In Western culture, I don’t think we find ourselves longing enough in our hearts. Perhaps in our haste and hurried manner, with the ability to connect immediately, we miss out on the effects of pining for someone.
For most of us, water flows, food is abundant, electricity is reliable. Everything is at hand, and we don’t often experience the loss or the threat of losing it. In Ethiopia, cell phone and internet communication is a luxury, if it exists at all. Daily life includes energy specifically reserved for the effects of breakdowns in communication.
And as a result, the human heart connects.
When phones work, I often get calls from Ethiopian friends just for the sake that communication can be had.
Hello? HELLO? It is me, Yemataw. Where are you? How are you? OK. I will call you later.
Click.
What did he want?
Just making a connection suffices, and once again, I have been spoken to without words. Tender, heart-tugging touch points.
Ah, we connect. Words can be unnecessary, an embellishment really, when the heart is affected.
Yet, with every call that comes in such as this, I hang up with a broken heart. What did they really want to say? I know what I wanted to say.
But instead, a series of “Hello? HELLO? Are you there?” consumes me, and then SLAM! A silence as I sadly realize the phone connection has gone dead.
To the depths of my inner soul, I long to hear their voice again.
Poverty assumes its position often here, and I suspect the caller might be conserving precious cell phone minutes. Or, they fear they won’t recall enough English words. Who really knows.
Eshi, I am here. I am so here.
And, I will wait for your call again. Please call me again, new friend. I promise to answer!
And I promise to let you go, quickly.
Are you still there now?
