Homecoming!

The flight home is always bittersweet. It is LOOOOONNNNNGGGG, for one thing. It seems to take 3 times longer than the flight to Ethiopia! I had a full day on Friday with the early flight from Mekelle and then some shopping for items to use as fundraisers for our upcoming 5k, a lunch and meeting with the adoption agency staff who are handling the adoption for some of the kids, and then more shopping. I love Ethiopian crosses and scarves and coffee..so those items filled my bags on the return flight home. I didn't sleep much on this flight...I had one seat as opposed to the 3 I had on the flight outgoing, and I was sitting next to a new mommy and the 6 month old child she was bringing home. When I arrived in DC, I had 5 hours after clearing customs until my plane to KC boarded. I wandered through terminals, made a few calls, nearly took a shower in the bathroom (Even washed my hair!), and ate a salad! By the time I got on the plane and it revved up its engines, it was now Saturday afternoon in DC, and midnight in Addis. I was wiped. I took a one-hour power nap and then read until I got to KC. It was nice seeing my husband and girls. Steve briefed me on the happenings as we headed home in time to head IMMEDIATELY to a jr. high play. Oh the joys! As I have now been home 3 full days, let me share with you some of the most amazing sweet treats my husband has blessed me with. First....I noticed a new wireless printer in the kitchen. He had taken into account my many complaints about having to wander upstairs to my office to print things for the kids' homeschool and for the business and had completely wired up the house so that I could print with a touch of a button from anywhere. So considerate! He had upgraded our modem to take care of our connection problems that had been blocking my ability to send photos to agencies and clients. I opened my pantry to find new plastic air-tight canisters with everything wiped down, organized, and in new containers. Now how many husbands do this for their wives while watching 5 kids and holding down their jobs as their wife is in Africa? I was blown away. He is amazing, which I already knew, but this time he went above and beyond. The laundry was done, and by Sunday evening, he had also washed all my clothes from Ethiopia and had it all ready for my week. The freezer and fridge were stocked with food we might need to make for the next 3 days as he was heading out for an E. Africa education conference meeting in North Dakota on Monday. He had washed all the sheets while I was gone. He is amazing. Thank you honey for being so wonderful, and for making my transition home so smooth!

Day 11 - God's Detour for My Day

“WE HAVE A SHORTAGE OF AIRCRAFT – FLIGHT IS CANCELLED!” That was the news I got at about 9am this morning as I called to confirm my 4pm flight out of Mekelle today. Fortunately, they had gone ahead and re-booked me on the flight for tomorrow early, so I will only miss out on my evening in Addis and my dinner I had planned. I rescheduled those for lunch on Friday and took a deep breath that all those things I was not able to finish would not definitely get done today. I ran errands to buy a blind student a tape recorder he needed since he is also disabled in one arm and cannot write his own Braille to take notes. I went to the bank and had to reassure the bank teller that I was, in fact, the person whose photo was on the account and that even though my signature was only a 60%match by the computer, that I was that person, Pam Zicker. He gave me the money. I used part of it to buy a refrigerator for the girls home/guest house. We went to the lab to get the medical results on the kids…some of the HIV results (cd4/cd8) were pretty high in the range, so I tucked the reports away to be able to consult a specialist when I return to the states. I really want to understand more about how the virus works and what to look for in our kids. We are up to 5 kids in our HIV care home and they are all so lovely…I really don’t want to lose any of them, but want to know what will be the signs if that is imminent. After lunch I worked to organize the structure of a couple programs with existing staff and got to see yet another HIV positive child admitted to our home. This one, however, looked more sick than I had ever seen and I was really fighting back tears during her intake. She was 8 and had come from the countryside having had no treatment and no school. Her parents had already died and she was emaciated, had loss of vision from the virus, the tiniest limbs for arms that I had ever seen, and her ribs were bulging from her jumper. Gulp…it was really tough to smile and be brave, but I tried my best. I asked her story and she told me a bit on video. I told her how she would love the home and that all the kids are between 7 and 10 and she will fit right in. I told her how she would eat eggs and drink milk and get medicine. Gulp again. We stopped in to check later and got to introduce her to the housemother and to the other children. The other HIV positive girl in our home has been the only female for a year. She was so giddy about having a sister to play with, she just beamed from ear to ear. I showed the HIV positive mother the little girl’s bony elbow but the strong, brave woman simply shook her head and said, “no problem…medicine, food, no problem”. I wish I had her confidence. I told the director that this was my first time to see a child in that condition and it was really tough. He said a lot of them come that way, but then they fatten up and improve once we get them on their medication schedule and on better nutrition. Please pray that this is the case for this little girl. This precious life, shortened and shattered so far by disease and loss. I’m still shaking my head as I think of her while I am typing this. The evening was delightful, as the staff prepared a campfire with dinner outside for me and all the children from our main orphan home came and joined us. We ate, the children sang songs, and we laughed as we skipped home taking funny photographs. Saying goodbye at the cell home tonight was hard. I really love all of these kids – the teenagers, the little brand new ones, the 11 year olds who sometimes go unnoticed. I know that God has such big plans for each one of them. I feel blessed to get to witness some of those happenings first-hand. The bigger boys lingered at the gate as they said goodbye to me…”God’s blessings to you Pam…we love you…we will see you next year!” Gulp, I hate goodbye’s.

Day 10 - A Drive To Adigrat

Today was adventure day. We headed out in the am for a trip to Adigrat, north of Mekelle by about 2 hours. We went to scout out a new site for ORE to expand and visited with the social affairs office (similar to our DHS or SRS) about their needs. They met with us for about 45 of their precious minutes, during which they shared that they have 2200 registered orphans in their 5 neighborhood sections. Their total number of organizations in Adigrat to serve those 2200 orphans and 1,000 disabled people they showed in their computer-generated report? TWO. One simply serving educational needs and the other serving aids victims or families affected by aids. When the families come to them for help, all they can really do is register them and then tell them to hang in there. They welcomed us with open arms if God provides the money for the expansion. To replicate an ORE project in a community takes about $30 per child per month, plus some initial capitol costs for building and furnishings. We then drove on past Adigrat so that the director could show me the “way to Eritrea”. This eventually turned into an hour-long detour which led to the BORDER OF ERITREA. Yup. Right to the line being held up by some soldiers. Very exciting. The town on the border, Zalambesa, was so destroyed by the war and conflict and you could just see the devastation in the people as they went about their lives in that war-torn community. It was really eye-opening. We got back in the evening and I spent some time packing and getting ready for my flight the next day. I am ready to see my family, but I also always hate to leave THIS family. Mixed emotions. Swung by the care home to check on our new little admission. A cute little 6 year old gal who was settling in quite nicely. She had been washed and given new clothes and was all polished up by the housemother. The other little girl in our home was overjoyed to have a new baby sister and insisted that she sleep with her. Meanwhile, another 6 year old boy began to cry as he became jealous of the other boy’s photo album of his family from America. I scooped him up and rocked him while he cried, and told him how much I love him. The housemother tried to explain that he had a mother, but she is just in prison right now…that is why he isn’t being adopted. Impossible to explain to a 6 year old. I rocked him till his eyes closed in sleep and then tucked all 4 little ones into their beds. Such a treat!

Day 9 - Typical Troubles

Day 9 – Typical Troubles

Today was dedicated to finishing up the files, the photos of children, and having some appts. with colleagues. I met for lunch with the Dean of the Mekelle university Veterinary Program and his family. We shared a meal and coffee and he updated me on the status of their new building, their biggest needs, and the next vet who is travelling with CVM later this month to help with some teaching. Then I met with another friend who shared about their health outreach project teaching women how to use these new aquatabs that can be purchased at the pharmacy for 10 tablets for a quarter. They then are put into barrels of dirty water and can remove giardia and a few other nasties within 30 minutes. Can literally change a family’s life. Later that afternoon I learned of a boy in the ORE project about 13 years old with uncontrollable diarrhea and severe sickness. One of the staff had been at his home begging for his sisters to take him to the hospital for treatment. The problem is that if you go to Mekelle Hospital, you don’t have service from nurses, and you have to have a family member to feed you, help you to the bathroom, clean you, etc. The doctor or nurse only comes in when it is absolutely critical to monitor your treatment or give medicine. This is just the reality here. So this worker returned very discouraged because the sisters would not take him since their income was from daily labor, meaning they go each day to work in a factory or cleaning streets or chipping away at blocks making bricks and they get paid per day. So if they take their brother to the hospital, they will have no money while they are there. This potential for lost income is a huge barrier to medical treatment and education in Ethiopia. So when I left that day, the worker was trying to determine if the nicer hopsital outside of Mekelle would be able to offer full time treatment and care for the boy if they paid for the bill. If not, they will offer to pay the daily wage of the sister for her to care for the boy at the hospital. Hard realities. I also became aware that two of the ORE staff had scored high enough on entrance exams and applications to be offered spots at graduate programs in Mekelle. One was for an MBA and another for a Masters in Development Work. The barrier in their situation was not willingness to study or willingness to sacrifice their evenings for two years to complete the program, but the lack of funds for tuition. There are no student loans available in Ethiopia. Imagine if in order to go to college, you had to come up with essentially 1 year’s salary to pay the tuition. This is the reality here – these are top notch young men who extend themselves daily to serve others. One of the programs costs 27,000 birr ($2,200US for a 2-year masters) and the other 40,000 birr ($3,400 US). In America, this would be the best education bargain money could buy – but here, it is nearly impossible to attain based on a 2,000 birr per month salary. The kicker? “The university just called to say that I am accepted, but I have to show up with 30% of the money within 3 days or they will give my spot to someone else.” The system is such a tough one. Please continue to pray for the ORE staff to be able to do their work without exhaustion and with energy and a true love for children. I feel privileged to watch them in action.