Speaking of cute kids. There is one kid here that has completely engulfed my heart. Her name is Deborah. Deborah is four years old and is the size of a two year old. Everyday our bus arrives to the orphanage in Korah and I get off, I see Deborah searching through the crowed of children and my other teammates looking for me. It's really funny to watch her while she is running around looking through the crowed to find me. As soon as she sees me she runs up to me with a big smile and arms open wide reaching upwards for me to embrace her and pick her up. What a HEART MELTER!!! UGHHH!!!
I carry her around all day with me as I go from class to class teaching English. She's my baby. My little black baby. I wish I could take her home with me. Her mother actually works there at the orphanage/school, so she is not an orphan. She just hangs around the place as her mother works. If she didn't have a mother to look after her I would seriously consider adopting her. I'm a little selfishly sad that she has a mother.... I want that kid.... Isn't that horrible! oh man.... I'm terrible...
Anytime Deborah sees me holding another child or holding another child's hand she comes up and beats off all the other kids away to get to me. HA! One time I was holding a girl, Deborah comes up and slaps her on the legs and tries to pull her down. I finally put the poor girl down and pick Deborah up for the other girl's sake. That girl stood their with her arms reaching upwards to be picked up again.... crying... (oh my heart was so sad!), so I decided to hold Deborah on one hip and the other girl on my other hip carrying them both around. Big mistake... Deborah was not happy about sharing me. She knows hardly any English and doesn't talk much but when a kid attempts to take me away from her she'll yell at them with her tiny Amharic voice. HAHA! I love that little kid.... .....This is me and itty bitty Deborah. If you see my pictures on facebook that I've been tagged in she is in a majority of them.
During lunch time I got to feed my old leper friend again. Every time it does my heart and soul good. And Every time he thanks me by saying a blessing for me. I never understand what he is saying because it's in Amharic (not all the time there is a translator near by), but my soul and heart understands and appreciates it. After he's done I always give him a kiss on the head to let him know he is loved and that I appreciate him as much as he appreciates me.
After lunch we split up into two groups to do house visits again. The family we visited today had a little bit better place. It was one room made of mud walls painted white with a metal roof instead of a tarp roof. A lot of the homes with tarp roofs have holes in them... allowing rain to pour in when it monsoons. The room was smaller in size than my room at my apartment. They had two twin sized beds that slept the entire family of 6. While we were there she made us a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony, which consists of popcorn and three rounds of tea glasses of coffee made from roasted coffee beans ground up using her pistol and mortar (is that right? is that what their called?...). We got to see this whole process from the washing of the beans to the roasting.... to the final product of hot coffee, all while we are in this tiny room sitting on the beds watching her. As she was going through this whole process we got to hear a bit about her situation ( with the help of translators), while seeing her children outside peeping in on the company, smiling and making faces at us... sticking out their tongues. So funny!
There was also a cow right outside you could hear mooing and peeing during the whole visit. HAHA! The cow is their land lords. Their rent is 200 Burr a month (divide that by 16.75 and it = the U.S. dollar amount). She makes cotton thread to sell, which only makes enough for soap and a little bit of food. She also searches through the dump for wood to sell. Her husband was an officer in the military and lost a limb. He is retired and now begs for a living. The government doesn't take care of him because he was in the military while they were under the communist government. I'm not sure wether or not they even take care of their veterans now. If you lose a limb or your life, tough noogies for you and your family! At least for the veterans of the past government, I really don't know what it is for their veterans now.
I asked Sammy if it was possible to support an entire family in Korah. You can. That was encouraging to hear and something I am seriously considering. If I could just cover their rent every month that would take so much pressure off of them! 200 Burr is almost 12 dollars a month! SERIOUSLY?!..... uh yeah! I can do that. I wish I could just take care of everyone in that community. Solve poverty. But I can't solve poverty, and that is saddening to me right now seeing all this and feeling and knowing I can't solve it. How do I go back home to my everyday life doing my everyday job, living life comfortably while they are struggling to even make or beg enough for one meal? Sometimes they don't even get to eat for an entire day.
After the coffee ceremony, we asked her what we could pray for for her.... protection and health.... so I did just that...and lead our group in praying for her and her family before we left. We thanked her for her hospitality as we left. That was the best coffee I have ever had. They do it right over here. We met up with the other half of the team and headed back to the house. Michael wanted to go for a run when we got back with Christy and I. I was still feeling drained from being sick but agreed to go anyway. I needed some sort of exercise and thought I could run this cold out of me...(seriously? I'm an idiot. I blame it on my rowing coach from college.) Just FYI, we are 8,000 ft. above sea level. What do I live at in Charleston? 3ft. BELOW sea level! Michael had been exercising everyday since we got here (how? I have no idea!!) so he was use to it by now. Christy and I? We lasted 4 minutes. Were we dying? Yes. Did we push ourselves you ask? Yep!.... This is stupid.
When we got back from our run I gathered my clothes and washed them in the kicthen sink using warm water from the bathroom shower. I went back and forth with one of the pots, filling up the sink. Danielle lended me some laundry soap. Thanks Danielle! After I was done my forearms were so tired! I was also starting to feel a LOT worse and was debating on whether or not to even join the team for dinner. I went anyways and thank goodness because they had soup at the salad bar. Just what I needed and wanted. The salad bar was free with our meals we ordered. I ordered fish "breaded with herbs and lemon sauce." WORST FOOD DECISION YET! The fish was literally (not even joking, I wish I took a picture of this thing!) paper thin! All it was, was the breaded part. No lemon sauce and it came with "French fries", which were fries without the potatoes in them.... This meal was a joke. Sammy even raised his eyebrows in disbelief. At least I had soup. That's all I really needed. Warm soup. I couldn't even eat lunch today because of how sick I've been feeling. I'm pretty much wasting away right now. I weigh about 112 lbs. now. How much did I weigh when I got here? mmm....bout 123 lbs. yep. A lot of it is from being sick all week and dealing with everything here. I had to borrow one of Christy's belts to keep my pants from falling down.
After dinner we got coffee at Kaldi's again.... lot's of Kaldi trips here... and used the internet cafe next to it. I emailed Susan and my sister to send out an update. I also looked at some pictures from when family visited in Charleston before I left. It was so good to see some familiar things and touch base back home. As the night progressed I kept feeling worse and worse. I definitely had a high fever. When we all got back to the house we told Danielle about our night (she stayed back to get some alone time before Steve, her co-leader, leaves us Saturday) and then, like every other night, we had our team nightly meeting telling everyone our highs and lows of the day.... and then someone always tells their testimony. When it was my turn for highs and lows I started balling because of how awful I was feeling. I was totally dreading this moment... I knew it was coming... like a bomb ready to blow.... I thought I was getting better the last couple of days but then today was a sign I was only getting worse. Was I ever going to get better?!... it was just disappointing and I had kept how horrible I was feeling today in so long that it just came out in tears. I finally composed myself and told my high of the day... haha... My high today was Deborah.. and how she just continues to run up to me everyday and is by my side the whole day while in Korah. In the end, it's not to bad of a day (even if you feel like absolute shit) when a child seeks you out of a crowd everyday running up to you to be held.
*Other Notes*
-Emily and Danielle shared their testimonies. .... Let's just say there was a lot of crying going on tonight.
AHEMMM....... Emily. :) ....oh yeah... and ......me.
0 comments:
Post a Comment