I am currently enjoying my semester week break by reading an Isabel Allede’s historical fiction novel that has spanned from the 1836 Opium Wars to the Gold Rush in the first 200 pages. The main focus has been in 1843-1864 in Chili with characters from China, England, India and America providing background into many of the diversities unique to the various cultures for the time. From binding feet for beauty to metal rods for posture, from acupuncture to modern medicine, the book is all wrapped up in societies where guardians really do guard the family’s reputation, transportation by boat is harrowing and free thinking is considered unnerving.
The imagery and conviction of the story engulfs me. I become engrossed in the lives of the characters holding my breath when they do and wondering their future doubts with them. I can almost smell the tasty preserves, see the cathedrals with people flocking to pray against earthquakes, and hear the waves crashing against the ship heading to San Francisco.
Then I go for my evening walks and a new reality of time hits me as I avoid donkeys, shield my eyes from the dust of passing busses, and pass mosques ringing out their evening prayers. Fresh cement is being watered, corn is being roasted on the sidewalks, men cluster around checker boards and little girls carry their little siblings on their back with a smile and wave. Music drifts out from clubs and tea houses.
A dear friend invites me in for coffee at his house and I graciously accept. We (well, mostly I) stumble over broken pieces of concrete as we enter the metal gate to his compound and climb down into his house. His two-year old son erupts into laughter and squeals as he sees me and his wife smiles and welcomes me to sit. The house (one room) is small and modest. The walls have been covered and painted a beautiful light daffodil color; however, the floor remains hard compressed dirt. A clay “fernello”, a small stove used with charcoal, has the coffee beans already changing from green to dark rich brown as I enter to sit on a bench.
The television changes throughout the evening to play music videos of Katy Perry, Kanye West and others (I can’t recognize) to extreme wrestling to Ethiopian traditional dances from various regions. It’s then that I realize time is a flux. It is constantly changing at a fixed rate that we measure in minutes, hours, days, months, decades, and centuries. However, the way it fosters that change is varied from place to place. I see the obelisks in Axum and know they were around before the Gold Rush was happening. I watch dancers and wrestlers in nothing more than bedazzled underwear, wonder how long ago the corset was been forgotten, and recognize the shock of apparel from my Ethiopian friends who don’t show shoulders and knees.
As of today, I have been in Ethiopia for 19 months and 1 week. I’ve missed two Grammy’s, two Super Bowls, two World Series, countless movie releases (including the Star Wars and Hobbit III), the red cup Starbucks incident, debating between what color the dress is, and various fashion trends I only see afterwards in a friend’s old People magazines. If I were to listen to any radio station in America, I wouldn’t be able to identify the top songs or have any idea who the half the artists are. I’d be lost on news stations and way behind in my favorite comics. While at times that seems like a lot, but in the scheme of things it’s really not that much.
We put a lot of importance on time. Focusing on “now” we need to be preparing bank accounts for retirement, being caught up to date on everything, and having a plan for the future. Yes, things change with time, but overall the important things stay the same. We value family and relationships above monetary goods (or at least should). We cook meals that are familiar and have been handed down as “family recipes.” We search for self-identity while living in societies construed by assumptions and stereotypes.
Time continues it’s slow and steady progress. Change accompanies it. I wonder what people will write in the next twenty, fifty, hundred years to describe the “historical” fiction/non-fiction we are living in today. I strive to give them something good to write about.
The imagery and conviction of the story engulfs me. I become engrossed in the lives of the characters holding my breath when they do and wondering their future doubts with them. I can almost smell the tasty preserves, see the cathedrals with people flocking to pray against earthquakes, and hear the waves crashing against the ship heading to San Francisco.
Then I go for my evening walks and a new reality of time hits me as I avoid donkeys, shield my eyes from the dust of passing busses, and pass mosques ringing out their evening prayers. Fresh cement is being watered, corn is being roasted on the sidewalks, men cluster around checker boards and little girls carry their little siblings on their back with a smile and wave. Music drifts out from clubs and tea houses.
A dear friend invites me in for coffee at his house and I graciously accept. We (well, mostly I) stumble over broken pieces of concrete as we enter the metal gate to his compound and climb down into his house. His two-year old son erupts into laughter and squeals as he sees me and his wife smiles and welcomes me to sit. The house (one room) is small and modest. The walls have been covered and painted a beautiful light daffodil color; however, the floor remains hard compressed dirt. A clay “fernello”, a small stove used with charcoal, has the coffee beans already changing from green to dark rich brown as I enter to sit on a bench.
The television changes throughout the evening to play music videos of Katy Perry, Kanye West and others (I can’t recognize) to extreme wrestling to Ethiopian traditional dances from various regions. It’s then that I realize time is a flux. It is constantly changing at a fixed rate that we measure in minutes, hours, days, months, decades, and centuries. However, the way it fosters that change is varied from place to place. I see the obelisks in Axum and know they were around before the Gold Rush was happening. I watch dancers and wrestlers in nothing more than bedazzled underwear, wonder how long ago the corset was been forgotten, and recognize the shock of apparel from my Ethiopian friends who don’t show shoulders and knees.
As of today, I have been in Ethiopia for 19 months and 1 week. I’ve missed two Grammy’s, two Super Bowls, two World Series, countless movie releases (including the Star Wars and Hobbit III), the red cup Starbucks incident, debating between what color the dress is, and various fashion trends I only see afterwards in a friend’s old People magazines. If I were to listen to any radio station in America, I wouldn’t be able to identify the top songs or have any idea who the half the artists are. I’d be lost on news stations and way behind in my favorite comics. While at times that seems like a lot, but in the scheme of things it’s really not that much.
We put a lot of importance on time. Focusing on “now” we need to be preparing bank accounts for retirement, being caught up to date on everything, and having a plan for the future. Yes, things change with time, but overall the important things stay the same. We value family and relationships above monetary goods (or at least should). We cook meals that are familiar and have been handed down as “family recipes.” We search for self-identity while living in societies construed by assumptions and stereotypes.
Time continues it’s slow and steady progress. Change accompanies it. I wonder what people will write in the next twenty, fifty, hundred years to describe the “historical” fiction/non-fiction we are living in today. I strive to give them something good to write about.
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