Bon Voyage

Walking around in the Christian Market in Harar with Dereje, we were looking in the stalls that were packed with spices, grains, eggs, buckets of butter, sacks of coffee beans, tea leaves and more. There was a lot of action going on in the market as one stall was constructing some sort of wooden structure and the woman who ran the stall was yelling at the carpenter to do it a certain way. It seemed like everyone had their head turned toward the commotion, but at the same time I could see that it was more a form of amusement, even for those involved. People were generally in a good mood and seemed to be rather familiar with each other. As we looked in one shop, Dereje was speaking with the shopkeeper and began to laugh, and then translated for me, "He wanted to know where you were from, but I told him it was hard to say because you are from many different places." Then the man looked at me and guessed, "Is he from India?" This caused Dereje to laugh even harder, but he finally explained, "No, he was born in America, lives in Japan, has a Chinese wife and works in Ethiopia." At that, the shopkeeper simply replied, "Well, bon voyage, then!"--a fairly appropriate thing to say to someone who he must have felt is always on the move.