Friday afternoon found me in a skirt and rubber flip flop sandals, walking with determination up the high street towards market. I bought five tin buckets to plant zinnias and herbs in, two kilos of green beans imported from Addis, and a jar of local honey. I bought mangoes, lemons, carrots, and potatoes.
The rain caught me by surprise, sneaking up from behind, as I walked back down the hill towards home. It was a rain that saturated my clothes almost immediately; it slowed my pace as I tiptoed around instantly appearing puddles, trying not to slip, perching the buckets and beans and lemons in my slick arms.
Suddenly the streets were empty—I was alone in my plod back to the hospital. The locals huddled under awning and roof lip, watching. Watching the foreigner and her load pass by.
I’m not really one to be stared at. I joined them soon enough, becoming another solemn observer of the rain and wind and droplet-pocked muddy puddles.
We took shelter together under the tin roof of a tiny store, six Ethiopian men and a thin teenage girl, two small boys and me. The Muslim owner and his wife sat behind the counter and pretended to ignore us. The rain thundered on the tin roof. The store was the kind that sold everything—razor blades, tiny packets of yeast, candles, sweet smelling ostrich soap, lentils, plastic bottles of sesame oil, coarse sugar, black market antibiotics, and flour sifters made from the recycled food tins donated from the United States.
I soaked it all in. The smell of wet pilgrims around me, the sound of rain hitting our exposed toes, this peace that hung on us, and, as the deluge eased, the weariness that propelled us onward, back home.