Ethiopian Dinner & Dancing

This evening our friend, Tsion, took us to an amazing Ethiopian restaurant with great food and great dancing. It helps to have a local, knowledgeable guide--it was the perfect place to go.

The kids loved the hand washing.













The dances were from all these different parts of Ethiopia. In the northern areas, there are all these amazingly fast and complex shoulder movements. In the southern parts, it's more about moving the hips.





I kept kicking myself that I didn't have the video camera with me!

The guys move SOOO fast. And Nebiyu is amazing. He can tell exactly what the music is going to do and dances accordingly. Even music not from his area. I want to get some dance CDs if I can find them. All of the songs were in the various tribal languages, but we didn't stay long enough to get to his, and he was saying he wished they would sing in Woliattian.

Zion really got into it too--I wonder if we should have her in dance classes instead of gymnastics. Nebu also wants to dance and do gymnastics, but karate was the first thing he mentioned. He can already do round offs and cartwheels perfectly, and flips from a stand still. Nebiyu is also SOOOO physically talented.

This shot of the guy in the air - well, he fell and hurt himself doing a dance off with another guy. But, then it turned out to be fake - just part of the act. He really got me.

My favorite was Garage, though i'm not sure how to spell it. Awesome dancing. I only spent $320 birr on everything, including tips. For three adults and four kids.

We had a GREAT, GREAT evening!

Poverty up Close

Coming back from a walk, just before we got to the compound, we met a woman who was almost crying. She wore a pretty skirt, and a torn and dirty t-shirt with a jacket over it, and clutched a letter in Amharic. She had no shoes. She did not speak Amharic, so Ruth asked her to come with us so she could find a translator. Just before the gate, we found Kebede, who helped us speak to her. The woman said she was from the country, and her husband died, leaving her with four children and no home. She gave the youngest child, a girl, to an orphanage. She desperately wanted to keep her other children, but the person with whom they were living had said they needed to get out of his house. She came to Soddo to find work, and had not found any. Tears came down her face as she spoke of her children. Ruth asked if she was involved in a church and she said she had been Catholic, but now was in a new church, that could not help. We gave her 14 birr, and I gave her my shoes (which I had planned to give away anyway) and an avocado, and Ruth told her to return Monday and talk with the pastors at the hospital compound.

On Monday, I was with the kids, returning from a walk to the trash incinerator, and Ruth called to me, “Heidi, behind you is the woman wearing your shoes!” I turned to see her and she began to kiss me and hug me. I introduced her to my children. Just then, Kebede walked up and was able to translate for me. I told her that these were my children, and I loved them very much. I told her that the person in who adopted her little girl would also love her deeply and take good care of her. She smiled and hugged me—then Ruth took her to see the pastors.

Alden and I talked after we met this woman. Her story touched his heart, and we talked about his birth parents, and wondered if they might have been in a similar situation to this lady. “Does that mean my mom and dad are dead now?” he asked. He often wants to know if they are dead. I said I did not know; that all I did know is that they did not want to let him go because they loved him, but something made them have to let him go. And, his new Daddy and I would NEVER let him go, because we are not in a sad situation like what we see here.

That evening, Ruth and I talked about fatalism in the culture. Most people here won’t name their children until they have been alive one week. And, in Amharic, the way you express sickness is to say, “the cold got me.” Ruth has challenges with the nurses when she wants them to try and save a child they feel is going to die. They do not seem to want to fight for life. For instance, if a child should not be laid on his back, but rather inclined, so the lungs don’t fill up or the child does not swallow vomit, they won’t do it, because children are to lie flat for three months. Period. If they die, then God wanted to take them.

This mindset affects the HIV discussion as well. It is extremely difficult to convince people that they can live a normal life if they have HIV. Ruth attended a HIV training, and there was a long discussion among the Ethiopians about whether or not to tell a patient they had HIV. The final decision was, yes, even though it is very hard for the doctor to have to say such a hard thing to someone, they should do it.



One evening, we invited Mebrat, a woman who works at the Mossy Foot organization, to eat with us. Mossy Foot is a type of Elephantitis, basically caused by walking barefoot. Silicone gets into the feet and then into the lymph system, blocking it and causing the disease.

I remembered her from January of 2006, and eventually she remembered me, too. I asked her how she learned English. She made the comment that people’s story, or history, is a message. I like this idea and we asked her to tell her ‘message’.

Her mom, Dakeeta, became a Christian because she met missionaries from the SIM Tera Peiza compound in Otona. She got married and had seven girls and three boys. Then, her sister died and she took in her niece. Their small grass house was overcrowded with kids, and they were desperately poor. Often, they didn’t have enough food. When Mebrat, whose name means “light,” and her siblings were really hungry, her mom would tell them to go to sleep, and God would come during the night and feed them. She said she would wake up wondering if God fed her during the night.

She had one dress a year, no underwear or bra. She learned to cook full meals by the age of six, and was required to carry younger siblings when she was five—she didn’t like this job. The first time she had shoes, she was in seventh grade. Once, her gym teacher told her to buy pants for gym class. She told him that her father couldn’t buy them because they were poor, but he said that was no excuse, and beat her when she came to class in just her dress.

She remembered her mother crying to God night after night for food. Then, one day, a man from Australia came way out to their home and “right to our door”. The man took one of her brothers in and gave some of her sisters’ work. He paid for their pencils and notebooks so they could stay in school. Her mom was convinced that God sent him to save the family. And, thanks in large part to this man, Mebrat now has a job and can speak wonderful English, and has just completed her first year of study in Human Resource Management.

Update on the woman who has my shoes. She went to the orphanage today and tried to give away the remaining three of her children. She ended up only give the youngest two, the previous given daughter and her four year old daughter. Ruth treated her youngest daughter, at the hospital yesterday. She has malaria—poor baby. It makes me wonder if the rest of the family has it as well. Ruth and I are trying to figure out how to help this woman, and it’s really challenging. She basically needs a job. But, there are not many jobs, and they pay so little. She needs a home and a job, but Ruth is already supporting so many people, and she hears these sorts of stories almost every single day. I think of Hanna, too, and the stories she hears, and I just wonder what we can do.

The other night Ruth and I talked about helping and how to think about helping. She wants to go soon to this area in Zale, called Gamo Gofa, in the deep South. Ruth does a medical clinic there. It is terribly poor, and about one in ten people have huge goiters. Even the children have them. Evidently, they don’t get enough iodine in their diets. A professor Ruth knows gave a group of similarly affected people iodized salt, and people became healthy, and also more fertile. The increase in the number of children put too much strain on the available food supply, and people began to starve.



I saw a dead child today. He was covered, except his forehead, and lay in front of his mother, who was begging at the side of the road for money to bury him. Ermias asked me to take some photos, which I did. And, I gave her some money, and cried, and prayed for her.

We also saw a huge group of people wailing at the hospital because a young girl died after drinking an entire bottle of poison. Usually, they just drink a small amount, more to get attention, and then they can be helped, but though the doctor tried all night, he could not save this girl.


Poverty and death are up close here.


Today, here at the compound my older kids were helping loading large bags of rice on to 4x4 trucks. There was a container of rice and some other food shipped here from California, and is being distributed through a church in Otona, pastored by a man named Paulo.


Getting food to the hungry is the always to be commended and I am thankful for all the people that made this happen. I wonder if there is a better way than this. It took six weeks of work to get the container organized, and to set up the distribution network. They also had to negotiate with the hospital for storage space, and this week the hospital was trying to get everything out so they could get their space back. All this was on top of two people spending three days and lots of money in the capital trying to get the container out of customs (they also watched the customs agents burn all the used clothing—some of it new, but with tags removed—the country does not allow NGOs to bring in used clothes). The food in the container was not what the people here are used to preparing or eating. There was a lot of rice, quick oats, and cans of mac and cheese. The nutrition level was relatively low for what it was and the amount of money and energy used to get it here is high. The dozens of people involved in the container process have done a wonderful thing and I want to commend them--not be critical of the work, but I wonder if buying local food that is high in nutrients, like teff and lentils, would be a better use of funds. Right now, anyone with money can buy food at the markets—but if more people were buying could the supply keep up with the demand?

But, in my experience, it is so challenging to get Americans to give money rather than things. I wonder how to motivate people to get behind money projects rather than giving stuff. Could lots of photos or video updates work better? Still, the time needed for this is intensive. I think it would be motivating to get personal emails and see photos of the place where the teff is purchased, for instance, and the distribution of the food and so forth, to really connect the donors individually with the project. In my opinion, it needs to be done in a more personal way than, say, the Compassion newsletter. That means more manpower and more money spent on the administration. Ugh. Hard questions.


My thoughts circle and circle. What is helping? What is hurting? How much can and should one person from “outside” do, and what truly helps people raise themselves out of poverty?

Famine

I've seen news reports in the past few months about the famine predicted to hit Ethiopia.

Well, it's here. And, it seems it will get much worse. Food prices are HIGH. My friends bought some chickens for someone here (I carried them through the market, so please picture that spectacle). When they bought corn for the chickens to eat, the price was FOUR times higher than it is at home. Even people I know from last October have lost weight, and the stories I hear from the rural areas break my heart.

My friend Ruth Droppers decided she should do something when they ran out of F75 and F100 milk. This is a high protein milk you give to children on the brink of starvation. She got a letter from the NGO she is helping and went to Addis to the World Food Program and asked to speak to the nutrition specialists. They were on the fifth floor. She walked in, told them she was a doctor from the Woliata region, and that she needed food. They wanted to know how she got into the building.

After realizing that they were not at all interested in helping, she told them, "You know, there is a famine going on, and we should do something!" She wondered if they thought she was a hyserical bush doctor when one of them slid behind her computer.

Finally, they got rid of her by telling her to go to the blue roofed UNICEF building. A series of adventures there led to a kind doctor telling her there was a supply of almost expired milk at the Black Lion Hospital, and if she hurried, she might be able to get it before the Sister's of Mercy showed up, as he had also told them about it.

She raced over, and was told it was being inventoried and the door could not be unlocked. Another few hours of adventure and a helpful pediatrician and high up admin person later, Ruth found out there was food she could have and was able to get the door opened to it, but not until tomorrow.

She came back the next day and had a huge power struggle with the guy in charge of the inventory, who didn't want her to get the almost expired milk, but he was overruled by the high up admin person, and then he very slowly opened the door and left for a two hour lunch with the form she needed to get the food out legally.

With the help of someone at the hospital in Soddo, she was able to find a strong enough truck to get it back to Soddo, and when it arrived and she loaded 44 boxes of 44 packages into it and waited for the form. The surly warehouse manager finally returned and gave her the version of the form which required the most possible signatures, then tried to leave again without signing his own name on it. She stopped him and then spent the rest of the day getting the rest of the signatures, and then headed home the following day with a team of friends from the Netherlands.


She then gave the food to a group that runs a clinic for people with a form of Elephantitis called Mossy Foot, caused by walking barefoot, a sadly common occurance where people can't afford shoes. People that have this disease, which causes horrible swelling in the leg, are discriminated against and can't get work.

The clinic set up distribution and took two people from Ruth's Dutch team every day for a few weeks until they reached all their families in remote regions where they badly needed the milk to help their families. This picture is of a thankful mother and one of her children. She burst into tears when they handed her a few packets of milk and some used clothing they had brought.

If they want it, we plan to give most of the famine food we brought from my friend Chris to this same organization to send out to their people.

Addis Pounding

I did buy a plane ticket, but, after spending inordinate amouts of time sitting on runways and then flying in circles waiting for permission to land, it's almost a surprise that I am actually in Ethiopia.

Except that it's after one am and I'm too awake, squinting at the bright computer screen while my high altitude headache screams that I am in a new place that is not humid and hot.

In fact, it is humid and cold. Very cold. My numb fingers are telling my memory that last week's weather reports of 68 degree lows and 70 degree highs were lies. Or, during the long, sleepless flight, hurtling forward in time while sitting next to a very nice, but VERY large man, winter fell on Addis.

I am wearing a maternity sweater, the single warm item in 140 pounds of checked luggage squashed full of donations.

There would have been more sweaters, but, according to the gum smacking woman at the Continental counter, “Delta doesn't go by our baggage rules when we book our customers on their flights, so we sure aren't going by theirs just because they booked you on our flight – I don't care what medallion status you have - and you have to give me $200 to take those overweight suitcases and that extra bag.

Thank God my friend Wade had a good poker night prior to taking me that morning, or I would have had to do an entire re-pack in the hallway of the airport. As it was, Wade paid $100 for the two overweight bags and took the last one – sweater, shoe and jean bag – home.

Now that I'm here and have seen what Hanna's girls have to wear, I'm really wishing I'd paid the $100 for that one bag. I keep going through all that is in it in my mind – good quality clothes and shoes that would hold up to the rainy season and walking long distances for the girls I saw smiling and shivering in their studies today. Their classrooms, which Hanna calls the “plastic house” because it is made of blue tarps under a roof, flooded earlier this week. The woven mats from the floor are scattered around the back yard in a vain effort to dry them out.

Today we went to the mercado and bought white fabric. Hanna wants the girls to learn embroidery, so they will begin by making themselves outfits for the new year, each girl embroidering her own shirt with one of the classic Ethiopian crosses or flower motifs. Asher, one of the workers at Hanna's office, got into an amusing discussion with Hanna and the other office girl, Miriam, about the skirt design. He felt if they made the long, A-line skirts Hanna suggested, the girls would cut the slits too high on the sides. So, he voted for wrap around skirts. It turns out that zippers are cheap compared to the extra length of fabric for a wrap skirt, so Asher lost.

I like this young introvert. He loves peace and nature, yet finds himself surrounded by 44 orphan and partially orphaned girls, and two other female staff members. His mother was a Muslim, and he is fairly sure his father was Jewish, though he always refused to say he was anything other than “Ethiopian.” Asher recently changed his name and seemed quite interested in reading my favorite book, My Name is Asher Lev, when I described it. I plan to send it to him.


Asher went with us to the mercado, one of the largest open air markets in all of Africa, because Hanna says you can get a better price when you shop with a man. I informed her that you get a much worse price when you shop with a ferangie (white person), and I don't think she believed me at first, but it quickly became an obvious truth, and she told me to stay behind with Asher and not let the shop people see me until she struck a bargain.

In spite of my presence, we managed to buy two bolts of white fabric, rolls of multi colored embroidery wool, a new clay coffee pot and three large drums for the girls to practice music. The drums are made of goat skin stretched over metal containers. My favorite was one marked with all sorts of runny stains and danger signs like “flamable” and “toxic.” Hanna didn't agree that it was cool and instead bought ones that we think may be made out of metal buckets, but are covered with flowered fabric, so we can't be sure. I kindof figured I might have trouble getting my chosen drum on the airplane, what with the bleached red triangle toxic sign and the dead animal skin, so I settled on a wonderful sounding small drum made of wood and skin for my son. I couldn't stop tapping it. Neither could anyone else. Random men kept walking up to me to smack my drum and smile crazily. Hanna shook her head, pointing at beautiful Miriam, walking ahead of me with the bigger drums, “Why do they let two drums go by and they only hit yours?”

Ferangie power.

It's a stronger pull than beauty, evidently. Useful to know if you want to pay quadruple an item's value and enjoy muddy strangers smacking your goat skin.


Oh, and, note to traveling photographers. If you dare take photos in places where it may not be appreciated, you might not want to count on the "cover" of your public taxi van speeding away after your not-so-secret photo nabbing. After spending 15 minutes making sure every possible cranny of the taxi was full, we finally lurched forward, sputtered, and then ran out of gas.

Starving

Dr. Ruth has been telling me about the starvation rampant in her area of Ethiopia. She has been working too hard, exhausting herself, so she slept all day yesterday. I hope she can find a balance and a way to renew as she works more often with the poorest people in the country.

This photo was taken by Anita Powell. I saw it in this AP article


The video grab below it is of my friend Laura's son, Max.


I met Max soon after he was delivered to the orphanage. He was obviously malnourished. Today, he is an amazing young man, robust and so full of life and you would never connect him with this scrawny little boy above. Check out Laura's blog for updated photos. Laura has determined that my Zion and Max will marry someday, and since they constantly talk about each other, and she calls Laura "mommy" and her husband "daddy" I don't doubt the possibility.

Anyway, when I met Max, he was maybe four months old. The girl in Anita's photo is about THREE YEARS OLD, and weighs less than 10 pounds.

I'm rethinking how our family eats, and I'm looking for ways for us to give more. Please post any ideas that have worked for your families. I bet we can start a good dialogue about how we can free up more resources to help address this situation.

35,000 people die each day from poverty

I wrote about him here.

And today, I learned he died.

He was a sweet boy, just one year older than my son. His dad was too poor to take him to the doctor, so hope leapt from his eyes when he learned we would take his son and cover the fees.

The barefoot boy traveled bravely, and sat stiffly in the back of the old pickup truck. I was a tall, pale woman he'd never seen before that day, and I smiled as I sat next to him. He jostled against me over the rutted roads, and when the busy "city" sites came into view, he allowed himself to lean on me a bit. I put my arm around him, mentally promising his father I would care for him while they were apart.

Each day we visited. His broad smile when I entered the room lit my days. When he was better, I carried his IV bag as we took short walks down the hall and onto the flowered sidewalks. Before I left Ethiopia, he was well enough to go back to his village.

A few months later, I got a note from Dr. Ruth, saying he was back in the hospital. I'm not sure exactly what happened next, but I believe some people spoke to his father and it was decided that, since the father had no means to care for him, and since the hospital was limited in it's facilities, that he would go up for adoption in the hopes that a family abroad might give him what we rich Westerners have in order to share . . . hope.

But, the process it did not happen quickly enough for this young man and he spent his last days far from home. I bet he was brave. I can see him smiling at the other kids, and smiling at his nanny, and when he no longer had the strength to smile, I bet his eyes said, "don't worry." I picture that because it was the kind of boy he was.

And today, I hope Tadesse is looking down at his daddy in the Bombay village of Ethiopia and telling him he doesn't have to cry because he feels much better now. His little chest no longer hurts, and he can run and play with the other kids.

For me, I want to gather all my photos of this brave young man and go find his dad to pay my respects.

Zion's mom

We got a package from Zion's birth mom.

In it were treats for everyone in the family, and a crocheted, happy, yellow blanket.

I struggle to express my emotions, the gratitude for this precious thoughtfulness on her part, and for my friend Ruth's gracious help mailing the package - which I'm sure was costly.

Meeting my child's birthmother was one of the most significant moments of my life. I hope some day to find words which convey what her relationship means to me.

How to Deliver a Baby

Dr. Ruth, from Ethiopia, was kind enough to send me these instructions (see this post for details on why). She also says she has lots of faith in me.



A. Basically a birth is an biological event and not a medical one. It becomes medical when things go wrong.
Of course, this would be my CONCERN!!!
It might help to know that a couple of years ago, a comatose woman who was pregnant delivered her baby in coma without any problems. It is a reflex thing.
I'm so relieved. I'll be sure to let Jenn know.

B. When the head is down it pushes with the contractions of the uterus basically by it self in the right way. It will make a turn in the birthcanal but that happens normally also by it self. (you can help a little bit, by turning it with your hand, but basically it is not necessary).
Can you see me doing this?

It is handy though, to support the baby with your hand and let your hand follow the movement of the baby, so it doesn’t fall on the floor.
Handy, yes.

C. When it goes to fast in the end there is a risk of tearing, but you can help to put some fingers between the vagina and anal wall to give some extra pressure at the skin.
Is this with the hand that is not busy keeping the baby from falling on the floor?

D. Now, what is good to have with you, in case the child gets born in the car!
Some pair of gloves, some blankets to wrap the baby in, two pieces of wrope ( 15 cm long and clean) to tie the cord, clean scissors. (and tissues/pieces of cloth).
Okay, I don't remember ANYTHING in the previous instructions involving rope!

In case the baby is born you have to tie the cord, otherwise blood floes back.
Oh, yeah. Just in case this birthing process ends with a BIRTH.

First you tie the cord (wrap it, knot it, wrap it around it, knot it: three times) 1,5 finger width (1- 2 cm ) from the bellybutton. Really tight. Then you tie it around 2 fingers width from the first tie, also really tied. Then you can cut it, in between, so the baby is loose, but you can also wait for the ambulance. Wrap the baby in warm blankets and/or lay it next to the mother. And wait for the placenta to come.
The ambulance. Through the crowds of demons. Right. But, now I see what the rope is for. What do we do with the placenta when it comes?

(when the baby is not responding: rub it firmly, slap its buttocks and when there is saliva at the mouth remove it with the tissue, so the baby breaths better)
I guess that is better than ME screaming "the baby is not responding, get a doctor!!!"

E. Now in case when things go wrong: arms or legs first, shoulders stuck, lots of bleeding, big tear: you have to go to the hospital. But know that, and you do not want that of course, but sometimes mothers arrive here after two days with a prolonged delivery and the child and mother get out alive. You will probably be in the hospital before that.
Here is where my mind starts to go blank . . . .

F. And first babies usually take 8-14 hours.
Very good news. I can breathe again

Love you, Ruth

Diary from the Amsterdam Airport

Copied from my notebook:

Usually I sit facing the windows, but today I face the Christmas decorations and I can’t stop looking at them – all the overused phrases are right, “marveling at their beauty” “drinking them in” “my small piece of heaven.” The contrast to the ineptly strung, millennium flag colored lights draped across the Addis airport, and my “oh how pretty!” exclamation when we drove up shows how far I’ve traveled since immersing myself in Soddo.

Last night, I chose to interview my interpreter in the tiny room that is Kidist and Ayayu’s home. I didn’t want the Westernized background of book and fireplace in the guesthouse, nor the green of the fluorescents. Rather a plain white wall and the light of an uncovered 60-watt bulb, my camera perched on a worn Bible. I realized as he answered my questions that my ear has adapted to his speech – both accent and style, and that much of what he says will be unusable in “sound bite” form.

Now I drink a small cappuccino that cost $5 exactly, and watch young Dutch men in cargo pants build a 20-foot evergreen beside the cascading lights that still grab my eyes after every four words.

It’s not yet Thanksgiving at home.

I’m touching Ruth’s other world – her Netherlands, and thinking how distant Christmas seemed in Ethiopia. They celebrate on January 7th, and people enjoy injera with doro wat together. It is the day after the celebration in most Latin countries. Christmas presents include traditional Ethiopian clothing and playing cards for children. Some give gold.

My Ethiopian friend, who works at the embassy talked about her Christmas traditions. She bought a tree from a person leaving their tour (embassy workers from abroad work two year tours) with some ornaments. Her girls do the decorating, and add hand made cards and string beads each year. This year she thinks they are old enough to go out and purchase the roughly made nickel crosses to use as decorations. She will explain to them the history of the designs. All the crosses that have wings are from the Lalibela region, while those with geometric, symmetrical angles hail from Gondor or Axum.

I wanted to buy a book on the crosses at the Addis airport. My choices were the one I could afford, boasting yellow photos, cut and paste type and devil-may-care, off the top of the page layout. Or, an incredible book far above my price and size/weight for travel range.

I wish I had visited a bookstore in Addis.

At the Orthodox Church in Soddo that blasts prayers in the middle of the night – in Geez, a language no one speaks, I bought a gold colored cross for 30 birr ($3.34). My nursing student translator called it a “germ spreader” since the priest holds it out to people so they can kiss it. Also for 30 birr, I bought a thing that jangles. I don’t know the English word for it, but it intrigued me because the handle was made from a giant bullet shell. All the metal is the color of the shell, verifying my belief in the link between war and religion.

I wish I had bought more of them because it is hard to find good gifts for men, and I think these would be appreciated; at least by my strange friends.

The guys building the tree are using a genie lift now, and I realize I got full fat milk in my drink and will likely have a stomachache if I finish it. But, it cost FIVE DOLLARS!

Maybe Ruth will buy some clanger-janglers for me.

Dr. Ruth Droppers

I usually shower in the morning, but Ruth showers at night. After spending an hour with her at the hospital, I can see why. Personally, I struggle with just stepping into the hospital here because it feels like I’m diving face first into a rising wave of
germs. Yet, Soddo Christian Hospital is very clean compared to other local hospitals. The outside is beautiful, there are covered walks connecting the wards and flowers bloom everywhere. It seems that the clean air and the flowers promote rest and healing for the tired, sick and dirty patients. Twice a day the floors are scrubbed, yet, the people coming in are often filthy from travel on the dirt roads, hours or days of travel by foot or carried litter or donkey cart, continually drenched in the dusty wake of passing trucks. To me it seems everything has a film of dust and sickness that makes me want to bolt.

Additionally, it is difficult for me to handle the onslaught of emotions that pound me when I see the people suffering. Sitting in the ER at home, more often the length of the wait grabs my emotions harder than people’s pains.

But here, though I am focused, I can't keep up with Ruth – she mentions doing an ultrasound and it is finished by the time I change the setting on my camera and reach the room. Her work is like triage after a disaster, every day. The waits are quick, but the cases are extreme. On call at night, a toddler in his father’s arms arrived with a knife wound to the eye. It was his good eye, the other blind from birth. When asked at 8pm when the accident occurred, we heard it happened that morning. At first, I feel angry – why was he not brought in earlier? Then, it occurs to me they likely have been on their way here since the accident occurred.

Another man refuses to give Ruth a direct answer to the simple question, “do you ever eat fruit?” She gives up after three tries and tells me he probably has chewed a lot of chat, and is experiencing the depression that follows the high. Today she’s
frustrated with people who won’t answer her questions. But, she does not show it. Each patient feels special in her presence. She has a way of repeating what they say to her that makes them know she is listening, even if she has a different idea of what to do. “So, the other doctor would not give you an x-ray for your stomach pain? I see. And, you feel you need an x-ray? Perhaps we could do a ultrasound instead, would that be okay with you?” She smiles at the patient, and nods, encouraging them to buy into her plan. She is incredibly gifted with non-verbal communication, which I think serves her well in this culture.

The woman we met in the clinic, whose breast was destroyed by TB shows up the next morning. I found her outside the hospital, wandering lost and ignored, and sent her to Ruth. She is one of four wives, and her husband no longer cares for her. She also has five sons and no daughters, and the sons do not care for her either. No one will pay for her to have help at
the hospital. Ruth thinks they must want her to die. It is decided that she can be cared for from the benevolent fund.

Since meeting her, the supreme sadness of her life sits on my shoulder. I see her when I look to my left. Her eyes, her face, her hand pulling back her shawl to show me the horrible wound. Me, the photographer, the one with absolutely zero ability to
help her aside from a hug and my warmest smile, I was given the pleading look, beseeching me to do what her family refused to do. To help.

I ask Ruth if she ever cries. She tells me two stories, one of a breach birth to a woman so brutally circumcised that the child could not be born. The woman’s mother was with her. Likely, it was she who cut her daughter and removed every part of her that said she was a woman. Ruth said the woman’s mother gazed blankly ahead, “I am not going to think about my responsibility in this tragedy.” Ruth said she cried over this because the baby did not die because of some environmental cause, but because of something done to his mother by another woman. The second time she cried because a mother starved her baby. She had too many children to feed. So, she kept food from the youngest, and when he was almost gone, brought him to the hospital. All the nurses cared deeply for the baby, and tried desperately to save him. Then, Ruth saw the moment the mother realized she could have brought him earlier and he would have lived. She saw the realization cross the mother’s face that she alone made a devastatingly wrong decision.

Later in the day, a little girl I kissed in the children’s ward succumbs to malnutrition and dies. I had seen her dad standing next to her bed each day when I went to take “my” boy for a walk. The vitamin enriched Unicef milk, purchased on the black market, did not arrive in time to save her.

Some things you can buy if you know who can get them, but morphine is next to impossible to get. Chemo, radiation, strong painkillers, common blood thinners for anesthesia are just a few of the things not found here. Some doctors have a small stash of pain killers. Ruth is not one to hoard, so today she gives a patient who is dying some relief. We talk about a friend who had his leg amputated above the knee. One of the other doctors kept the leg in his freezer to use as a teaching tool. “Honey, where is the ice cream?” “Check under the ankle!” Amputation seems to be the common cure for cancers, tumors, hyena attacks, snakebites and more.

A few days ago a container arrived from Switzerland. It was sent over after my last visit a year and a half ago and has been in customs until last week. It was filled with crutches, which will be put to good use. I saw a man on the street using a tall stick and swinging himself around it to move, so I asked my translator to send him to the hospital for a crutch. It is nice to think about how a crutch might change his life. I can handle thinking about a crutch today, but I can never do what Ruth does.

If you wish to help Ruth and her work, you can send her a donation (a check from an American bank is fine, there is just no tax deduction here:
Stichting Witte Velden te Hilversum
Postbanknumber 1485137
Netherlands
IBAN: NL 41 PSTB 0001 4851 37
BIC: PSTBNL21
mention her name: for Ruth Droppers

Email of the foundation is: stgwittevelden75@chello.nl
Email of contact person in Netherlands: estherdroppers@hotmail.com

Back in Addis

I tried the internet café down the street. Located in a short shipping container, it had two old computers and a baud width of 31.2 kbps. Enough to really test my patience, which, though it has increased dramatically since leaving the States, was not enough to handle the two-minute waits between button pushes. I finally got my own computer screen to turn on, so I am going to see how long it takes before my mouse freezes up. Hopefully a long time.

I had the weirdest reverse culture shock driving into Addis. After only 10 days down South, I was blown away by the money here, and even more by the availability of food. The fruit stands filled with normal size, plump tomatoes, potatoes and even beans.

At a coffee shop chain started by a young woman and patterned after Starbucks, called Kaldi’s, I saw numerous Chinese people, kids sporting ipods, and well dressed business typing away people on laptops. I also had one of the best cappuccinos of my life. The foam was covered exactly in half with a thick coat of powdered cocoa. I was glad to hear that the coffee shop chain was not owned by the Saudi sheik that seems to own everything else here, the Sheraton, the malls, Home Depot and pretty much anything else that is new and big. He is also building a glass-fronted hotel in Soddo, and I imagine may be helping to build the big mosque there as well. It is he that is mentioned in the articles about Starbucks not paying the coffee pickers a living wage. He owns the farms.



I’ve been thinking a lot about living wages. David and I have this discussion often. On one hand, if you are making $1 a day and before you were making nothing, then your life is improved. But, how can one live on a dollar a day, and how did the person now making $1 live before that income? When doing research on the parents of adopted children of my friends, I found that a number of the birth moms made between 30 and 50 birr a month ($2.50 to $4.50 a month) making injera for a living. Injera is the local bread, made entirely of fermented teff flour and water, usually cooked on a clay plate over a hot fire made in a small hole in the ground. It is similar in look to a large pancake, but grey, with more air pockets. Teff looks like long grass and has tiny black seeds, which may be ground into flour. It grows in the higher regions.

So, here are women with at least two children making $3 a month. I asked five different people what it cost to feed a family of four. The answers I got ranged from 10 birr ($1.10) to 25 birr ($3.00) a day, if the family does not eat meat or much fruit. I spent that range on each meal I purchased just for myself. For a meal of injera and goat meat pieces, it cost 20 birr in the hospital cafeteria. The cheapest thing on the menu was 8 birr. The really cheap food is false banana, and if you see them growing, you are almost guaranteed to find a round house next to them. Inset, or false banana, is made from the stalks of trees that look like banana trees, but bear no fruit. Tastes pretty much like stalk, with basically no nutritional value.

Most poor people drink ½ a cup of water per day, which Dr. Ruth says accounts for many of their health problems. I learned that here, when you are dehydrated, you no longer feel thirst. It happened to me a few times, crept up on me, when out walking for a few hours, I felt weaker and weaker until I got home and forced myself to drink. Only after about two glasses did I again feel thirst.

My daughter’s birth mom lives in a government rent controlled mud hut. It is one room, with a door and a wooden cover for the single window. The room is as wide as the length of her bed, but not big enough to fit my king size bed. It is 25 birr a month to rent. She has a 25 watt light bulb on a wire. No running water, no bathroom, mud floor and walls.

Wolaita, Ethiopia: 10/25/07

Ruth and I are sitting in her kitchen enjoying the music Shelley sent to us. There is so much to share about today that I don’t think it is possible to get it all said. We stayed up late, late last night talking about everything, then got up early to drive 1.5 hours with Dr. Mary to a Wolaittan village called Gadalla, where she practices medicine every other Thursday. It is like a county seat, but for a smaller area.

On the drive in, we saw a donkey cart carrying a pallet with a sick woman on it. Children chased us yelling “Mary, Mary.” When we arrived, we found the sick lined up outside the clinic. The first ones on homemade stretchers and the others sitting or standing in line. We handed out cards to those in line, which guaranteed they would be seen. Those who were late must return in two weeks. People traveled for hours and even days to get to the clinic.

The government buildings are constructed primarily of mud mixed with dried grass and are quite dark inside. I had to use my flash, which gives the photos a look that is not really accurate.

We set up in an empty room that is the clinic. Someone brought in a bench, two chairs and a small table, which later in the day became the pharmacy. We left all but one window closed to protect the medicines and food we brought, and make a place to get away from the people for a break once during the day.

Patients were seen outside by Dr. Ruth, who made notes on scraps of paper until the paper ran out, then used her hand. They really need packs of post-its or small pads of paper to write prescriptions on. Helping her was Sebastian, a German medical student and two boy translators, who are in a school Mary runs where they learn English. Also helping was a man that I suspect Dr. Mary hired because he is older and has trouble finding work. He carried the scale, and acted as sort of a guard; sometimes chasing people back with a switch he made from a corn stalk.

I took photos while holding the baby, but I will get to that later.

Cases that needed a second opinion were sent over to Dr. Mary and her young translator in the clinic. Dr. Mary speaks Wolaittan, and it appeared the boy would clarify, or translate into Amharic when needed. Dr. Mary saw these patients, organized medicines and handed out food to those in her food program.

Next to this place was another small building that serves as a school. The children bring small stools or sit on the dirt. There is a chalkboard with the English alphabet on it. Wolaitan language uses the same letters we do, but the vowels are pronounced like they are in Spanish. When we arrived, sixty or so children were crammed into the room, doing lessons by chanting. I think the noise made it difficult for Mary, so it was good when they finished. Dr. Ruth also had challenges hearing the people outside because there were so many people gathering and talking around her. She often had to ask people to be quiet. Each time, some people would take it upon themselves to police the others. Men would smack the women, talking or not, who would in turn slap the kids. Five minutes later it would be noisy again. Relentless flies buzzing, kids playing on the donkey carts, cattle munching the banana leaves behind the clinic and donkeys yelling at each created a distinctly soundscape unlike any I’ve heard in South Carolina.


I’m trying to think of words to describe the problems we saw, but the words like “heart-wrenching” have been so overused, they don’t touch what we all felt. Here are some snippets of the conversations.

Ruth, “how often does he get to eat meat?”
“once, maybe twice a year.”
“any papayas or mangos, or vegetables?”
“no, just corn or bread or fake banana”
“well, with his condition, he needs some vitamins or he will go blind. Is it possible for him to buy some fruits and eat them on a regular basis?”

Ruth, “how long has she looked like this?”
This was about a woman who looked like she was nine months pregnant with twins.
“Ten months. She had a baby, but no blood came, then she swelled up like this.”
“The baby was born and looked normal?”
“yes.”
“did the baby live?”
“no”
“I will get a can, will you see if you can get her to urinate in it?”
Six people carry her stretcher behind the clinic and come back with the can.

There is no privacy. People gather all around the person being examined and watch everything. Maybe this is good as they may learn some methods of healing and prevention. One woman pulled her shirt aside to show me her breast. Most of it was gone and the remainder looked as if it had been horribly burned and blistered. At first glance Mary said cancer, then they made more observations and diagnosed her with localized TB in the breast.

Diagnoses in the field must be made without lab work, by observation and conferring with each other and medical books. Sometimes the people need to go to the hospital. If the case is dire, and Ruth refers them, they can be seen using the benevolent fund.

Ruth, “she needs surgery for this hernia, do you have bus money to get her to Soddo Christian Hospital?”
“no.”
“okay, well, she can wear a scarf tied tightly around it, then, when the pain gets very bad, which may take some time, you must try and find a way for her to come have surgery.”

To a girl, who for over one year had one eye horribly swollen and protruding from her face, “I will give you this card, and you go to the hospital with it, and they will see you.”

One boy we took home with us. He is ten, and had trouble breathing. He was bone thin and the skin sucked in and out of his lower ribs when he wheezed.
Ruth, “how long has he been breathing like this?”
“two years now”
“and what color is his spit?”
“it comes out with pus and is yellow.”
One look at his father’s ragged clothing and lack of shoes and I can see why they put off the trek to the doctor. I wonder what it cost them to not work for a day? I saw not one of the patients or family members eat or drink all day. They decided it was TB, confirmed on an x-ray even I could read when we got home to the hospital. Sweet boy was scared. I think he had never seen a “city” before. He liked my camera, though. We bought him a soda and gave him shoes and a shirt and will check on him again tomorrow. He is on oxygen and has an IV. I can’t imagine what he is feeling.

Dr. Ruth and Dr. Mary are amazing people. Dr. Ruth is in her element in this situation. Each person she meets must feel they are the most valuable person on earth when she talks with them in her sweet voice. Though outwardly calm, I can see her mental gears running hyper speed while she diagnoses, then tries to figure out what her patients have the means to do that will help. I saw her do this in the Dominican Republic, dispensing orders like these for diabetes, “if you can, you must try to drink three glasses of pure water each day,” and, “if I give you shoes, will you keep them on always and protect your toes?”

Mary’s love for the people is more evident in the many things she thinks to do to help them. She spends so much of her own money, I don’t know how she manages. One of the many things she does is make up vitamin packs. Each day’s dose is wrapped in a triangle of newsprint. The pack contains a malaria preventative, folic acid and vitamin b. She started just with the women, and found that men also really thrived on the folic acid/b combination.

She also had large milk cans filled with homemade Bisquick that she distributes to families that are malnourished. It can be mixed with water and baked traditionally to make nutritious bread and contains protein powder, and milk solids along with other vitamin enriched flours.

Today was the first time Sebastian had seen rural medicine in an area of extreme poverty. I felt for him. He is young, and I’m sure what he saw today will stay with him for a lifetime. He was very tired when we got home – I think emotionally. He did a wonderful job, too. In Germany, he was able to attend med school for around $800 a semester because it is governmentally subsidized (and, interestingly, there are no entrance exams), and he will have a job after taking this time off to do this work. His girlfriend is in Ghana working in an orphanage while he is here. She contracted a bad strain of malaria her first week and used up all her malaria meds treating it, so he is worried about her.

After they finished seeing all the patients, the people lined up to get their medicines at the makeshift pharmacy. Dr. Mary charges them a very small fee, which I think is a good idea because it maintains the value of her service.

My friend in Ethiopia's newsletter

This is the doctor I'm going to stay with in Ethiopia. We met there in January of 06, and since then she visited me once here - we drove to Washington and NYC for a three day whirlwind tour, and we met in the Dominican Republic for a week, too. She is an amazing woman. I don't have all the photos, unfortunately.



Ruth's Report

Newsletter 2 June 2007

Early in the morning of the 19th of May, I arrived at Bole Airport, Addis Abeba. After a stay with friends, Co and Marja Tollenaar, who are also serving through Witte Velden Foundation, I traveled to Soddo on the 30th of May. Thanks to Co and Marja, my time in Addis was very productive. I managed to arrange the necessary practicalities as registration at the Dutch Embassy, an Ethiopian driving license, an internet connection and shopping.

Soddo is situated in the Great Rift Valley, a 6.5 hours drive south of Addis Abeba. Soddo is said to have 70.000 inhabitants. I live on the hospital compound at the edge of town. From the veranda there is a view to distant lake Abaya.

I have by now got used to power cuts and water shortage, Kebede (a boy who works in the compound and does the shopping), the guards who greet me and switch on the lights at night, the sound of crickets, the market place with mud, cows and goats and little children calling "ferenchiâ". That means white one. My neighbours and I are the only whites around.

With medical students from washington and neigbour.

Arrival in Ethiopia
Soddo Christian Hospital

Caused by the increasing inflation the number of poor people is on the rise. The local wheat is called tef, which is used to prepare the local staple injera. A kilo of tef now costs 5 Birr (50 eurocents). An average family needs 40 kilos of tef a month. That is 200 Birr per month for food only. The average income is 320 Birr.

Soddo Christian Hospital
I'e been working in the hospital for a couple of weeks now. The hospital has an operation section with four Ethiopian assistant-doctors, two Ethiopian surgeons and an American medical director. Then there is the clinic, first aid, children and internal section which is run by three Ethiopian doctors. I'm the fourth doctor and also work in the clinic, first aid, children and internal section. An Ethiopian doctor and me are heading this part of the hospital.

There is a room available for me to see patients. Fortunately a translator was found to assist me, because sometimes patients speak a language that none here can understand. Apart from Amharic (the national language) there are ten other languages.

Many diseases are poverty and hygiene related. There is malaria, tuberculosis, vitamine deficiencies, malnutrition, intestine and eye infections and HIV.

On of the things I am going to pay attention to is the children's section.

We have nine beds, which are however rarely occupied.

Sometimes small babies are discharged too early. This week professor Glenn Geelhoed and 15 medical students from Washington University visited, and he advised me on this issue.

Malaria in Gadalla.

One day a week I go to see patients together with Mary, a doctor specialized in tropical diseases. She has been working in Soddo for 11 years. The clinic is in Gadalla, west of Soddo. Part of the road is tarmac, but rest is in such poor condition that it takes 1.5 - 2 hours to cover 50 km. The rainy season is setting in and we had already postponed our visit for one day because of heavy rains. The road can become impassable.

At the clinic the patients are waiting. There was a little boy, last in line, with eyes showing yellow (caused by malaria), sick, barefoot in mud like many others, torn trousers and no shirt. I gave him recipe for medicin. When I came back he was standing against the wall, crying. I asked him what was the matter and he opened his hand, showing two wrinkled notes of 1 Birr. He couldn't afford the medicine, costing 6 Birr (60 eurocents)! it was so sad. We gave him food, clothes and the medicine.

Heading back the road appeared to be so slippery that the Toyota four wheel drive was skidding even in low gear. Because the area is part of the Rift Valley, it is not level. For the first time I was a little bit scared.

Prayer issues:
I thank God for:
financial means, the help and friendship of Co and Marja;
safety and protection, also on the road;
support in many ways from the church in Winterswijk, my home Baptist's community in Arnhem Zuid, family and friends.
Please pray for:
the new day clinic 2.5 hours drive north-east of Soddo. Most of this area is Islamic. Mary had been asked for this clinic before. We hope to pay our first visit on June 25th;
wisdom and understanding for the hospital staff and me.
the women's bible study group which I've been asked to carry on with;
safety and protection.


Psalm 18: 31 For who is God except the LORD? And who is a rock besides our God?-

clinic
Soddo Christian Hospital,
Po Box 305, Soddo Wolaitta, Africa

Ruth.Droppers@Gmail.com
Voor giften:
Stg Witte Velden,
Postgiro 1485137
ovv Ruth Droppers
stgwittevelden75@chello.nl
Thuisfront: Esther Droppers, estherdroppers@hotmail.com
Ruth Droppers Serving in Health Care in Ethiopia Voor giften:
Isaiah 55:5 because of the LORD your God,
the Holy One of Israel

Ruth’s Report

Newsletter 3 – September 2007

Often during lunch and supper hours there were no employees.

Sometimes it happened that the emergency department nurse slept during the night in a different room. Which meant that at that time there was no emergency care for the patient.

I try to understand the background of the culture.

It touches me every time how late patients come in to the hospital. To travel 140 miles with a broken arm or 2 days on a donkey with a delivery is no exception.

The disease is prolonged at that stage and the patients are very sick. We also see the damaging effect of the treatment of the local witch doctors.

It happens often that family has no money to pay a whole treatment. The hospital therefore has a benevolent fund. In the committee who checks the requests sits also a Ethopian head nurse and pastor. For me, I see that I have no insite in it, cause how can I distinguish between very poor and a little bit more poor.

The hospital- Soddo Christian Hospital

In the past period we were able to improve the care on the pediatric- and medical ward. Nurses now lay clean sheets on the beds before the doctors round. They measure bloodpressures and write down the temperature as well the used medicines on the chart. As you can see in the pictures below the family members take care for their sick relative. They are in the hospital during the day and the night.

Every day we see in the clinic around 60 patients.

Last month one the general doctors left the team because he started his surgical training. We hope that next month there will be replacement.

Every week we have our own medical meeting in which we talk about diseases.

Together with the other head physician we stressed the importance of a laboratory and rontgen department which are open 24/7 and it seems that it really is working now.

There is 1 doctor to 35.000 people in Ethiopia. In the Netherlands there is 1 doctor to 305 people. They say that Ethiopia has 2000 general doctors. 1000 general doctors work in the bigger cities. Soddo is not a big city.

At the clinic pediatric ward with Korean people and neighbours

Care for twins

In the week when the second newsletter went out, I went with Mary, an American tropical specialist, to the clinic. A mother came walking in to the clinic with her malnourished twins. Their names where Amanuel and Abanezer . They were 2 months old and weight only 2,5 kg. After the delivery the mother was to weak and the babies where given away to family members, with as result that when they returned, the mother had no breastmilk any more. In that area were no wetnurses: mothers who want to breastfeed a second child. There is no clean water. There is no babyfood and when it would be there it would be to expensive. Mary had no place for shelter. What to do? We could not let them die¦.. I decided to take them in with the agreement that they would go back to the parents when they were strong enough. Very soon I had the first necessary baby materials through neighbours, family and friends. And I got help from a short-term American student Ariel who lived a month in my house and helped. And the help of Almaz, an older Ethiopian woman who took care of them from Monday till Friday from 8 am-6pm. In the beginning they lay together in a plastic washing tub and we fed them almost continuously. It the weeks after that grew and started to laugh.

Now three weeks ago, when they weighed 5 kg, they went back to their parents. For me it was nog easy cause I grew attached to them.

We gave the parents baby food, clothes, bottles and dipers and money for the bus to come back to Soddo and get babyfood every week.

Despite this support the parents told us repeatly that they could not take care of the babies; the father has no income and there are also two other children in the family. Recently a son of them passed away.

The parents have decided to give them up for adoption. The twins are now in an orphanage and they are doing good.

The twins at arrival and in week 7
manuel en Abanezer bij aankomst, 3 weken 7 weken

Matthew 25:35

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing.

I would like to thank family and friends for the materials and emails you sent. Often they came at exactly the right moment. I try to answer as quick as possible, but sometimes it can take a while.

I thank the Lord God for:

Safety and protection.
The sent babymaterials trough friends and family.
A work- and Residence permit; the womens Biblestudy group.
Rest in busy times.
Prayer I aks for:

The coming time when I, together with and olders short-term couple, will be alone on the compound. The neighbours and the medical director are for a short period in the States and South-Africa.
The hospital, when we think of expanding the clinic and pharmacy, because the current building is getting to crowded.

If you wish to help Ruth and her work, you can send her a donation (a check from an American bank is fine, there is just no tax deduction here:
Stichting Witte Velden te Hilversum
Postbanknumber 1485137
Netherlands
IBAN: NL 41 PSTB 0001 4851 37
BIC: PSTBNL21
mention her name: for Ruth Droppers

Email of the foundation is: stgwittevelden75@chello.nl
Email of contact person in Netherlands: estherdroppers@hotmail.com

Dominican Ice Skating

Zion and I (Heidi) are in the Dominican Republic this week. We are staying in the Maria Auxiliadora barrio in La Vega where TEARS headquarters some of it's works, such as a school for very poor kids that can't go to public school. Yesterday I went to the doctor to have an mri on my knee. I asked my friend Clara, who lives next door to where we are staying, to keep Zion for me. I warned her that Zion gets into things, but, like most people, she underestimated Zion's potential for doing the unexpected.

Anyway, Clara comes out of her room to find Zion and her one year old, Gaby, skating barefoot in the main room. They were sliding around on a layer of icy hot that Zion had found by the computer and then spread all over the floor. They were quite happy about it.

I think this is a revolution - Jamaican bobsledders, watch out.


My friend Ruth, a doctor from the Netherlands, is here with us on this trip. She is examining some of the older people in the barrio. Here on the right, she is looking at Moreno's feet. She wants to make sure they are okay because he has diabetes.

The other shot is of Ruth standing in our friend Bau's doorway. I call his place the Bauhaus.