The Skin Tax

Birr in denominations

Discrimination or an example of a perfect market economy? The “skin tax,” as one Ethiopian coworker called it, is rampant in Gondar. Every day assumptions are made about me based on the colour of my skin. Usually- I’m rich, I’m a tourist, I’m a doctor, I’m a teacher, I don’t speak Amharic, I’m loose, I’m here to give out money, I think I’m superior, I’m rude, I tip well, I don’t tip at all, I’m Israeli, I’m Italian, I’m definitely not German, I’m short term, I’m a foreigner, I have a watch… and it’s ok to charge me extra.

Some of those assumptions are true, some are very not. And every volunteer gets different assumptions based on their gender, ethnic background, accent, language ability, and where in Ethiopia they live.

For me, I live in a tourist town. Gondar is well-known for its “ferenji waga” or “foreigner’s price.” Restaurants have two menus, hotels have two rates, and historical sites have multiple admission prices. The reality is that if I were a tourist those price differences wouldn’t matter all that much. While sometimes there is as much as a 300% increase on a menu, the difference between a 75 cent meal for a local and $3 meal for a tourist is still cheap for the traveler.

The only time you will see the Amharic Pepsi cheaper! I think they forgot to update the menu

The problem is, I’m not a tourist, or an NGO worker, or a doctor. I don’t get a salary in USD, I get a stipend… in birr. About the equivalent of a middle class Ethiopian. I’m certainly not struggling, but getting overcharged over and over again takes a toll on my budget.

Community integration is incredibly hard to measure. How close are you really to your community? You many never know. Especially in a city, I break my communities into pieces. Souk owners I frequent know me, check. I have coffee or tea with Ethiopian friends around the city, check. I am getting more and more work, which is hopefully a sign of trust, check. But the clearest indicator so far of community integration has been when I get charged “habesha waga” or “local price” at a restaurant.

It’s not just a sign of my language skills. I usually have to explicitly ask for the local price, assert that I live here, and that I’m a volunteer. But owners I know and who have seen me around for a significant time are getting more lenient. Now I only have to ask once.

What bothers me isn’t the existence of the price racketeering, it’s the assumption that I fall into that bracket. The idea of different rates isn’t a bad thing necessarily. In fact a completely free economy dictates price based on worth for the consumer. For a tourist, who is used to $20 meals at home, a $5 meal here for the same food is a deal, even if it is twice as expensive as its local worth.  But what makes me grit my teeth is that this price rating is based on skin colour. Tourists from other cities like Addis Ababa are charged local prices, and people born in other countries who live long term in the rural countryside are charged the tourist rate.

The other frequent occurrence is people trying to overcharge me at the market, yet for some reason that does not bother me at all. Yes, I get annoyed when I know the real price (I just bought eggs here last week!), but I’m not going to fault people for trying to eek a few extra birr out of me if they can get away with it. Haggling is part of the culture, and while it is exhausting, it isn’t annoying. What gets under my grill is the standardized price gauging, the institutionalized, printed, pre-determined unfairness. If I could sit down at a restaurant, talk in Amharic and get a local price while the tourist gets charged extra- fine! In fact, great! But when I come in, sit down, talk in Amharic, ask the waitress about her day and her work and still get handed the “English menu” with the higher prices simply because I don’t look Ethiopian is frustrating. And when I say don’t look Ethiopian, I don’t mean “white.” I mean dark black, Asian, Hispanic, and white. If you don’t look like you were born 15 feet from that restaurant you will not be treated like you live 15 feet from that restaurant… even if you do.

Ethiopia is an incredibly diverse country. There are 87 languages, 100s of tribes, and at least three fairly prominent religions. But for how diverse it is on paper, Ethiopia is also incredibly homogenous. Homogenous if only because people do not or cannot travel. Culture develops at the village level and may be very different from the next village over, or the next region over, but there isn’t much mixing except in cities, making diversity still very strange for most people here.

While I get assumptions in Gondar, if I go more rural, I get bewilderment. I met a woman the other day who was working as a cleaner in a hole in the wall restaurant who had never seen a ferenji before. Granted, she had just come in from the rural village last week, and not many tourists frequent that particular area, but even in Gondar, there are still pockets of isolation.

So the skin tax is both an example of institutionalized discrimination, the effect of a capitalistic economy (ya they’ll pay it, because they can afford it), and the subject of gripe for many volunteers. But we can ask, we can live, and maybe every once and while we get charged the habesha waga. And when that happens, you feel great for a week!

Fires and Shootings and Project Management Oh My!

Just got back to Gondar from 12 days of Grassroots Soccer and Regional training in Bahar Dar. All of this was very exciting cutting edge stuff… cough cough… but I’ll talk about that later. The real events of the week included two shootings and a warehouse fire!

As we arrived a couple weeks ago, we were told to avoid a certain neighborhood in the city (with the beer garden damn!) because of a shooting incident. The rumor circulating is that an ex military guy shot up a wedding of a former lover, killing her family and a few unlucky bajaj drivers nearby. It was a really big tragedy for the area, some staff having personal connections to some of the victims.  He then drowned himself in the lake. The next week, another shooting occurred in the same neighborhood. I feel a family feud developing.

A few days after that, a warehouse caught fire across the street from the hotel. None of the incidents are officially related, but if I were a script writer I would cry arson! We were told it was a palm oil storehouse, so clearly it burned quickly.

Military move in to help with the fire

What was fascinating was the emergency apparatus here. Considering many households do not even have basic needs met, I was impressed by the multiple fire trucks that showed up. However, there is no hydrant system so they would wet the fire, have to drive off to get more water, and the fire would be blazing again by the time they came back.

The next morning… still smoking, but under control

Bahar Dar is one of the more modern cities in Ethiopia. Even though Gondar is bigger (or maybe because of it), Bahar Dar boasts cleaner streets, wider sidewalks and better infrastructure (including stop lights! You don’t even see those in Addis). So I can’t tell if I was surprised that there were two fire trucks, or surprised that there were only two fire trucks for a city that size (pop. about 200,000).

Peace Corps also officially consolidated us in the hotel. So I can check that experience off the list. Though we lobbied to move to the resort down the street for “safety” reasons, I don’t think they bought it.

Amharic Days

I’m going to go out on a limb and say Ethiopian Amharic (and Ethiopian Tigrynia) are some of the hardest languages to learn in Peace Corps. What about Russian? What about Chinese? What about Arabic? Ok, those are probably pretty hard too, but at least you’ve heard those languages before- in a movie maybe, or from a neighbor. I’m pretty sure 98% of volunteers came into Ethiopia having no exposure to the language.

What makes Amharic difficult? It is one of the three major Semitic languages in the world (Arabic and Hebrew being the other two). Its grammar structure is the opposite of English, but only sometimes. So you can’t just turn an English sentence backwards. I have to think of the entire statement before I say it, which if you know me and my foot in my mouth ways, it’s probably a skill I should develop.

It’s phonetic, and like most other languages has different conjugations for everyone—male, female, polite, plural etc. (there are 10 in all for each verb), not to mention 10 in each tense. This is also a language of prefixes and suffixes. To address an action to someone, to create an imperative, to say “let me,” to really put any sort of purpose to a verb you have to add in extra syllables at the front, end and even sometimes middle. And I thought German had the longest words…

The result is that many times people speak to me and I catch the fact that they are speaking to me (a female “you”), asking if I will do something in the future (a “ta”) and for them (ñ at the end)… but I miss the actual verb root buried in there. I’m getting really good at the phrase “inenja mikniatum algañim” which is… I don’t know, because I don’t understand. Or a sharp intake of breath… which doesn’t mean yes or no, just I’m listening—the Ethiopian equivalent to the nod and smile. Ishi.. Okay.

But never fear, the lovely lady leading me through the mire is an English professor at the Teacher’s College here in Gondar and the best shuro wot chef west of Woldia:

As you can see I am a giant in this country…

Language acquisition is an interesting feat. In a total emersion situation like we are as volunteers, after 10 weeks of training and 6 months at site, I can interact on my survival needs and communicate in basic ways and answer basic questions as long as people speak slowly. But really for about half a year of language, I can get around. On the other end, Ethiopian children learn English from Grade 1 and are taught subjects in English in High School (don’t get me started on that). And unless they are really smart kids and go on to university, I would say my Amharic conversational skills are better than theirs… 10 years in.

But like most hidden powers, sometimes I like to keep my Amharic to myself. I know way more dirty words than I should (thank you harassment), but I can pretend to ignore them (which I tend to find is best practice). But sometimes I’ll start in English and switch to Amharic mid way through to throw people off in the market, hearing bargaining and understanding real prices. Wabam! Didn’t see that one coming, did ya popcorn lady!…

But language is always an ongoing process. I’ve probably hit a plateau at this point – getting faster at phrases I use more often, but losing words I used to know during training (struggled to come up with the word for orange the other day). But you hone what you need and use. I don’t pretend to think I will ever be proficient or even close to fluent, and the ugly truth is that I don’t need to be. But small steps, a few new phrases here and there, can make a big difference in living and working here. So Aster and I hang out, and sometimes I learn something.

Alphabet Soup

This might be a typical conversation to overhear between two PC Ethiopia volunteers:

PCV1 – Hey! Did you get your CNA to the APCD on time? I heard our VRF was due before the PAC meeting at the end of IST.

PCV2 – No I didn’t have time with all the TOTs I was doing. The HCNs and CPs really pulled it together at the last minute there. Minum aydalum.

PCV1 – For sure. I tried to call the PCMO the other day about that double dragon situation but then I got the text that the pizza was coming in a yellow box. Dude I’ll ET if I have to share my chocolate store in consolidation. Ebt!

PCV 2 – Crazy! That and the new PCTs get all their attention, especially ‘cuz they’re ed. But chigerellum man.

PCV 1- Ya well that HIV BCC  ToT you did after WMD and the BAMM competition was pretty cool. You might get pulled in for a PSN or CCC training after that. Can you believe it’s almost our MSC? Next thing you know we’ll COS. Ishi baka gotta go, I’m outta birrrrr.

Catch all that? Ya, me neither six months ago. But with all new jobs, you start to learn the lingo. What’s fun about a volunteer’s job though is that each country creates its own slang- a mix of Peace Corps acronyms, local language quirks, and code words. Don’t ask me what a double dragon is… let’s hope you never experience it.

I remember talking to some RPCV (returned volunteer) friends before I left and only understanding about half their conversations. Development jargon, peace corps jargon, and the experience that every volunteer has no matter their country (you will poop in a hole) create a bevy of inside jokes and complete nonsense. But it also creates a community and bond that goes beyond linguistics. As funny as this website is, I can guarantee it is 10X funnier to a peace corps volunteer.

But we’ll hide behind the jargon for now. At least as long as this holds true, don’t look behind the curtain!:

Some Random Occurrences

So when you live day to day life out of your element you tend to run into some pretty funny and awkward situations. Mostly awkward, but that could just be me.

Here’s a summary of the past month in anecdote form:

-          Having a session with my tutor a bird poops all over my fidel chart, the Amharic symbols. Reasons why I love my tutor? Her response: Yup, that’s just about how I feel about fidel. Me too, girl, me too.

-          Speaking of birds, during a presentation at a college about the Aids Resource Center a pigeon bursts into the room, bounces off my head and crashes into the closed window. Shenanigans ensue. I don’t think those kids will forget our organization very soon.

-          Walking down the street the other day I had a city meets country moment. On the second floor landing of an apartment building there was a cow, just chilling. What the how? How did he get up there?

-          Walking home a little girl throws the contents of a chamber pot out on to the street—on to my feet. Great, a urine shower. As incensed as I was, the poor girl had the most ardent, cutest apology. Thank goodness the water was on that day when I got back.

-          After a presentation at a high school, similar to the pigeon story, I thoroughly embarrassed myself by attempting to give my schpeel in Amharic. Turns out it didn’t matter. Two teenage girls came up to me later and told me I was cool. Doesn’t matter what country you live in, teenage girl approval is always awesome.

-          Twice in one week I had “good posture!” shouted at me on the street. Once from a woman, once from a man. Either this is a phrase people learn in English class here or years of my mother telling my not to slouch has officially paid off.

-          If I don’t hear 3 “I love yous” 15 “Conjo!”s (beautiful) 21 “Kayo”s (the red one, a term of endearment/come on) and a couple “fuck yous” I count it a slow a day. However, the best shout I ever got came from a little toddler in a grizzly bear onsie with the ears sewed to the hood. Rolling around on the sidewalk making race car noises, I walked by and he immediately jumped up and screamed “ I LOVE YOU!” The one time I don’t have my camera!!

-          Oh the joys of second languages. Peace Corps, when read phonetically (Amharic is a phonetic language) reads Peace Corpse, prompting the very reasonable question by a coworker: “So corpse… are you guys like Peace Zombies?” No sir, no we are not, but close. I can see the confusion, as I haven’t bathed in few days.

So between the mundane and the busy, happens the ridiculous. More to come I’m sure.

A Little Experiment

Malaria is the number one cause of mortality for adults in Gondar. Yet, almost no one seems to think it’s an issue. To be sure, there is a season for it (right after the rains), but if the numbers are correct almost 57 out of 1000 adults and 34 out of 1000 children under five years old will contract the disease in this city next fall. For a city estimated to be about 320,000 people, that means a lot of malaria cases.

April 25th is World Malaria Day (Happy Birthday David!). Along with the plethora of other diseases plaguing Sub-Saharan Africa (see Peace Corps Health volunteers all over the continent), these awareness campaigns tend to get lost in the mire of public health announcements. So I decided to get personal with it. As an example for the people on my compound I conducted a little experiment.

Kids, don’t try this at home, unless you are taking malaria profylaxis. Mine is a weekly called methlyquine (the dream inducing kind—it’s groovy man).

Every night I sleep under a treated mosquito net provided by Peace Corps. Last night, I decided to stick out one of my legs. If you had asked me a week ago, I would have said there aren’t any mosquitoes in my house. I don’t hear them when I sleep, and because I sleep under the net I don’t get bit. Here are the results:

Out of the net – I count 14 bites just in the photo!

Under the net – No Bites! just a few freckles

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These are not a model’s legs, no thanks to the angle of the photo, but let it be known I swathed on hydrocortisone cream for the next few days.

I don’t know if I changed any behaviors, but the next day after I poorly explained my “bimbee” bites to my compound mates, I saw a malaria net washed and drying out on the line. I’ll count that a success.

Net distributions are scheduled in towns every three years according the government health office. The next distribution in Gondar should be in about two years. If anything, I’m just going to keep asking about it. Malaria is one of those disease where if caught early it is easily treatable, if you don’t catch the fatal strain. But even more than treatment, prevention is simple—don’t get bit. And since malarial mosquitoes are most active at night, a bed net is one of the most effective and cheapest solutions.

My Bed Net – sometimes it feels like a princess canopy… if I pretend

Extreme Home Makeover

Now that I’ve lived at site for about three months I’ve finally put my house together. A mishmash of donated furniture, locally bought items, things I made myself and a classy plastic “marble” floor have made this cement shelter into something I actually felt was home when I walked in after 3 weeks away yesterday.

Welcome to my humble abode:

The entrance, with pretty iron work

Home improvement projects still abound, but I’ve basically put together a space I can call my own. Here is the transformation.

BEFORE:

Priority 1 – set up bed

Living off the floor

cement floors

Step one was getting flooring and furniture in:

Living Room/Kitchen

Step 2 was getting my cooking off the floor. That was a good day:

Kitchen set up – propane stove, water filter. I can get pretty creative.

Step 3 was extra life furniture (wardrobe, bookshelf, malaria net etc.) I was really proud of myself for getting unfinished wood and varnishing/painting things myself. Take that ferenji prices!!

 

Bedroom – No Malaria for me!

The bookshelve I made out of veggie crates. Probably killed a few brain cells with that varnish

Shelf after paint

Step 4 was adding some homey touches and wall decorations:

“Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiam” Winston Churchill

Henry David Thoreau

A little slice of home

Keeping track of my service

Vincent Van Gogh

 

So all together:

colourful walls!

So that’s where I’m living for the next two years. Not too shabby. Water is outside the compound and the shint bet (bathroom) is shared with everyone a few doors down. There’s a western toilet (what. up.) and a cold shower. I’m hoping to get a bamboo weaved basket to put random things in and I’ll probably put up another quote above the counter (suggestions welcome!). Future plans also include putting up my favorite photos that I’ve taken here around the Ethiopia map on the wall.

Sorry for the lack of posts these past few weeks, I didn’t realize I would be without internet during my conference so I’ll back on it soon!

 

Cooking in Peace Corps Part 2

No fridge, no oven, no problem! Ironically the fewer ingredients and appliances I have, the more creative I get. This could also be related to the time in the day I have available to waste experimenting on cooking now (answer: a lot).

But mostly I’m surprised by how much I can get away with that I would never have considered in America. Here is a list of things that I would have refrigerated at home that I definitely do not here, and they are totally fine:

-          Eggs

-          Butter/margarine

-          Most vegetables

-          Unopened cheese (not really fair because I either get single servings or non-fridge needing kinds from packages)

-          Mayonnaise and other condiments

-          Leftovers

-          juice

-          Milk

Ok that last one isn’t really true. If I had real milk I would refrigerate it, but because I don’t have a fridge, I have discovered the glories of powdered milk. Nestle, you got me, I’m addicted to NIDO fortified powder. I mix it with water and can make it as creamy or not as I want, use it for cereal, tea, add it to hot chocolate packets, mix with tomato paste for soup, oh man it’s great. I realize that was legitimate product placement there, but I would not complain if some savvy marketer found this blog post and shipped a lowly peace corps volunteer a few tubs of Nido… no? Worth a try, it’s expensive!

The other adjustment is using a dutch oven. Basically I bought a giant pot, and I put a smaller pot inside it on one of my stove burners so the heat gets all around it. For one of my site mate’s birthdays last week we made a cake… on a stove. Dutch ovens are cool. So you can send me muffin mix packets… if you want.

I also don’t have a sink. Chiggerellum! (No Problem) I have 2 large plastic buckets that I pretty much use for everything. I did make the mistake of putting my hot skillet into one the other day and melted a hole through the plastic… oops. Ya, you don’t really need to remember that stuff with a metal sink, but a volunteer’s best friend, duct tape, came to the rescue  on that one(special shout out for Josh and my other theater workshop friends).

Equal and Opposite Reactions

Life comes in waves here. I can feel incredibly happy, excited, everything is lucky go la-dee-da, and not ten minutes later come crashing down as I literally fall into a ditch. Understanding the roller coaster of emotions volunteers can go through within even a single day, I try to practice prudence and flexibility in dealing with both the good and bad. Even when things go awesomely, it can be dangerous to let my emotions swing to widely to either side of the pendulum less Murphy’s law comes to take its vengeance.

Usually these periods come in bouts of days, weeks, or even months before emotions change. Check out this long range volunteer life cycle [future blog post], but a few days this past week showed me how quickly events can change, and if something bad happens it will usually be outweighed by a touching experience later.

Walking home from work one day, I passed a group of children, of which I pass hundreds each day, near my house. The kids almost always ask for money or pens or a soccer ball or something, and I usually smile and keep going, sometimes I stop and talk with them, explain my job (penniless volunteer), and that asking for money just because I look different (like a tourist) is actually rude. It depends on my energy. On this particular day, the group of boys yelled at me “GIVE ME MONEY!,”, without a hello or any greeting at all. In addition, they were clearly not street children, had backpacks and school supplies, and their uniforms were suspiciously clean. So as I passed I yelled back “YALANYM,” which means “I don’t have any,” and kept going. Usually the kids laugh and giggle at my bad pronunciation, but one rabash (rude/obnoxious) kid in the group picked up a stone and hurled it at me, where it hit the back of my head.

I whirled around, pointed my finger at the kid and in my scariest teacher voice said he was extremely rude and he should NEVER do that again. Which in Amharic probably came out like “rude! Never! Bad! You!” or something embarrassing like that. The point came across though and an adult walking past who saw the whole thing walloped the kid up the side of the head. Not exactly what I wanted, but whatever, he deserved it.

As I turned away, holding back tears, I realized that it hadn’t actually hurt, it had just hurt my pride. After over a month of meeting people, integrating, and living in this community this was the first (probably of many) blatant moments where I was singled out like that. I was most frustrated with the fact that I had felt like in a moment where I let down my guard, a kid had found a crack and forced all my walls back up in 30 seconds.

Not 50 feet later, though, I ran into an older man who is my friend Morgan’s counterpart in her small town in Aykel. He had recognized me from a meeting and was walking down my road after visiting a friend in my neighborhood. While he works in Aykel, he said much of his family lives in Gondar and so he comes to visit a lot. In a moment where all I wanted to do was go home and eat chocolate and sulk, I bucked up and let him invite me for tea. I’m really glad I did. What would have been an awful afternoon was negated by this kind man only 10 minutes later. I’m also proud that I took advantage of a moment that I could have easily brushed off.

Another example a few days later, I left work and ran into a group of street kids who I am particularly fond of. Sometimes we chat; they are funny because they are clearly little con artists, but not quite good at it yet. On this occasion though they told me that the bread coupons an NGO had been handing out were not able to be redeemed at the bakeries because of some problem or another (it has since been resolved). Because it’s not my organization, but I know the program, I agreed to just buy the kids some bread, which is 1.25 birr for a loaf, or the equivalent of 7 cents USD.  Of course when we got to the souk, 3 kids had become 15 and bread had become donuts. I agreed to buy no more than five donuts (which are more expensive) and they could share however they wanted. Mistake. Some of the older kids ran off with a few of the donuts before I could do anything, and as I tried to extricate myself from the situation one of the kids yelled “I hate you!” as I was walking away. You’re welcome, kid.

But only a few minutes later when I walked up to the Post Office to find it closed, the package man recognized me, knew I had a package and opened up just for me and called me family. It also helped that the package had chocolate in it for me to eat when I got home : )

So even in the span of a few minutes I can have equal and opposite emotions competing in my brain, but taken as a whole, this experience, while difficult at times, will always have hidden gems of moments that make it all worth it.

Care Package Suggestions

For those of you thinking of sending care packages, firstly I LOVE YOU, secondly, I know it can be hard to have any idea of what I need or miss so I figured I would put together a general list of things that I will always be excited to receive and that I tend to go through quickly.

-          Letters! You don’t even have to send me packages, old fashioned letters are always a treat, though I love everyone doubly who sends me regular emails haha. There has been multiple times I have literally laughed out loud in front of my coworkers reading your emails

-          Chocolate. It’s an unhealthy addiction, maybe I eat my feelings. Favorites include: M&Ms (normal and peanut), Reeses, Kit Kats, Chocolove toffee for the CO folks

-          Dried Fruit. Bananas and oranges are the only fruit consistently available here so snacks like raisins etc, are a great break, and they keep for a long time.

-          Salty snacks like goldfish, Cheeze-its, crackers. Available here but expensive.

-          Canned meat like tuna (in water) or chicken. Also available but expensive.

-          Cheese that doesn’t need refrigeration or that comes in single serving packets (Laughing Cow, bluebell, kraft singles, Velveeta all travel well)

-          Facial moisturizer – I like Cetaphil with the SPF

-          Nail polish- ALL THE COLOURSSSSS (apparently you can’t declare it though because the post office doesn’t like to air ship it? Confusing, but they travel fine, just don’t tell USPS)

-          Other girly things that I make me feel good: I only packed 2 pairs of earrings and would be happy to get some more. I thought I could buy some awesome Ethiopian ones here, but the traditional ones aren’t really for daily wear and everything else looks like a unicorn pooped rhinestones all over it.

-           Gum (mint) : if you want banana flavored gum, Ethiopia has you covered! (gross)

-          Magazines: My mom’s got me covered with TIME so if you have leftover Vanity Fair’s, Vogues or other fashion ones I can keep tabs on how much my chaco tan lines are deviating from current trends

-          Hot chocolate packets

-          Random things that are surprises : )

Things you don’t need to send me because either they are easily available, not worth the shipping price for you, or my mom has already sent me a million:

-          Ziplock bags

-          Peanut butter: it would be awesome, but there is a “natural” kind here (aka not sugary haha) that works just fine and it would be expensive to put something that heavy in a box

-          Baby/make-up wipes

-  Notepads, but notebooks of the pocket moleskin variety are cool

Hopefully this is helpful for people struggling to think of things. I’m not expecting anything, but just want to make lives easier.

Sarah Crozier
PO Box 479
Gondar, Ethiopia