Baby S
After breakfast, M and I head off to the CDC to finish painting, while T goes to the office, promising to tell us what transpires with the staff. It’s another long trip aross town, but when we get off the bus, we are immediately greeted by a grey-haired man named Mekonnen, who shakes our hand with a bone-crushing grip and invites us to come to his school across the road. At the CDC, we finish painting fairly quickly and are washing ourselves and the brushes with gas when M is called to the phone. She returns a few minutes later, her eyes wet with tears. I think that the staff has been fired, but I’m way off. Baby S died, she tells me. It takes a minute to register. The baby who we saw just two days before is gone. All the air is sucked out of my lungs and I don’t know what to say or do.
We leave to prepare for the funeral, and M walks down the street with the box of paints on her head. People love it, and amid the giggles and pointing, one man even salutes her. I’m sitting in the front seat of the bus home when the man next to me strikes up a conversation. He works at the American Embassy and asks me to call him if we ever go there. I agree, still dazed.
It turns out that the staff has been given an ultimatum and will not be fired if someone confesses. At this point, the thievery and resulting drama seems totally insignificant and I am furious with the world for letting this happen. Millions of people like this baby girl are dying or have died every day and no response seems adequate enough.
We wait at the office for the van to come, and when it does, there is a tiny felt-covered coffin perched next to the door. We step over it and drive down the road to the graveyard. The cemetery is crammed full of graves with cages over them, and rubbish blowing into them. It is a crowded but still lonely place, and it makes me even sadder for Baby S. We all stand by the van, staring at the ground as we wait for the family to arrive. I try not to cry, but then I see the men from the office wiping away tears and I can’t keep it in.
Baby S is one of the few kids AHOPE has taken with both parents still living. Unfortunately, though both are still living, they are also both dying of AIDS. Her mother is in the hospital and her father has left Addis and Abebe couldnt find him. He managed to round up a bunch of aunts, who walk down the road to the cemetery wailing with grief and calling her nickname. We all walk to the tiny plot, where Yidnacatchu and Aboma and another man dig the grave. The women stand together, crying out with a grief I have never seen or heard before. I watch them, conflicted. I want to yell, YOU GAVE HER UP! but at the same time, I think about how this tiny babys passing is just a precursor to her mother’s death and then her father’s. Our staff is watching the scene with an unbearable pain, especially Tigist, who cared for Baby S and spent her days in the hospital with her. I dont know how people survive this.
We return to AHOPE for a coffee ceremony, where M, T and I sit in silence with four of the relatives. The kids have woken up from their naps and I ache for the relatives, mourning their baby girl surrounded by the sounds of happy children. After the ceremony, I run to pick up New Boy. I hold him close to me and watch him make his goofy faces. This is how people survive, I think. Even with all the devastation, there is still joy in the world. I hug and kiss the other kids and hold him tight until we have to leave, to go see the big kids who finally make me laugh.
Things could be worse (and are)
We wake up to the news that M is missing $200 from the locked cabinet in her locked room in our locked house. The news is upsetting to all of us, since it was clearly an inside job, meaning that either Genet, Mifta or Eyob stole the money. We decide to talk to Mifta and Genet, and offer to give them the chance to return the money before we talk to Sidisse, the director (Eyob wasn’t on duty so we couldn’t speak to him). M tells them how sad she is to have the money taken, and that she will leave an envelope on the table, in case they want to return the money. No one does.
When we go to the office to put our remaining money in the office safe, Abebe invites us on a field trip. He is going across town for a home visit, to meet the mother of a child who is joining the home support program. We pile into the van with Abebe, Gelila and Tigist, roasting as we drive past the university. We stop at the hospital to drop Tigist and see Baby S. She is in a room on the top floor with two other babies, all of whom look as teeny as she is. She has breathing tubes attached and looks very sleepy. Abebe tells us that she is actually very healthy looking compared to the bright-eyed, almost chubby little girl who just left for America, who was also hospitalized for a while. We stand in the crowded room for a while, and then say goodbye to Baby S and Tigist and get back in the van.
On the way, we pick up the director of another orphanage and her social worker, and then the boy’s mother. We drive through a marketplace selling clothes, and past a crowd of teenagers who have encircled two girls trying to beat each other up. Abebe cracks up and tells us girlfights are common in Ethiopia. We teach him the word for catfight, which only makes him laugh harder. We leave the market and bump our way down a rocky road, waving to the kids on their way home from school. At one point, one little boy points to M and yells, CHINA!
We turn down a narrow alley and stop outside a line of tin sheds. We walk through the gate, past the barking dog and into the first house. We all come inside to meet the 4-year-old boy and survey the accommodation. The house is about 5 by 8 feet, the floor is made of plastic tarps and the walls are lined with newspapers, one of which reads You can still smile with HIV/AIDS. There is one lightbulb dangling from the ceiling, and a barrel full of water stands in the corner next to the door.
The mother is probably in her mid-20s, and could be a supermodel in another life. She speaks softly to Abebe as he asks her about her life, telling him about how her son’s father has disappeared and she came back to Addis from Eritrea. The little boy has huge brown eyes and whispers to us as we shake his hand. As his mother talks, the boy lies down on the single mattress on the floor and draws, silently. Abebe asks the mother if she is positive, and when she says yes, he asks if she knows her status. He tells her she can go to the Worldwide Orphans office to get tested, but she tells him no. She works near there, and if people see her going in, they will know she is positive and she will lose her job and maybe her house. There is no good solution. It only takes about a half hour for Abebe to interview her, and eventually we leave the stifling room, thanking her and shaking her little boy’s tiny hand, wondering what will happen after we go.
Feed the ferenge
In the morning, I am sitting in preschool with New Kid on my lap. He and I have become best friends, and he is my little shadow. We are listening to the kids recite the alphabet when suddenly, he starts making all kinds of crazy faces and cracking himself up. It’s impossible to be mature when you have a three-year-old sitting on your lap, rolling his eyes around and sticking his tongue out at you. It’s also a very good sign that he’s acclimated to the orphanage and will be fine.
At night, we go to big AHOPE for program. It is my turn to tell a story, so I tell the story of Rumplestiltskin. Before I start, Abebe tells the kids that they will vote on who has told the best story: me, T or M, and when he says it, I give the kids menacing eyes and point to myself, to get my message across. Some of them nod seriously, and others laugh and shake their heads. I vow to punish them later for this audacity.
I tell the story, which some of the kids already know. Abebe, who is translating the story, cannot say Rumplestiltskin for the life of him, which cracks up all the ferenge, who have been teased for our misprounounciations of Amharic words. I mean, really. How hard is it to say Rumplestiltskin?
My story is obviously the greatest, and I even make one of the bigger girls jump when I get to Rumplestiltskin’s fit of rage. I ask Abebe about the voting for days to follow, and even though he giggles when I tell him that I will win because my story was awesome, he never has the kids vote. This is because my story was clearly the best, and he doesn’t want to publicly embarrass T and M.
After I finish my telling of the greatest story ever told, the kids have dinner. At the beginning of our stay in Addis, M told us that the highest compliment you can get from Ethiopians is to be hand fed by them, because it means they really love you. The little kids have stuck food in my mouth countless times, but never the older ones. One of the older girls, whom I don’t know very well, calls me over and pops a piece of bread and honey into my mouth. I tell her thank you, and as I am still chewing the bread, another girl calls me over to feed me.
In no time at all, T and M and I are running back and forth around the room, so that all the kids can feed us. I am touched beyond words. Here I am, an American in a poverty-stricken country, being hand fed by orphans. I try not to think about it too much, or else I will surely burst into tears and frighten them all away. Instead, I open wide, chomp and swallow, over and over, thinking about how I have never felt so loved in my whole life.
Ring around the sun
The next day, we head over to AHOPE to see the little kids. When we get there, they are all pointing at the sky. We look up and there is a bright ring around the sun. I have never seen anything like it and would never have noticed it without the kids. The next day, the story makes BBC News’ ticker.
The kids are running riot around the yard and I am sitting on the ground with one of them when a man comes over. He is the doctor and he comes to AHOPE occasionally to check on the children. He is very charming in the quiet Ethiopian way, and like all Ethiopians with an email address, he wants to write to me. He tells me that Baby S, the tiny girl who just came back to the compound from the hospital, is going back. She has a chest infection and needs to be more closely monitored. I nod, saddened that she is leaving, because it was nice having her around. She is a tiny thing, with spindly arms and legs, so little that she has to eat the protein peanut paste and spends her days sitting on the couch, barely moving. I am not surprised that she is still sick.
Then we go over to Big AHOPE, where we spend four hours. I take picture after picture of the kids, and they want to use the camera. I tell them each, “ant, beeeeetcha!,” thinking I am telling them, “only one!” I am impressed with my tremendous Amharic abilities, because they all nod, snatch the camera away, and bring it right back. It is only later that I realize I was telling them, “ONE YELLOW!” and they probably all think I am both bossy and stupid.
It is a nice afternoon, as usual, and the boys all crash around playing basketball, and the girls all braid my hair and play the rock-jacks game. It’s easy to be at Big AHOPE, because the kids just want to be with us, and were we not hungry and tired, we would stay all day–or maybe, forever.
To market, to market…
On Saturday, we decide to go to mercato, the enormous market in Addis, to get some delightful treats. M calls her friend Jamal, the taxi driver, who is quite serious and always seems bored. Mercato is pulsing with people shopping, selling, begging. We get pulled into a store and the salesman tells me I am beautiful. Thank you, salesman! Later, I buy a bracelet for my brother for about $2.50. After I buy it, Jamal asks me how much I paid. I tell him, and he walks away, rolling his eyes. Then he turns and tells me I should have asked him how much to pay, because I paid WAY too much. I don’t think I like Jamal. I think I like him later, when he barters with the salespeople for me, because I ask him about everything I buy (I’m scared he might bop me on the head with a stick if I overpay again), but then change my mind when I am about to buy some necklaces and I ask him if they are the right price. He says no, and then he gets in a screaming fight with the saleswoman. I have no idea what she said, but apparently she insulted him and he is pissed off—mostly, it seems, with me. The good news is that I have purchased many jewels, and will not need to go back to mercato ever again.
When we get back to the house, it’s time for a coffee ceremony. We haven’t had any since B went home, and I am kind of excited. Genet spreads the flowers all over and gets the coffee set up, and we wait for M’s friend Tommy to arrive. We are all chowing down on popcorn when he gets there. T is pleased because he’s brought kolo, which is an Ethiopian grain that pretty much everyone eats all the time. I am pleased because he is fascinating. I figured he would be in his mid-20s, but he’s in his late 30s, and is an Eritrean refugee. He tells us about how he fled Eritrea through Sudan, how he was in jail for months, and how he came to Ethiopia. He talks nonchalantly, as if everyone is a refugee and has spent months in a jail simply because their home country was unlivable. He answers all my 4598674958673 questions, thoughtfully chewing on kolo, and I think I like Tommy as much as I disliked Jamal.
It’s coming…
For those of you who thought the blog was over, you are wrong! There’s still most of Ethiopia, all of Uganda, England and Ireland to come, not to mention all the fun stuff about being back in Amerika.
My sister got married last weekend, so we’ll use that as an excuse. But keep checking….next week there should be all kinds of fun stuff on here, and your lives will once again be filled with thrilling information about my formerly thrilling life.
