Ethiopia - Addis Ababa

Salaam from Addis Ababa!

One of the things we have had to get used to here in Ethiopia is the fact that they follow the Coptic Calendar as opposed to the western Gregorian Calendar. Today it is actually 9th April 2004 and we celebrated Easter Sunday a week later than the rest of the Christian world. The time they use is also different so when we start work at the hospital at 8.30am (Kenyan/Western time) the clocks will tell us it’s 2.30 pm! This has taken a bit of getting used to and we have to ensure that if we arrange to meet someone we confirm whether it’s Ethiopian time or ‘Western’ time.

We are spending the majority of our time in Ethiopia in the capital, Addis Ababa (which means ‘New Flower’). It is a bustling city which feels completely different from the rest of Africa. There is a massive diversity from the stately buildings, beautiful people, coffee shops, good restaurants and rich culture to the poverty on the streets, groups of donkeys being trotted along the main roads in and amongst the cars, chickens / goats riding on the mini bus taxis, derelict buildings, and general dirt and decay.  We are in the rainy season and every day it goes from raining cats and dogs to bright sunshine although at a high altitude it is never particularly hot.

 

We are staying at Taitu Hotel - the oldest hotel in Addis Ababa which is quite evident. Despite the decay of this hotel we love it and it is an absolute treat to be in beds after our overlanding/camping experience. The staff are wonderful and they find our attempts at Amharic hilarious; the communal bathroom is not so wonderful but we are sure we have both seen worse….at least that’s what we keep telling each other.

Music for the Patients for Easter (with a random chap off the street)

Ethiopia is an incredibly religious country and it has therefore been fascinating to be here during the Easter period. Whilst we had been making the most of Taitu’s fasting vegan lunchtime buffets since we arrived here (we ate more fresh veg in our first 2 weeks than we did for the previous 4 months), on the eve of Easter Sunday the streets were lined with chickens and goats being sold to make wonderful dishes to celebrate the end of Lent.  It wasn't just the streets that were full of activity.  The hospital where we are volunteering celebrated with lots of music, palm leaves made into rings and head bands, party outfits (where possible) and hair braids for the girls.  


From Taitu our trip to the hospital ‘Missionaries of Charity Home for Sick and Dying Destitutes’ is a very easy 10 minute minibus taxi ride. The cost is 5p each! It’s utter carnage trying to find the right minibus since whatever is written on top of the minibuses means absolutely nothing to us (see photo). Nonetheless, eventually we find one which we’re told is going to ‘sidist killo’ and we hop on and hope for the best.

 

The hospital is accessed from the street by a discreet brown gate. Behind this is a warren of wards.  On our first day we were guided around the massive compound by Highloo who looks after the volunteers and visitors. The hospital is made up of a female and male section, divided by a white line on the ground. These sections consist of wards dividing patients into HIV and TB, physically and mentally disabled, wounded (e.g. car accidents), elderly/dying and other patients with weird skin diseases that we have become like professional basketball players at dodging (just in case they are contagious, no one seems to know!).  The patients wear an array of donated pyjamas and clothes and cover their heads with thick colourful blankets. On the other side of an alleyway is the orphanage which we didn’t even realise existed before we got here. This has a large playground which mostly seems to act as a washing line for all the babygrows, nappies and generally filthy childrens’ clothes.  Occasionally there are a few bemused disabled children sat stationary in a merry-go round, perhaps this is to dry them? There is also a mother and new baby section, classrooms for the orphans, a nursery and a physio room. We tend to spend our mornings between the physio room and the nursery.

On our first day we were actually assigned to the disabled girls’ ward in the hospital which we entered somewhat hesitantly to meet the 30 or so girls.  Ranging from bed-bound to fully mobile, most of these have grown up in the orphanage and moved across to the hospital.  We spent the day painting nails, drawing, blowing bubbles and showing off our new phrases of Amharic (we learn it from a book!!) - please ‘Ibakhi’,  hello (this is the easier version of it) ‘Salaam’ and after hours spent trying to remember thank you ‘Amisaganalo’ (much to the hotel staffs’ amusement the night before) we discovered that in fact they use “ishi” meaning ok instead. Our most ‘useful’ moment was at lunch time when Izzy fed the local pancake dish, Injera (using her hands), to a girl tied to a railing;  unfortunately more ended up on the floor than in the poor girl’s mouth. Meanwhile Hels was feeding porridge to a lovely bed-bound girl, Mimi, which she then proceeded to vomit up all over the place. With two volunteers already in this area and unsure of how useful we really were we headed to the orphanage physio room in the afternoon to see if we could help there (our two lunch victims must have heaved a sigh of relief!).

There are two lovely physios here, Denai (male) and Amemalet (female). We hesitantly asked if we could help and were ushered in and literally handed babies. During the physio the waiting babies play with the toys or clamber over the physios at work; we are the defence against this disruption and generally scoop up crying babies.  On our first day we were introduced to a few of the little ones who we now look after in the mornings. Ethiopia a beautiful 6 month old baby (we were asked if we wanted to adopt her on day one; incidentally we do!); Amanue who we think is 3 (he was abandoned), has the most adorable smile and loves the bouncer attached to the ceiling in the nursery, twirling the rope all the way then flying horizontal in a fit of giggles as it unravels, despite his disability we see improvements every day and Hels is teaching him to eat on his own with great success; Rosie who is about 5 and both physically and mentally disabled.  Her favourite song is ‘Old Macdonald’ and she sings “ee-i-ee-i-o” to prompt us to sing it.  She hasn’t quite grasped the idea of personal space and when she isn’t clambering all over us, her face is glued to our cheeks. We also met the adorable Mickey who never cries and has an endearing two tooth grin which is a real challenge to bring out, tickling his feet seems to work best!

After that first day we were both delighted and surprised to be asked back and it is in the orphanage where we find ourselves each morning.  Our routine involves both helping out in the physio room and playing with the babies and toddlers in the nursery, feeding them, changing their nappies (there are no pampers – the kids are layered up in cotton triangles which often don’t keep a lot in as Hels found out when a baby peed all over her crotch during a feed) and putting them to bed.

With there normally being only 3 staff and about 17 babies it is impossible to give the babies one-to-one attention.  It is therefore important that we share out our hugs and kisses equally and do not get too attached to any one baby (or babies).  It’s quite hard as some of the babies and toddlers clearly require more interaction than others and invariably cry as soon as you ‘move your love’ to another child.

Despite our communication difficulties it is great that, with much pointing and acting, we are trusted by the 3 ladies whose job it is to look after the children.  At times we have been left in the nursery with all 17 of the children without any supervision.  It is at these moments that we're glad we know the Sound Of Music from start to finish and nursery rhymes which helps to calm the room. 

Feeding time seems to happen at all hours with a variety of food from porridge to bananas, rice and injera.  This is done with varying success, often with two or three spoons and babies at a time before we move on to the toddlers.  After lunch is nap time and like all babies/toddlers they normally don’t like being put to bed at midday.  It is at this point that we do a runner and leave them in the capable hands of the workers.  Once we were recalled in a slight panic as a couple of the workers thought they had mislaid a baby; it ended in fits of laughter when they realised that Izzy had put her in the wrong room! Thankfully they haven't banned us from returning although the man at the gate has since started checking our bags (joke).

Whilst in the orphanage we have met both a Canadian lady who adopted a little boy a year ago and a Swedish couple who were in the last stages of adopting one of the babies, Hosanna. It seems like a lengthy three month process but seeing the lovely couple with Hosanna, a beautiful giggly little girl, it looked like an incredibly emotional and happy union. 

Faleker

For lunch we often pop to our favourite little eatery Amba for a swift bite to eat  which normally consists of rice and meat or pasta and tomato sauce. We have built up quite a rapport with the staff there particularly Faleker who beams when we enter and does the Ethiopian handshake which includes a shake and a shoulder nudge. 

In the afternoon we spend our time in the main part of the hospital.  On meeting Alice in Kenya she mentioned Abebe the nurse who does dressings and a troupe of young patients between about  6 and 12. We mostly split our time between these two groups. In the afternoon when Abebe and the other nurse Abush do the ward rounds we do the very ‘important’ job of folding muslin to make dressings before they are sterilised.  We rather enjoy this manual labour in the calm of Abebe’s office and a few other nurses and doctors do pop in to say hello (perhaps they are actually coming to stop us singing?!). 

Abebe and Abush

The rest of the time we play with the group of young boys who have a range of injuries and illnesses from tumours to cancer or broken limbs.  We brought them playing cards, skipping ropes, crayons and balloons all of which are a great hit and the moment we are spotted the gang run up asking for ‘cartas’. They are a feisty bunch and we have stopped our fair share of fights. We do understand, however, that they are all a long way from home and most have been left by their parents for months so we try and give them a little motherly attention too.   It is impossible to mention them all, but here's a few just to give you a little flavour (sadly but understandably we are not allowed to take photos in the hospital). Soloman (six) has an enormous tumour over the right hand side of his face, he runs around in bright yellow dungarees (why these have gone out of fashion we have no idea!). Apt (six) comes from a hunting (with bows and arrows!!) family and is incredibly dark skinned and tough, at first the other boys didn’t let him play with them and after a couple of days and many scraps we saw why. Rashad is smart and often the leader in cards and also the biggest cheat (this is ‘Labar’ in Amharic and we use this word a lot, as well as ‘Mestet’ meaning share). Mushi the cutest of them all is only 2 and his father stays with him in the hospital, he runs around in grown up shorts that make for trousers on his little legs.  We have been lucky to have help in the form of the charming Fikere (who we think is in his 30s).  He speaks pretty good English and has helped translate and explain some of the group and hospital dynamics. 

The nuns keep a fairly low profile however when we do speak to them they are charming and so dedicated to the children and patients.  They live on site and only get to visit their homes every 10 years, slightly ironic therefore that they are donated plane food for their meals!  There are a stream of volunteers, NGOs and charitable groups that seem to come and go in the hospital normally while we are holding a screaming child with another naked on the nappy changing table whilst smiling politely. The nun in the orphanage, Sister Stephanita, is so gracious with everyone coming through and makes us feel like our volunteering is of value to the children.

Bruno, Arturo and Gracie

We are extremely lucky to have had 3 other volunteers from the hospital staying at Taitu with us – Bruno – 33, French, nurse; Gracie, 27, Australian, doctor (they are a couple) and Arturo, 20, Mexican, student. They are all super and we have spent most of our free time hanging out with them, laughing endlessly. Bruno sneakily invited us out for dinner one night to a superb nearby Italian restaurant called ‘Castellis’ which boasts previous customers (with photographic evidence lining the walls) as being the likes of U2, Brad Pitt and Angelina Joli (much to Gracie’s delight and amazement), Bill Clinton and Bob Geldof, to name just a few . It was only at the end of the delicious meal that we found out we were celebrating Gracie’s 27th birthday so we took it upon ourselves to ensure that the evening did not end early and headed to the jazz bar next to Taitu to enjoy an Ethiopian Barry Manilo with an unbuttoned shirt and shiny suit strut his stuff on the stage. The music was actually really rather good and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Gracie has sadly now left us here to fend for ourselves as she has headed to France for a few weeks to learn some French before Bruno joins her there in a few days’ time to see his family before they head back to Australia where they live.

It hasn't all been hard work....!  We were very honoured in our first week at the hospital to be invited out for our first Friday night in town by ‘Highloo’ (we’re sure it’s not spelt that way, but it’s the easiest way to remember the pronunciation) to join him and his friend, ‘Desalengne’ (which means ‘to become happy’, though Hels got confused and called him ‘Sunshine’ for the whole evening and they were too polite to correct her). They took us to Yod Abyssinia in Bole where we enjoyed the local honey wine, a tasty injera (the local dish) with all sorts of different meats, spices and sauces and a fantastic performance of the Ethiopian style of dancing from a local band and 8 dancers. To say these dances are extraordinary is an understatement. Moves included ‘the chicken dance’ (a better version of the dance we did as children), a courting dance which the boys really didn’t need to explain to us, and the most memorable – the neck rotation dance which we could barely watch as we thought the girls necks might snap off – any physio would surely have jumped up on stage to stop them. What was quite a surprise to us was the real Indian influence in the music and at times we had to remind ourselves that we were still in Addis and hadn’t been transported to Calcutta.

Entoto Mountain Surrounding the City

The following night we were very kindly invited out for supper and drinks by one of Niki Payne’s friends – Rebecca Conway – together with her husband Kerry, sister Rachel (who was visiting from the Philippines) and other friends for another local experience in a cool outdoors bar called Elsa’s Bar. It was good to meet some expats and it was interesting to hear that even living the expat life out here is not as straightforward as it is in other 3rd world countries. We were very excited to learn that Kerry's office is in the British Embassy and that if we behaved ourselves (!) we may be able to visit it one afternoon (everyone who knows Addis has said that we must try and visit the embassy which has an incredible setting, a swimming pool, horses etc etc).

This weekend we're going to give ourselves a bit of a treat and we're heading north to visit some of the famous Ethiopian sites.  We are bringing Arturo with us and are looking forward to seeing more of this extraordinary and fascinating country.