The Awakening

Out the gates of our property was life like I had never seen. We went to the right. Saw the "super market" the owners spoke of. I am now disgusted that I never took a picture of it. It smelled of dirt. Not clean dirt, either. There road was unpaved, uneven, and contained puddles here and there. It was lush. Like I had not imagined. Everything was green with grass and plants. People walked both directions on either side of the road and cast glances at us as if to ask "who ARE these people". We walked quietly at first, meeting peoples glances with a smile and a wish of "hello". Some would nod or smile back. We veared back the way we came on a lower street. Sheep crossed our path. Dogs layed matted and thin in front of what people would call their homes but what we would call less than a storage shed where we are from. The "homes" were built of tin, sticks, and mud. They varied in size from about 6x6 to two to three times that size. Some sold goods in a basket in front of their homes. We went past a place for children, not knowing fully what it was. We waved and the children were happy to see us. We approached them and placed stickers into their hands and onto their heads. They laughed, smiled, and spoke in their native Amharic language. We still don't know what that place was. We came to a paved road that curved. A bridge led this road over the water. And there, on the bridge, was the woman and her children that we will never forget. We do not know her name. She spoke no English and understood nothing of what we said. She was a mother of two. She had no home. Her youngest daughter's eyes were sealed shut with a yellow crust as she drank milk from her mother's breast. The older daughter walked about freely with her teddy bear hat and glowing smile. We stopped and presented them with PowerBars. We also removed bread from our bag. We silently said a prayer for this family and pulled ourselves to move on. We walked a bit further and decided we had better head back for home, breakfast, and a plan on getting Nettie from the orphanage later that day.

We passed back by the mother and children. They had been given a few coins of minor denominations. Kim reaches down to the mother's shoulders. We ask if we can take a picture. She agrees. The older daughter is seemingly playing a few feet away and I go ahead for a photo opportunity. Kim reaches out to the bigger of the kids- I stop her. The child has pulled down her pants right there on the bridge and has the worst bowel movement I have seen in ages. She was and is sick. Very sick. This child needs to be at a doctor or hospital... We nod goodbye in shock and complete disbelief. We turn the corner and begin to cry. We want to fight back the tears as everyone is already watching us. But how can we? For days we spoke of this family. We tried to find them again and offer to take the children to the medical clinic but they were no longer there when we returned. If they were, we just couldn't find them. It was there, and on this first outing, that we knew we were to forever be changed from this trip. I have seen children on the street in Mexico before. I had known that there was poverty in these places of the world. But dying children- right before your eyes? And not just one or two, but everywhere? With no one to really help? Parents relinquishing their children to orphanages because if they do not, they will dye? They can not care for them and can not care for themselves and it is not just a handful of families in the situation, it is hundreds of thousands of families as we came to learn later on. Numb and in shock, we return to our "plush" quarters so we can gather our thoughts and plans for the day.