Whilst this was now over 25 years ago, it is one of my greatest memories as I was starting out on my career. Fresh from leaving university, during the recession, in 1993-4, I took this opportunity. To go from the relative comfort of student accommodation and surroundings into a bleak world of poverty, disease and isolation in Ethiopia, this was certainly an eye-opener for me.
I was based initially in Addis Ababa, at the Mother Theresa home. The reason was because upon contacting the Sisters of Charity in Queens Park, London, they simply stated that the majority of volunteers flocked to Calcutta to work alongside Mother Theresa herself, and that equally needful, perhaps less famous locations, such as in Ethiopia were desperate for help.
Addis was a raw place, where makeshift accommodation for the poor, sprawled under the shadow of a few luxury hotels. The home was located just near to Sidist Kilo, which I remember there being lots of steps where budding runners would exercise in the early mornings. The pale blue metal gate opened as our taxi arrived from the airport and we were welcomed by the sisters.
Children, lots of orphans, laughing and joking on the inside of the gate, whilst ragged children begging for money, remained on the outside. These were orphans from the recent Eritrean war, whose parents had been murdered. Then the patients in the wards, sick and dying. Literally dying, some from hunger, some from disease. Real people, with personal stories.
My role included laundry duty and helping feed the patients. Laundry was hard. No washing machines, just scrubbing, thrashing and squeezing dry the blue or white cotton sheets. The catering consisted usually of spooning out a very hot meat dish with a sour flat bread (injera). There was also a large bag of donated cakes and biscuits, provided by Ethiopian Airlines. The patients, those who could walk, queued up, always happy and smiling, some cheeky, to receive their meal. Over the weeks I got to know these people, and they became my friends.
Another time, I woke to find hundreds of villagers (in Dire Dawa) queuing up with tin cans to receive cooking oil, some so poor that they only had plastic bags and had to be turned away. I dispensed the oil from the drum with a tin can all day whilst my arm slowly cooked under the sun.
These are incredible memories for me, not from a white privilege point of view, but because of the people I met, the community behind the blue entrance gate, beautiful people, proud and elegant, displaced by terrible circumstances. And the locals on the outside of the gate, the cheeky ragged boys by the snack hut, the lady selling tomatoes on a plastic sheet on the ground., my school teacher friend. My locals.
As we endure the current pandemic situation, where our freedoms that we took for granted barely a few weeks ago have disappeared rapidly, I see myself drawing parallels with those people that I met in Ethiopia so many years ago. I think we will come out of this a better world, but it does us no harm to reflect on those who have always been deprived of our luxuries and western standards, and realise just how lucky we are.
I was based initially in Addis Ababa, at the Mother Theresa home. The reason was because upon contacting the Sisters of Charity in Queens Park, London, they simply stated that the majority of volunteers flocked to Calcutta to work alongside Mother Theresa herself, and that equally needful, perhaps less famous locations, such as in Ethiopia were desperate for help.
Addis was a raw place, where makeshift accommodation for the poor, sprawled under the shadow of a few luxury hotels. The home was located just near to Sidist Kilo, which I remember there being lots of steps where budding runners would exercise in the early mornings. The pale blue metal gate opened as our taxi arrived from the airport and we were welcomed by the sisters.
Children, lots of orphans, laughing and joking on the inside of the gate, whilst ragged children begging for money, remained on the outside. These were orphans from the recent Eritrean war, whose parents had been murdered. Then the patients in the wards, sick and dying. Literally dying, some from hunger, some from disease. Real people, with personal stories.
My role included laundry duty and helping feed the patients. Laundry was hard. No washing machines, just scrubbing, thrashing and squeezing dry the blue or white cotton sheets. The catering consisted usually of spooning out a very hot meat dish with a sour flat bread (injera). There was also a large bag of donated cakes and biscuits, provided by Ethiopian Airlines. The patients, those who could walk, queued up, always happy and smiling, some cheeky, to receive their meal. Over the weeks I got to know these people, and they became my friends.
Another time, I woke to find hundreds of villagers (in Dire Dawa) queuing up with tin cans to receive cooking oil, some so poor that they only had plastic bags and had to be turned away. I dispensed the oil from the drum with a tin can all day whilst my arm slowly cooked under the sun.
These are incredible memories for me, not from a white privilege point of view, but because of the people I met, the community behind the blue entrance gate, beautiful people, proud and elegant, displaced by terrible circumstances. And the locals on the outside of the gate, the cheeky ragged boys by the snack hut, the lady selling tomatoes on a plastic sheet on the ground., my school teacher friend. My locals.
As we endure the current pandemic situation, where our freedoms that we took for granted barely a few weeks ago have disappeared rapidly, I see myself drawing parallels with those people that I met in Ethiopia so many years ago. I think we will come out of this a better world, but it does us no harm to reflect on those who have always been deprived of our luxuries and western standards, and realise just how lucky we are.
No comments:
Post a Comment