My thoughts to this point on the trip

Zemi has shown me a side of Ethiopia that I didn't know about.  I would describe Zemi as a very successful  business woman and Ethiopian citizen.  She owns and operates a beauty school for her main income, but even in this endeavor, she helps many girls living on the street by providing them free scholarships to her school.  These girls learn a skill and can then have a way to provide a living for themselves and get off the street.  I was witness to this once.  We were stopped at an intersection and she recognized a girl she had seen begging there since she was little.  The girl was now old enough to attend the beauty school.  Zemi honked her horn, asked the girl for her name and asked her if she would be interested in attending beauty school to learn a trade.  The girl was very excited and information was exchanged.  She will be off the street soon. I was so touched.

Zemi's charity work is amazing as well.  Of course, you are familiar with the Joy Center for Autism, but she is active in many organizations to promote the education and involvement of autistic kids in Ethiopia.  Everyone knows who she is, and she is very respected.  She is also very busy.  While Kayla and my day at the Joy Center is 9-3:00, Zemi often does not come home until well after 8 or 9 in the evening.  She also runs the NIA Foundation, a non-govenment foundation that helps women, children and parents of children with autism.  It has been a very humbling experience to be a part of her life for the past two weeks. 

While my prior visits to Ethiopia were focused on poverty, polio, and disease, this pre-trip has introduced me to a different side.  Not everybody in Ethiopia is starving or living in a run down hut!  Zemi has a beautiful, yet humble home.  She assures me that many people she knows live in very luxurious homes here.  So it is possible to live in Ethiopia comfortably and safely.  The roads are getting much better as both the Ethiopian government and the Chinese are building and investing here extensively.  Buildings are sprouting up everywhere. As the basic needs of the people are getting met, technology will get better.  Right now, the dial up internet I am attached to is 54.6 Kbps, which isn't too bad, but much slower than we are used to in the US.  In prior years I was told to not walk around unaccompanied.  I have learned Addis Ababa is one of the safest cities in the world.  Just use common sense and leave the jewelry, extra money and flashy video cameras at home. 

The food here is some of the best I have ever eaten.  I don't know if I ever want to open another can of vegetables in my life after eating fresh cooked green beans, tomatoes, etc.  Avocados are a favorite when mixed with lime juice, onions and garlic.  Collard greens with fresh garlic cloves will become my new dish at home.  I want to cook like this when I go home.  I have taken to drinking my tea and coffee with no sugar so as to get the full flavor, which is a surprise to many women here, as sugar is always added to the drinks here.  They do like their sugar!

After school, Kayla and I spend a lot of time with Jo Jo.  Yesterday we took him for a long walk to the bank to get some birr.  He loves his chocolate bars and will attack Kayla's pockets if he thinks she is hiding something in there!  In fact, at home, we have to lock up the big bag of M&M's she brought with her because he knows they are there and he wants them all!  We give him a few every afternoon, but he still trys to unlock our bag many times every day! We walked by "The Burger Shop" yesterday and Kayla asked "Please, please, let us get a hamburger!"  So we entered the little local cafe and ordered three hamburgers and fries.  Jo Jo was in heaven!  He kept opening the cook's door to watch them cook his food.  They were very kind to him.  So after the bank, a CD shop to get a Teddy Afro CD and an authentic Ethiopian music CD/DVD (for 27 birr each-less than $2), a stop at the candy store and a hamburger joint, we went to the fruit stand for more avocados.   It was an exciting walk for all of us. Jo Jo isn't allowed out much because he recently started to have seizures, so Zemi has to be very watchful of him.  I feel comfortable with my first aide and life-guard training, that I could assist him if he has a seizure with me.

I have come to really love Jo Jo and have a great respect for Zemi and the work she is doing here and the sacrifices she is making in her own life to help the children of her own country. 

I know that the next two weeks will be different from these past two weeks.  We will see children with polio, and the horrible disfiguring disease NOMA, and we will see the Fistula hospital.  We will be exposed to so much more need and poverty as we Rotarians are taken around to places all over Ethiopia that need our help and we are given opportunities to render aid and get involved with projects to aid and support the places we are visiting.  We will see other Rotarian water projects, libraries, clinics, and orphanages.  I can't wait to show Kayla this side of humanity, and how service to others is the key to individual happpiness.  When she can learn to forget her own problems and quit needing to have more and better things, and stop focusing on herself, her looks, her clothes, then I have done my job as a mother.  When she opens her heart and her life, and I know she will, to the poor and the needy of this world, she will find a contentment with herself that nothing or nobody can ever take away.  She will find true happiness; that is what I am doing here this year.  I am teaching my daughter service above self.  I love her so much, and this is the gift I want to leave her with.

I also want to thank my husband Greg for giving us the opportunity to come here and experience this.  He lets me use the money from my business to do things like this rather than use it for bills or a better, richer life-style.  There are many other things that we need to be buying for the house or cars.  So in this way, I am blessed as well.  Thank you, Greg, for holding down the fort and taking care of our little dogs, the house, the cars, and the bills.  And thank you fellow Rotarians for all the service you do around the world.