Traveling with Rhona: Polio National Immunization Day

Kayla administering the polio vaccination

The trip to the Polio NID (National Immunization Day) was a long 13 hour bus ride to Harar and Dire Dawa on Thursday morning for two days of polio immunization. A total of 263,038 children were scheduled to be immunized. Rotarians are working with the World Health Organization and the Ministry of Health to eradicate polio from the face of the earth. Rotarians have donated lots of money toward the eradication effort as well as grant money from Bono, Bill Gates, and Paul Allen.

Sonya and I with some local Rotarians. This is about 10 minutes before I start to get very sick!

Our group was sent as close to the Somalia border as was safe being that Somalia is in turmoil right now. We are unable to immunize in Somalia, so several cases of polio have recently been carried over the border into Ethiopia. We were within 50 miles of the border. On Friday morning, from Harar, we drove another 3-4 hours to a very small town I think called Gurchee or Gunshee. I can’t quite remember as I became very sick that morning about 8:00. It must have been something I ate the night before at our late dinner at the hotel. Once I started throwing up, I couldn’t stop! This violent vomiting lasted for about 12 hours. I had to leave Kayla and our group to be taken to a health clinic where I could lay down between bouts of illness. They gave me Cipro and an anti-nauseous medicine, but I just threw them up over and over again. There is nothing like being sick at both ends in the middle of nowhere and using very smelly holes in the ground for bathroom facilities when so very sick! I eventually made it back to the hotel where I could sleep it off. Thank goodness our hotel was very nice with AC and hot water! The other half of our group that stayed in Harar was in a terrible facility that was a former psychiatric hospital and had no running water, A/C or flushing toilets! They had a real adventure!

A beautiful picture of some kids on the way to Dire Dawa

You can see by the pictures that Kayla had a wonderful experience immunizing the children. She was very good with the children and they followed her everywhere! She has a real gift with children. The group had a successful day, but it was another long drive in the vehicle back to our very nice hotel in Dire Dawa. I wasn’t feeling quite myself the next morning, and Kayla was tired of being in a vehicle for so many hours of driving, so we took the second polio day off and rested. We shopped in the local markets for scarves, African shirts, blankets, and souvenirs. Although not feeling great, I am never too sick for a bit of shopping in the local markets. They are exciting and an adventure to explore. We paid a local young college man to go with us and to do the talking for us and help us bring the price as low as possible. We got some really great deals!

Morning we left for Harar and Dire Dawa for polio

It only took about 10 hours drive to return to Addis Ababa on Sunday evening. When we got to the hotel, a group of us decided to walk over to the Hilton Hotel for the purchase of some Diet Coke- the only place I have discovered in Addis that sells diet coke! We had dinner at the Hilton and then walked back to the Ghion. Our days in Addis are almost over!