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?

Dumpster Girls

I'm not going to say too much about these girls, because I plan to make a video about them to try and raise money to get them out of the dump and into school. But, here is a condensed version I felt I should put up because every day is one day too long to live like they do. Please contact me if you want to help them, or contact Hanna at her website, www.childrensheaven.org.

These girls, and four others, saw a posted notice about Hanna's work helping orphan girls, so they came to her office to see if they could get help. Some are biological sisters, but all treat each other as family, sticking close together for protection and companionship. All completely support themselves. Some live in plastic houses - houses made of tarps hanging from sticks stuck into the mud, and a few live with extended family in meager surroundings.

Hanna has not yet had the resources to help them, and it haunts her. She asked me to go with them one day as they work so I could record and show others.

They picked me up at her office and we walked a long way to their neighborhood. During the walk, they asked me to stay behind them and pretend I didn't know them. This was for my safety, they explained, as the big boys that work in the dumpsters will take cameras from tourists who try and snap photos. I saw these boys - men, really - riding atop garbage trucks, leering at the girls and yelling to them as they walked past.

The girls told me they would take me to someplace safer than their normal dumpsters to show me their work.

First, we went to one girl's home, which she shares with two sisters. Inside, it is the size of a twin bed. They had lived in a plastic house, but were able to get this one for 50 birr, about $4.80, a month. They will have to move out at the end of the month, though, because the landlord just increased the rent to 60 birr. Looking around at the out-of-work men gathered in the street, I asked if she felt safe at night. She told me they use sticks to block the door and that it helps. None of the girls travel or stay alone.

She is 11 years old.

I asked her what her very favorite food was. Her eyes glowed and she smiled as she said softly, "potatoes."


We went to the dump and I taped them digging for metal (see photo above of nails and other dump discoverd metal), which they sell for half a birr per kilo. Usually, five of them working can find a kilo each day. They also gather pieces of plastic grocery bags to use as fuel to cook cabbage, their main meal.

At his "suggestion," I ended up paying one of the men there to "protect" me as we shot.


The girls didn't get enough metal to sell that day, so I bought them some potatoes, onions and a bag of coal from this lady in the photo, who agreed to hold things until the youngest came back from accompanying me home, which she did. This little girl had a horrible, nasty looking infection in her ear and could not hear, so I took her back to Hanna's and sent her to the doctor.

Hanna and I talked that night about how we could help them with their job - gloves, a tool to dig . . . but it was a depressing discussion as we don't want to help them dig in the garbage all day every day, we just want them OUT of that work.

Azan Aleu

If there are themes to this trip, one is death.
I'm not sure of the spelling, but azan aleu means “I'm sorry.” I'm getting better at saying it correctly.

I met some boys last year, the day I met Hanna. I'm changing their names here.

Hanna officially only works with girls, but these boys touched her heart. Their mom and dad were both HIV positive last year when I met them. It was then Hanna asked if we could find someone to help them financially, so they could stay in school. A few months later, she reported that the eldest, Isaiah, dropped out of school and had stopped coming to see her.

Yesterday, we found out why.

Isaiah showed up at Hanna's office and held onto her, sobbing. His daddy had just died. He had not wanted to tell Hanna that his dad asked him to stop school so he could care for him once he became bedridden with AIDS. His mother, so frustrated with her husband over giving her the disease, had left him, and he had no one. The twelve year old boy cared for him for about nine months, washing him and feeding him and rubbing his feet, trying to keep him comfortable. Just before he died, though, his wife forgave him and they spent their last few weeks togther as a family.

It was late by the time we were free to go to the family. I suggested getting a taxi to make the trip faster, but was told that we could not get there by car. True. The steep, rutted roads were slick mud, and it drizzled as we approached the one room, cinderblock home. People were gathered outside, wearing their nicest shawls. Inside we moved through the crowd and were ushered onto preferential seating, metal folding chairs. Four chairs spaned the room under an open window. A woman poured water over our right hands so we could rinse them, and gave us a meal of injera and tasty wot of lentils and onions, served on dark orange plastic plates. Other friends sat on solid cinderblocks, placed on the worn plastic matting that covered the floor. In the middle of the damp room was a brazier, coals dark, holding a large silver coffee kettle.

The boy's mom came in, wrapped over her clothes in two shawls and also a large towel for warmth. She greeted us, and sat what appeared to be an old army trunk to our left. She leaned against a wall covered with a lace cloth to soften the grey cement. She spoke to Hanna for awhile about her regrets and fear for the future, then began crying, then sobbing loudly. Her boys seemed to not know what to do, and the youngest curled up next to me and let me snuggle him. A young toddler, sitting on his mother's lap across the room, was eyeing me as well, but it was clear he was not quite sure if I was intriguing or just scary. When I smiled, he would pull his mother's shawl over his face, peeking out seconds later to see if I was looking elsewhere.

Eventually, a man sitting to our right asked for a Bible and read a passage, then spoke to the mother and we all prayed. Hanna told me later he told her that she should have no regrets, that she was not God to decide when her husband must leave this world. He told her there was nothing she could do to change God's timing, and that she must look forward and not take on any blame for the past.


Hanna offered to take the boys home, since the mother had guests, and she said we could do that, so they walked home with us. Hanna gave them baths, and we ate dinner by candlelight when the power went out, then roasted big kernels of corn for a snack. We pulled a mattress onto the floor and everyone got on it, including the two sweet girls that live with Hanna, and they played mandala and told stories, and had devotions and eventually, the boys fell asleep.

Tonight the boys are here again, and also many members of Hanna's family, as her uncle passed away today. The living room is filled with smoke because we had a coffee cermony for Hanna's cousin. It was her father who died. Most of the family will leave at 4am. I wanted to give them my room and share with Hanna, but she would not have it, saying that guests are highly honored in Ethiopia. I have certainly found that to be true and then some, though I don't feel I deserve this honor.

Hunger

Since we've touched on hunger, I'll just add to it by saying that my friend Hanna has been under a lot of stress this week. One contributing factor involves the challenge of gathering food for the 44 orphaned and partially orphaned girls in her care. Each month, girls are given a ration of hair oil, soap, wheat, cooking oil and some basic other food supplies so that their extended families can afford to keep them in their homes.

In times past, food was purchased from the government, in bulk, at good prices. Now, the government is taking an anti-NGO (Non Gov't Organization) stance, and will no longer sell food to many organizations, including Hanna's. I remember seeing news stories about government “suspicions” regarding NGOs, and wished I'd paid more attention to them. Certainly, the on-the-street-changes, stemming from this new government profile, are hot conversation at the various NGOs I've visited the past few weeks.

The problem of procuring expensive food is compounded by fuel prices and draught. Many vendors simply refuse to make trips to the market because people can't pay enough to make it worth the expense.

This morning was food distribution out of Hanna's plastic house (she built it on family land when her rent doubled and she had to move out of her building). This mother (or aunt or grandma, I'm not sure) was so happy to get her daughter's food, but as she walked across the wet grass, she slipped and fell. It was then I noticed her foot - horribly misshapen, toes pointing up. She must walk on the end of her leg bone - no shoe in this cold weather! She, like the other women here, dressed up to receive the food ration. But, her normal job is as a beggar.

I have been told by many Ethiopians - actually, many people in all big cities around the world - that city beggars really have a lot of money. It is not the case for this woman. Hanna visits all her childrens' homes and checks them out, and talks to neighbors and local police and the local schools to confirm the stories they tell. This way, she is sure to only help the neediest children.

Yesterday, I met ten or so girls who are on Hanna's waiting list. It is heartbreaking to know how just a little money could change their lives and realize that it will take some time to spread the word and get the funds. Each day of waiting is too long here.

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.

Cooking Frenzy!

I can still hear my kitchen panting after all the action it got last week. Like me, my kitchen is desperately out of shape.

The marathon came about because my mouth is bigger than my brain. It started because, Hanna Fanta, an incredible woman who gives her life for teenaged orphan girls, was visiting.

We held a fundraiser for her girls at fellow filmmaker Lee Ann's house. I naively offered to bring Ethiopian food with us.


WOW, did I underestimate the prep time (and the FUN) involved!

My friend Mari Tyson was a LIFE SAVER. She grew up in Soddo, Ethiopia, very close to where my daughter Zion was born (on the same hill, in fact). On the way to get Hanna at the Charlotte Airport, Mari and I stopped at The Nile Grocery to buy injera (3113 N. Sharon Amity Rd. Charlotte, NC 28205, Phone: 704 531-6221). I'm including the address because this woman makes excellent injera! We were fed a lovely dinner, and bought some spices as well. We then wandered around the Charlotte baggage claim (becuase CLT never seems to manage to put correct or even close flight numbers on the digital read outs over the bags), and somehow managed to eventually find each other.


On the drive home, the two of them started talking about the meal. It was instantly apparent to me that I was ill prepared for what was to come. So, the next morning I asked my nanny if she would come early to help. Thankfully, Mary also offered to come. Four women, one meal. No problems.

Mary and Hanna ran out to get food, leaving Camille and I with instructions to dice onions as small as we could.

THIRTY onions!

We filled my largest mixing bowl, and sat down proudly. When the shoppers returned, they shook their heads . . .

nope, not enough onions.

We need at least 15 more.


The cooking commenced. We played Ethiopian music in the background and the kids stood at the open door peeling carrots.

More beri beri, yep, just a touch more because the meat takes the heat.

A little more beri beri . . .

Just in time, we finished four great dishes and headed to Lee Anns for a fantasic review of the days' work.



Check out Lee Ann's blog in a day or so to see her update about our wonderful evening. I'm convinced that the two of us will go to Ethiopia together and make a film someday soon, and I can't wait!!

How do orphans happen?

Here is a piece of another video I'm working on about orphans. It is the story of a boy in Southern Ethiopia.

Hanna Fanta

Hanna Fanta is with me this week. She cares for and mentors teenaged girls that have lost parents to AIDS. The stories she has told me over the past 24 hours are chilling, yet, her work leaves me with hope.

Here are some images of her organization, Children's Heaven, that I put together last night from photos Hanna brought with her. Hanna is the woman hugging the girl near the end of the montage. The neat thing about Hanna is that she maintains deep relationships with her girls, like a mother would. And though the overall need in Ethiopia is great, Hanna never wants to lose these personal relationships, and will guard against becoming a BIG sponsoring agency.

I hope the others copy her model of orphan care, because I believe that going deep may be more effective than going wide.


Maybe, if each of us does a little bit, we can change our world.

Today we will make Ethiopian food for a get together at my friend Lee Ann's house. Hanna will talk with our friends about her work in hopes that she will find some women willing to sponsor a girl. Tomorrow, we will do the same thing in Atlanta at Laura's house, then over the weekend, we go to Raleigh, where my mom is hosting another get together.

More Tears Today

Today I spoke with two HIV positive women who chose
to give up their girls for adoption before they die.
I asked them what they were feeling. I asked one of
them what she would like to tell her daughter on her
wedding day. She told me about her own wedding day,
at age 14, and how her parents told her she must go
and sleep with her husband. She wanted to run away
and not do it because she was so scared. She said she
didn’t want her daughter to go through that.

The daughters have already changed roles with their
mothers, and they talked about how they were worried
about who would take care of their mothers when they
go to the States. Yet, I could see they were excited
about the possibility of a new family and a good
education. One of the mothers had prepared her child
well for the transition. Hers was the interview where
I could no longer see my viewfinder after the first
few questions.

After all I have seen here, no one could ever convince
me that a poor or sick mother in a mud house cares any
less for her child than I care for mine. I really
miss my kids. I want to hold them and I long to look
at them while they sleep. My kids were born of other
women in another countries, yet I get to look at them,
I touch them, and they bring their joys and sorrows to
me. I am beyond blessed.