Ethiopia Continued

Computer connections are a challenge.  I am in Nairobi now, but want to complete the Ethiopian adventure.

In Ethiopia it is 2003. They use the Julian calendar which is made up of 12 months of 30 days and a 13th month of 5 days and 6 days if a leap year.

We knew before we were picked up by the Village director that if we wanted to do any shopping we had to do it that day.  There are only 2 couples running the Village and one was on a short vacation. We were on the hunt for the small Ethiopian crosses but the silver place were we at last year was closed for remodeling.

We went back to a store we had been to last year but we had to make our way through a number of shops, all trying to sell us something.  It is hard walking through these shops as every where we turned someone wanted to shine our shoes, sell us phone cards or maps.  There was a child begging but in the background was a man encouraging him to follow us.  The village director told us to watch our purses.
We walked past a construction site.  There were workers hauling up dirt on stretcher like boards.  The hole was steep and deep.  There was no modern digging equipment.

We did a little shopping and went for lunch at the restaurant owned by the fellow from Seattle.

Thursday was spent getting settled into the Village.

When we were here a year ago there were no children at the village other than the staff's children. They were training mamas to care for the prospective children.  They got their first 2 children about 2 weeks after we left. Today they have 24 children, some had only been in the village about 2 weeks.  They also have several day students. There were about 27 employees that we saw including the mamas. The  four very young girls training to be mamas are all still there.  One is an assistant mama and 3 others each have 6 children under their care.  They have 3 national teachers and a national who is the right hand person for the Village Director,  5 guards,  5 cooks, 2 or 3 gardeners.

English is a big problem and communication is a challenge.  You tell someone something, you think they understand but they don't.  Birthdays, most people cannot tell you their birth year let alone the day they were born.  Most know their age so we used the Ethiopian calendar to figure out the year.

I would ask them to write their name but most seemed to think I could just spell their name.  They don't have names like "John Smith."  I suspect many cannot write.  The National who is the assistant director had a good command of English.  His name is  Million and his children have birthdays and also use our calendar for birth year. His daughter's name is Heaven (Ganet) Million. The last name of an individual is their father's name. He did most of the translating for us.

Prenatal care in Ethiopia is practically non existent.  Many families have lost a baby before birth. Immunizations are also an issue.  They do give the children Vitamin A.  Interestly, most of the eye checks were 20/20 vision.  They could read the smallest print.

The men do not marry until they are about 30 years of age or until they can support a wife. They are for the most part very poor.  If one member of a family is earning money other family members expect them to give them money.  Several of the workers have children in the day school.  We did physicals on their children.  It was a shock for me when I was getting a couple of kids ready for their physical that they did not have underwear  or what they had was tattered and worn.  This really bothered me.  If do this again I am going to put together some kites of underwear.   Toothbrushes are a big thing. We do come in with lots of toothbrushes, but underwear needs to be on the list.

The orphan children here adapt very well.  They are beautiful children.  We saw all of them on Friday.  Many of them had just had the experience of being immunized for polio.  As you can imagine, many of them were not to keen on seeing us.  Each child got an animal mask which gave them a lot of joy and us a lot of laughs.  They kept putting them on with the ears upside down.   They looked pretty comical.

Saturday morning they were all in the play area with their animal masks.  We laughed as I was trying to take a picture.  They kept moving toward me, finally someone got them to stay back so I could take the picture.  Then they all mobbed me  afterwards so they could see the picture.

Saturday and Sunday were very quiet.  Sunday the second family returned from vacation.  We finished our work Tuesday before noon and went into Addis with one of the families. They were going into Addis for their children's basketball game. Originally, were were going to leave for Addis on Wednesday, but this  saved a trip into town for them.  Addis is an hour an a half away, the roads are good but the traffic is scary.  The 6 children of the ROS families travel this everyday to school.  This makes for a lot of praying.

It is a different world in Addis.  The streets are lined with people selling all kinds of stuff, sunglasses, phone cards, shoe shines and also the beggars which seem to target any white person on the street.  It would seem that handing a few coins would be a kind thing, but if you did you would get mobbed.

We left Ethiopia and arrived at our destination outside Nairobi at about 6:45 pm.  They are doing a lot to improve the roads in Nairobi, but they have a ways to go.  There was a lot of detours because of construction.

The Village Director had a "light" dinner prepared, salad, fish, rice, vegetables and dessert.