In the cold streets of Addis Ababa, I watched the rain play ping-pong with our sanity. The cold was stinging, the wind was biting, but the rain was determined to unsettle our comfort.
It is the cold season but life never stops because the weather is hot or cold, life goes on regardless. And so i peer outside the window of the van and bump into expressionless faces of hard-working Ethiopians, rushing to outsmart the rain.
At a bus-stop corner where commuters stood impatiently for the next bus, I caught the trembling look of a man who had just bid his girlfriend goodbye. She moved a little closer to his cheek - he planted a quick shy kiss, took a step back and looked at her with a look that apologized for letting his weaknesses show. We zoomed past.
At the parking bay of the hotel, the gate-man in a dark green uniform is momentarily swayed by the beauty of a woman who suddenly appears in front of the bus to ask him for directions. We are forgotten in the bay as he stares perplexed at the magnificent shock of creation that had just stolen his attention. I sense his longing in the steps he attempts, torn between duty and human need.
There's a guy in the lobby with his family; a wife and two little girls.The revolving door swings and he quickly grabs his little one to his arm while his other arm reaches our to gently push his wife out of harm's way as she carries her other daughter to her bosom. The guy has two suitcases by his feet and a traveling back-pack still on his back. He is talking to the receptionist, filling some forms but all the while his attention goes back to his wife and his kids - he has living in his mind and love in his heart - the love that watches his wife and kids.
It is cold in my room and the potato chips and chicken sandwich now taste like a really bad idea. Sleep has vanished and so I log in and stumble into a YouTube clip; "the reluctant outlaw" and I mellow at the protagonist who talks his way into my heart. He is a young matatu driver, a father of two, hardened in the streets of Nairobi,held hostage by the corruption, violence, and dangers of navigating through the city in the face of so much adversity.
I am stunned by his sincerity and his dream to become a great writer one day. I dream along with him as I enter his world of early mornings, noisy, sweaty days of bribing the police and breaking traffic rules as well as the lurking dangers of car-jacking and accidents. He goes home in the cover of darkness seeking his wife's embrace, wakes his sleepy kids for a cuddle and a kiss and closes his eyes to try and forget his crazy job - all he wants is to buy his three year old son a pair of shoe tomorrow which he really cannot afford!
And so in this chilly Addis Ababa night, i think of my love who rolls up his sleeves every morning and works through unspeakable circumstances and comes back home to open his arms for his family to snuggle in. I think of him and suddenly it dawns on me that he does that so passionately regardless of the ugliness of the challenges to his manliness - he does it because in his heart, we, his family have something he desperately needs, something that he gives us with selfless abandon - something called love.
