It’s my second week here. I’m slowly getting accustomed to our new home. I’m lying on the sofa and watching how Merle prepares food, wondering what new and surprising delicacies are to be expected. Merle woke my from my thoughts by asking me to wash a pot. I got up fast and did what she said, because I know it’s for my own best interest . When I had finished the hard work I looked to the sky, the moon, accompanied by stars, is upside down. In Estonia I was dreaming about the African sky, which might be different to the Estonian. At a brief glance you can’t spot the differences but just the fact that I’m in Africa makes it different itself. When I went inside I noticed a tucked up person, it’s our almost unnoticeable garden guard whose skin is as dark as the sky. When I first saw him I was sad and thinking what kind of a life it is if for such a little amount of money he has to guard our house at night, but in spite of his seemingly hard life, there’s gratitude in his eyes and he doesn’t know what the word “depression” means.
You can see gratitude in many eyes but you don’t see depression so often. Children eat their portions at school, even if the portions are too big. They do it because they know that the next time they get food is the next day the same time. School canteen’s bread fight or throwing porridge is unthinkable. People appreciate the food and they don’t throw away anything. If I think of the big shops in Estonia and all the food that gets thrown away, I’m quite desperate. I can’t help but to think what our society has reached. It’s based more and more on consumption. So what do we reach in the end? We’ve been enabled with the best options, we have the opportunity to eat good food and our big homes are full of stuff we don’t need most of the time. Our heads are full of knowledge but how about our hearts? We think of what we have, we’ve earned with our work, but we’re only deceiving ourselves. If in Europe someone’s wages are cut down or people say that the have to tighten their budget then people cry out loud and strikes follow. People here have no one to turn to to demand something.
One of Bible’s most known characters Paul writes in his letters that God has put in him a peg to hit him so that he wouldn’t be imperious. People here have suffered wars and famines. I think that these difficulties have prevented this nation of becoming too proud and they have preserved their gratitude. By our standards Ethiopians don’t have much to be grateful for. An average person has one set of clothes(most of the time clean and taken care of), a place where to live and drab food. In addition they have God. Paul writes that he has asked God many times so that He’d take away Paul’s peg, but God answered him: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness!”
A white person thinks that he can go to Africa and teach them how they should live and what is the truth. I think that a white person is the one who has yet much to study!
NORMAN
