Jan. 20th Ethiopia

I am slowly going to add some of my journal entries from the trip - here is one of my first.

Jan. 20th - We really don't have access to the Internet. In fact, we have "rented" a cell phone from one of the guards at the guest house. The staff at the guest house are wonderful and with all the mess of trying to get ahold of CHSFS we really do need one. Yesterday, we attended Timkat with the older kids from the care center. We spent the morning standing in the large field with several thousand people listening to songs and prayers and trying not to lose any of the children (the count back at the van had us minus one kiddo but he was quickly found). The older kids especially try to scatter a bit from the group and I can't blame them. When you are in a large group with a few white women you stand out a bit and scream "orphanage". Stigma is stigma everywhere and almost all kids want to fit in. Once again my tattoos drew some attention - I have a cross on my ankle which is my reminder that I walk by faith and have been told in the past when in Ethiopia that it should be on my forehead. Things important to us should be at eye level. I always reply, with the utmost respect, that I will consider that for next time = ) My other tattoo is an AIDS ribbon held together by a yellow Meskal flower. The Ethiopian flower looks kind of like a daisy and blooms at the end of the rainy season. It is amazing to see - (the end of the rainy season, not my tattoo)the mountains and hills become alive with yellow. That flower is proof that the rains have come - they may come late or there may not have been enough to up the water table but they have come.

Back to Timkat - there were vendors selling sugar cane and the kids each had a piece and devoured it. There were also people walking around with cat tails - Timkat has to do with baptism/ water, anyway, the boys enjoyed using them as guns. Love that!

The first couple of days were spent finding our comfort level. There is no schedule, really no expectations of volunteers and really no direction. I, personally, had ideas of what I had hoped the trip would look like but after walking into the care center those expectations had to go. Instantly we were swarmed by children hoping for attention. They fought over who got to hold our hands, sit next to us on the van, use our cameras. Which, on a side note - some of my best pictures where taken by this amazing young man with a gift for art. While riding in the van there was an older boy sitting in front of me. I would often catch him looking at me when he thought I wasn't looking at him. It took awhile (and with all the people and traffic and closed roads we had a TON of time) but slowly I felt an elbow on my left knee. It was a purposeful touch but it had such a tense feeling to it that I knew as soon as I even leaned in his direction he would pull it away. It is a touch that comes from someone who longs for that interaction but can't take the hurt that may accompany it. I have felt and experienced that kind of touch many times in my work. I don't know if it is more of a "boy" thing or a "trust" thing or a combination of both but I have learned that those times are the ones that are a bigger deal than my purpose. It was at that moment that my expectations changed. Yes, I had things I needed to accomplish, meetings to attend, people to meet, other programs to check out, updates to obtain but it became so clear at that point that sometimes just being may be the most important agenda. To help restore a little trust in humanity, to provide just a brief moment of hope for one person - even in the smallest amount is what matters. Yes, I have some changes I would like to see but sometimes in the stillness of a moment our eyes our opened. Those are the times that the long lasting, forever changes are made and isn't that really what life is about.