After over 35 hours of travel, including a cancelled flight, a useless hotel voucher, and a 50-minute special on Gelada Baboons, Jason, Maggie and I arrived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Exiting the airport with our new friends and colleagues Daniel Combs and Keleab (pronounced with an explosive “kh” sound), we took a deep breath of the warm air as the Addis Ababa Airport sign distanced itself behind us. Rick was outside waiting in the car reading a magazine, ready to shuttle our suitcases back to the house before we journeyed over to the Korean hospital to make a few rounds.
Jason and I in front of the Addis Ababa Airport
Rick and Dan picking us up on the second trip
At the Korean hospital, we met two ferinje doctors – a term meaning “foreigner” or “white,” not to be taken negatively, but as a matter of fact – as well as some of Rick’s patients. One, an adorable Ethiopian boy being treated for a large burn on his scalp and scoliosis. The other, a former Siamese twin baby who had recently undergone separation surgery and had been left with two pancreases. According to Rick, probably the first case ever of such a thing.
After seeing the patients, we strolled through the hospital, searching for Lubo a Canadian-Ethiopian student abroad in Addis for a few months, who spoke Oromian. As I found out happened often at Rick’s house, a patient had shown up having heard of the doctor who could fix his back. This young boy, who looked 14 years old, was from the Oromo region and spoke no Amharic, the national language of Ethiopia, a country with over 89 recognized languages. Since neither Rick nor his staff spoke Oromo, we were looking for Lubo to help us translate.
We waited outside the student dorms on benches for close to an hour and a half, relaxing, talking, seeing if he would show up. I learned quickly that this was pretty normal in Ethiopia, waiting around for one person in a city of over 5-million, with no idea whether that person was still in the city, much less the country. What was even more normal in Ethiopia was that by spreading the message by word of mouth and making phone calls to friends – phones which had probably gone offline for unknown reasons — that same person you were looking for was usually found.
When we finally decided Lubo wouldn’t show we started walking towards the hospital. Within minutes, Lubo was directly behind us, not even realizing that we were looking for him, a smile on his face as he walked towards us and said hello. Within a few minutes, he was on Rick’s phone, translating the boy’s story for us, telling us why the boy came searching for us and letting us determine how we could proceed in helping him. This was a usual occurrence in Rick’s life, patients recognizing him in the streets, having heard of him in their villages, and the usual call of “Doctor Rick! Doctor Rick!” as he passed by.
The place we met Lubo at “Korean Hospital”
Rick’s house was our final stop on the tour and was where I met his extended family, a term I heard from volunteers and JDC staff alike, but didn’t understand until I arrived. Sprawled throughout the house were some of Rick’s adopted children, recovering patients, as well as some of his already recovered patients who had been treated, but simply decided to stay for a better life in Addis Ababa. Many of them were from the rural regions of Gojjem an area near Gonder in the North, where they came from agricultural families. In their hometowns, agriculture was their determined future, but at Rick’s house in Addis, they had the opportunity to attend high school, learn English, and create their own future.
My experiences as soon as I stepped down off our airplane in Addis were different than I expected. I expected a slap in the face, a culture shock that I had never felt before. Something that shook me and screamed, “You are now in Africa! You are now entering a NEW life!” Yet, with all the differences I saw and felt around me – new people, places, being a foreigner, incomprehensible mutterings, clearly visible poverty, urban city sprawl – somehow Ethiopia felt like another shade of my previous life, one that will add rare hues to the color wheel of life that I could not find anywhere else, but one that still has a place on the palette. With a great first day, I am excited to see what the rest of my time in Ethiopia holds for me.
As Rick said to me in an e-mail when I told him our flight was cancelled and we would be spending the night on the airport floor, “Welcome to the adventure of travel.” Here we go!
Addis Sababa 