I glared at him, annoyed at his shitty pronunciation of her name. It was just seh-high, simple. Yet he somehow managed to butcher it. He’d done the same thing last night with some of the other team members we had dinner with.
“Just making sure she understands what we need to get out of the qualitative questions. We don’t want people to give us their life story. Just what worked and what didn’t about the program.”
He then turned to Tsehay and started speaking in that annoying enunciated English that some Westerners used when talking to locals in developing countries. Hammering every single syllable to death and sounding out every vowel and consonant, like they were teaching kindergarteners the alphabet.
So fucking condescending.
For the next few minutes, I watched Tsehay listen to Sam drone on with the mixture of weariness and boredom I’d seen on the faces of staff dealing with expats the world over. I could only feel for her, because as far as I knew, Tsehay was in the process of getting her doctoral degree in statistics. She’d also been working in the program we were surveying since the initial stages and was from this region, to boot. Why Sam thought he had to tell her how to ask questions to people she certainly knew how to speak to a hell of a lot better than he did, was a complete mystery to me.
When I couldn’t stand it anymore I interrupted him, my voice as polite as I could make it in my uncaffeinated state. “Why don’t we order some food before we start going over our plans, Sam?”
Without waiting for him to respond, I turned to Tsehay. “I would also like to get some input from you,” I said, pulling out from my messenger bag the tablet we’d been using to do the surveys. “What would you like me to cover while I’m out with my team? I’m not new to this kind of work, but you’re the expert here.”
She gave me a look which was a mix between an eye roll and a hint of “at least one of these assholes has an ounce of sense.”
We quickly ordered some food with Tsehay’s assistance and started working out details. Turned out she was indeed an expert, and had not only helped run similar surveys, but was going to be my go-to in cleaning the data from the field before we passed it on to Sam. While we talked, he sat in a disgusted silence since he was no longer controlling the conversation.
After we finished, we rushed off for a final run to our rooms before heading to our vehicles. But as I was walking out, Sam stopped me and ground out, “I don’t appreciate you undermining me in front of the local staff. I’m the monitoring and evaluation officer for this survey and I need to make sure I get the right information.”
I just kept walking and didn’t even bother looking at him when I responded. “How did I undermine you? I was letting Tsehay know I wanted to get her expert opinion on how to run a survey in this region. Of the three of us, she’s the only person who’s actually from here, not to mention a statistician. It makes sense to make sure she’s on board with the plans for the day. Also, local staff is just staff, the same as you and me.”
He just glared at me and scoffed. “Whatever. If this is your way of getting into her pants, there are ways to do it without fucking with my survey.”
This time I did turn around so he could see I wouldn’t let him talk to me—or about Tsehay—like that. “First of all,” I said, holding a finger up close to his face. “It’s not your survey, it’s Aid USA’s survey that I’m being paid to work on too. Second, if I wanted to get into anyone’s pants I wouldn’t be coming to you for advice. And third, I’m gay.” I kept the “you fucking idiot” to myself, but just barely.
I spun around without waiting for his response. When I got to my door, I said as calmly as I could, “I hope you have a good day out there, Sam, and try to keep your assumptions to a minimum.” He just glared at me before walking into his own room.
It only took me a few minutes to get my stuff ready, and I was down by our Land Cruiser before the agreed time. All the guys in our vehicle were there too, so I delivered some atrocious Amharic in an attempt to say hello before we all got into the vehicle. The guys thought I was hilarious, so at least that was something. Neither Abraham nor Yohannes spoke great English, but they would be there to help with the surveys in the regional language. So in addition to driving us all over to day, Elias would be serving as translator between the guys and me.
We quickly got into the truck, and as we headed towards the main road Elias called my name. I immediately reacted. It was like every cell in my body was on high alert around him. Everything in me aligned in his direction. “Yes?”
“We should be on the road to Dilla soon. Once we’re on it, you can put the book on. Yohannes and Abraham both brought their headphones and said they’ll listen to their own music.”
I turned around to give the guys a thumbs-up before answering Elias. “Sounds good. Let me know and I’ll start.”
Last night at dinner I’d told Elias I had several audiobooks we could listen to while in the car. We would be on the road for many hours over the next five weeks, and he seemed pleased that we had a lot to choose from. He’d asked what book I wanted to listen to first, and in
