Back from Ethiopia
The last two weeks Lisa, her parents and I have been in Ethiopia. It's her other home, as she's lived there for a total of 9 years, gone to elementary school and lived in places like Arba Minch and Yir galem. It was a great and exciting trip, with lots of impressions, sights and sounds, and extremes. The majority of the Ethiopians spend so much time doing the day to day chores, like getting water and food, going to the market, and as there isn't too much public transportation in the small towns and around, people walk everywhere. We drove quite a lot, south from the capital Addis Abeba to Langano, Awasa, Yir galem and Jinka and life along the road is just bustling: people, cows, goats, donkeys, horses, carts, people selling stuff, etc etc. And the kids are everywhere you go! And most of them shout something after you, wanting stuff, money, water bottles, or because they want to sell you something. Some even came up to me when we where walking around town, to feel the hair on my arms...hehe. Kids are kids.To sum it up, the general life in Ethiopia seems so much more raw than in the the richer and more developed parts of the world. There are no safety nets, no numbers to call if your kid falls into the fire and you don't know that water cools it down. The line between life and death feels much finer. Since Lisa's parents spent their time down their starting and working with hospitals, I got to tour various local hospitals and see the facilities. I even went on rounds at on hospital in Jinka. It was pretty wild, and there I saw the above-mentioned case. And the hygiene conditions would probably kill most Westerners. Because the power was very unstable and just available from noon till midnight, they didn't have a washing machine for the bed linens. All was washed by hand. And it wasn't changed too often. Suffice to say, I got some pretty images burned to my retina. The blood stains...
But still, people lived their life, humans do what they must, and as we where driving, I saw smiling faces everywhere, people sitting around and talking, playing foosball and table tennis along the road. Nature was beautiful, with tons of colorful birds, eagles, falcons, hyenas, hippos, wild boars, kudus, zebras, monkeys...and of course the beautiful sunset. So yeah, there are a lot of people who live in dire conditions, and there is much that can improve their day to day lives, but foreign aid...that's another topic which I'm not getting into now.
This might sound like cliches, but this is what I felt and thought of when I was in Ethiopia. After I've gone through the 650 pics I took, I'll post them on my flickr account. Stay tuned...
