By: Debrewerq

1984 was the Year of the Rat in the Chinese calendar. It wasn't much better in Ethiopia, I imagine.

Those of us who were in the States then saw the story of the drought in Ethiopia "break" on NBC News. Along with it our spirits. A few counties away, another Ethiopian student was watching the same news, but unlike me, she decided it was her duty to go back home and do something. She joined an NGO and retuned home and found herself right smack in the middle of insanity.

Her stories haunt me.

Every morning we would wake up at the camp to the smell of smoke… It usually signaled that someone had died and they would smoke a few twigs to ward off evil spirits and the miasma of death. When I first saw the smoke I thought it was from midijas that conjured up images of barbeque. But the only thing burning in Wello that year was the land.

The land…I can see the land still. The only colors around the camp were ugly shades of brown. The land that has newly been scorched was a certain shade of black brown. And land that has been dead a while turned ashy brown, and eventually it would mix with the smoke and the wind would blow it wherever the wind blew dead things. The land was so thirsty that it drank our sweat and their tears. While waiting for the next FD (feed drop) people would take turns sitting under one wretched tree.. its leaves so thorny and brown and inedible. It was a polite, esoteric system. People knew when to get up when a more indigent person came along. Brown skin, brown clothes, brown eyes. They are very many shades of ugly in the color brown.

The smells… Death doesn't smell like The Bath and Body Shop. It smells worse. Especially when the able-bodied men cannot keep track of the dead and bury them quickly. The dead would exact revenge by unleashing furious smells. The women would take turns crying for the dead and letting them know that someone was paying homage to their lives. Sometimes the women would cry all day. Non stop. Only the volunteers and the ferenjis smelled nice.

The sights…There are two lasting memories I will always remember. One morning, I woke up to the noise of something being rolling on the dead ground by the wind. It was a white box just rolling on along as if it had not a worry in the world. A little boy started chasing the box as it came toward me. I thought it was an empty carton of medical supplies. It turned out to be a Styrofoam take out container. The little boy caught up with the box and sat down to investigate it further. When he opened it, I saw the inscribed gold logo of the Addis Ababa Hilton in the center… the two "Aas" fidels adorning the elongated "hee" in the center. The boy closed the empty box and tucked it under his arms. The Resident Representatives from the World Bank had flown in to the camp a couple of days ago to assess the situation. People got paid a lot of money to assess that drought was not a pleasant affair. The next time I saw the Styrofoam box, a mother was trying to make her child's head comfortable on it.

… We finally got a shipment of shots of vitamin A, I believe. They cost about 10 cents a shot in the U.S. But the assessors and the government people didn't send us enough shots for all the children at the camp. So my job was to now assess who needed the shot real bad, who was healthy to wait for the next drop, and who was too far gone. It was a tall order for a 19-year-old who took pains deciding whether to take lacrosse or crew the semester before. By the time I stuttered I couldn't, my Team Leader was already barking orders at someone else, bitter that his paperwork of how much shots he needed was ignored. A woman, well into her last trimester shuffled towards me. The thin shurubba lines on her small head were drenched with sweat. She dragged her emaciated son along with her and shoved him in front of me. She begged me with the little strength that she had but with the ferocity of a mother begging for her child's life. She opened both her palms up to the sky and waved them up and down, occasionally wiping her tears with her brown clothes. Her eyes pushed out rolls of tears. I knew what she was asking me. But there was also a little orphan who was in contention for the ten cents shot. He had no mother to plead his case for him. But his eyes. His eyes pleaded for his life.

I had chosen lacrosse.

The sounds… when the planes making the drops rumbled from long distances, we would all look to the sky hoping it was thunder. We all knew it would never rain at the camp. It had not for so long. But something made us always check the dusty brown sky to make sure.

It was always so quiet at the camp. Nearly 400 people and it was deafeningly quiet. Especially in the afternoons. At high noon the Moslems would pray and you could hear the rustling of their clothes against the omnipresent wind. The soft murmurs of "Allah Akbar" would slowly give way to more silence. I used to wonder what people prayed for at the feeding camps. I tried to prioritize my prayers. But I usually ended up cursing at God.

Journalists would often come to the camp until the Ethiopian drought fell out of favor with news producers in New York. When they came to the camp they would break the silence with sound and camera equipment and news slang and curses. Most were shell-shocked and only the cameras would make noises. Brrrrrrzzzzzz…. Whirrrrrrrrrrrr. And then the clicking. Doctors flown in that day who wore lily-white coats would opine about "the situation". "The situation is desperate". We were sometimes asked to stay out of a shot so that the camera can capture the desperation. Thank God the camera never lies. But I wondered often if it really adds 10 pounds.

It was always a desperate situation.

How are you the same after that? You just are because you know just how useless you were in the camp. So, really, you are the same. A little jaded, maybe, because like the camera, the truth in you never lies. 1984 in many ways stunted my growth.

I look back at my own day today…

$32.00 for brunch
$14.50 for popcorn at the movies
$1.19 for a Coke
$6.50 for ice cream
$9.80 for cappuccinos
$16.00 for take out kitfo and Tbs.

I wish my truth lied.

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