WAIT WAIT WAIT!!!
Before I go on with my journal pages on Ethiopia I feel I owe you all more of an explanation.
The plan for this trip was different than most trips for the Medic program.
The Shannons invited us to Ethiopia because they run a Daycare in the slums of Addis.
They have educated backgrounds in many areas but nothing medical.
With
60 or so children in their care daily and many mothers that also
interact daily with them they felt it might be golden to learn some
basic medical protocols.
Knowing when it is time to be worried about a child and when it is better to trust the child to recover naturally.
So
our main purpose in going was to teach the Shannon family and also do
some training with a daycare staff and some teachings with the Day Care
mothers.
The main ministry of the medic program is usually house to house visits in a community.
This gives us a very real way of connecting with people in these communities and countries.
Due to local stigmas and such we were not able to do these visits leaving us a bit more downtime.
Hopefully this will help you
understand why this trip was so different than Ecuador, and why I came
back with different thoughts than any other trip.
3-9-12
I think when I arrive home I will write "oh the Places you will go" on my backpack.
Hagan had no idea how much life was left in his back pack when he gave it up.
I sat next to a super cute lady on the plane.
She was working in Dubai as a house keeper for two years and was finally going back home to Ethiopia.
She was so excited that as we were landing she was squirming around and would grab my arm and squeeze it with excitement.
She was so sweet!
When she asked me what I was going to Ethiopia for I told her I was going to visit friends.
She then said "Wow, you must really love your friends".
I didn't mention that I had yet to meet these friends, but yeah I do love them a lot.
I made it through customs with no problems.
Even got a phone number from a guy in the baggage claim area.
Bahaha!
Jerry Shannon met us at the airport.
We went straight to the Shannon's house and met Christy.
They are a very warm and welcoming family.
We were so blessed.
We had warm beds and a toilet with a seat instead of a squaty potty.
It was late by the time we arrived at the Shannon's so we went to bed almost immediately.
3-10-12
Today was spent resting and planning.
At lunch I got so nauseous that I could not eat.
After maybe 3 attempts at eating I just went straight to bed.
I blame my anti-malaria medication for this.
The same thing happened to me in Ecuador.
Once I woke up we went for a walk around the community.
The Shannons live in a slums community within Addis called Kore.
AS we walked around the community countless children came out to talk with us.
Many grabbed our hands and walked on with us even thought they had no idea where we were going.
One held onto my hand until we were almost back to the Shannon's house. Jerry had to tell the child to go home.
We ate dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant that night. We met up with the administrative staff of the daycare for dinner.
I ate Tibs with injera.
It was so delicious, but spicy.
Almost too spicy.... just almost.
3-11-2012
3-11-2012
Today we ate a delicious breakfast before heading to church.
It was really nice to be in a church again.
Sophie met up with us all at church.
Sophie is a nurse who lives in Soddo Ethiopia and works with Dr.Mary in rural clinic settings.
Dr.Mary and Sophie had been to Boise last summer and did an intensive course with the medics.
I audited one of the days so had briefly met Sophie and had the privilege of hearing Dr.Mary teach.
Sophie informed us that Dr.Mary was excited for us to come to Soddo because she had some things planned for us.
I
wish you could all meet Dr.Mary. If you knew her then you would know
that to hear she was excited for us to come to Soddo was surprising
news.
Dr.Mary is brilliant really, but she can be abrasive and is very particular, but really a good woman.
We plan on leaving on Wed and staying until Sat. or Sun.
After church we returned to the Shannon's house for lunch before heading to the daycare to do some teaching.
Imagine
more than 30 moms seated on the floor on mats in a small room for hours
on end listening as we talked to them through translators.
The mothers also chose to keep their children with them through the teachings which made things very un-predictable.
Jen taught about diarrhea and dehydration to the moms.
This included a skit, and breaking into small groups to make ORS (oral re-hydration solutions.
Audra then taught quickly on wound care before we ran out of time.
I found it very hard to talk to these women in a small group setting.
Here I am a white girl that has no idea what it is like to be a mother let alone while living such a hard lifestyle.
Some of these mothers are also younger than me, and here I am trying to tell them how to take care of their children.
It was a very hard thing for me.
I just truly hope that the
mothers were able to take something out of the teaching and hopefully
their children will benefit from it.
3-12-12
I was terribly homesick this day.
I was terribly homesick this day.
For years I had all these grandiose plans.
I
would go through medic training; somehow develop a significantly braver
personality, and use this new knowledge teamed with new personality to
save the world.
It never dawned on
me that there were practice laws, stigmas, language and cultural
barriers, stomach bugs and personal short comings.
Here I am in Ethiopia and I find myself less brave now than when I was 6.
Maybe these grandiose illusions are what leads truly un-important and insignificant people like me to try huge things.
Today we played with the babies in the Day Care all morning.
I watched the oldest group of babies go over their Amharic and English alphabet.
Then I spend a good amount of time in the baby room holding baby after baby.
We then ate a lunch of lentil
soup before going over physical exams with the Shannons and Ruth (the
Day Cares nurse who is the sweetest woman.).
It is simple stuff, but I sure do love it.
I love hands on medical stuff.
3-13-12
Today had a much better feel to it.
We headed to the Day Care right after breakfast.
I spent my morning in a different room of the Day Care.
I bonded with the children in this room so quickly.
I brought my stethoscope into the room and the children got so excited when I listened to their heart.
A number of them gathered around me where i sat and watched me listen to their friends hearts.
They got very excited when I let them listen to my heart.
I spent hours in this room just playing with these babies.
One of the little girls was feeling extra brave with me and decided to show me her ear.
The back part of her earring had become terribly infected.
Just touching near the spot made her scream.
Right away I stopped being playful Hanna and went into medic mode.
I felt so bad having to pull the earring out of her ear and clean it all the while she cried and screamed for her Mom.
Poor thing!
All the bonding I had done with this girl now meant nothing.
I could not get her to come near me no matter how I tried.
This strange talking white girl plays with her for a few hours then attacks her ear.
We then ate lunch (something with lentils) and headed to the Shannon's house to go over IMCI.
I got so tired while going over IMCI.
After we went though following the protocols we did some case studies.
Much of the team went on a walk after and I stayed behind to pack for Soddo.
I got to do some bonding with the 3 younger Shannon children during this time.
It was funny how quickly they went from kind of quiet and reserved to 110MPH.
Dinner was full of laughs and stories.
I was also very blessed with being able to take a hot shower before bed.
It's the little things.
3-14-2012
This morning, almost immediately after breakfast, we (Audra, Doug, Sophie and I) left Addis.
We took a 5 hour van drive to Sodo.
We saw a lot of the beautiful Ethiopian country side along with many little towns and villages.
Upon arriving at Sophies house we
took advantage of all the great fresh fruit around and made smoothies
right away and sat around chatting.
We then went to see Dr. Mary a few hours later.
As we walked to Dr. Mary's house Sophie pointed out different places in the community.
We also met some of Dr. Mary's English students who were outside jumping rope.
They are such sweet girls.
We talked with Dr.Mary about the plans she had made for us over the week.
Audra is going to clinic tomorrow and Doug and I will spend some time with the English students.
Then on Friday we will be helping Dr. Mary take pictures for the new edition of her Village Medical Manual.
Saturday Doug and I will go to Clinic with Dr. Mary and do whatever is asked of us.
For dinner Audra and Sophie make chicken enchiladas.
It sounds like a simple task, but you must realize how hard many ingredients are to find in Ethiopia.
They managed to pull together a great meal.
One of Sophie's friends also ate dinner with us.
When Sophie was in Addis she went out one night to "buy a puppy for a friend".
Her friend had asked if she would buy him a black, male puppy that would get big.
It took Sophie two trips out and about to find the perfect pup.
A super fluffy dark brown colored puppy that the Shannon children fell in love with instantly.
As soon as Sophie arrived to the Shannon's house she set out to bathe the puppy.
She was finishing up with the puppy's bath when we all headed to the table to eat dinner.
In walks Holly and tell the group of us that she just had to be the bearer of bad news.
She had to reveal the truth to Sophie that said puppy was not a male puppy but actually a female puppy.
We all laughed so hard when we heard this.
He was so adamant about it being a male puppy and his Nurse friend couldn't tell if it was a girl or boy.
hahaha
Sophie just laughed and said "I am much better when it comes to people.".
The friend fell in love with the puppy when he saw her, even though she was not what he expected.
He named it leah, after the story of Leah in the Bible.
You know how Leah was not Jacob was expecting.
Any way....... he picked up the puppy the night we ate enchiladas.
He also had to give her an alcohol bath to kill the many flees that were bothering her.
After dinner I talked online with Andres for a few minutes, which made me miss him like crazy!
It also made me feel like the worst person in the world for leaving him.
3-15-2012
Spent the day with some of the girls that Dr. Mary teaches English to.
They girls started arriving at Sophie's house before 8am.
We had about 7 girls in the morning, then in the afternoon we had 5.
We took time reading Narnia with them. Doug or I would read a few pages,
then pass the book onto one of the girls. We also sat around asking
each other questions.
"what do you want to be when you grow up?", Doug or I would ask.
"A doctor."
"An engineer."
"a teacher."
They then taught us some games.
These girls do a lot of jumping rope.
They have a long rope made of pieces of old fabric tied together into a huge loop.
They play a game with this loop where two girls stand facing each other
but a few feet apart from each other and they put the rope around their
hips so that they are standing inside of the loop. The other girls then
jump from outside the loop into it.
It seems simple until they start doing these crazy spins into it, and hopping on only one foot.
I played with these girls and found it difficult and my legs are twice the length of some of these girls.
The rope was hip level for some of these girls yet they jumped over it like it was nothing.
Oh yeah, and they were WEARING SKIRTS!!!!!
They also would twist the rope so they could jump rope how I grew up doing it.
We had an hour or so between spending time with the first group and the second group of girls.
I talked with Andres a bit during that time.
After the second group of girls left we ate dinner then sorted bags of medications and drank tea.
3-16-2012
This morning we helped Dr.Mary with a project.
She was taking photos for the newest edition of the Village Medical Manual.
She would make marks on our skin in certain places like the locations of certain veins or bones or what not.
She would then take pictures of these marks.
She also took pictures of us pulling traction on a leg, or holding a pelvic sling in place. Cool stuff.
Mary is a really brilliant, good woman and it was such an honor to be asked to help her with this huge project.
We then ate lunch before heading into town with one of the local girls.
Her name is Seganish (that is obviously not how you spell her name, but it is how it sounds.).
Seganish works for Sophie a few days a week as a house keeper.
We walked to the nearest road which took about 15-20 minutes.
We then took a bajaj (which is a small cart sort of thing that goes all over.)
All 4 of us piled into the tiny vehicle and headed farther into town.
I am not going to lie, there were a number of hills that I am still surprised we were able to get to the top of in the tiny vehicle.
Once we got into town we stopped by the Christian hospital to check in with Sophie who was studying.
Seganish then took us out to find a hardware store.
Doug had agreed to help Sophie out with some plumbing problems she was having.
He had no idea how hard it would be to find the parts he needed.
We walked around town looking.
At one point a young boy told us that he knew where the store was that we were looking for so he would guide us there.
We followed him quite a ways, and down a big hill before he admitted to us that he did not know where the place was.
Luckily, at the same place that the boy told us this, there was a friend of Sophies right within earshot that knew where we wanted to go and offered to take us.
We had to walk back up the same hill.
We walked into the first store and they didn't have the needed parts so they sent us on to the next store.
Once in that store they did not have the part and sent us to the next store.
The 3rd store did not have the piece but told us to go up the road back to the first one we had been in.
We then gave up and decided to go buy food and head home.
We stopped at a roof-top restaurant to order our take away food.
We also made a stop to buy some mangos.
The mangos in Ethiopia are amazing!
SO fresh and juicy.
Just amazing.
We then found a Bejaj that was willing to take us all the way back to Sophie's house, which required it to do some major off-roading.
We were so tired by the time we got back that we just laid around while we waited for our food to warm up in the oven.
Dinner was amazing; Pasta, Chiro (ground up chic peas with spices. SO AMAZING!), and Injera.
I ate my fill and then some.
It was an amazing ending to a long day.
I slept like a baby!
This morning we helped Dr.Mary with a project.
She was taking photos for the newest edition of the Village Medical Manual.
She would make marks on our skin in certain places like the locations of certain veins or bones or what not.
She would then take pictures of these marks.
She also took pictures of us pulling traction on a leg, or holding a pelvic sling in place. Cool stuff.
Mary is a really brilliant, good woman and it was such an honor to be asked to help her with this huge project.
We then ate lunch before heading into town with one of the local girls.
Her name is Seganish (that is obviously not how you spell her name, but it is how it sounds.).
Seganish works for Sophie a few days a week as a house keeper.
We walked to the nearest road which took about 15-20 minutes.
We then took a bajaj (which is a small cart sort of thing that goes all over.)
All 4 of us piled into the tiny vehicle and headed farther into town.
I am not going to lie, there were a number of hills that I am still surprised we were able to get to the top of in the tiny vehicle.
Once we got into town we stopped by the Christian hospital to check in with Sophie who was studying.
Seganish then took us out to find a hardware store.
Doug had agreed to help Sophie out with some plumbing problems she was having.
He had no idea how hard it would be to find the parts he needed.
We walked around town looking.
At one point a young boy told us that he knew where the store was that we were looking for so he would guide us there.
We followed him quite a ways, and down a big hill before he admitted to us that he did not know where the place was.
Luckily, at the same place that the boy told us this, there was a friend of Sophies right within earshot that knew where we wanted to go and offered to take us.
We had to walk back up the same hill.
We walked into the first store and they didn't have the needed parts so they sent us on to the next store.
Once in that store they did not have the part and sent us to the next store.
The 3rd store did not have the piece but told us to go up the road back to the first one we had been in.
We then gave up and decided to go buy food and head home.
We stopped at a roof-top restaurant to order our take away food.
We also made a stop to buy some mangos.
The mangos in Ethiopia are amazing!
SO fresh and juicy.
Just amazing.
We then found a Bejaj that was willing to take us all the way back to Sophie's house, which required it to do some major off-roading.
We were so tired by the time we got back that we just laid around while we waited for our food to warm up in the oven.
Dinner was amazing; Pasta, Chiro (ground up chic peas with spices. SO AMAZING!), and Injera.
I ate my fill and then some.
It was an amazing ending to a long day.
I slept like a baby!
3-17-2012
This morning Doug and I were up and out by 6:30am to go to clinic with Dr.Mary.
The drive took us about an hour and a half.
We drove a while on a main road then turned off and took dirt roads into the middle of nowhere.
We pulled up to what was essentially an old shed that was emptied out.
Out side stood a long line of people hoping to b seen, along with some curious onlookers.
Once we parked the Land Cruiser and got filled in on our tasks for the day
Mary had everyone pull up their sleeves to expose their upper arms.
She went down the line and depending on arm size, decided who would be seen.
Her reasoning is this, if a person has enough money to feed themselves
properly, they can afford health care; if a person is visibly
malnourished they cannot afford health care and get priority at clinic.
She hands out a total of 30 cards that means she will see you.
My job was to follow behind her and make a mark with blue sharpie on the hand of anyone that received a card.
This kept people from selling their cards to people around them.
Doug and I then went down the line and took down the patients names and chief complaints before sending them in to see Dr.Mary.
It seemed like a small task to be doing, but it helped Dr.Mary very much.
After we finished triaging patients I shadowed Dr.Mary and did urine tests and such for her.
Once all the patients were seen, we set up a small pharmacy and I helped hand out medications and take money.
It is amazing the blessing Dr.Mary is to these people.
The medication she provides to them is at such a low cost it is amazing.
Could you imagine paying like than 15cents US to get Malaria treatment?
Bahahaha apparently this is what the nearest toilet looked like.
So great-full that I didn't have to use it.
The drive back to Sophie's house was so dusty and dry.
By the time we arrived back my allergies were going crazy.
I talked with Andres for a few minutes before going to bed.
Today is our 9 month anniversary together.
Pretty cool!
I really love that boy!
3-18-2012
Today we made the trip back to Addis.
This time was a bit more interesting because we were going without Sophie, and none of us speak Amharic.
It ended up being a really good trip.
We had a lot of room in the van to stretch out and sleep and had time to chat.
Our drivers were really great too and did their best to make us comfortable.
At one point during the trip this huge black hornet type thing flew into the window and thought it would be a fun idea to hang out by me.
It concerned Audra and I so much that we were trying to figure out what to do when the driver and driver's passenger figured out what was going on.
They pulled over onto the side of the road and had us all get out while they found and took care of the huge hornet thing.
I still have no idea if these huge hornets are really any sort of threat or not, but I do know that they are really scary.
Around lunch time they also stopped off at a really nice sort of tourist oasis for "tea time".
Doug, Audra and I sat around a table on a grassy lawn under the shade of many trees and drank tea and coffee.
We even had some real nice bathrooms to use.
On the trip to Soddo we had to make a pit stop and use a very dirty squaty potty.
Meanwhile our drivers went across the street to get some lunch.
When they left us there sitting under the trees, they made sure to even leave the van keys with us.
It was such a comforting gesture.
You know you have been in a foreign country a while when the sight of other white people makes you freak out and actually point.
That happened during our drive back to Addis.
We passed a van that had a few white people in it and I , No joke, pointed at them and very excitedly proclaimed to Doug and Audra that there were white people in that van.
I remember things like that happening in Ecuador too.
Andres and I would be on the metro and I would see another white person and get ALLLLLLLLLL excited.
Anyways, when we returned to Addis we went and met up with everyone and ate lunch.
It was a down day for all of us so we relaxed, and enjoyed our lunches and didn't rush to get anywhere.
After lunch we all squeezed into the Shannon's van and drove off for the nearest ice cream/smoothie place.
I honestly don't remember the rest of the day, but I am sure it was spent relaxing, eating, chatting, and resting.
My allergies were still really really bothering me.
I am having problems adding photos today so this post will have no photos. I will try to add more later.
3-19-2012
Today was a very long day.
I woke up feeling groggy.WE went to the Day Care first thing and spent some time playing with the babies.
We then helped the Shannons screen two new children that were hoping to be added to the program.
This included getting basic information on the children like weight, arm circumference, age, and some family history.
We also did a basic check on one of these moms.
Christy and I went into a private room along with the nurse, Ruth.
I walked through a basic a basic health screening and everything was fine.
I then asked the mom a few separate times if there was anything else going on, or if she had any questions.
She kept telling me no until we were all about to walk out of the room.
She then lifted her skirt a bit and showed us a huge dog bite on her thigh.
We went and got Audra, our wound care specialist, right away to dress the wound.
We then ate a lunch that consisted of some combination of lentils and carrots.
(Never in my life have I eaten so many lentils and carrots in one week.)
We then headed back to rest a bit.
I was feeling so groggy that a nap was just what I needed.
After we rested a bit we headed back to the daycare to screen the Moms.
I had my own room along with the translator who was really great to work with.
I saw 6 or 7 moms.
I found out after that most of the rooms had moms that just wanted their vitals taken and had nothing much to address while I had almost all had a lot more going on.
There is something about being with the moms one-on-one that breaks my heart.
SO many of these women are thin and tired but are doing everything they can to take care of their children.
AFter a few hours Jen took over for me a bit and had me just take vitals.
It was such good timing because I was exhausted by this time.
We screened moms for twice as long as was planned and saw only half of the moms that were there.
Isn't this how it always works though?
I don't remember A time I was ever over seas and we planned to do something for two hours and actually finished in less than 4 hours.
I was very excited about dinner time and bedtime.
The tour took us all over the hospital grounds.
We saw recovery rooms, physical therapy rooms and everything else in between.
The ground were beautiful!
I love that they take these women that are dealing with such and emotionally and socially hard thing and give them a beautiful place to recover after.
I will be honest, I was fighting off an off and on fever during much of the tour which made it very hard to really pay attention.
The tour ended in a small gift shop where you could buy things made by the patients there.
There were hand made baskets, and paper bead necklaces, embroidered towels, knit scarves, small trinket boxes and more.
We all made sure to snatch up some goodies.
After the tour we went to lunch.
Jen (a nurse who is staying in Ethiopia for a while) and I shared a huge "fasting feast" (which means no meat) along with meat tibs.
It was so much food.
The two of us together ate maybe 70% of it.
We sat at the restaurant quite a while and just enjoyed ourselves before going to our 2nd hospital.
This hospital was more of a general hospital that also had special wards for TB, HIV and leprosy. We were invited to see the leprosy ward.
The men giving us the tour took us into the patients rooms and made sure we got up close and personal with the leprosy patients.
We made and effort to shake hands with as many of these people as possible.
We then told the tourguides that we felt very rude going into these rooms and want to respect their privacy more.
After walking us through rooms of patients with leprosy and telling us about how these patients had to have amputations they then walk up to a door and ask us to come in.
From our angle all we see in the room is a guy operating a power saw.
Finally someone was brave enough to peek in and found that a Dr. was just cutting off someones cast.
hahaha
They then showed us the PT rooms in the leprosy wards.
People who have finished their leprosy treatment go here to regain as much of their motor function as possible.
At the end of the tour we stumbled upon a Nurse who has been working in the leprosy field years and years.
He told us about working in rural villages before coming to the hospital. He also took us into a tukul where he teaches self care classes for lepers.
He was so excited about talking with us and sharing his knowledge.
He then introduced us to their lead dermatologist who is also one of the top leprosy Doctors in the world.
This Doctor was examining a patient that had some of the first signs of leprosy.
It was one of those experiences that not many medical people get, or really any people get.
By the time we got back to the house I was feeling so terrible that I just went to bed.
The rest of the group did a teaching to the moms and the day care.
It was also Christy's Birthday. We were so fortunate to be a part of the celebration. The boys had made cake that was divine.
The little Shannon, Hanna, was so excited about the cake that you would not believe it.
She was jumping up and down and dancing.
It was so cute!
Sadly I was feeling so badly that I only had a small piece of cake and ran to bed right after finishing.
3-22-2012
WE headed up to the DayCare bright and early this morning.
We wanted to be there to do a basic check on all the babies at bath time.
Baths did not happen this morning so we had to improvise.
A care giver would bring us a naked baby and we would weigh it, check for lice and scabies, and check for malnutrition by measuring upper arm circumference. We would then record it on a sheet that was to become a regular chart for the Day Care.
We would then send that baby back to its loving care giver and the next child would be sent out.
For the first group of babies I felt I was more in the way than anything else so I went downstairs and sign certificates.
The team had done some training with the caregivers at the DayCare and each member of the team was to sign completion certificates that we were to give these workers. I also took this time to go through my assessment forms and set aside those mothers that needed follow-up.
I was feeling a bit weak at this point so I went to sit near Nejat. Nejat was one of the little girls that went to the hospital the day before and even today she was not well.
I was sitting next to her just resting and keeping an eye on her when her mother arrived.
This mother came up to me, shook my hand and then proceeded to kiss my hand.
This absolutely broke my heart. Who am I that this woman should kiss my hand?
I feel like I should be hugging these mothers and kissing their hands. These women are 3x the woman that I am yet they kiss my hand.
I then left the mother with her child.
I then returned to the screenings going on upstairs.
I took over for Doug and absolutely loved every second of it.
All these cute chubby baby bellies.
It was too much cuteness!
I loved interacting with the babies this way. I love tickling them and trying to get them to smile.
We screened all 60 children pretty quickly.
The rest of the team then bought some of the jewelry and coffee that the mothers had made at the Day Care. I asked Christy if I could buy just the beads. She then led me to a back room and pulled out box after box after box of paper beads.
Caia, Micah and I spent a long time sorting through beads, hand selecting each one.
470 beads later I was done.
The team then helped bag coffee beans and sew them into sacks.
Some of the Day Care mothers roast coffee beans once a week there at the daycare. The beans are then sold, just like the paper beads, some embroidered book marks and baskets.
We sewed coffee bean sacks until lunch.
Any guess at what we had for lunch?
Something with lentils. haha
We were all pretty tired by the end of lunch.
We walked back to the Shannon's house and rested for hours.
After a snack of fruit we left to pick up Holly at the airport.When we arrives at the airport we were told that we had to wait outside. Fortunate for us, there was a sort of cafe there with outdoor seating. We sat and drank macchiatos and chatted as we waited for Holly.When Holly arrived she just sat down with us and told us about her trip.
When we got into the van to leave it decided not to start. All of us then got out and pushed the van until it started then we jumped in and went on our way.
We went to Woody and Shewaye's house. Jerry Shannon and Jen both knew this couple. They are vineyard pastors in Ethiopia. They invited us over for a visit and said they would do a coffee ceremony for us.
We snacked on homemade bread and popcorn as we shared stories and laughed about all the funny things that had happened over the last few weeks.
The coffee was then served. I was lucky. I sat next to Audra who is not a coffee drinker, but in the cultural context it is a bit rude to refuse coffee. Audra and I worked out a deal. She would eat my pop-corn and I would sneakily drink her cup of coffee after I finished mine.
Needless to say, I was really excited by the end of the ceremony having drank twice as much of the very stout coffee as everyone else.
By the time we left we were all pretty wonky.
We said our warm goodbyes to Shawaye. When I said goodbye to her and thanked her for her hospitality she invited me to come back because i live so close.
Once we arrived at the Shannon's house again we excitedly greeted Christy and started telling her all about our evening at the airport and the coffee ceremony.
Jen then walks out of the room and comes back a minute later with her arms full of plates and a huge smile on her face and announced that we should eat cake.
We all excitedly went upstairs to the dinning room and ate cake.
It was a really good day.
3-23-2012
I have a really bad habit of not journaling the last 2 or 3 days of a trip.
Ethiopia was no different. Please be patient with me as I try to remember the details of the last 2 days.
Our last full day in Ethiopia was good. The agenda for our last full day in Ethiopia was to
1) visit an orphanage (I will explain more in a moment).
2) Have a coffee ceremony with the Day Care staff.
3)Buy shoes that were made from recycled tires.
Audra had a friend in the States who had adopted a baby from Ethiopia a few months earlier.
While this woman was in Ethiopia taking all the steps needed to bring this baby home, she met a little boy about 10 years old and just fell in love with him.
Her and her husband wanted to adopt this boy also but did not complete all the papers in time.
They brought the baby back to the States but left the 10 year old boy with the promise that they would come back for him as soon as they possibly could and would then bring him to the States with them.
When this woman found out that Audra was going to Ethiopia she asked if Audra would be willing to visit the boy and take him some presents and cards from the family and just remind him that his new family loved him and couldn't wait to be with him again.
He were able to set up a time to go see the boy.
He was the sweetest boy, and super shy.
We brought him all of the gifts and showed him the cards and other messages that the family wanted him to have. We also made sure to take photos for the adopted parents in the States.
Holly, on the other hand, had a family member that was just cleared to adopt a child.
They found out the good news while we were there. They asked that Holly go and see the baby and hug it for them.
This visit was a bit harder to put together. The orphanage finally agreed to let her in but only she was allowed to see the child and she was not to take photos.
It meant so much to Holly and Holly's family members that she was able to go hug this baby.
The Shannon's took us to a shopping center to show us a store that they thought was so cool.
This store made shoes from recycles car tires.
You would not believe it. These shoes were so cool.
The team was very excited and bought quite a few pairs.
They then found out there was a sale, something like buy 5 get one free.
Audra and Jen were buying 5 between the two of them and asked me if I wanted the free pair.
They are so sweet. I picked out the brightest pair I could find. It is made of different shades of orange leather. They are really cool.
After this running around we went to the Day Care to say goodbye to children there and also have the coffee ceremony.
The way a coffee ceremony works is this.
A woman sits on a small stool and has a small sort of oven in which she has hot coals.
She uses these coals to roast the coffee beans right in front of you. Once she finishes the roasting she immediately takes the hot pan of beans and passes it in front of each guest so they can smell the coffee beans.
This always made me a bit nervous to have a woman with a hot pan full of hot coffee beans shake said pan over the top of me.
In a traditional ceremony she would then hand grind the beans with a mortar and pestal, but in both ceremonies they just used an electric grinder.
Everyone is then served delicious homemade bread and hand-fulls of popcorn to snack on.
They then begin to brew the coffee in a really cool pot.
Once the coffee is hot she pours it into the small coffee cups (maybe 3 ounces) and adds milk to some of them.
SHe then walks around with the tray and one by one allows each guest to choose their cup and add sugar if desired. If there are not enough cups for each guest then some of the guest wait for the already served guests to finish their coffee and return the cup to be reused (after a quick wash).
The woman leading the ceremony collects the cups once the coffee is drunk and then washes them quickly in a basin of water.
She then refills the cups and passes them out the same way.
Both ceremonies I went to consisted of each person being given 2 cups of coffee.
So in a scenario like our ceremony with the Day Care staff, this woman had to fill the cups 4 times in order to serve each person two cups.
During the ceremony people took turns addressing the entire group if they wanted. They just said thank yous and other sweet things to each other. We encouraged the staff, and they thanked us for coming. You know all those sweet things you do.
I was extra lucky. I once again sat next to Audra. I snuck her my popcorn and she in turn gave me her cup of coffee. 4 cups of coffee later I was so wonky. All I wanted to do was talk, and laugh and joke and play obnoxious games.
After dinner Jen we had some time of encouragement.
How do I explain this?
Lets see.
Sometimes when you are in the routine of something, or working on something, you see things in other people that is really good and they may not see it. The point of what we did was just to point out to one another the really great things we see in each other.We write these things down and give them to the person to keep. Sometimes you get back from these trips, or get caught up in your day to day and you start to forget and doubt so it is good to have something written down that reminds you of these good things about you.
SO, the team took turns encouraging the Shannon children. This really meant a lot to the children.
After the children went to bed we did this with each other. We sat in the living room and just took turns tell each other of the good things we had seen in each other the last few weeks and just in general. I am not sure how to explain this in any better way that will do it justice.
It was a really great time. Very building for each of us and a good way to end out a trip.
3-24-2012
The last day in Ethiopia was good.
We took some time to do some shopping, after stopping at Jerry Shannon's favorite coffee place for a quick macchiato.
We went to an area that had a number of stores lining the street.
The people working in these shops spoke English because it is where most of the tourist shop.
We spent a few hours exploring these shops.
Like any country, the shops all carry mostly the same things. It is all about finding the best prices and who you can barter with the most.
I went into this with specific things i was looking for and the knowledge that I had packed in a pack small enough to be a carry on.
I returned to the Shannon's house with a small stack of scarves, and 3 pairs of earrings.
I had just the right amount of space in my pack.
Everything fit nice and snug, of course I did leave most of my clothes there to be donated.
It was very emotional saying goodbye to the Shannon family that night.
We hugged and said farewells and were on our way.
I will be honest though, I was so excited to get home to my family and Andres.
The whole trip home was something else.
Getting through customs and security was ridiculous.
I will also spare you the ridiculous details of my cab ride home.
I will just say that the lady cab driver had lived in Dubai 15 years yet did not have even the slightest idea of where I lived. She had to ask for directions 3 times.
It was all worth it when I arrived home and Andres met me at the door.
It was so good to be home.
That is what Ethiopia looked like. Sorry for how long it took.
I will find a way to post more photos once blogger decides to let me.
Today we made the trip back to Addis.
This time was a bit more interesting because we were going without Sophie, and none of us speak Amharic.
It ended up being a really good trip.
We had a lot of room in the van to stretch out and sleep and had time to chat.
Our drivers were really great too and did their best to make us comfortable.
At one point during the trip this huge black hornet type thing flew into the window and thought it would be a fun idea to hang out by me.
It concerned Audra and I so much that we were trying to figure out what to do when the driver and driver's passenger figured out what was going on.
They pulled over onto the side of the road and had us all get out while they found and took care of the huge hornet thing.
I still have no idea if these huge hornets are really any sort of threat or not, but I do know that they are really scary.
Around lunch time they also stopped off at a really nice sort of tourist oasis for "tea time".
Doug, Audra and I sat around a table on a grassy lawn under the shade of many trees and drank tea and coffee.
We even had some real nice bathrooms to use.
On the trip to Soddo we had to make a pit stop and use a very dirty squaty potty.
Meanwhile our drivers went across the street to get some lunch.
When they left us there sitting under the trees, they made sure to even leave the van keys with us.
It was such a comforting gesture.
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| Hey, you are a pretty lady! |
You know you have been in a foreign country a while when the sight of other white people makes you freak out and actually point.
That happened during our drive back to Addis.
We passed a van that had a few white people in it and I , No joke, pointed at them and very excitedly proclaimed to Doug and Audra that there were white people in that van.
I remember things like that happening in Ecuador too.
Andres and I would be on the metro and I would see another white person and get ALLLLLLLLLL excited.
Anyways, when we returned to Addis we went and met up with everyone and ate lunch.
It was a down day for all of us so we relaxed, and enjoyed our lunches and didn't rush to get anywhere.
After lunch we all squeezed into the Shannon's van and drove off for the nearest ice cream/smoothie place.
I honestly don't remember the rest of the day, but I am sure it was spent relaxing, eating, chatting, and resting.
My allergies were still really really bothering me.
I am having problems adding photos today so this post will have no photos. I will try to add more later.
3-19-2012
Today was a very long day.
I woke up feeling groggy.WE went to the Day Care first thing and spent some time playing with the babies.
We then helped the Shannons screen two new children that were hoping to be added to the program.
This included getting basic information on the children like weight, arm circumference, age, and some family history.
We also did a basic check on one of these moms.
Christy and I went into a private room along with the nurse, Ruth.
I walked through a basic a basic health screening and everything was fine.
I then asked the mom a few separate times if there was anything else going on, or if she had any questions.
She kept telling me no until we were all about to walk out of the room.
She then lifted her skirt a bit and showed us a huge dog bite on her thigh.
We went and got Audra, our wound care specialist, right away to dress the wound.
We then ate a lunch that consisted of some combination of lentils and carrots.
(Never in my life have I eaten so many lentils and carrots in one week.)
We then headed back to rest a bit.
I was feeling so groggy that a nap was just what I needed.
After we rested a bit we headed back to the daycare to screen the Moms.
I had my own room along with the translator who was really great to work with.
I saw 6 or 7 moms.
I found out after that most of the rooms had moms that just wanted their vitals taken and had nothing much to address while I had almost all had a lot more going on.
There is something about being with the moms one-on-one that breaks my heart.
SO many of these women are thin and tired but are doing everything they can to take care of their children.
AFter a few hours Jen took over for me a bit and had me just take vitals.
It was such good timing because I was exhausted by this time.
We screened moms for twice as long as was planned and saw only half of the moms that were there.
Isn't this how it always works though?
I don't remember A time I was ever over seas and we planned to do something for two hours and actually finished in less than 4 hours.
I was very excited about dinner time and bedtime.
Once again photos will not load. Sorry.
(I don't really have photos from this day anyway.)
3-20-2012
Today we headed to the Day Care later than usual.
It was around 10 when we arrived.
Jen started off the day with a leprosy teaching for The Shannons and some of the staff at the day care.
Audra then taught about wound care and burns.
It is very interesting to see the way people in Ethiopia view leprosy.
You see lepers in Ethiopia often, yet people there really do not know much about it.
They believe that you can get it almost as easily as a cold and many of them believe that you cannot be fully treated for it.
It was a really good thing for these staff to really learn the truth about it.
We were then served lunch.
Rice with veggies and lentils.
After lunch I went back to the house and rested while the rest of the team went to check on their airline tickets.
Jen had received an email a few days before telling her that the team's first flight out of Ethiopia had been cancelled.
The team then had to find some free time and the airline office to clear things up.
They arrived at the office and the person they spoke to told them
everything was still fine, and showed them their names on the flight
list.
We screened Moms and siblings in the evening.
I worked with the same translator as before and once again had my own room.
I saw about 9 people in the 3 hours.
It can be so exhausting but I sure do love it!
The interesting thing about women in Ethiopia is how they age.
Ethiopian women look very very young into their 20s.
I would talk to Moms that looked to be 15 or 16 yet they said they were in the early 20s.
Then at about 25 or 26 it all catches up with them, all of the sudden they look 10-20 years older.
You talk to moms that you think are in their 30s or 40s yet they tell you they are 28.
I met one mom in particular this night how just melted my heart.
I looked at this young face and asked how old she was, the translator then told me that she was in her 30s.
I was so shocked!
I asked my translator to repeat her age to me.
I then told the women "really? 30?? YOU LOOK SO YOUNG!".
She laughed and then told me "you can't hide age.".
"Well, you are doing a really good job at hiding it.", was my response.
I loved the connecting I got to do with some of the people I met that night.
We laughed and joked and I liked seeing them get comfortable around me and really feel they could trust me.
I was so hungry and excited for dinner by the time we returned to the Shannon's home.
Then the night got even better. I got to take my first shower in days and with warm water even.
It's all about those little blessings.
I was undoubtedly so ready for bed.
3-21-2012
I was feeling quite sick this morning.
I slept through breakfast and woke up when everyone except Audra was going to the Day Care.
AFter I got up and ready and ate breakfast, Audra and I walked up to the Day Care with the Shannon boys.
AS soon as we arrived Christy told us that the rest of the team had just left with Jerry.
Two of the children were terribly ill and had to be taken to the hospital.
One was severely dehydrated (2 second skin pinch.) and the other was unable to keep anything down.
We waited at the Day Care until Jerry came to pick us up a bit before 10.
We picked up Jen and Doug and drove to the Fistula hospital there in Addis.
In case you are wondering at fistulas here is a link to The Fistula Foundation site.
(warning; it is a bit intense.)
This documentary is about the hospital in addis that we went to.
It is worth a watch.
The tour took us all over the hospital grounds.
We saw recovery rooms, physical therapy rooms and everything else in between.
The ground were beautiful!
I love that they take these women that are dealing with such and emotionally and socially hard thing and give them a beautiful place to recover after.
I will be honest, I was fighting off an off and on fever during much of the tour which made it very hard to really pay attention.
The tour ended in a small gift shop where you could buy things made by the patients there.
There were hand made baskets, and paper bead necklaces, embroidered towels, knit scarves, small trinket boxes and more.
We all made sure to snatch up some goodies.
After the tour we went to lunch.
Jen (a nurse who is staying in Ethiopia for a while) and I shared a huge "fasting feast" (which means no meat) along with meat tibs.
It was so much food.
The two of us together ate maybe 70% of it.
We sat at the restaurant quite a while and just enjoyed ourselves before going to our 2nd hospital.
This hospital was more of a general hospital that also had special wards for TB, HIV and leprosy. We were invited to see the leprosy ward.
The men giving us the tour took us into the patients rooms and made sure we got up close and personal with the leprosy patients.
We made and effort to shake hands with as many of these people as possible.
We then told the tourguides that we felt very rude going into these rooms and want to respect their privacy more.
After walking us through rooms of patients with leprosy and telling us about how these patients had to have amputations they then walk up to a door and ask us to come in.
From our angle all we see in the room is a guy operating a power saw.
Finally someone was brave enough to peek in and found that a Dr. was just cutting off someones cast.
hahaha
They then showed us the PT rooms in the leprosy wards.
People who have finished their leprosy treatment go here to regain as much of their motor function as possible.
At the end of the tour we stumbled upon a Nurse who has been working in the leprosy field years and years.
He told us about working in rural villages before coming to the hospital. He also took us into a tukul where he teaches self care classes for lepers.
He was so excited about talking with us and sharing his knowledge.
He then introduced us to their lead dermatologist who is also one of the top leprosy Doctors in the world.
This Doctor was examining a patient that had some of the first signs of leprosy.
It was one of those experiences that not many medical people get, or really any people get.
By the time we got back to the house I was feeling so terrible that I just went to bed.
The rest of the group did a teaching to the moms and the day care.
It was also Christy's Birthday. We were so fortunate to be a part of the celebration. The boys had made cake that was divine.
The little Shannon, Hanna, was so excited about the cake that you would not believe it.
She was jumping up and down and dancing.
It was so cute!
Sadly I was feeling so badly that I only had a small piece of cake and ran to bed right after finishing.
3-22-2012
WE headed up to the DayCare bright and early this morning.
We wanted to be there to do a basic check on all the babies at bath time.
Baths did not happen this morning so we had to improvise.
A care giver would bring us a naked baby and we would weigh it, check for lice and scabies, and check for malnutrition by measuring upper arm circumference. We would then record it on a sheet that was to become a regular chart for the Day Care.
We would then send that baby back to its loving care giver and the next child would be sent out.
For the first group of babies I felt I was more in the way than anything else so I went downstairs and sign certificates.
The team had done some training with the caregivers at the DayCare and each member of the team was to sign completion certificates that we were to give these workers. I also took this time to go through my assessment forms and set aside those mothers that needed follow-up.
I was feeling a bit weak at this point so I went to sit near Nejat. Nejat was one of the little girls that went to the hospital the day before and even today she was not well.
I was sitting next to her just resting and keeping an eye on her when her mother arrived.
This mother came up to me, shook my hand and then proceeded to kiss my hand.
This absolutely broke my heart. Who am I that this woman should kiss my hand?
I feel like I should be hugging these mothers and kissing their hands. These women are 3x the woman that I am yet they kiss my hand.
I then left the mother with her child.
I then returned to the screenings going on upstairs.
I took over for Doug and absolutely loved every second of it.
All these cute chubby baby bellies.
It was too much cuteness!
I loved interacting with the babies this way. I love tickling them and trying to get them to smile.
We screened all 60 children pretty quickly.
The rest of the team then bought some of the jewelry and coffee that the mothers had made at the Day Care. I asked Christy if I could buy just the beads. She then led me to a back room and pulled out box after box after box of paper beads.
Caia, Micah and I spent a long time sorting through beads, hand selecting each one.
470 beads later I was done.
The team then helped bag coffee beans and sew them into sacks.
Some of the Day Care mothers roast coffee beans once a week there at the daycare. The beans are then sold, just like the paper beads, some embroidered book marks and baskets.
We sewed coffee bean sacks until lunch.
Any guess at what we had for lunch?
Something with lentils. haha
We were all pretty tired by the end of lunch.
We walked back to the Shannon's house and rested for hours.
After a snack of fruit we left to pick up Holly at the airport.When we arrives at the airport we were told that we had to wait outside. Fortunate for us, there was a sort of cafe there with outdoor seating. We sat and drank macchiatos and chatted as we waited for Holly.When Holly arrived she just sat down with us and told us about her trip.
When we got into the van to leave it decided not to start. All of us then got out and pushed the van until it started then we jumped in and went on our way.
We went to Woody and Shewaye's house. Jerry Shannon and Jen both knew this couple. They are vineyard pastors in Ethiopia. They invited us over for a visit and said they would do a coffee ceremony for us.
We snacked on homemade bread and popcorn as we shared stories and laughed about all the funny things that had happened over the last few weeks.
The coffee was then served. I was lucky. I sat next to Audra who is not a coffee drinker, but in the cultural context it is a bit rude to refuse coffee. Audra and I worked out a deal. She would eat my pop-corn and I would sneakily drink her cup of coffee after I finished mine.
Needless to say, I was really excited by the end of the ceremony having drank twice as much of the very stout coffee as everyone else.
By the time we left we were all pretty wonky.
We said our warm goodbyes to Shawaye. When I said goodbye to her and thanked her for her hospitality she invited me to come back because i live so close.
Once we arrived at the Shannon's house again we excitedly greeted Christy and started telling her all about our evening at the airport and the coffee ceremony.
Jen then walks out of the room and comes back a minute later with her arms full of plates and a huge smile on her face and announced that we should eat cake.
We all excitedly went upstairs to the dinning room and ate cake.
It was a really good day.
3-23-2012
I have a really bad habit of not journaling the last 2 or 3 days of a trip.
Ethiopia was no different. Please be patient with me as I try to remember the details of the last 2 days.
Our last full day in Ethiopia was good. The agenda for our last full day in Ethiopia was to
1) visit an orphanage (I will explain more in a moment).
2) Have a coffee ceremony with the Day Care staff.
3)Buy shoes that were made from recycled tires.
Audra had a friend in the States who had adopted a baby from Ethiopia a few months earlier.
While this woman was in Ethiopia taking all the steps needed to bring this baby home, she met a little boy about 10 years old and just fell in love with him.
Her and her husband wanted to adopt this boy also but did not complete all the papers in time.
They brought the baby back to the States but left the 10 year old boy with the promise that they would come back for him as soon as they possibly could and would then bring him to the States with them.
When this woman found out that Audra was going to Ethiopia she asked if Audra would be willing to visit the boy and take him some presents and cards from the family and just remind him that his new family loved him and couldn't wait to be with him again.
He were able to set up a time to go see the boy.
He was the sweetest boy, and super shy.
We brought him all of the gifts and showed him the cards and other messages that the family wanted him to have. We also made sure to take photos for the adopted parents in the States.
Holly, on the other hand, had a family member that was just cleared to adopt a child.
They found out the good news while we were there. They asked that Holly go and see the baby and hug it for them.
This visit was a bit harder to put together. The orphanage finally agreed to let her in but only she was allowed to see the child and she was not to take photos.
It meant so much to Holly and Holly's family members that she was able to go hug this baby.
The Shannon's took us to a shopping center to show us a store that they thought was so cool.
This store made shoes from recycles car tires.
You would not believe it. These shoes were so cool.
The team was very excited and bought quite a few pairs.
They then found out there was a sale, something like buy 5 get one free.
Audra and Jen were buying 5 between the two of them and asked me if I wanted the free pair.
They are so sweet. I picked out the brightest pair I could find. It is made of different shades of orange leather. They are really cool.
After this running around we went to the Day Care to say goodbye to children there and also have the coffee ceremony.
The way a coffee ceremony works is this.
A woman sits on a small stool and has a small sort of oven in which she has hot coals.
She uses these coals to roast the coffee beans right in front of you. Once she finishes the roasting she immediately takes the hot pan of beans and passes it in front of each guest so they can smell the coffee beans.
This always made me a bit nervous to have a woman with a hot pan full of hot coffee beans shake said pan over the top of me.
In a traditional ceremony she would then hand grind the beans with a mortar and pestal, but in both ceremonies they just used an electric grinder.
Everyone is then served delicious homemade bread and hand-fulls of popcorn to snack on.
They then begin to brew the coffee in a really cool pot.
Once the coffee is hot she pours it into the small coffee cups (maybe 3 ounces) and adds milk to some of them.
SHe then walks around with the tray and one by one allows each guest to choose their cup and add sugar if desired. If there are not enough cups for each guest then some of the guest wait for the already served guests to finish their coffee and return the cup to be reused (after a quick wash).
The woman leading the ceremony collects the cups once the coffee is drunk and then washes them quickly in a basin of water.
She then refills the cups and passes them out the same way.
Both ceremonies I went to consisted of each person being given 2 cups of coffee.
So in a scenario like our ceremony with the Day Care staff, this woman had to fill the cups 4 times in order to serve each person two cups.
During the ceremony people took turns addressing the entire group if they wanted. They just said thank yous and other sweet things to each other. We encouraged the staff, and they thanked us for coming. You know all those sweet things you do.
I was extra lucky. I once again sat next to Audra. I snuck her my popcorn and she in turn gave me her cup of coffee. 4 cups of coffee later I was so wonky. All I wanted to do was talk, and laugh and joke and play obnoxious games.
After dinner Jen we had some time of encouragement.
How do I explain this?
Lets see.
Sometimes when you are in the routine of something, or working on something, you see things in other people that is really good and they may not see it. The point of what we did was just to point out to one another the really great things we see in each other.We write these things down and give them to the person to keep. Sometimes you get back from these trips, or get caught up in your day to day and you start to forget and doubt so it is good to have something written down that reminds you of these good things about you.
SO, the team took turns encouraging the Shannon children. This really meant a lot to the children.
After the children went to bed we did this with each other. We sat in the living room and just took turns tell each other of the good things we had seen in each other the last few weeks and just in general. I am not sure how to explain this in any better way that will do it justice.
It was a really great time. Very building for each of us and a good way to end out a trip.
3-24-2012
The last day in Ethiopia was good.
We took some time to do some shopping, after stopping at Jerry Shannon's favorite coffee place for a quick macchiato.
We went to an area that had a number of stores lining the street.
The people working in these shops spoke English because it is where most of the tourist shop.
We spent a few hours exploring these shops.
Like any country, the shops all carry mostly the same things. It is all about finding the best prices and who you can barter with the most.
I went into this with specific things i was looking for and the knowledge that I had packed in a pack small enough to be a carry on.
I returned to the Shannon's house with a small stack of scarves, and 3 pairs of earrings.
I had just the right amount of space in my pack.
Everything fit nice and snug, of course I did leave most of my clothes there to be donated.
It was very emotional saying goodbye to the Shannon family that night.
We hugged and said farewells and were on our way.
I will be honest though, I was so excited to get home to my family and Andres.
The whole trip home was something else.
Getting through customs and security was ridiculous.
I will also spare you the ridiculous details of my cab ride home.
I will just say that the lady cab driver had lived in Dubai 15 years yet did not have even the slightest idea of where I lived. She had to ask for directions 3 times.
It was all worth it when I arrived home and Andres met me at the door.
It was so good to be home.
That is what Ethiopia looked like. Sorry for how long it took.
I will find a way to post more photos once blogger decides to let me.
