Im itching to write…
on New Adventures in Ethiopia (Ethiopia), 03/Mar/2009 08:57, 34 days ago
On Tuesday I woke up super early and was picked up at 6:15 to head to the office to join Gezahen, Rev. and Hana for our trip to Aleta Wondo. Before we set out we stopped at the house of the older VSO volunteers because apparently they had had problems with something or other in the middle of the night. It was ridiculous that my boss somehow became responsible for their incapabilities. .With that‘taken care of’ we got into the car and headed for our destination. Much like yesterday we passed beautiful landscapes and really fascinating dwellings and ways of life as observed from the car window. We stopped in town for breakfast at a hotel. I cannot reiterate how unhygienic the food placesare here. I really don’t like eating here at all. After eating, we went to the first area where we went to a health post. We were surrounded by children and eventually as news travelled about our arrival, the elders gathered for community conversation. .We sat and listened to their development needs and I took notes when Gezahen would translate. We were covered in flies. The kids here are like you see on the TV. There was a little baby who literally had flies covering her mouth as if she was a corpse. It was VERY upsetting. I also saw children with pregnant bellies. Signs of severe malnourishment. We traveled around the‘kebeles’ (areas) and in each we walked into mud buildings where there were congregations of people waiting to hold community conversations. In fact, this is a CISO project. CISO appoints community facilitators to hold regular community conversation groups to promote dialogue about development challenges as well as to raise awareness about HIV. .In each meeting Gezahen tested the audience by asking‘what is HIV?’ and such questions and although people spoke about it at length they also insisted that HIV was not a problem for them but that the lack of food and livelihood was. It was astonishing how HIV is an abstract ‘not our problem’ issue – like a means to an end…i.e. lets talk about HIV so we can get money from NGOs so that we can buy food for our kids. It is a CRAZY situation. So many complained about the lack of schools, the lack of equipment to grind grain or to use the masses of sugar cane that grows and cant be refined for sale. .In the first area we went to, in order to fulfill grades 1 to 8, the kids would have to travel literally MILES and MILES barefoot to get to school and after that…the school is so much further that most drop out. A lot of the kids around us just sit around and have no school to attend. It is dire. .I cant capture the depth of the problems I’ve seen and my day was so full of so many details that Im finding it hard to consolidate on this page but I played with the children, I took pictures and they were all fascinated by me and my skin color. So many of the children are orphans. I suspect AIDS has wiped their parents away. A great number of women die in childbirth because not surprisingly, there isn’t a single means to medical attention for miles. .On our way back it started raining and we kept driving on. I watched people rush to their straw and mud houses with big burdens on their backs and no shoes. Unbelievable. At one point during the day, a 10 year old girl tried to give away her brother to me who must have been under one year old. It was really difficult for me to say no and not be able to explain myself. I wish I could speak Amharic and explain that I wasn’t rejecting her brother but that she should keep him – poor thing. .We got home late and there was no electricity so I just went to sleep feeling entirely overwhelmed by what I had seen.