about tossing a ball into a basket or riding a bike that went nowhere.
Martin spent a year in Ethiopia after graduating from university.
Upon opening the Peace Corps envelope he was disappointed to find
he was being sent to a place synonymous with barren fields of dust
and death, but it turned out to be anything but. The place he arrived
at was lush with life and uncommon beauty.
Every morning he jogged through the fields near the city of
Harrar, the mild Islamic bastion where the French poet Rimbaud
once lived out his last dark days. Martin believed he must have been
a very deranged man not to appreciate this scenery—perhaps his
sense of the illuminate had been rendered blind by the harsh vision
of his younger, intemperate eye. Surely Harrar was a poet’s paradise.
He waved to the villagers as he passed, and they would always
wave back, laughing openly. Children and teenagers would run with
him for a few minutes, giggling at the absurdity of his exercise, the
comical flopping of his strange auburn hair. They sometimes asked
him what he was running from. Some guessed that he was running
from Buda, the Ethiopian evil eye.
It was well-known in Ethiopia that blacksmiths, craftsmen and
artists were in league with the evil eye, allowing them to conjure up
magic symbols and miraculous effigies. Martin was from America,
where everything powerful and strong and expensive in the world
was made. Buda, they reasoned, must be very strong there. Is that
why he left home?
He was not running from Buda, he explained. His heart was weak
and he needed to exercise to keep it strong. One young girl told him
that the dabtara, a village shaman was an expert at fixing things like
that, but Martin assured them he was okay now. His pulse was low
and his heart vigorous. Movement and determination had cured him.
His aspirations had become unbounded.
That morning, a barefoot older man cut into the path and started
jogging next to him. Martin was impressed with the man’s agility and
speed, guessing him to be in his late sixties. But the man not
laughing. He was angry. He knew Martin was not running from
Buda. “How dare you,” he said, “How dare you dance around us while
we struggle to feed ourselves. Why don’t you take off those expensive
shoes and help us work?”
The man insisted that Martin help them work in the fields. It was
not an altogether inane request. If he was going to exercise, he might
ABYSSINIA
90
 |
 |
 |
 |