I'm going to be in rural Ethiopia on Valentine's Day, so I suspect I'll escape most of Cupid's arrows this year.
No heart-shaped boxes of chocolate. No flowers. No nothing. I doubt many Ethiopians worry about whether a loved one will forget them or not. They're too busy just surviving.
My partner, Jack, who was a Peace Corps volunteer in Ethiopia 37 years ago, says I don't have a clue about what I'm getting myself into. Maybe I don't, but I'm game.
We're traveling back to the village where he taught. He suspects that between wars, famines, AIDS and a life expectancy of around 40, most of the kids in his classes are long dead.
Still, he's taking along photos that show him standing in front of his earthen house in 1969 to prove that he actually lived there. There's also a photograph of him in front of the school with his class — one pink Irish-American face peeking out from a sea of beautiful Ethiopian children.
He doubts things have changed much. Electricity now maybe, a new building or two, but not much more. Time has a way of standing still in such places. Roosters will wake us in the morning, he says.
My only hope is that the young woman who cooked and cleaned for him and his housemate, another Peace Corps volunteer, might still be alive and in the village.
He remembers her as a character of the first order who wanted to learn everything American but would fly off the handle in Amharic when they didn't do what she said.
What a Valentine's Day gift that would be for him to be greeted once again with an "Ato Jack!" (Mr. Jack). We'll see.
There was a story in The Washington Post a few weeks ago about how two cheetah cubs had been rescued from a life of fighting each other. They were public entertainment outside an Ethiopian cafe. They're now being raised on the grounds of "King of Kings" Haile Selassie's old presidential palace in Addis Ababa.
Though most everyone who was quoted agreed that it was nice these animals were saved, the story went on to say most Ethiopians thought the country was facing far bigger challenges than the extinction of its wildlife. Poverty. Starvation. War.
Life in Ethiopia is far too basic to even think about the extras. Two baby cheetahs are extras.
I understand that traveling to Ethiopia is an extreme way to gain perspective.
And I don't want to sound like my dad, who used to say, like most dads of his era, that "kids are starving in Africa! Eat your dinner!"
But I think this Valentine's Day will be more special than most. It'll be enough just to know a handful of people love me, that I've never gone to bed hungry, and that I'm blessed to be on such an adventure.
No heart-shaped box of chocolates needed this time around.
Contributing: E-mail cwilson@usatoday.com
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