Tickets yellam, measles allé
We had decided to stay in Addis for Good Friday because of the church service and the performance, because Abebe told us the kids would really appreciate it. The next day, we were off to Bahir Dar on the first leg of our tour of northern Ethiopia. We would go to Bahir Dar, Gondar and Lalibela for 5 days and then come back to Addis and T and I would prepare to go to Uganda (with some kicking and screaming).
M had booked our taxi to the airport with Jamal, who called on Friday to ensure that we still wanted his services. “Remember, M, how you called me once and then told me you didn’t need me?” he asks. He is talking about the time we booked him to go to the dance performance out of town, but ended up getting the CHS van. We cancelled with plenty of time for him to make other arrangements. Stupid Jamal annoys me. He annoys me even more when we are waiting for him to pick us up at 5am and there is no sign of him and he is not answering his phone. Suddenly, the annoyance grows to an intense desire to poke him in the eye with a fork.
We end up calling Gonchu, Kate’s taxi driver, and he gets us to the airport in time for the flight but just barely. We are at the ticket counter, trying to check in when M and I hear the ticket girl look worriedly at her supervisor and say “yellam.” M and I start looking at each other worriedly, because yellam means THERE ARE NO TICKETS FOR ALL THESE FERENGE, more or less. Sure enough, the supervisor tells us there is no room on the flight for us. That’s it. There’s just no room. It is a busy holiday weekend and real people need to get home to their families. We get it, but why did we have to get up at 5am!?!! She can get us on a flight in the afternoon. She also gives us $10 each to get home, but only when we get American about it.
We head down Bole Road, thinking we can kill time until the flight. We try to get massages at the Boston Day Spa. No dice. We get coffee at Kaldi’s and decide we have to go home and sleep because we are all way too ugly to be awake right now.
We go home and sleep for some (many?) hours, and then decide to go to the little compound to check on the quarantined kids. There are about seven of them now, all lying on consecutive mattresses on the floor. None of them is looking well. They are feverish and sick and sad and I am miserable just looking at them. The nannies don’t want to give them too much water lest they pee themselves, but M insists that they get some. I sit with Six, who stares through me as if I’m not even there. The Good Boy sits at attention, blinking and licking his parched lips. I lie at the end of the beds with New Boy, who is just as sick. His nose is running and he is crying and sweating. I try to hug him and whisper that I love him. He coughs and tells me he loves me, and I try to tell him it will be all right. Then I try to tell myself the same thing.
The Best Friday
On Ethiopian Good Friday, we head over to the little compound, where there are kids everywhere. Kids climbing the walls, kids running around, kids sitting in chairs. Sneaky 1 is sitting with a bunch of the little kids like a big brother, Sweet Girl is posing for pictures with me, and the little kids are just running amok. For the holiday, there is a drama group coming to perform for the kids, so there are rows of chairs set up in the yard. Eventually, we all sit down to watch the performance. I sit next to Sneaky 2, who keeps giving me crazy looks and teasing me, and I try to get him to quiet down and watch.
After the performance, the kids each get presents. The presents are in no way fair. Some kids get really cool stuff; others get cheap plastic toys. The Charmer runs over, thrilled beyond belief, and holds up a bag of chips. “Look! Mexas!” he cries. He is so excited about his snack that he rubs his tummy and says, “Yum yum yum,” the way we do when we play Ten Little Speckled Frogs. You would have thought he won the lottery. Other kids, like Sneaky 2, are not thrilled, looking enviously at the others, and I wonder why they didn’t all just get the same thing. For kids who have to little, it seems unfair to give more to some than others. After the presents, there is a spontaneous gathering in the corner of the yard. We go see what it is, and it’s The Belly, The Boss and New Girl, having a race between two buckets. They are supposed to fill their cup from one bucket, walk it to the other and dump the water in, and then do it again until they finish. The Cuddler gets overly excited and drinks the water. Everyone laughs, and she cries. The Belly wins the race, though I’m still unsure what it was he did to win.
We leave the little compound, with the piles of chickens for dinner, and go to the big compound that night for church. T, M and I end up in different vans. I am in one with all boys, which is fine with me. I sit in the back row with the older boys, telling them about our trip and teaching them how to say things like “Go away” in Chinese and thank you in Thai. For the entire ride, I hold hands with Sneaky 1 and I consider the fact that a 12-year-old boy in America wouldn’t be caught dead holding hands with an old lady like me for a half hour. When we get to the church, the boys run between and and T, trading insults. I teach them how to say go away in Chinese, and they run over to tell him. He teaches them how to say crazy lady in sign language, and they run back over to tell me. This goes on until we have exhausted the silly things we know to say in various languages, and we have to go inside.
In the church, I sit between Surprise, one of the oldest boys at AHOPE, and two little girls. On the other side of the little girls is an older boy who makes an endless array of hysterical faces at me. I sit, with my arms around Surprise and the girls, and I think about how this is the happiest moment I have ever had in a church. Surprise has only recently started talking to me, and he has become one of my favorite kids. He is 13 and has been at AHOPE since about 2000. He is quiet and sweet and I love him. The girls are both about 10, and they are naughty. They whisper to me about the staff, telling me who they like and who they don’t, and when I mention the people they don’t like, they roll their eyes back in their heads and become highly dramatic in their disapproval. It is very difficult not to laugh. At the same time, the other boy, the Joker, sticks out his tongue and wiggles his eyebrows like a maniac, which makes it even harder to keep calm.
The service is neverending, and the kids and I start counting down the songs and prayers. We look down the aisle at T, who is now holding hands with Sneaky 1 (again, what American 12-y/o would ever hold hands with a man in public?! I love Ethiopia), surrounded by a bunch of other boys.
Halfway through the service, about 3/4 of the kids suddenly start whispering in Amharic and walk to the back of the church. It startles me, and brings me back to reality. These kids have HIV. They have to take medication. They are so healthy looking and so energetic that it’s tough to remember that they’re “sick”. The realization hits me hard. I’m sitting alone, waiting for them to come back, and I suddenly want to punch something, which would be wildly inappropriate in a church. The anger passes when they file back in, scooch back under my arms, and continue where we left off, whispering about how we will all be 800 years old by the time we leave.
On the way home, I am in the van with M and Surprise, and he asks if he can play M’s iPod with my portable speakers. We say sure, and then look at each other with horror when we realize what he’s going to play. He turns on Avril Lavigne’s song, Girlfriend. If it was the radio version, it wouldn’t be a big deal but it’s the unedited version in which she says a number of delightful words that the kids all know. And we’re in the van with Tigist, the highly religious nurse. So M starts talking REALLY LOUDLY to Tigist while I scramble over to Surprise to try to get him to turn down the song, just as Avril is yelling about being a motherf*cking princess. Surprise raises his eyebrows in fake horror as she says it, and I snatch the speakers away from him. Maybe this is why the Orthodox religion doesn’t allow secular music.
I’m still here
So it’s been months since I last updated this blog, and that’s mainly because I’ve been kind of sad, thinking about Ethiopia. The last few weeks we spent there were some of the best and worst of my life, and delving into all that emotion isn’t easy.
That said, I’m going to do it. So stay tuned in the next week or so, because I am going to finish writing about this trip and update you on what’s happening now. Really. I swear.
Painting the day away
The next day, we come to little AHOPE and find that more of the kids are sick. They are feverish, tired and clearly miserable. We’re not sure what’s up or what it is, but the poor guys are not doing too well. The nannies are in the process of clearing out the nursery to use as a quarantine room, which I don’t think is such a great sign.
Kate has the day off from work, so she, M and I go over to big AHOPE to paint the classroom. We buy the paint and accoutrements at Home Depot, and pop in a shared taxi to go down the road. When we get to big AHOPE, kids start to appear out of the woodwork. First two, then three, then about eight. We pile all the furniture in the middle of the room and start trying to paint the walls. Of course, the kids all want to help, so we let them. This is perhaps not our best idea. They put the rollers down on their desks, spray paint all over their clothes and the floor, and let paint drip down the windows. Eventually, I hand over my roller so that I can follow behind them and clean up.
When we’re finished, the room is a Caribbean turquoise and it looks infinitely better than the scummy white walls we painted over. We clear the kids out of the room, and they all cluster around the classroom, listening to M’s iPod and playing Avril Lavigne over and over. Kate is horrified by the state of the floor, and she kneels down on the floor to scrub the paint away, even though the floor is completely filthy. She scrubs madly until we drag her away, kicking and screaming and crying, “I missed the corner!”.
The kids are so delighted by the new walls and the furniture that we sorted through that they volunteer to clean up. Sneaky leads the kids in sorting through the crap on the bookshelves, as I separate the broken desks from the working ones, and M and Kate re-hang the maps and blackboards. Without being asked, the kids sort through the papers, their little foreheads wrinkled with concentration, until it’s all done. The room looks beautiful, and I want to hug all the kids for trying so hard to make the room nice.
Afterwards, we go home and bathe and relax for a little while before program. We walk back to big AHOPE, thinking we’re getting there just in time for the Good Friday festivities. Instead, we bust in just in time for the program to end. We’re given cokes and candy like all the kids, and we sit for a few minutes as they finish the singing and praying. Then we all check out the classroom and admire our handiwork. I give my tape recorder to the kids, and they all run around talking into it (usually yelling about how I am crazy, and they are not, and singing songs. On the way home, a bunch of the kids are in the van with us, so that they can take a tour of the city at night. We all cram in and they sing songs into the tape recorder until we get out and the van takes off into the night, full of children climbing all over the seats.
Give me an icehug
ON Wednesday, we get to little AHOPE and a bunch of the kids are sick. They have fevers and are all dopey and quiet. A couple of them sleep on the couch as we have snack, but it’s nothing out of the ordinary. It’s not uncommon for the kids to feel badly, and I don’t think too much of it.
Charlene has given M and me laminated pictures for us to use in English classes. We break them out at Big AHOPE and ask the kids what the picture is of, and to describe it. We have a picture of Meseret, an Ethiopian runner who appears to be the local equivalent of Madonna. We show the picture to a little girl named Meseret and ask her to describe it. She’s usually very quiet—even sullen—in class, but she lights right up when we show her the picture, and tells us all about it. We show them pictures of Mandela, and they all yell MANDELA! when we ask who it is. They all know his name, but they don’t know where he lives, or why he’s famous. We try to explain the concepts of hugging and icebergs to the kids, and they sort of understand. Hugging they definitely get, but then when we show them the picture of the iceberg again, Smiley yells ICEHUG!!!
The power’s out at home again, but when the lights come on, I find a delightful surprise. A spider, at least as big as my skull, darts out of our bed and sprints into the night. I make T come in and shake out the sheets to make sure no more are in the bed. Then we drag the mattress into the living room and sleep on the floor, but it still takes me ages to fall asleep, knowing it’s out there, just waiting to SUCK MY BLOOD.
He’s an old man, and he’s going to bed
The next day, I come into the bedroom to get dressed, and T is breathing very heavily in the bathroom. I’m not sure what’s happening, but it doesn’t sound good. A few minutes later, he emerges, clutching his back. He fell down in the shower and cracked his back on the side of the tub and he is not a happy man. We chalk this up to us being the least healthy volunteers ever: M, B and T have all had ringworm, I got scabies, we all got food poisoning, and now T is crippled for life because he fell down in the bath like an 80 year old.
That night, we go to big AHOPE for program. The kids try to jump all over T, but he tells them about his back, and they nod, eyes wide. Then they come over to me, and I make jokes about how he is so old and teach them to walk like old men with a cane. They take to it quickly, and soon I have a bunch of boys hobbling around the yard and T is giving me some wicked stinkeye.
For program, we are supposed to be coming up with more songs and stories, and we have to practice the songs in the van with Abebe’s friend, who has a guitar. We sing the same songs over and over until we know them, and the kids surround the van, peeking into the windows, trying to get in with us. The ones who don’t want to get into the van stand outside with plastic guns from God knows where, pointing them at my head, and then cracking up when I pretend to keel over and die mid-song. Meanwhile, Smiley and Yidnicacho play a game of soccer that involves them kicking at each other, which eventually causes Yidni to tumble to the ground laughing, defeated by a 12-year-old.
In program, we sing the songs, but there aren’t enough sheets with the words to go around, so I end up with about five kids squished in with me, trying to read the words. Abebe gives us candy to hand out to all the kids, and as always, they take it politely but then wolf it down. We get some too, and we wolf it down just as fast and then start the long walk home with my husband, the geriatric.
Bon voyage, Princess
On Monday, we go to little AHOPE for class, and one of the kindergarteners is there, riding a little bike back and forth around the yard. I recognize him, but his head has been shorn, so I’m not sure if he’s new or not. M confirms that he isn’t, and he and I spend about an hour together, with me watching him ride and change bikes, and both of us shooing the other kids away because they should be in class.
Then a lady shows up, asking for Princess. Princess comes out and the lady hugs her. Princess is being adopted, and we didn’t even know. Her mother has come to take her back to America. They hug, her mom looks deeply into her eyes, and then, after some discussion about how short Princess’ hair is, she’s gone. She will have a bon voyage party later in the week, but for now, she’s with her mom, and it’s a lot less fun without her sass.
After going to BIG AHOPE class on the way home, a bunch of teenage kids in school uniforms pass us and nod hello. We say hi and ask how they are, and they just smile, wave and keep walking. Later on, we realize they are the kids from the deaf school and we feel a little ridiculous for expecting them to respond. Even though the kids can’t hear or speak our language, they are still just as friendly as any other Ethiopians, which hardly comes as a surprise.
The greatest wife of all
On Saturday, we go to the NGO bazaar at B’s church. The church is full of stalls with all kinds of lovely paintings and blankets and jewelry and other exciting things. T stays at Kaldi’s Coffee up the road, and M, Kate and I shop. I take the opportunity to buy a painting for T’s birthday that he likes, but I’m not wild about. I AM SUCH A GOOD WIFE. I make M sneak it into her bag so we can get past him, and then I make the girls calculate how much everything else should have cost, so that when I give him the change, it all makes sense to the big math nerd. It does, and I rest assured in the knowledge that I am genius, as Eyob would say.
We try to go to the police station to get M and T fingerprinted for various causes, but they won’t let us in. Instead, we send Kate off to get her tickets for our trip up north, and the three of us go to lunch at the Melting Pot to eat Mexican food. Addis has great Mexican food. I’m not sure why, and I’m not too interested in questioning it, as long as I have burritos.
On the way home, we buy bread from the stall by our house. As we’re walking down the road, three kids and their mother start following us. It goes without saying that we’re buying them bread, mainly because we’re suckers. We give them the bread, and two more girls appear out of nowhere, with tattered clothes and dirty faces. We hand them each a stick of bread and they walk away delighted, thanking us with every step.
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.
