about us, but she was brilliant. She spoke very quickly and was excited to meet us, the new group of volunteers.  After a much deserved chicken salad sandwich she hitched a ride with us on the line taxi so she could go to the bank because she didn't have a bank in her town. We learned that she was a part of the elusive G6 group and that she had been in Ethiopia for one year already.

                We were friends instantly. You can’t not be friends with Becca. If you don’t immediately want to be her friend she will find you and turn you. Once you are friends you wonder how you weren’t before then you realize that you hadn't met her and therefore couldn't possibly be friends. Then you go cross-eyed because the space-time continuum is messing with your brain. What I’m saying is that you have the feeling that you've been friends for as long as you can remember.

                Fast forward 10 months later and my friend is leaving. We went through some pretty crazy times. First crazy moment, Becca beat a man into the fetal position because he grabbed her boob (well deserved but the man should be in jail) and broke her arm because she hit him on top of the head. We haven’t had others like that together but she has seen her fair share of crazy. More normal moments include “girls nights” where we would watch movies, make food, and just be ridiculous. Her working at my school to create an environment club and now having all my students ask me where R’ebkah is. Our counterpart being given gifts from Becca before she left then our counterpart crying because she loves Becca so much.  The Injera Monster (we will see you again), Harry Potter Party, slapping kids, World Maps, family photos, and the general way of living here in Ethiopia that will provide us many stories to tell back home.

                Having good friends here is sometimes the only way you keep your head above water. They push you out of the house when you feel like taking one step over the threshold will break you. They make you laugh when that is the one thing you needed and they make this experience. The friends you make here are the ones you have for life. No one else can know what it means to be here day after day. But they do and they will always understand you. One of my own is leaving today and I’m going to have to muster the courage to pretend that this is just the nature of the beast. Soon we will see each other again in that lovely land we call home. I’m lucky to have Scott but I was luckier to have Becca too.