Getting to know Ethiopia and its People

I didn’t get much sleep last night as it was a special feast day for the Orthodox Church and the chanting and drumming from loudspeakers went on all night. Even the earplugs didn’t do the trick!

Many of the children are Manchester United fans. For one Ethiopian Birr (about 5p) they can get a glass of milk at a café and watch the live games on television and this provides them with the rest of their week’s discussion and excitement.

However, the single most important aspect for the young people is education. Most of the children and young adults have been pummelled by one disaster after another, war, drought, dictatorship, flooding and AIDS, which is now a major problem for Ethiopia. The percentage of children with AIDS is around 10-12% and adults perhaps 5%. Despite all of this, the people are fantastic and they come across as friendly, loving people. You would just love to turn the clock forward about 20 years to visualise the improvement given their potential.
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The Friday afternoon class finished on a real high. There is a really small boy called Goitom, 11 years old, who is adored by everybody. After a role-playing exercise, which had us in stitches, he put his arms up to me and I thought he wanted a swing, which I gave him. He put his arms up again as what he wanted was to hug me. You would have the thought he had won the lottery. He is probably happier than many of our lottery winners are and it makes you think about who is the unfortunate one.

After classes, Andy and I do our wandering around the yard to chat and get to know the children a bit better. Isaac asked me what I thought of Ethiopian people. I told him that we had found everyone very warm, sensitive and caring for each other even though many were in very difficult situations. He explained to me that people in rich countries have everything they need, so they want more and more and are often more interested in the individual (he was trying to say No.1) In Ethiopia we have very little so the individual isn’t important, it’s the other person who matters more, so everything needs to be shared. Wow!

Over the past few years since this volunteer project started, every volunteer has expressed a similar viewpoint: that this is a life-changing experience. In some respects what you see is very sad and disturbing, but in other ways it is an absolute joy when you see children with smiling faces.

Not having any newspapers or decent TV leaves a lot of time to think about the bigger picture of world poverty. The other week a young girl of ten died on the street because she couldn’t be taken to hospital quickly enough. If that was in UK, the press would have a field day. Out here it’s just another statistic to go with the rest of the statistics that become a way of life for thousands of people in Ethiopia.

Tommy Dobbin
3rd August 2007