Mass of humanity near and far

While discussing the village life Jessi and I experienced while in Ethiopia, stories started pouring forth from my parents. I learned for the first time that my extended family didn’t have a running water toilet in their house until the 1980s. I also learned that my mom went to a one room K-8 school where all students would use a single outhouse for a toilet. Before eating lunch each student in this k-8 school would reuse water from a single basin to wash their hands. The last student to wash her hands got the dirtiest water. It was funny how Jessi and I thought we were having this real village life experience with limited electricity and running water. To our parents, this was nothing new. I am a little disappointed in myself that I wasn’t able to bring these stories about my parent's history to people we met outside the main city in Ethiopia. It would have been nice to share with them because it would illustrate how America is not this shining metropolis on the hill where every family and household had running water and electricity since its invention. Perhaps it would have given the people we spoke with the confidence to see how technological development is a developmental process.

Intercultural Tip: Technology can either widen or shorten cultural divides.

Politics, Religion and other inpolite converstations

In the second week of attending the Summer Institute of Intercultural Communication in Portland Oregon, my friend and I stopped into a 7-11 to pick up some Starbucks Double shots. There I saw a guy who I guessed was from Ethiopia. I said "Salam, endeminea" which means "hello, how are you?" in Amharic. His face lit up and as he rang up the Doubleshot, we started discussing his area of birth and where he grew up. He mentioned how he was born in Eritrea, but raised in Gonder, Ethiopia. He acknowledged the difference in political boundaries between the two countries, but clearly stated that Eritrea and Ethiopia are the same people and should not have sacrificed so many lives in the war to create the political boundary.
Reflecting on this conversation I thought of other boundaries. Like the boundaries of polite conversation. "A gentleman does not discuss politics, religion or money,"I remember learning. Somehow these boundaries were lowered by just by taking a guess and saying some words in Amharic. Perhaps if I would have started the conversation more politely and not assumed the man was from Ethiopia, we would not have had such a meaningful brief interaction.
After a few hours my friend and I returned to the 7-11 for some renown Oregon beer. This time I went directly to the clerk and asked if the 7-11 carried tej (famous Ethiopian honey wine). Even though I knew that 7-11 does not carry Ethiopian tej, I figured I would playfully respect cultural uniqueness. To pronounce tej is difficult, one must project the t almost like you are saying tisk tisk tisk. So by accomplishing this feat of Ahmaric pronunciation and by acknowledging a familiar and sociable drink, the clerk was even more impressed. His eyes lit up and by the time we were checking out we crossed another boundary of polite conversation.
"You went to Orthodox Church right."-Clerk
"Yes, I went to one outside. I stood on the left side"-Me
"You know this one hummm la haaa la hum de ha de daa"-Clerk singing a church song.
"No, I don't think..."-Me
"Yes you know it, da de hum de ha de ha de ha"-Clerk
"De ha de ha de ha"-Me trying to follow along
Boundaries! Wow we were already onto religion after discussing politics during my last visit only a few hours earlier.
After paying for the beer and walking to the Summer Institute of Intercultural Communication I felt a feeling of right-path or like I was doing what I should be doing in life. This little interchange with the clerk renewed my sense of self being an interculturalist and payed respect to a portion his clerks identity. The majority of people I meet think of intercultural interaction in the negative. "Don't assume a person with Asian features was born in Asia." "Don't assume people are different than you." "In fact, don't assume anything, because that's a stereotype." I like to think of intercultural interaction in the positive. Like in the words of a famous Portland employer, Just Do It.

Intercultural Tip: Crossing boundaries is not polite, but neither is being an interculturalist.

Ethiopia Self

It seems there are many selves that inhabit my body. I have my improvisation self that I use when I am doing improvisational comedy on stage. This is the body where I adapt to change and ambiguity very quickly. I feel the improvisation body when I feel an expanse of chaos opening up around me. My body and tongue moves with the training and discipline of an improviser at the expense of careful reflection and varied interpretation.
Just this week I realized that I have another self that I developed while in Ethiopia. Whereas my improvisation body was trained through classes and refined through practice. My Ethiopia body was trained by the country itself. Countries train your body so that you make sense within the country. To be a little less figurative, people inside countries have facial expressions, gesticulations, and body movements. People reward you through nonverbal communication (smiles, eye contact, ect.) if you conform or at least connect with these non verbal behaviors.
Let me tell a story to ground the explanation in a lived experience. My wife and I were at her company’s diversity themed picnic. Wearing of ethnic dress was encouraged at this picnic. We weren’t sure if we were required to wear our own ethnic dress or just any dress that was strongly identified with an ethnicity, so we chose to wear our Ethiopian clothes. Jessi wore her Oromo dress and I wore my cotton Ethiopian long shirt. We figured that since current research tracing mitochondrial DNA traces (www.fwquestclub.com/welcome_files/papers/dna.pdf) all humanity back to Ethiopia, we had a good claim to Ethiopia’s ethnic dress. As we were walking to our car we saw two Ethiopian ladies shining a bright smile on both Jessi and I. We walked by them with a smile, then were drawn to turn around.

“You are wearing our culture clothes.” A lady said, starting a conversation.
“We just returned from Ethiopia a month ago.” We put out there as a hook for more conversation.
“Where do you live?” An interesting question posed by a man who just arrived to meet the two Ethiopian ladies.
“We are from uptown.” My wife and I respond. Identifying our uptown village pride.
Soon both my wife and I fell into our Ethiopia selves. My personal bubble shrank as I began talking to the male in the group. Jessi started gesticulating expressively. She then sought to explain the traditional medicine we had while sick in Ethiopia. She bent down and picked up a weed that resembled the leaves of medicine we took. As she pointed to the weed, I knew that she picked up right where we left off when in Ethiopia. She would never pluck grass from the ground and gesticulate like she was doing if she were explain something to a native United States-ian. In fact even she wouldn’t do it for a person from outside the US. This form of expressive and improvisational communication was the residual effect of our experience trying to communicate sans-lingua with people in Ethiopia. The accent, skin tone and knowledge that these strangers were from Ethiopia probably triggered the change. Before I know it Jessi was holding hands with the lady while trying to come up with the word for the medicinal plant.

Markets and Taxi Cartels

During my first few days in Addis Ababa I was spending nearly 10 dollars a day on transportation. The price was ridiculous. That is the price of a whole day’s worth of delicious meals and macchiato breaks between each meal. I knew there was a market disparity because of my white skin, but could it have been so high? 10 dollars is what most Ethiopians make in a week, so there must be another way. I tried bargaining at taxi stands. However this quickly turned futile as the men quickly locked in on a price. Before I go on further about pricing, let me refresh you on a brief economics lesson on markets and prices.
In a free market, services are priced at a certain point. (Let’s say 10 for one taxi ride) At this price point providers of services enter the market ("I can make a weeks wages if I find just one foreigner, I'm in!!"). A flood of service people enter the market ("Looks like these guys all had the same idea, so much for the easy $10.") At this point there is more supply of service than demand and service providers must compete. Service providers can either compete on price or service ("These fools have dirty cars, I will have the cleanest and rake in all the customers." or "So much for my $10 lottery ticket, I will increase my chances if I lower my price to $9"). Those who can't provide a better service or lower price, can't compete, do not get the customers and leave the market (I'm going back to making a sure $10 a week verses waiting for the $10 lottery ticket that prefers cleaner cars and $9 rides"). Eventually the market achieves a state of equilibrium where there are just the right amount of services for the amount people are willing to make.
The scenario presupposes two things free markets and competitive forces. Two things that exist in abundance in the Western World I inhabit, but do not exactly work as such in other areas of the world. I should have remembered that men at taxi stands quickly apply cartel pricing when I start to apply competitive forces to achieve a price that is more fair. Cartel pricing is also called fixed pricing. If everybody locks in their heels on a price, then everyone will get richer. This is such an effective strategy for business, that governments around the world have strict laws forbidding cartel pricing.
Cartel pricing and competitive forces sounds rather academic. Here is how I imagine these two concepts sound.
"Listen Tagle, you can't park your taxi here at this taxi park because you cheated all of us by offering to drive the foreigner for $9. Get out of here, and you can't come to my birthday party either"
"I needed the $9 you guys. Since your nephew brought his taxi to our stand were are not seven at this stand it is getting crowded. 9$ was a lot better than my one in seven chance of getting $10."
"You sound like an economist, get out of here and teach a class."

The long and the short of it was that I was not going to pay wildly inflated prices. It wasn't so much a money thing as a being cheated because I am a foreigner thing. Some foreigners have experienced affluence guilt and pay inflated prices to assuage their feeling of good fortune. However, I know that I have a set amount to spend in a county. That money can either be spent on people providing services and products that are worthwhile or the money can be spent on cheats and over chargers. The charitable advantage to spending money on things that are worthwhile is that you encourage people doing work for money verses people waiting half the day at a taxi stand for the lotto ticket foreigner.