On the radio
If you’d like to hear a radio interview I did together with Steve Bell, go here and click on “Steve Bell in Ethiopia”.
The stunning scenery of Ethiopia
For lack of coherent thought, I give you a few more pictures…
Still recuperating
Yes, I made it home safe and sound on Wednesday night – a little later than anticipated (I missed my last flight and ended up re-routed), but home nonetheless. As I unpacked that evening, I immediately repacked in order to head out to a staff retreat the very next morning. I was too busy for jet lag to set in until Friday night, when it hit me with a resounding wallup as I tried to watch a movie at my Mom’s house.
Over the weekend, I tried to find enough time and energy for my family, and then Sunday night I did a radio interview together with Steve Bell (which I believe will eventually be posted online here). Then today I had to facilitate an all-day workshop.
In other words, I haven’t really stopped moving since I got home. It’s all been good stuff and not terribly overwhelming, but I’m a little tired. Tomorrow’s my first “routine” day at work – I may drift off to sleep by the middle of the afternoon.
No, I haven’t had time to visit any of you or catch up on your blogs. I may NEVER catch up. If there’s anything important that you feel I MUST read, you’ll have to let me know, or else I’ll probably just start from scratch when I get a few spare moments to surf.
But now, before they think I’ve abandoned them entirely, I’m going to make some puffed wheat squares with my kids. At least it’s not labour intensive, nor does it require alot of thought. I can handle that.
By the way, if you’re interested in a day-to-day journal of the trip (which I haven’t gotten around to doing yet), Steve Bell is in the process of posting one on his blog.
Faces of Ethiopia
And here’s the face of someone who’s going home…
Going home
Tonight at 7:30, I’ll leave for the airport for the long trek home.
I’m ready to go home. I’m ready to throw my arms around my family. I’m ready to be in familiar places. I’m ready to be smiled at by familiar faces. I’m ready to sleep in my own bed curled up next to my husband. I’m ready to stroll down familiar streets without being branded “rich tourist”.
I look forward to that familiar moment when I walk down the stairs at the Winnipeg airport and I catch sight of my family in the crowd. There’s nothing quite like the feeling you get when you’re grinned at by people who miss you – people who are eager for you to be back in their lives again.
Today I took one last walk down the streets of Addis Ababa. I did a little more shopping at a lovely store that’s as cheap as anything I’ve bartered for in the market and a lot more peaceful. When you’re not used to it, the marketplace can be an overwhelming place. I get a bit of a thrill out of it for awhile – everyone trying to sell you things while you make a sport out of getting the cheapest price. I’m actually fairly good at bartering (for a foreigner, that is), but I get tired of it after the initial buzz. Today I just wanted to know the price, pay it, and walk out with what I paid for. Today I didn’t want to let my white skin paint me as a “rich tourist with lots of money to burn on trinkets”.
Of course, walking to the store (which is about a kilometer from my hotel) still meant that I had to suffer as a target for awhile. Street vendors and beggars spotted me from a mile away. Even the fellow who’d taken me to the market last week (and extracted a handsome price for it, I might add) showed up for a second round, but I turned him down this time because I knew where I was going and didn’t want to pay an escort to get me there.
It can be completely exhausting, having to say “no” to every child that says “sista,” while they hold their hand out pleadingly, and “no thank you” to every person trying to sell you a map of Africa, a packet of tissue, or a pair of cheap sunglasses. I’m sure I said no 50 times on the way to the store. I made sure I had a bit of change in my pocket, but I only gave it away when there were few people around and I could target one mother nursing a baby in the dirt next to the sidewalk. I can afford to give a few Birr away, but I can’t give to everyone I see.
Poverty sucks. It sucks that there isn’t more balance in the world. It sucks that so many people are reduced to begging while we live in our comfortable homes. It sucks that I can’t solve it by handing out a few pennies to begging children on the street. It sucks that the world is such an imbalanced place where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
After buying my last souvenirs, I took a cab home. My energy had been drained and I didn’t want to face it anymore. I didn’t want to have to look into the faces of the people who send their children across the street to beg from me because the children have the most chance of working on my sympathies.
This afternoon, before I leave for the airport, I will seek refuge in my hotel. I will walk around the lush grounds, sealed off from the poverty perched just outside the walls. I will try not to feel guilty for enjoying this pleasure, because I know that I cannot solve the problems of Ethiopia, even if I walk outside the walls and give away every dollar I own.
When I go home, I will remember this place both for its breathtaking beauty and its gut-wrenching poverty.
With love, from Ethiopia
It’s early Monday morning. At home, it’s Sunday night, and most people are settling down to sleep for the night. I’m sitting at my window, back at the Ghion Hotel in Addis Ababa. Just outside my window are the thatched roofs of the restaurant and meeting areas. On the other side of the largest roof is a massive tree with brilliant purple flowers exploding from its branches. A little closer to me, there’s a smaller tree with pale pink blossoms. A few birds float leisurely past my window.
After a long journey, I have a day of rest today. As I begin to process all that I have seen in the last week, I will take the time to soak in the sun’s rays, let the colours of the flowers refresh me, and try to breathe in enough of the warm air to sustain me through the remainder of the cold winter that faces me when I get back home.
I will write more about this past week’s journey over the coming weeks, but for now, let me tell you about some of the highlights:
Incredible scenery. Ethiopia is a beautiful country. Did you know that? Or were you like me and when someone mentions Ethiopia you think of “famine”, “drought”, “drylands”, and possibly fighting? I had no idea how much breathtaking beauty we would see. For most of the time on the road, we traveled through mountainous regions, on winding roads, up to the top of mountain peaks and then down to the bottom of the valleys. I can’t even begin to describe how beautiful much of the scenery was. I will post pictures once I have access to a faster internet connection.
People. We met hundreds and hundreds of people, and most of them were so warm and friendly it was somewhat humbling. People invited us into their homes, cooked for us, gave up their beds for us, and worked hard to ensure that our journey was pleasurable. Many of the people we met were concerned that we should leave Ethiopia with a positive impression, and I believe that all of us did. It can be a little overwhelming when, every time you stop the vehicle, you are surrounded by hoards of people (especially children) who want to greet you, smile at you, practice their English on you, and (especially in the poorer regions) ask for pens or Birrs (the local currency), or “Highland” (which meant they wanted our empty water bottles), but there is a hospitality and openness here that makes our reserved North American ways seem somewhat cold.
History. I had no idea how connected this place was to history and how much it means to the people here. We visited the rock-hewn churches of Lalibella, and about all I can say is WOW! I’ll write more about that another day, because it had a fairly profound impact on me, but for now, if you have some time, Google it and you’ll see a few pictures that hardly do it justice but at least give you some idea what we saw. In the twelfth century, King Lalibella felt called by God to carve 11 churches out of solid rock. It took 23 years and thousands of labourers, but the effort is monumental and astonishing.
Simplicity. About 95 per cent of the people in Ethiopia live in houses that we would call “primitive”, with thatched or tin roofs and mud or stone walls. They are tiny and the ones we visited had fewer material goods inside the whole house than we have in our front entrance. Sometimes, that just feels heavy – that the level of poverty here is almost unbearable. But sometimes, it feels refreshing – that these people who smile at us with such broad and welcoming smiles, know more about joy than many of us do with our houses full of material possessions.
Commitment. We visited 2 projects funded by the Foodgrains Bank (I’ll write more about that on my work blog), and both are staffed by some of the most incredible, gifted, and strong individuals I have met. These are mostly young people (between twenty and thirty-five) who have given up the comforts of their homes to live in remote, isolated regions because they believe in their country and its people and they want to see positive change. Elizabeth was one of the most noteworthy – she is a gifted young woman who is only 23 years of age and is living in the very remote Afar region where she leads a team of about 70-80 people (mostly men) in a remarkable water diversion project that is changing the lives of many people.
This morning, we said good-bye to Steve and Nancy, and tonight I say good-bye to Larry. Tomorrow night I’ll be on a plane headed for home. There are so many things I still want to write, but I still want to enjoy the few hours I still have left here, so I will walk away from the computer and soak in what I still can.
By the way – did anyone get a postcard? I sent out 20 of them last weekend, so they should arrive some time this week.