On last year's trip to Africa, my leader used the phrase "pack your flex pills" no less than ten times a day. It's true and just means that we need to roll with the punches and stay positive. I have to say it's tough sometimes to be American in Africa and truly live the easy going schedule. However, if you can find it within yourself to really try, you will experience a new way of living the day more in the moment instead of planning ten steps ahead. You hear "no problem" and truly believe that whatever you just asked for is no problem...no problem if it works out and no problem if it doesn't. This concept is so foreign to us, but on this trip it was put to the test in a MAJOR way!
Remember the last words I said to Teshome the day before? "See you tomorrow morning for VBS!" I know never to promise anything to him, but I thought this was safe. I was here in Africa, we had made a schedule with P61, it's all agreed on for us to be in Korah that next morning. Then the unthinkable happened. A member of the Ethiopia Guest House staff died that morning. She was a lovely young woman that was working at the guest house up the hill from us. The staff as a whole is a very tight knit family. She had only been sick for three days and then passed away. The staff who we were one hundred percent reliant on was now in shock and mourning for their friend.
As a group we were stunned. Our new friends were hurting and there was nothing we could do for them. In Ethiopia, funerals start the afternoon of the death and last for three days. Even though the staff was still being as hospitable as only Ethiopians can be, we suddenly felt like such a burden. If we said we didn't need drivers and would stay at the guesthouse, then they needed to come cook for us. If we said we would leave for the day and not eat in, then we needed someone to drive us and translate for us. Our hearts broke for them, but on the other hand we were only in Ethiopia for a few days. The decisions made in these next twenty four hours by our leader were made with much compassion. We wanted the staff to be able to mourn and we also wanted to uphold our word to the children we had promised to return to in Korah.
By the time a driver was available to drive us to Korah, we had missed our opportunity to do VBS that day. We were left in Korah and a driver would be sent back later instead of staying with us all day. I feared that Teshome would be hesitant or even upset thinking that I was not coming, but he was the same lovely and funny kid I remembered from the year before. Gone was his shy exterior and he even started trying out calling me "mom". I was walking towards the building where we would help serve food that day, and heard behind me, "Mom?" I turned to find Teshome and gave him a smile. "Lunch time, Mom?" Yes, yes it is!! From there on out I was Mom and each time he said it my heart felt like it would burst!
Some of the men and women living with leporecy work daily spinning thread, weaving fabric, and embrodering the most beautiful table clothes, napkins, blankets and pillows. We did a bit of shopping at Alert in their store. There are a large number of people living with leperosy in Korah because it started a few decades ago as a lepor colony. The government, in hopes to iraticate leprocy, gathered all people suffering with the disease from the country side and the city and placed them in one spot. Korah was born and they were presumed to die there. They did not all die and some built lives and starting families. Now the third generation lives in Korah free from leperocy but many orphaned by the AIDS outbreak that inialated much of the second generation. These are the children we serve. Korah is one of those places where devistation is everywhere but so are smiling faces. Tough for an American mind set to comprehend and the most valuable lesson they can teach us.
Teshome carried my bag for me all day, since we didn't have our van to keep it in. He was such a gentleman about it. As we walked through the muddy streets it killed me to watch our steps. I had on my trusty rain boots protecting me from any drop of water and Teshome had on what looked like jelly sandals that were too small. That's what he was wearing when I found him the first day and I wanted to bring him his new shoes today, but we had to wait for the next day to give them their gifts. When we arrived back in the area of the church, Teshome showed me where he was staying in the shelter. It was nicer than I had pictured and less crowded than I thought as well, still nothing cozy or welcoming about it. As I sat on his bed and met some of the boys that live in there with him, I could almost feel the hunger for love in that room. All those boys were in there for very sad reasons, none of them had to tell me their stories for me to know that. In a community that is already filled with pain and suffering, these boys were also fending for themselves. However, they did have a bed, blankets, and a door they could lock at night. The children living on the trash dump do not even have these luxories.
I sat on Teshomes bed with pictures of our family hanging behind us, and showed him my necklace that I wear every day. Last year I bought an African pendant in Ethiopia and then had Teshome's name engraved on the back. I showed him and told him I never take it off and that he is always close to my heart. I think this is too much for a boy living in the shelter there to believe. I hope he believes what I was telling him and that it heals some part of his heart that longs to feel loved. 
No comments:
Post a Comment