Ethiopia: Addis Ababa to Mekelle

Day 2 (March 24, 2013) – Addis Ababa to Mekelle and More

The Ethiopian calendar tells us that this is the year 2005.  That’s fine.

A 5:15 a.m. start to a city already awake and the sun beginning to rise over men and women dressed in white.  Jackie says that she heard horns calling people to church: Surreal but easy on the palate.  We took a plane from Addis Ababa to Mykele, flying above an ochre, green, brown mountainous landscape dotted by villages clearly remote from much else (how would women get to health centers or hospitals from these remote places that hardly boast a road beyond footpaths?  How long would it take to walk if you could walk?).  The questions have begun to churn for sure.

The further north we fly, the greater the mountains, some cut open by gorges, painted by snakey rivers of brown and grey-blue.  Some of the mountains come to an abrupt plateau where settlers have cleared landscape for growing crops and building structures.  Some have planted trees to create little oases.  The mountains are clearly dry with light vegetation.  This landscape goes on and on for miles, village after village and mountain after mountain, people living on the edge of paradise that sits on the edge of another dry paradise…at least this is how it looks from above.  For miles I only spotted one paved road. Somehow this works for hundreds of thousands of people.  Suddenly the mountains change, become larger, more majestic, drier, and sprinkled with trees and villages. 

The women in our group are eager to meet the Safe Motherhood Ambassadors later today: Berhan, Behafta, Lemlem, Kiros, Lemlem, Kiros, Kindehafti, and Abebu.  We look at their pictures and try to memorize their names…

From above, Mykele seems to be built on a grid with some diagonal streets and traffic circles (which were frequent in Addis Ababa).  We land in an accelerated, brake-pumping thud.  We take a little bus up winding streets into the city of Mykele, passing hordes of donkeys, students, Mykele University, billboards, people waiting and walking along the streets, a charcoal market followed by a wood market (fuel), a paved road followed by a dirt road followed by a cobblestone road.  We check into the Hotel Axum which sits just off of the main drag of Mykele.  This hotel provides lodging and meeting space for the professional population and foreigners (“forenges”). There is a bike race happening outside and a huge crowd of men is gathered, cheering for bikers whizzing by in spandex outfits and aerodynamic helmets.  Someone is shouting through loudspeakers.  Our group moves through the crowd to walk down the peaceful side street lane that leads us to our place of worship for this Sunday.  The road is cobblestone and there are a few flowery trees that create a sense of sweetness and calm against our high-energy travel to Mykele this morning:  the rituals of packing, taking a bus, checking into an airport, taking a plane, leaving the plane, finding luggage, carting luggage, getting it into a van, traveling new roads, arriving at a hotel, unloading luggage, checking in, finding our hotel rooms, unpacking, getting dressed for a new outing, finding a quick cup of coffee or bottle of water in a makeshift dining area adjacent to the lobby, and emerging from the hotel in a content and eager group, excited by our day’s agenda and possibilities…Yes, the calm street that takes us beyond our hotel and towards the church is just the respite that we need to transition from forward-moving travelers to being there.

We turn right into the stone gate of the church and are greeted by a few smiling children and adults.  Allison leads us into the worship hall where music is moving the worshipers on their feet.  There is a synthesizer keyboardist, and five men and women in white and red, satin choir robes, each holding a microphone and singing sometimes harmoniously and sometimes in call and response.  The worshipers are praying and moving and there is enough room towards the front of the congregation for most of our team to sit on two wooden pews.  We remain standing, swaying, dancing, praying in musical worship for several minutes, a prolonged relaxing into God through song.

The church provides a translator so that the pastor’s message is spoken first in Tigrayan and then in English.  Allison is asked to come before the congregation and give a few words of thanks and explanation about Healing Hands of Joy.  I notice how at ease she is before this crowd and how her message comes out clearly and with gratitude.  She seems gifted at educating people on the spot while not creating a sense of being pedantic.  This definitely puts me at ease, and I sense that others are, too.

We walk back to the hotel and prepare to visit the Healing Hands of Joy Center for the first time.  In the van on the way to the center, the group is chatty and excited.  We are asking questions about the city and snapping pictures from the windows of the van.  We ease across town and take a few paved and a couple of dirt roads until we come to a sign for Healing Hands of Joy by which our host is well pleased.  Apparently the sign is newly erected.  We reach the center’s front gate and are greeted by a uniformed guard who Allison calls by name and hugs warmly.  When we enter the threshold all of the SMAs are waiting there for us with roses, cheers, and handfuls of popcorn that are gently showered on us among the “leyleyleyleyley” sounds coming from the women.  The mutual exchange of greetings, hugs, kisses, lasts for a beautiful duration in which we just abide.  We are ushered inside and introduced to staff members and other guests before being treated to amazing, homemade, Ethiopian cuisine. 

We take several hours to introduce ourselves to the current class of SMAs and to hear their stories and insights.  The translators are tireless. What generally takes 15 minutes in a small group back home takes hours because of the intent interest that we have in one another, the desire to share testimony of how God has worked in our lives, and the need to have more understanding about maternal health in Ethiopia and in the United States.  We are energized by the delicious coffee shared with us through a coffee ceremony and through the palpable presence of the Holy Spirit with us at that time: no rush, no demands; a simple sharing of hearts and minds between women of different cultures and shared hopes and pain.  As we talk the sun moves from brightness towards vespers, but we are not yet done.  Our group has planned time for foot washing with the SMAs, and Jackie reads from the New Testament (which is translated) before we start.