81.Fetena,for all involved

Was part of a team that gave an exam. It was fun to see the faces of the students contort with every question. You could almost say that, if teaching was a marriage, we definitely consummated it yesterday.

All that except, that was not exactly how it went down.

I was in charge of preparing some of the questions. I was walking up and down the room trying to keep up an austere and friendly demeanor  at the same time. Trying to meet the gaze of each student that happend to look up like ” I am watching you!”

And you know students; they ask! And what I discovered was: woe be unto anyone who cannot answer their questions properly.

Well excuse  me if  I don’t know all of biochemistry by heart!

Sometimes you should not give away the answers while trying to clarify things. At other times the question in question was not from your portion of the course. And still at other times, even if it was you who prepared the question, you just can’t be too sure.  

So anyway, I tried to explain what I can, told them to answer to their whim for other questions and for the questions that I had prepared, I would say: “Tiyakew tikikil meselegne; esti bedenb eyewina siraw “

It was in the middle of all this that I was called by a student. He was sitting with his legs crossed. Not like the one you do when you are in the middle of an exam, and you really have to go, but have no choice but to keep it inside. No, Ellen DeGeneres style. He shows me a question. I give it a look and try to walk away with the usual ““Tiyakew tikikil meselegne…”. But I did not get far before he calls me back (“not so fast buddy”), same question, and starts to explain things to me, underlining words, scribbling  synonyms  and shit!  He went through the choices one by one for me and he let me go when he thought he had found the answer.

And tell me what’d  I say ?  “Where do you get off lecturing me you Mourinho-act-alike little fool?! Meet me outside and I ma fuck you up! …or vice versa…”

But did it stop there? Oh no! Kid calls me again:

“It’s you again smart pants?! You really are asking for it!!”

This time it was not one of my questions. At the risk of putting down another guy’s question preparing prowess, the question was ambiguous. The previous night I had tried to clear it up for myself but couldn’t.  It went “what is the key ….of…?”

He says “What does it mean by ‘key’?”

In situations like this, when you are not really sure about what is meant by the word “key”,  enlightening/bamboozling demands that you should switch to Amharic:

“wesagne malet new”

“gin eko bizu wesagne …..och alu”

“ betam wesagne yemimesilihin melis” … “ and let me go, please?!”

 He fills in the “right” answer, oozing with confidence some might mistake for arrogance, his exam paper upright, for all unknowledgeable teachers to see.

Liked the kid. It is students like him that make teaching a fun challenge, the way it should be. And as a teacher I am a work in progress. But every day I learn more and finally I am starting to think that I really could get to like this ASTEMARI business. Like, this is my domain!

We do it with class baby!

 Then again Wul Drant endalew…

T, remember eleventh grade, Amharic class, we would study whole reading passages because some part of it would appear verbatim in the tests?  Betty would not remember because she used to be a girl. Don’t get me wrong; she is a girl still. In fact she is a beautiful girl whom I would like to take to a room, close the door, bolt it , turn on  the lights( damn! teregna nen), close the windows, draw  the blinds, check that the door is  closed,

You get the drift

In one of those passages there was a quote-it appeared on a test- from this fellow who went by the name Wul Drant: ” Filagot  yaletesetiwo ewir new ; tesetiwom yalefilagot bedin new”. Sorry for the not-politically –correctness of “ewir”.

Doesn’t anyone think that it is time to find replacements for  those kinds of words in  The Bible? Especially the ones in the gospel where Jesus cures this …..  and that ……… ?  I know they are only words but … they do not sound great.

So I don’t believe that I was born to teach (like hell you are not!). But now that I am starting to want to be a teacher, I think what I lack in tesetiwo, I could make up for with hard work. And that includes putting an end to this post and preparing notes for my classes which will begin in a week’s time.

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PP (post post): For what it’s worth Ato Ka, the guy’s name was Will Durant.

80.Ewnetegna fikir !

In spite of the fact that a Bugatti Veyron could cost as much as at least 287 Bajajs, these love birds got together, did their thing, and… lo! A Bujaj, Bajati :

Only thing is their offspring is sterile and bisexual to boot; just see which way it is going. 

Found out a way of removing onion smell from the hands. Just rub your fingers on a metal while pouring water over them / your hands are in the water. But you know what is worse? Try smelling an onion that has gone bad. Smells like doo doo.

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79.Maremia,sort of

Generalization is but one of the many kinds of fuckery I be given to from time to time. Accordingly, I have been generalizing about life in BaDa and its people: characters, expenses wezete. And it has been troubling me.

 Now I am not about to tell you that I was wrong, that the people are friendly and the living here is cheap. I am here to tell you about my experiences.

At Lemlemitu Gojam, I order key wot and the girl brings that and alicha wot in a small bowl. I say, you must be mistaken, I did not order this. But that is the way they do it and she goes on to add ergom ale yimtalih? You can choose between ergo and alicha wot and soup is served as a starter (or as my cook book would call it, kesate kers). The waitress and the overseer girl ask you min yichemer, minew albelahewim, … Price – 14 birr.

And their aynet  is aynet in all senses of the word: misir wot surrounded by 11 others. 

Meanwhile, they were getting creative across town:

I have bought stuff from nice shopkeepers and street vendors- one even gave me a complimentary candy. Many people call you gashie. I imagine that even the insults would be something like “Licho Gashie! ” 

Three or four times I went to a particular café and they were playing Neway’s songs (the album before the last)

I have seen five or more scales.

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My first day in  in BaDa, I went to give fingerprints; part of the job formalities. All ten fingers had to be printed. I kept near-annoying the policewoman with my sweaty palms and undesired movements of the fingers. Ruined one form and the plate got wet.  Then she  says “set nekteh silematawik new aydel ? “  It was more a statement than a question. And I was standing there;befucked,bothered and bewildered; thinking: “Damn  policewoman, you are good !! Which maseltegna did you go to ?” She did not even give thought to the possibility that my physiological changes could have been because I had killed three people before coming here.

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I love Ginbot and its winds.