Joys and Sorrows

One thing that has struck me about living here is how many joys and sorrows exist.  Maybe its the same at home, but its more raw here.  I find people very free with their emotions.  When they are sad, they cry.  When they are joyful, they rejoice.  There is less concern about appearance and how you will be perceived.  Its very refreshing. 

My mom brought a few soccer balls with her when she came to visit. One Sunday morning, Hailu and I invited the street boys he works with to go play in the park. It was a lot of fun, and since we had a nice new soccer ball to play with, it wasn’t hard to find others to join us. I’ve never seen soccer played in flip flops before, but it sure didn’t slow the boys down! After that, the boys asked if they could take the ball and keep it until we played again. Since then, I found out that they’ve been getting up at 5:30 every morning to play in the street before school. It made me so happy to hear that such a simple gift has brought them so much joy! There are 5 of them that share a small room together and there is one boy who is very energetic. One of the boys told me that they wanted to sleep in one morning and the energetic boy was eager to play and wanted some company. So, he came in and poured water on the sleeping boys so that they would get up and play with him. We now have a regular appointment every Sunday morning at the park to play soccer.


I thought I should give you an update on one of the stories I wrote about in a previous post. The government had gone around and picked up a whole bunch of street children and taken them to camps outside of the city. We heard about it initially, but then didn’t hear anything more for quite a while. Slowly though, I have noticed more and more street children again. One of the workers from an organization working to help street children told me that they had spoken to one of the kids that escaped from the camps. He told them that the food was terrible, and that they were being used to work, and that they were physically abused by many of the guards . So, the idea of educating and rehabilitating these children was indeed false. Since then, I have heard more reports that the children were taken VERY far from Addis and put to work on cotton farms and doing other hard labour jobs. The younger children were taken to orphanages. My heart breaks for these poor children. Already they lead very difficult lives and now they are being deliberately exploited. The government doesn’t seem to mind that some of the children have now found their way back to the streets of the city. I’ve come to understand that the main reason for them rounding up these children in the first place was to clean up the streets for the UN meetings that were taking place here. Now that the meetings are over, there is no need to put up a good front. Please continue to pray for all those children enslaved in the work camps.

I think I’ve said before that nothing happens quickly here. Well, I have to rephrase that. Nothing GOOD happens quickly here. This weekend, one of the sisters’ workers was killed in a car accident on Saturday morning. There were 4 people in a little VW bug and they were hit by a drunk driver when they entered a roundabout. It was very sad. I was amazed how word spread so quickly and arrangements were made. One of the victims was buried that evening. The funeral and internment for the worker that I knew and his aunt and uncle was held on Sunday. I was amazed at all that happened so quickly and the amount of people that came out to the funeral. There was over 1000 people I’m sure!

Another example of things happening quickly is how quickly things change. I’ve run into a conflict with the organization I had hoped to work for with the pregnant moms and babies. I’m not sure if God is closing that door completely or if I just need to take more time to work things out. I’m trying to be patient and allow God to show me what direction I need to move in. The problem is that my visa expires March 13th. I will continue to trust that God has guided me this far and He’s not going to stop now. I am comforted by the words of Mother Teresa ‘Jesus loves you tenderly, you are precious to Him. Turn to Jesus with great trust and allow yourself to be loved by Him. The past belongs to His mercy, the future to His providence, and the present to His love.’

Learning Amharic

Tenayestaling!


This is one of the many greetings I’ve learned in my Amharic language class. I’m enjoying learning a new language, but I honestly didn’t think it was going to be as labour intensive as its proving to be! I learned French as a child, and it seemed a lot easier than this!! Amharic has a whole different alphabet. There are 33 characters, and each has 7 variations of it each with a different sound. Once you know the characters, its not hard to read, which is nice. The tricky part is memorizing over 230 characters and the sounds that go with them!! Its difficult to train your mind to give a symbol that looks like an ‘m’ the t sound!

I’m highly motivated to learn the language. Its helpful that I’m surrounded by it all the time. I find my understanding grows more every day, and its nice. Even if I can’t always respond, I’m far more aware of conversations and things going on around me than I was before. If I’m going to be working with people here, its important that I know the language. Especially the poor, have not had the opportunity to go to school. So, they don’t know English. Most people who have gone to school know some English, but unless they use it in their work, their English is very basic, and their understanding is poor. Ethiopians have been very gracious to me concerning language. They are always pleased when I make an attempt to converse with them. The lady who sells me bread is one of my biggest fans. She always tries to get me to say more when I go into her shop. She always has a big smile, and encourages me a lot. Sometimes though, I try out my new sentences and people give me a very strange look. I’ll keep trying!

I’ve taken a bit of a break from my volunteering at the sisters. I’ll only be there once or twice a week until my Amharic class is over. I was finding I wasn’t paying enough attention to my class work and I was falling behind. The class moves quite fast, and you don’t want to be left behind. I’m not much of a student, so I find being away from my patients very challenging. I like working at the sisters’ and seeing the patients every day. Whenever I get frustrated with my Amharic, I’m motivated by the idea of getting to talk with my patients and understand better what they are telling me. Its been a while since I’ve been in school, so I’m learning to learn all over again! Some things don’t change, I still hate homework.

My mom was here visiting for the past few weeks. It was nice to have her here. We had originally planned to go out of Addis to do some traveling, but we ended up staying pretty close by. There was so much for her to see and experience here, it would have been very rushed for us to take a trip as well. Maybe next time she comes! Despite not traveling, she DID get to experience quite a bit. She had the pleasure of meeting my four legged friends that live in my kitchen. She learned to push her way onto a crowded mini bus, unfortunately getting pick pocketed in the process, but she got on! She got locked in the bathroom (partly because I forgot to tell her that the door only opens from the outside!). She even got to find out how it feels to sleep with bed bugs! I honestly didn’t know I had bed bugs in my bed because they don’t bother me, they must like her better! She enjoyed playing with the babies at the sisters’ and they enjoyed having her hug and cuddle them. We went on a field trip with some of the street boys Hailu works with, so she got to meet them and see a smaller community with some beautiful lakes called Debre Zeit. All in all, I think she had a good visit and I hope she comes back again.

Now that all my visitors are gone, I will have to get back to my normal life. Honestly, I will be glad not to have to go shopping as much, and to stay in my own little area of town, where most things are within walking distance. I’m still working on getting my visa sorted out, so if you could keep that in your prayers, it would be very appreciated!