Cursed first visitors...

My first visit in Bilbao was robbed violently but got her possessions back, all’s well that ends well, but now the curse strikes again it seems...
Nele and Karen arrived on Monday with all kinds of goodies, surprises from other friends and a big stack of clothes. They had set it up at my home as if it was St Nicolas day and that’s exactly what it felt like!
I had to send a friend to pick them up early morning at the airport ‘cause I needed to work. He showed them around somewhat and brought them to my school when I was about to finish the parent conferences.
It seems so long ago now that I was running towards them _quite emotional_ through the school compound. It felt so good to show them my class and the art show. My kids did an excellent job colouring Murakami’s flowers and I was so proud!
The next day, Tuesday, I still had to work and they went to Mercato with proper safety instructions. Nonetheless they almost got robbed before they even arrived! The minibus they took actually dropped them off once they had discovered they weren’t gonna allow them to get in their purses. I had never heard such a story before. After that experience Mercato was a piece of cake.
On Wednesday I met them after work ( which is near all important museums they visited) to take them to Shoromeda, Ethiopian textile heaven where they went all out buying scarves which I tried to get for them at local price. After followed an evening filled with games at the house of Alix. When we returned in the early hours we actually scored a free ride with some helpful guy!
Thursday was my last day of work ( good ‘cause I was exhausted!) so after the tasty Indian meal the school provided for me I met up with the girls. Sadly enough I couldn’t join them the rest of the afternoon as I had planned seeing as I had to meet up with the lawyer Dr G recommended for my case. Dr G is a legal advisor which means he cannot plead in court so he hooked me up with someone else who I didn’t trust very much initially but after that meeting that improved! We decided to rewrite the case which would make it easier to win but also means I’ll have to pay GYA some money and it will take a little bit longer. I hope that was the right decision. Upon coming home the girls surprised me yet again with some cheese and wine ( plus coke) they had picked up at a supermarket. Yyummie! Then we had wonderful chechibsa which Mika prepared for us and no-one can beat him at making chechibsa. A sort of savery pancakebread dish with berbere, he makes it with loads of veggies!)
Then we went on my very first ‘foodrun’. This woman from school, Jill, has been organising this for the last 10 years. The idea is simple. The volunteers, just us 3, pay a 100 birr and she provides 400 bags of food and bottles of water. Then we all get in a taxi and start driving around to where there are many homeless people. You get out, wake them up and provide them with a warm meal and clean water. It is incredibly moving. 400 bags of food are not nearly enough for all the people living on the streets here. They are so grateful and lead such a hard life. All of us were really moved by the whole thing. There’s a website where one can read more about this and donate to this cause but Nele left with the contact details. I’ll give them to you next time. It was a truly amazing experience. So if you have been looking for a good cause to support, one where you know your money goes to the people and not to the organisation like in big NGO’s this is one way to go. This organisation you can fully trust.
Friday we went up the Entoto mountain and saw Menelik’s palace, I like that place, it’s very humble. We were going to go for a swim but then Nele and Karen learned the hard way that 13 months of sunshine (Ethiopia’s tourism slogan) is a big fat lie. Still the picnic with guacamole in the Ghion park was nice. I was quite frustrated because I didn’t manage to find a bank that was open and allowed me to get out money from my recently opened account for our trip the next day.
Afa our driver with one big dreadlock on the top of his head of about 30centimetres high picked us up early next morning. It even felt earlier because we had a great evening at the gardenparty of Becca ( one of the new colleagues, the blond one from the pictures).
We spent the whole day driving and just took a little lunch break in Afa’s parents town where we were invited to a nice meal and I found a bank that was willing to give me money from my account. Yes Getting money out can be complicated in Africa!
We picked up a nerdy German along the way and arrived in Lallibella in time for the Easter eve celebrations. Afa actually got us a good price in a fancy hotel with amazing view which used to be Haile Selassies palace. It was fully booked but they arranged the staff room to accommodate us. The other tourists at the ceremony behaved appalling and thus ruined what is supposed to be a spiritual event. They took pictures continuously with flash and prevented the Ethiopians from seeing. One lady stood so close to a priest (and refused to move) that she was under his ‘ umbrella’. We were disgusted and sat at a fair distance on the walls of the amazing rock hewn churches which gave us a good overview. When I started falling asleep and dangerously leaning forward towards the depth of the church we decided to call it a night.
The next day we let ourselves be saturated by these wondrously sculptured buildings. Breathtaking. The evening we spent at ‘Sophie’s restaurant’ where Sophie gave a dance performance in which I joined.
Next day we set out with Afa to Gondor. Well we said goodbye to him in between Gondor and Bahir dar and started using local transport, meaning minibus, there. We arrived in the city of castles starving. First we had to find a good bargain hotel and then we had a great lunch After digesting everything seemed to be closed. Nonetheless we bumped into Nigisti, the girl from Gondor who travelled with the guys who were crossing Africa by car and arranged to visit her NGO the next morning which turned out to be another heart-warming experience. In the evening we celebrated Karen’s birthday but I had to order my drink a full 3x before I was served!
Nigisti’s project ( www.yenegetesfa.org) is another one of those causes well worth support. Amongst other things she takes orphan girls or girls whose parents couldn’t support them away from the homes that took them in order to use them as free servants and where they are often abused and on the other side she also provides streetboys with a home. Both of these homes have a father and mother figure and the children go to local schools and are allowed to be children and play. She also does HIV prevention/education for prostitutes, teaches homeless skills such as shoe-cleaning and some crafts in order to be able to provide a bit for themselves. Besides she set up a bread voucher network: instead of giving a beggar money you can give him this which will give him a small bread at a local bakery. We bought and handed out some of those but it seems they aren’t that well known yet which was somewhat complicated. All in all it was a nice morning seeing how one girl with her growing organisation is managing to make a difference. Turns out some of the sponsors of her project are Belgian so this summer she’ll be there fundraising.
Afterwards we visited the castles and took shelter from the hailstorm in the lion’s cages. Then we saw the royal pool, probably very beautiful when it’s not under restoration and found out a badjadj aka tuk tuk can also be used as an all terrain vehicle or a 3X3 when we went to se the corpses of queen Metewab and her son. No kidding you can actually see their bones in the compound of the remains of her castle! We ended the day with a women’s craft project in the Felasha village near Gondar where beautiful baskets, pottery and weaving was sold. They even spun their own thread! A nice dinner, ok I admit I had 2 dinners one of which with delicious spicy sauce and homemade yoghurt, was the end of a busy perfect day.
The next day Wednesday, also the day of my courtcase which I send the lawyer to, we set out to Bahir Dar where we’d be hosted by a ‘peacecorps’-er called Kyle. We wondered around town, visited the market, had some juices and reserved the girls boattrip for the next day before seeing a beautiful sunset near the hippo pool at the source of the Nile although sadly enough the hippos had decided to go somewhere else for a change. We went to my favourite pasta place in Bahir Dar and someone (hmmmm blush blush ) had a little too much too drink which in combination with the sun and not too much sleep caused me to have to clean the bathroom in the middle of the night because I made a mess and that just before being picked up by the minibus that took me back to Addis a day sooner then the girls.
The next morning, around 6:30 when I was safe and sound asleep in my own bed I was awoken by a phonecall from Nele telling me their minibus which was taking them back to me had an accident. They were halfway between Addis en Bahir Dar meaning in the middle of nowhere: a village called Debre Markos.
From that moment on the holiday was over. I started coordinating both insurance companies, calling to civil aviation, the local police to try and get their luggage, the flying doctors, I maxed out my account to pay for a private ambulance to get them to Addis which broke down, etc… Nele begged me to get them out of there, told me Karen was in pain but no matter how hard I tried I didn’t get them to Addis before 11ish the next morning. They had to spent the night in the horrible public Debre Markos hospital. Just imagine: Nele was bare footed at a certain moment and there were injection needles lying around on the floor… in the AIDS continent!!! I’ve never believed but the help of Kyle’s friends Mark and Veronica who live in the neighbourhood and translated, brought snacks, assisted in retrieving the luggage ( the police actually makes the victims of the accident come and identify it) and their mental support was nothing less then a god’s gift.
Seeing them all banged up the next morning in Addis broke my heart. Nele who had a broken collar bone was completely ignored even in the ‘good’ Korean hospital which is supposedly the Hilton of hospitals. Karen was kept lying still all day and had an operation on her severely fractured thighbone the next day by an American volunteering doctor. The operation took ages because the equipment was being used by someone else. These sort of things occur non-stop eg. The elevator is temporarily out of order so Karen had to spend her first night in a shared room with constant moaning of other patients. I have to go to the pharmacy because they don’t have the medicine Karen needs. The mattress is too hard which causes Karen to get bedsores. The correspondent of the insurance company in Nairobi conveniently forgets to arrange Nele’s flying papers so I have to go to the airport and solve that problem.
Chained to her bed by her injuries there is no way for Karen who is only now slowly getting somewhat more mobile to call a nurse so someone is forced to be next to her 24/7,including at night. After going to several pharmacies we had no choice but to give up hope for finding Nele a triangle shaped bandage to support her arm, etc. All extremely frustrating.
Luckily Nele was able to fly home on Monday evening where she received proper care and an operation. I didn’t even get to say goodbye to her in a proper manner because the security at the airport has no heart and blindly follows rules.
Karen’s dad flew in on Tuesday morning which took lot of weight of my shoulders, we look after her and sleep next to her in shifts now. She keeps her spirits high but the date of her return is continuously postponed.
The driver didn’t survive so everything taken into account I guess we should praise ourselves lucky because it seems neither of my visits will suffer long lasting consequences.
Still it really is a horrible ending to such a wonderful visit.
Pictures may be next time.