Its Friday, 29th of December. A moment ago, there was such a loud Hallelujah heard from the house next to the church that it was hard even to gather one’s thoughts. The less loud music heard from a more distant orthodox church morning service that starts at 4 am lets me drowse a little bit, but the music from the neighboring church leaves no peace or quietness. Those rare moments of quietness seem like power cuts.
With Christian music in the background I try to make fun of my negative experiences in order to avoid deep sadness. I was supposed to have a meeting before noon and had about 30 min to wait for it, but this waiting extended into 3,5 hours and when the counterpart finally appeared, there was no trace of a slightest guilt in his face as he admitted that none of the papers were ready. I had to put my hope in another tomorrow.Why shouldn’t I as God is so patient with us? But this waiting for tomorrow has developed a month-long history by now.
Ethiopians can say tomorrow with such a humble expression in their face that I can possibly only nod and patiently wait for that tomorrow to come… with new hope, at the same time asking myself why couldn’t they fulfill their promises for a change? But white people are expected to fulfill the promises they haven’t even made!
Past experiences have shown that this word tomorrow has a different meaning here than what we are used to perceive. It could mean something like: Let’s set another date for this burdensome task so that we don’t have to deal with it today.
I was supposed to print out ten pages in the afternoon. But there was a power cut and there was nobody who could fix it. I waited, for 30 minutes. Nothing happened. I asked if there was any hope it would happen today. They said yes. And they also said they would call me when electricity is back so that I would not have to wait there. It was 9 pm and still nobody had called me. I also met a former school headmaster in the street. He would always ask me how is the construction of the school going on. I don’t understand why is he asking this from me! Just a couple of weeks ago I had been waiting for his call until the day we ran into each other. It was about the call where he was offering his help. And even when we met he showed no signs of guilt or that some actions had been missing from his side in the meanwhile.
Today’s waiting and new promises were lightened up by the book in my hands “More Than the Carpenter”. It helped me to take this day the same way Ethiopians do: Tsigirillo! God bless you!
MERLE
