A Lesson on Trust from Ethiopia

Addis is a place where beggars ask for money from beggars. A place where bargaining over goods usually occurs over a price range of 50 cents, and the homeless have to fight for outdoor floor space. And yet in the last few days here I experienced some things related to money that can be classified as both amazing and strange. Things that make you look at a city of 5 million, a city where a person can disappear and become a nameless face in a crowd, and wonder, where does this trust come from? Is it altruism at its finest? Is it covert self-interest while hoping for a reward? Or is it an almost religious understanding of welcoming a guest into your home?

The first experience that forced me to consider these questions occurred two days ago when myself and Berhanu, one of Rick’s assistants, combed (pun by way of reference to Daniel Combs here) the city in search of supplies to build a Sukkah for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. Our search led us to two places. The first, a large stockpile of branchless, barkless 3-inch thick trees ranging from 3-5 meters. The second, a group of hardware “kiosks” to buy bamboo thatching, or sat’ara, as it’s called in Amharic.

After finding the tree stockpile and its owners 15 feet below a road under construction, Berhanu and I carefully chose 19 pieces of wood totaling 763 Birr. Wrapping up the wood into different size bundles, we then paid the wood seller 200 Birr for transport. In Ethiopia transport can mean any one or a combination of a few things. By way of hired taxi, by way of hired animal, by way of hired boy – who usually hangs out nearby waiting for a way to make money. With the exchange of Birr, the young boys took off towards the direction we told them. As I yelled towards Berhanu to follow them and stay with them, so that they shouldn’t run off with our wood. Berhanu yelled back, “don’t worry, they know where to go.” It wasn’t whether they knew where to go that I was worried about, it was the 763 Birr ($40) of wood. But the idea that they would run off with our goods wasn’t even a thought for Berhanu. Trust.

Berhanu negotiating prices

Transportation of goods in Ethiopia

Then came the Sat’ara. Berhanu and I arrived at the place the sat’ara USED TO BE. A term that I’m told is used fairly often in Ethiopia. After explaining to a few shop owners what we were looking to buy and how much we wanted, Berhanu and I went to search for better prices. Within twenty minutes, we saw two of the original abashas, native Ethiopians, who worked at the kiosks holding large bales of sat’ara on their shoulders – likely sat’ara they brought from a nearby seller. “60 Birr each,” they said. “No, no. Way to expensive,” I replied and Berhanu translated. After a few rounds of negotiating we arrived at 40 Birr each. Our price totaled $138 but it was still out of our budget. Thinking of a way to cut our costs, we took measurements of the new sat’ara and realized it was 1.5 meters, not the 1.4 meters we had originally thought. We recalculated our need to 40 pieces of sat’ara, forty Birr each, which made the price 1600 Birr (~$84). Not extremely cheap, but a price we were willing to pay.

Extra sat’ara from last year — Bobby “insisted” on being in the picture

However, as willing as we were to buy the sat’ara, neither Birhanu nor myself had the money on us nor was it readily available back at Rick’s house. We had spent our budget on wood, and mass’mer (nails) and didn’t have more than 1000 Birr left on us, about 70 Birr of which would go to the taxi for transport. Birhanu decided that we could collect the money from some of the kids back home and return it to them the next day when we had access to cash – something I also found weird from an American perspective where I would never think of borrowing money from my nephews or nieces (assuming they had any – Elizabeth has a giant electric car, but money she has not).

Loading the taxi with sat’ara

When we finally arrived back at Rick’s, we could only get 1300 Birr together, which left us owing another 260 (they brought 39 pieces accidentally, not 40). The kids bringing the sat’ara said, “chegger yellem – no problem,” and that they would come back tomorrow to collect. As an American, I assumed there may be an argument over price later and took out a piece of paper for both witnesses to sign. A piece of paper that would say we had paid them 1300 Birr and would pay them 260 Birr when they returned. Birhanu started laughing at me, asking me what I was doing, and saying that there was no need. I looked at him and said, “What if they tell us tomorrow a different amount that we owe them?” And he said, “This is my neighborhood,” to which I understood “This is my culture.” “Believe me,” he said, “Its fine. This is what we do here.” The kids then left Rick’s, knowing that they would return the next day to the same house, far on the other side of town and be paid the exact amount they were owed for bales of sat’ara they no longer had in their possession without any proof that they had ever sold it. Trust.

Our sat’ara was quickly stolen

Now, comes my second experience. Preparing for my Amharic lesson, I went to a nearby ATM at the Hotel Desalegn, literally meaning “Happy Hotel” in Amharic. No sexual innuendo here, just poor planning. At the “Happy Hotel,” I was “not so happy.” Neither ATM would accept my debit card — I swear by Charles Schwab, and promis it’s a fluke! It’s not Chuck’s fault!

Anyway, I before leaving the Desalegn an hour later, I tried the ATM again, this time, trying “withdrawal from check account,” “withdrawal on credit,” and finally, “quick withdrawal.” By the third try the machine displayed a large hourglass on the screen. “Oh no,” I thought to myself. “I am going to be one of those stories of someone who had their debit card eaten by the machine.”

One of the security guards came over seeing me frustrated, having talked to me on my way in when my card wouldn’t work either, and said, “Did you try it three times? It eats your card on the third.” “Thanks, wish you told me that before,” I thought to myself. “Here, I have the number to call the bank,” he said and reached for his phone as the ATM so conveniently decided to spit my card out. Good for it too. I was about to try the Russian method, which for anyone who has seen the movie Armageddon knows it involves hitting things.

Kind of like what the carpenter did to the Sukkah but to the ATM

The security guard asked me where I was from, if I was staying at Hotel Desalegn and what I was doing in Addis. I told him I was from New York (it’s a simpler explanation although as someone from New Jersey, it hurts inside), that I wasn’t staying at the hotel and that I was in Addis working with an incredible doctor. I then asked him if there was another ATM nearby, that I was on my way to an Amharic lesson and didn’t have enough money on me. The lesson is cheap, but not by Ethiopian standards, and I tend not to carry that much money on me when I go around town. Without hesitation the guard looked at me and said, “Do you need to borrow money? I can lend you some.” While I declined his offer because I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing so, I immediately understood its semblance. This was a guard who likely makes in one month what the average American makes in a day. A guard that would give me money for an Amharic lesson that could equal a weeks worth of food. And here he was, ready to lend a ferinje, a foreigner, who had no promise to return to the hotel, money for something that was hardly a necessity. Trust.

While I know not the reasons for this incredible trust among people here in Ethiopia, I know that I am impressed. As much as I love my home in America, I don’t believe that this type of trust exists. That people would be willing to give away their property with no prior contract or insurance based on a system of trust that they would eventually be paid. And that those who promised to pay would take that property and return what they had owed at the time that they promised to pay it. Even in Israel, my second home, a country built on the idea of community, I believe that the days of that kind of trust are rapidly disappearing. With development and prosperity, bigger and bigger towns and cities, individuals are becoming lost in the crowd and honest mutual trust is becoming more and more rare. And while I fault no one for this reality and understand the reasoning and experience that leads us to this type of personal protection, I still respect, appreciate and reflect on what I have seen and experienced here so far.

In a city where beggars ask for money from other beggars, where one can easily disappear and become a nameless face in a crowd of 5 million, where there is a lack of concrete floor space for the homeless, those who don’t have much are willing to give it, and those who borrow it fulfill their promises to return it.

Bobby excited to get to work

Bobby trying to help bring wood home

Cutting wood for the frame

Some of the guys taking a break

Bobby being removed by Manor for touching EVERYTHING

 

The frame finally finished and attaching sat’ara begins

The final piece of sat’ara

Guta waving hello from the finished Sukkah