Of Hexes and More Christmas

Joe Stocker has dubbed Jeremy and me Team Hex. During our first week in Ethiopia, the electricity at our getaway house in Addis died briefly, as did our water. Then, at our home in Awashbuni, we lost the drilling rig and 19 meter hole which Joe had been drilling the previous week.

So we began our well anew, seeing as how our homestead does not have water. And thus began what Joe says was the most difficult well he has drilled in Africa, and he has drilled more than twenty, including two in our area. The well spanned two years (from late December to early January), and we're not even sure it has water yet; we finished drilling, but we have not developed it. However, it's about as deep as other wells in the area, so we're not too worried.

For two weeks, we baked in the mud that splashed on us while working. Baking in mud, we may here note, is not healthy for one's skin. At nights we tried to ease the pain of burnt and cracked skin by applying coats of Vaseline. Even after a long hot shower at the Addis house, where we will be this weekend, I can still see bits of dark coffee grounds (from grinding home-roasted coffee beans) in the cracks of my skin. After twice reaming the well (making it wider) the casing (essentially the wall of the well, a two-and-a-half diameter pipe) still did not fit. So we bought smaller casing, which did fit.

Just as our luck began to change, Team Hex struck again. Well development requires the greatest amount of water. And on the day of development, the school water supply, from which we and much of the rest of the community gets their water, broke down. So we'll to continue our development next week.

Not all has been ceaseless toil. Our neighbors visit daily when we're at Awashbuni, occasionally helping, sometimes staring, but always enthusiastically greeting us. Greetings and conversations, by the way, proceed like happy murder mysteries. People here throw up both of their hands to greet you, as if joyously surrendering to the police. And in conversation, listeners let you know they are following along by periodically gasping, as though you had suddenly revealed the killer's identity. Our most frequent visitors are a group of kids. There is Fatalah, who does a wicked shoulder dance, Degeneh, who has keeps a broad smile while herding his family's cattle, Innarru, always half hidden beneath a large denim jacket, Gamada, Lamacha, and more. We call them The Sandlot.

For evening diversion this past couple of weeks, we read and Joe and I play chess. We made a board out of plywood and charcoal. We use couplings and fittings for pieces.

We've also had welcome respite this past week in the form of more Christmas. Joe received a text message on the 6th from a girl who told him Ethiopian Christmas was on that day, Jeremy and I received a text message from the Ethiopian telecommunications department near midnight of the 7th wishing us a merry Christmas, and our friend Haile the school teacher took us to his church (maybe thirty people congregated for singing and coffee and teaching in a two-room house) and to his home for a Christmas meal with his five brothers and some neighbors on the 8th. Finally, many of our other neighbors of ours celebrated on the 9th, the official date. If we include December 25, that's five days of Christmas. Of course, we worked most of those days, drilling as usual, as we did on New Years. Even so, here's to a bountiful season of Christmases!

In addition to drilling and Christmasing, we taught a group - whom Joe had already taught to drill - to install cheap pumps, and we helped our village test a thresher for their staple grain crop.
 
The story of the thresher serves as a noteworthy case study in Ethiopian life and culture. An organization raised funds to obtain the thresher for the community. For six years, the thresher remained where the organization members left it, untouched, underneath a shady grove where the elders of the community often gather. No one knew how to work the machine, and no one tried. Finally, Joe operated the machine and adjusted it to thresh their grain, so that the community could test the thresher. The machine, ready for testing, stayed under the shady grove, untouched, for another six months.

Finally, about two weeks ago we took the thresher out from under the shady grove and tested it with grain from Haile and his neighbors. Within an hour, the machine did half a week's worth of intensive labor. The community decided to return the thresher, never to use it again. No, I do not understand either. Even if it means a full week of threshing, sometimes habit outweighs efficiency.
 
Yet I suppose this is not so strange, that habit should make us comfortable with where we are, even when we know there is somewhere else we should be. Some habits, however, can also help keep us where we should be, although such habits might more aptly be called disciplines. And sometimes, a habit may have value in itself. It is very American, after all, to streamline everything we do. Perhaps there is unconscious wisdom in rejecting the thresher and keeping the slower pace.