Arriving and meeting the community

Sister Medhin met us on arrival at the St Vincents Convent in Mekelle and introduced Andy and I to some of the sisters and staff. The convent complex was established 70 years ago and is designed in a kind of courtyard design with single story buildings and garden areas.

The next day we were still a bit jaded after a very long and tiring day and night from UK to Mekelle. We went to the Abba Gebre Michael Street Children Project with Tedris, the staff social worker who works with the sisters on the management of the project. Tedris described

the various education programmes covering English, drama, music, hygiene, cooking, sports and sewing. The children were very pleased to see us, so friendly and full of fun. In all my years of travelling and working abroad I have yet to meet a friendlier group of young people. Amidst what are obviously difficult conditions they clearly focus on all the positives and disregard the negatives.

Saturday at the project is a free day for the children where they take part drama and discussions as well as being provided with their daily food and washing facilities. The children laid on a special welcome and there was a tea making ceremony, dancing, quizzes, games and generally lots of fun. Andy and I were introduced to the children and we gave them a short history of our background.

This is my first experience of living and working within a Religious Order environment and to be honest I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I find it difficult to express my feelings in words. There is so much love, fun, laughter, dignity, hard work, caring and respect all thrown together that it is such a joy to be here being part of their work. The majority of the people in Mekelle and Ethiopia follow the Orthodox religion. There is a daily practice of loud chanting from loudspeakers between the hours of 4-6 am. I’m going to dig out my earplugs that I had for the plane journey.

After breakfast on Sunday I went out for a walk in the town. Walking though the town is a very strange experience. You pass a shop selling state of the art TVs and hi-fi’s then meet someone with a handful of live chickens, then a donkey and cart loaded with wood and a family going wherever, then a herd of goats blocking the street and on it goes.

I met some of the streetboys from the project, Daniel, John, Lulu and Gary who had all just come from playing a game of football. They invited me to walk around with them and visit their local public football park. This impromptu meeting turned out to be my first English lesson as we talked continuously with each of us asking questions of each other. On the way home the boys asked me if I liked Sundays, to which I replied ‘Yes’. They did not like Sundays as this was the only day of the week that the project was not provided and they missed not getting fed.

Tommy Dobbin

29th July 2007