Well, I am writing this now after we have spent our first day in Addis Ababa. The trip here was long, but without incident. I actually liked having the time to relax a bit. Henry and I played three games of Scrabble and slept a fair amount of the trip. In D.C., I had a chance to get a few last phone calls made (Patti, I’m sorry I didn’t get through to you!). It was strange how much each leg of the trip seemed to get us further and further from the “known.” By the last leg, we were surrounded by Ethiopian travelers returning home and a large number of Americans who all seemed to be heading to Ethiopia to adopt children. The food slowly grew less and less familiar and the sounds of the Amharic language began to surround us. I had to keep pinching myself the entire way to really believe that we were on our way across the globe. I watched the screen as it showed us passing over New York (my sister), New Haven (my mom), Worcester (my dad), Sydney, Nova Scotia (my mom’s family), the Atlantic, then Europe then Africa.
We arrived at the hotel and found that our rooms were much better than we’d expected. Our last minute change in hotels has not turned out to be such a bad thing. Of course, there was an alarm on Sidney, Yuko, and my room that kept going off, but the staff fixed it rather quickly. We all had a brief meeting in our room to remind everyone not to use tap water for brushing teeth and then turned in for the night.
I woke up so refreshed. The weather is a bit colder than I’d expected. Definitely need a jacket here. I showered in the hot but minute trickle of water that dribbled from the shower head and then proceeded to plug in my hairdryer. I want it on the record that I REALLY didn’t mean to short out the circuit, blow up my hairdryer and cut off the power to the entire hotel. REALLY I didn’t. Thankfully, they fixed all of it relatively quickly – everything, that is, except my dryer, which is now on its way to an Ethiopian landfill.
We ate breakfast with Keith Kall, our World Vision guide, whom all the kids are now convinced is a bit of a rock star traveler. He really is great. Calm but informative – and equipped with some stylish green eyeglasses to fit the super cool image. We ate eggs and a kind of hot cereal that was too smooth to be called grits – but delicious! The coffee, too, was fantastic. And with our stomachs filled (Henry’s with three plates of food), we headed off to the World Vision headquarters for a debriefing on the water projects we are going to be raising money to support.
Sitting in the conference room, looking at the slides, hearing the stories, I am reminded once again of why it was so important for us to come. I realize that we have egregiously oversimplified the need for help when we’ve spoken to our supporters. It is not so simple as building wells. The collective approach to water, an approach that includes a sanitation and hygiene component, is really necessary to building a sustainable solution to the water crisis here. We need to help people shift away from the paradigm of supporting a single well and recognize how crucial it is to build into the investment an educational component. The local people need to understand the impact hygiene practices can have on a water source. They need to learn how not to contaminate their water source with the cleaning of clothes and the defecation of both humans and animals. Education is essential. And I believe the need for education crosses the ocean to America as well. The YouthInkwell kids are going to be a unique position to challenge their peers, their parents, and others to look at humanitarian aid differently. We must leave behind the notion that we should invest solely in a thing – a well, a school, a child. The holistic approach that World Vision representatives spoke of this morning seems to make so much more sense. And when we invest exclusively in the “thing” we miss the opportunity to be part of a greater transformative effort.
The kids and I were talking with Abraham, the head of the water and sanitation department at WV, and we are excited to go back and share with the other youth board members and all who will listen the things we are going to learn.
After our meeting, we drove a bit around the city. We stopped at a gorgeous orthodox church where we took off our shoes and went in for a look around. Henry and I sat for a moment together. He looked at me and said, “Smile, Jen.” I told him I was thinking, thinking about how much I look forward to retuning to America and perhaps simplifying my own life, thinking of how much I still want to do to make a difference in the world. So often we get caught up in the minutia of our own lives, we lose sight of the greater purpose – to make the world better for all. I think this trip is going to be instrumental in giving us all a vision of what we can actually do to that end.
Lunch was shared in a dimly lit restaurant with traditional Ethiopian food. The kids were amazing in their eagerness to try everything – the red spices on the table, the sour injira bread, the coffee with salt and butter. At one end of the table, kids were learning how to eat the meet with bread while at the other Jake was challenging Keith a conversation about global politics. In the middle of the table, Sidney was trying various degrees of spice on her meat while Henry proved that he does indeed have a stomach with great capacity. We talked about the food, the shopping, the water projects, and the ten hour drive that awaits us tomorrow.
What a way to spend an afternoon.
Sidney mentioned to me after we left how cool she thought it was to be with everyone, and I nodded in complete agreement.
This is an incredible group of people to travel with.
