What Simen Says
As Simen and I made our way out of the village, I took a good look around. Out of all the mud huts, his aunt’s was far from the finest on the block. The fanciest among them had holes punched in the walls of about the thickness of a broomstick. They looked a little like a pancake that’s ready to flip. I asked Simen about the holes and he said it is purely for decoration, to make the houses stand out from their neighbor’s. Between the hole-riddled houses and facial tattoos, I was beginning to think that there might be a slight difference in taste between the locals and myself. When we reached the main road we had some time to kill while waiting for our rickshaw to arrive. To kill time I showed Simen a defense against straight punches from Krav Maga up on a little elevated mound of dirt by the roadside. We started striking at each other playfully to practice our blocking technique. A few onlookers in the small village watched us with amusement as they passed by. When the Bajaj finally arrived we piled in and were immediately peppered with questions from Richard. He was curious to know how it went, what kind of meal we had eaten, etc. We made our way from the outskirts of town back to my hotel.
As we neared the hotel Simen turned to me. “It looks like this is it. Enjoy your last night in Lalibela,” said Simen with a tinge of sadness. “I really don’t have anything planned…” I responded. He cut in, “You said that for you it is not good to drink too much coffee late in the day. You drank my aunt’s coffee anyway, so much,” I thought it over. “I didn’t want to be rude and refuse the coffee, but yeah it will be hard to go to sleep early tonight. I was planning to get up very early and see the churches in the morning before I go to the airport. I wanted to be the first tourist there. I don’t think that is going to happen now,” I said, with a little disappointment. “They say that if you have too much coffee that you can fix it by drinking honey wine. Have you tried the honey wine here?” he asked. “No, what is that?” I answered naively. “It is a kind of wine made with honey. They make it the best here in all of Ethiopia. Even the name Lalibela means ‘honey eater’. Now is season to harvest honey, so the time is perfect. Let us go to the bar tonight so you can try,” said Simen with the beginning of that mischievous grin beginning to form on his face. He talked with Richard who redirected the Bajaj to Lalibela’s one and only downtown street. When we arrived at the bar it was still a little too early, so we roamed around searching for an opening at one of the city’s strangely prevalent pool halls. We played a few games and were pretty evenly matched. We weren’t the only ones in there, but no one gave me second glance. It was nice to blend in and not have to feel like an outsider for once.
After we finished playing we took the long way through town and walked back to the bar. When we got there we ordered flasks of the wine sweet, yellow-tinted wine. Simen showed me how to hold the oddly shaped, vase-like bottle the way the locals do. I knew he must really trust me when we started talking about girls. At his age I would imagine that would be a subject he’d try to avoid unless he knew someone well and considered them a good friend. I tried to give him some brotherly relationship advice, and couldn’t resist the urge to make sure he knew about safe sex. I told him that several of the hotels I had stayed at in Ethiopia had condoms in the top drawer that they give out for free, but that I had checked the expiration date and some of them were expired. I was relieved that he was willing to open up about such sensitive subjects. After all the time we had spent together over the previous days I had grown to really like Simen. I thought that bringing those things up could help him in the long run, especially without the guidance of his family and hometown friends. As the night wore on a troupe of professional dancers and performers showed up on the scene. They started playing traditional music on stringed box shaped instruments that I had never seen before. The dancers kept pulling people from the audience to do a popular local folk dance with them, which involved a lot of terse shoulder shrugging and made the dancers look a little like chickens. I eventually took a turn dancing in the middle, which somehow impressed Simen even though I was convinced I was making a fool of myself.
As things were winding down, Simen confessed something personal, “I am in school to be a tour guide, but that is not all I want to do. One day I will be a lawyer. In my country the politics is very dangerous. I have an uncle, he worked in local government. He didn’t want to be part of the corruption anymore, so they killed him. He died because of corruption. This is why I have to do it. If I can stop just one wrong thing like this from happening, even just one small thing, then I will be happy. I will finish school and work as a tour guide. I will work very hard, and some day when I have the money I will go to Addis Ababa to study the law. It will be very difficult because what I will do takes a lot of money and right now I don’t have any. I don’t care, because one day I will do it no matter what.” Simen had a look on his face like he had never told anyone before. He looked determined, with a resolve that I could tell went beyond just dreaming about it. I did my best to validate him. Simen may be young, but he is not too young to find success. His experiences had already made him mature beyond his years. He had picked a good person to confide in, because I truly believe in him.
“Here, I want you to have this,” he held out his hand and in it was a small wooden cross carved inexpertly from a piece of wood, with a black string looped around it. The wood looked as though it had been boiled in oil to add color to the finish. It was graced with the type of beauty that only comes with simplicity. “This is from my aunt. She made it herself. It will bring you luck,” he said as helped me tie it around my neck. “Thank you.” I said, stunned. Another selfless act from a woman with scant few material possessions. It was a truly precious gift.
That night I lay in bed and stared up at the hotel ceiling. What was my own motivation? What driving force compelled me to travel halfway around the world and seek out these kind of experiences? No American I’ve ever met, including myself, has had to sacrifice so much just to get a basic education. Coming from a background of privilege, did I have the same degree of motivation as this seventeen year old? Am I as compelled to leave the world a better place for future generations? I couldn’t get these thoughts out of my head. Simen was much younger than me. He was about the same age as the students I intend to teach. He has a lot of catching up to do to reach my own level of schooling let alone pass something like the bar exam, and was never given access to the types of resources that had allowed me to take full advantage of my own education beginning in early childhood. It seems like these circumstances have only strengthened his determination and amplified his willpower. The two of us are walking different paths, but they are parallel in many ways. Simen may never become a teacher, but he has already taught me more than he knows.
Beautiful Cross Given to Me By Simon, Made by His Aunt