A Time To...
“That won’t work,” Al informed Bookie. “You may be able to fool yourself, but not your soul. The only way you can stop the beeping is to treat all players fairly. Oh, and by the way, you don’t come out ahead. Any deal that resulted in the loss of a smile must be rescinded. In other words, you must return Tadesse’s coffee crop, but he keeps the thirty thousand dollars you paid him for it.”
“Bullshit! This game is bullshit! What idiot made up these rules?” Bookie shouted as Al rolled the dice. “I lose a smile plus enough money to buy another thirty smiles, and for what? Just because I didn’t pay sixty grand for his coffee in the first place?”
“Hey, I know this is a little different game than you’re used to playing. To win in this one, you’ve got to listen to your soul. Look at it this way: if nothing else, it will help you get more familiar with your soul. Every time that smile meter beeps and flashes red, you’ll know that you’re harming your soul,” Al explained. “It works like a blood pressure machine,” Al elaborated. “Instead of telling you that you need to change your diet and exercise habits to have a healthy body, it tells you that you need to change how you relate to the people in your life to have a healthy soul. On the other hand, whenever it plays ‘Amazing Grace’ and flashes yellow, that player is awarded a smile from the smile bank.”
“Why didn’t you tell us about all this before when you were going over the rules?” Mr. Masterson asked.
“I didn’t give the details because according to the rules, players must learn some things as they play the game,” Al replied. “So old players do have an advantage. They have fewer surprises, less to learn.”
Just then, Tsehye’s smile meter began flashing yellow and playing “Amazing Grace.”
“Look, a smile. You get a smile,” Tadesse told Tsehye.
“What’s going on? What did he do to get a damn smile?” Bookie wondered.
“I just asked Tadesse and Haile Marium to form a cooperative farm with me. When they agreed, this thing started flashing,” Tsehye said. “I could have taken their land since the Opportunity card I pulled gave me that option, but sharing our resources and working together will help us all grow bigger and stronger.”
“Look at your smile meter. Does it have anything written on the flashing face?” Al asked.
“The only thing on it is the number three,” Tsehye said.
“OK. That means you just earned three smiles, one for each of the three people who benefited from your decision.”
“Really?” Tsehye said. “This game is different. Maybe habashahs can win.”
That possibility seemed like a long shot at best since all the American players had so much more money and property at this point in the game.
“Dream on, old man,” Bookie told Tsehye. “I’ve already got enough cha-ching and stuff to buy an ocean of smiles, and you got enough for a puddle.”
But as the game progressed, an interesting thing happened. Tsehye made up for his financial and material resources by earning many smiles. The smile gap between the Americans and him closed as Bookie and Mr. Masterson lost more smiles than they had earned. If not for their material wealth, Bookie and Al’s dad would have been losing the game when the Ethiopians died, one by one, due to their shorter life spans, which was a handicap the game imposed on them. But the game for everyone wasn’t over until the last player died.
Al was the last to die, and when he did, everyone’s cash and properties were redeemed for smiles and tallied along with the smiles each had banked during their lives. And while the Ethiopians had thirty fewer years to accumulate smiles, the Americans spent so much of their cash and properties while living “the good life” that they didn’t have much left to purchase smiles in the end. As a result, Tsehye had the most smiles and Bookie had the least. Al was a close second behind Tsehye. Mr. Masterson and Tadesse were tied for third, while Haile Marium edged Bookie out for fourth place.
“What a stupid loser’s game,” Bookie declared as he looked at Tsehye.
Tsehye returned Bookie’s scowl with a smile.
Al tossed and turned the rest of the night following his dream. When he awoke at sunrise, he could only recall bits and pieces of it. As he got dressed for his first day of work at the shelter, he thought about the smile the peasant woman gave Haile Marium on the bus after he shared his bread with her child, and it made him smile. As it turned out, the baker had been right. It was special bread.
CHAPTER 59
First Day on the Job
A soft cool breeze blew directly into Al’s face, tossing his long hair as he sat alone in the two-seat, open-air, horse-drawn taxi that was taking him to his new job, about one mile north of downtown Dessie. As far as he could tell, it was a typical Ethiopian town with people coming and going on foot, except for the rare motor vehicle and the handful of other taxis. The taxis were an interesting blend of old and new. Their wheels were actually old car tires with modified rims to fit the buggies, which provided a very comfortable ride, even on the bumpy dirt road. The passenger seat was a bench seat taken from a junked car.
As Al observed the sights and sounds of Dessie, the images suddenly disappeared in a haze. A Land Rover passing in front of his taxi left a billowing cloud of dust in its wake. As Al coughed and fanned the dust from his face with his hands, the Land Rover slowed down to pull alongside Al’s taxi.
Just when an irate Al was about to give the driver a piece of his mind, the driver rolled down his window and bellowed, “Hey, foreigngee! What are you doing here?”
“Paul!” exclaimed Al. The last time they had seen each other was in Peace Corps training the previous year, just before they had left for their original job assignments. Paul had been given a teaching position in the Dessie area. “I’m managing the UN’s famine relief warehouse here in Dessie. I’m going there now. It’s my first day,” Al told Paul.
“No shit. That’s cool. I’m working for the UN’s Smallpox Eradication Program until school begins in the fall ... if it begins.”
“Really? So where are you based?” Al asked.
“Here in Dessie. There’s a bunch of us PCVs living in town for the school break, doing smallpox and irrigation projects. We’re sharing a house. Where are you staying?”
“I’m at a bunabet in town.”
“Hey, you should live with us. We’ve got room for another. I’ll pick you up at the shelter around six tonight.”
“Yeah. OK. See you then,” Al said. Paul drove off leaving a cloud of dust and a coughing Al.
Although there had been little contact between PCVs over the previous year while each settled in their towns and worked their assigned jobs, they shared a common bond that transcended typical barriers to friendship, like personality, socio-economic status, race, sex, religion, and politics. All that mattered was that they were all PCVs, that their life-changing experiences created an “us against the world” mindset. They were members of an exclusive club, doing extraordinary things at a time when people their age at home in the States were getting entry-level jobs that provided little, if any, responsibility. Here, PCVs saw things and did things that people in the States couldn’t even imagine. And while Ethiopians lived the unimaginable, most had no point of reference regarding life in the States, no true understanding that could connect them to the PCV’s unique trials and tribulations. So the shared experiences among PCVs created a special camaraderie.
Al was pleasantly surprised when he arrived at the shelter. No hoards of people moaning of hunger at the entrance, just an orderly line of weak, tired, raggedly dressed villagers being checked in where the rocky dirt road split to the left. Al was greeted by one of the Ethiopian staff members, who directed him to enter the road to the right, which led him to the warehouse he would manage.
On his way there, he passed several groups of people, men and women, standing and chatting just off the road. None appeared distressed or weak. A few glanced at Al with curiosity, which made Al feel at home. When several young child
ren, five or six years old, ran past him giggling, “Foriegngee, foreigngee,” it warmed his heart to think that the overwhelming pain and suffering he had expected to see everywhere was not immediately evident.
The road swung around a long, wood-slated building that reminded him of a weathered army barracks. It was the first in a line of four that were side by side, facing the road. Across the road was a large, flat field dotted with more than one hundred tan and green tents, big and small. A sheer, natural rock wall, several hundred feet high and about one thousand feet long, served as the backdrop for the field. If it were not the site of a famine relief shelter, it could be described as picturesque.
Standing in the doorway of the second building was a tall, blonde-haired young man, a few years older than Al, reading a book.
“Hi. Can you tell me where I can find the UN’s relief supplies warehouse?” Al asked.
“Why yes I can. In fact, you’re standing right in front of it,” the man informed Al with a British accent. He put down his book and looked at Al, studying him for a second or two before sighing, “And I’m guessing you’ve got a truck to unload.”
Al shook his head. “No. I’m the new warehouse manager.”
“Oh. Now that’s even better. I was expecting my replacement last week,” the young man said with glee.
“Well, I just got the assignment a couple days ago,” Al replied.
“Hey, I’m not blaming you. I know how things go. But I’m glad to see you. Now I can do some sightseeing in Ethiopia and Kenya before I return home. If I had to wait any longer, I would have had to miss my last stop, Mt. Kilimanjaro,” the warehouse manager explained.
Al laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
Al shook his head in disbelief. “I’m sorry—just an amazing coincidence. Say hi to my buddies if you bump into them at Kilimanjaro.”
“Are they with Oxfam, too?”
“Oxfam? What’s that?” Al replied.
“Who are you with?”
“Peace Corps.”
“Oh. I’m with Oxfam. We’re a relief organization based in England with offices in America.”
“Three of my Peace Corps friends, two guys and a girl, are traveling to Kilimanjaro this week.”
“Small world.”
“Yeah, and getting smaller all the time. I was going with them until I was asked to manage this warehouse at the last minute.”
“I think the worst is over here. Four months ago it was bad. There were about twice as many people being fed here then. Lots of malnutrition and related deaths.”
“And now?”
“Much better. All the shelters are stocked with food, and more is coming in from the Assab port all the time. Nobody is going hungry now, if they get to the shelters. The big problem in the shelters is disease, like measles and cholera that spreads quickly and can be deadly.”
“My name is Al.” He extended his hand to the Britain, who shook it.
“Hi, I’m Colin. I guess I better show you around and tell you what I do.”
Colin was a character, older than his years, someone who apparently had seen more than his share of suffering around the world while working for Oxfam. His parting words for Al were, “I hope I never see you again.” Al didn’t take offense because Colin said it with a warm, sincere look and a wink.
“At least not when you’re working,” Al replied with a wink and a nod.
CHAPTER 60
A Mysterious Request
Bill Walker was right. Managing the warehouse just required supervising the loading and unloading of trucks, and simple bookkeeping to record the flow of inventory. Al felt more than qualified to handle these aspects of the job. Dealing with personal issues was more challenging. As Al retraced his steps at the end of the day to meet Paul at the shelter’s entrance, he saw a mother, a father, and their seven- or eight-year-old daughter walking slowly to the check-in gate.
They had clearly come a long way and were distressed physically and emotionally. The father was limping, the mother wiped tears from her face, and the little girl stood by her mother’s side, holding her hand while cautiously surveying the scene around her. Just as Al began to wonder about them and their journey to the shelter, Paul pulled up in his Land Rover.
“Hey, man. Looks like you made it through your first day,” Paul said.
“Hi. Yeah. Everything is under control.”
“That’s good. Let’s get your stuff at the hotel so you can move into Peace Corps’ northern headquarters and we can eat. Did I tell you we’ve got a cook?”
“No. Really?”
“She makes great duro wat and minschatabesh, as well as a few foreigngee dishes like pasta, hamburgers, and omelets,” Paul told Al as they drove away.
“Sounds like I’m gonna be eating better than I thought,” Al quipped.
“And with everything split six ways, we’ll be living cheap, too.”
“I wouldn’t mind saving a few bucks.”
“You play poker?”
“A little.”
“We play at least a couple times a week with our extra birrs (Ethiopian dollars) to pass the time.”
“Count me in.”
That night, Al ate pasta with Paul and two of his other new house-mates. The remaining two were out in the field and spent just a few nights a week at the house, just enough time for a short break and to replenish their supplies. Al lost six dollars in poker, but had a good night’s sleep, except for some mysterious, intermittent rustling sounds that broke the silence. He later learned that a mouse also lived in the house and was responsible for the noises.
Just as the mouse disturbed the peace of the house at night, there was something stirring inside Al that bothered him during the day—this in spite of the fact that his first week went well. Al’s first day on his own had started by greeting his labor crew, who enjoyed hearing him converse with them in his broken Amharic. Colin hadn’t spoken Amharic and needed his assistant manager to act as an interpreter. Not surprisingly, they bonded more with Al. His loading and unloading the trucks alongside them broke down even more barriers.
A couple trucks a day were loaded and sent to restock shelters in the outlying areas. A caravan of trucks from the port was unloaded one afternoon to completely restock the warehouse. Al concluded that the uneasy feeling he had during the day came from observing people living on the edge on a daily basis. Each day, as he got to know more of the people in the shelter, he became more troubled.
During a break between trucks, Al leaned up against the exterior wall of the warehouse and looked around the shelter to get a better sense of what life was like in this place. In a way, it reminded Al of a big camping site in the States, but instead of being filled with people happy to get away from their stress-filled city lives, he saw the lean bodies, gaunt faces, and stoic expressions of thousands who fled their homes to avoid starvation. And instead of grilled hotdogs and hamburgers, they ate vitamin-enriched porridge.
As Al moved his gaze from one place to another, his eyes met those of a young girl who was standing alone just across the road. While her face was blank, her eyes were probing, as if looking for an answer to a question. Al recognized her as the girl he had seen with her parents at the check-in gate at the end of his first day there. Feeling self-conscious after a few seconds, Al turned his head, but the girl continued staring at Al, looking for an answer to a question only she knew.
“Lorrie Metoaw! Lorrie Metoaw!” shrieked one of Al’s crew to alert his colleagues and Al that the next truck to be loaded had just entered the shelter’s gates. Al retrieved his log book from inside the warehouse to note this shipment. By the time he returned half a minute later, the truck was pulling up in front of the building, his crew was huddled to hear Al’s instructions, and the little girl was no longer around.
The next day while Al was chatting with a relief worker from Germany in front of the warehouse, Al saw that inquisitive little girl in a line of ot
her children, all carrying softball-sized stones in the rain. As they all walked past Al, laughing with each other about something, this girl stood out because she wasn’t laughing. She kept her eyes on Al. She was a pretty girl with beautifully braided hair, surely the love of her parents’ lives. Al was beginning to think that she was fascinated by him for some reason, and as a result, she stood out for Al from all the others in the shelter whenever she was around.
But for the next two days, whenever Al looked, she was nowhere to be seen. In passing, as he worked, he wondered what had become of her. The answer came the following morning after Al and his crew had loaded the first truck of the day. Al was sitting alone in the shade on the ground with his back against the side of the warehouse. He entertained himself by watching an ant colony march by his feet.
When he looked up, standing about five feet away was the little girl he hadn’t seen for the past two days. Gone was all of her beautiful hair. Instead of an impressive headdress of intricate braids flowing down her neck, Al saw a completely bald head that made her look either like an alien from another planet or a cancer patient in the middle of chemotherapy, giving Al a sick feeling. Something was wrong. Also gone was the tentative, inquisitive expression on her face. It was replaced with a somber, fierce look of determination. Her physical and emotional transformations in two days were amazing.
She looked deeply into Al’s eyes as she walked up to him.
“Hello. Good morning,” Al said to her in Amharic
“Good morning,” she replied.
“What’s your name?”
“Almaz.” It meant “diamond” in Amharic.
Before Al could ask her about her hair, Almaz said, “Please, come with me.”
“Where? Why?” Al replied.
Almaz then took Al’s hand and pulled as she repeated, “Please. Come with me. My father needs you.”
Al got up and followed Almaz to a large tent on the nearside of the field. They walked without saying another word. Al couldn’t find the words in Amharic to express himself under the circumstances. It was the first time Al had visited anyone in the shelter. He had had no reason to, even now, except for Almaz’s insistence.