Reflection

After more than 24 hours in transit for our journey home and with a handful of days back in the states behind us, everyone took a few moments to reflect on our time in Ethiopia.

I knew traveling to Ethiopia was going to be an eye opening experience. When I arrived, I was surprised to see how many people were on the streets roaming and I did not expect the driving to be as crazy as it was. Everyone knew to expect poverty, but it seemed more realistic when beggars and people would come up to you asking for money and food. It was especially sad when you could tell that some children were trained to beg to receive money. I definitely gained a love for the people and children we met. All of the children were very sweet and friendly, and I was really impressed by the women and men that we met at the fuel wood organization. I was particularly intrigued by the story of the woman we met at the fuel wood organization. She was 65 years old with six children and carried more than 20 pounds of fuel wood up and down the mountain daily for 20 plus years. I would recommend this trip to anyone else interested in going because you learn so much and it is fun, too!

-        Aubrey Finley, ‘13

I wanted to go Ethiopia because I just wanted to visit Africa. That was it.  I didn't know much about Ethiopia, and I only could relate Ethiopia with coffee. Therefore, it was unexpected that this trip would have a significant impact on my life. The people we met in Ethiopia were some of the nicest people I have met, and the students in Ethiopia were eager to learn and make a difference. We went to several places where we faced the reality of Ethiopia. While looking at the reality there, I saw that the life there can be bettered, because the people are so willing to change. It reminded me of my country, South Korea. South Korea used to be one of the poorest countries; however, the aid from other countries and the struggle of the South Koreans changed South Korea to be one of the most developed countries. Believing Ethiopia can flourish in a near future, I wanted to be part of this development and help them. I don't know what I exactly want to do in future, but the one thing I am sure is that this trip significantly changed my future path. It was ‘literally’ life-changing.

-        Yeon Mi Hwang, ‘14

What I loved most about Ethiopia was the authenticity of every person we encountered. There is no denying the fact that poverty exists and is a part of daily life in the country, but that isn’t how the people of Ethiopia define themselves. Everyone we spoke to was eager to know how we had enjoyed our time in Addis, and what we liked the most about Ethiopia. They are proud of their country, its history and contributions to the world. The people of Ethiopia care for one another in a way that is different from our culture in the US. We grow up with our parents’ close eyes on our every move, but many children in Ethiopia safely walk across the downtown to school every day. It is rare to speak with a stranger in the US, but in Ethiopia I saw strangers greeted as if they were old friends. It was a gift to be able to spend my time there with such a lively group from Saint Mary’s. I learned something new from each person in our group, and appreciated their support throughout our journey. I knew I always had someone to talk to, and wasn’t facing this new country alone.  Ethiopia left a lasting impression on my heart, and it is a place that I will always remember.

-        Florrie McCard, ‘14

I think, first off, I need to say what a fantastic experience I had in Ethiopia. Before we left, I was so nervous and had absolutely no idea what to expect. I’m glad I had no expectations though because I wanted to jump in with an open mind, and once we got there, I realized any expectations I had would never have matched the reality of Addis Ababa. I think one of the main things I gained from this experience was just an understanding of how different other parts of the world are. At first it was hard for me to wrap my head around just how impoverished the area was, especially when comparing it to what I was used to back home. It was almost like something you had to see to believe, or you knew it was out there but it didn’t sink in until you actually saw it for yourself. The parts of the trip that impacted me the most were our trips to schools and orphanages, as well as just our drives through the city. It was stunning to see how excited the kids were just to have people come to play with them, and the look on their faces when they received nothing more than a t-shirt was crazy. Even at Destiny Academy, one of the nicer schools there, the students’ uniforms were ripped and tattered. It was such a different standard of living than I’m used to or have ever been exposed to. It made me realize how lucky I am and how thankful I should be for all the opportunities and advantages I’ve been blessed with. Recently I’ve been thinking I might pursue International Affairs as a major in college, and this trip definitely confirmed it for me. While in Ethiopia, I learned that I have a strong interest in learning as much as possible about other countries, other cultures, and the world around me. I loved our trip to Ethiopia and I’m hoping I can go back in the near future.

-        Julia Weaver, ‘13

I had a wonderful time in Ethiopia and I cannot wait to go back again. The highlight of my experience was sitting in classes with kids at Destiny Academy and serving at the soup kitchen. At Destiny Academy, I was impressed my how smart and hardworking the kids are. I visited a third-grade class and they were learning about the solar system in English (their second language)! They even taught me something that I had no idea about. Those kids were so dedicated and enthusiastic. I learned a lot from them. Not only about solar systems, but also about the positive attitude they have about life. I sincerely wish one day they can have what they truly deserved. I also had an interesting experience when serving at the local soup kitchen. Yeon Mi and I got to interact personally with people who came for free soup and injera (a local food). To my surprise, although suffering from hunger, they showed manners and respect for us and for each other. Each person was supposed to get two scoop of soup, but some of them would politely decline the second scoop and asked me to give it to another kid or woman. There was no chaos; no fighting for food; no disrespect. Instead, I was moved by their caring actions for one another. Things like this happened every day during my Ethiopia journey and almost everything added to an unforgettable memory. I could not be more pleased with my experience there.

-        Erin Xu, ‘13

Friday, April 05, 2013

This morning I woke up a full hour and a half before our scheduled departure for the day, which is the earliest I have gotten up all week. It was nice to relax and take in our last morning in Addis. I also took pictures of the house, because Mr. Turlington didn’t understand the necessity of said endeavor. After we were all assembled, we headed to Salem’s Designs.

An oasis with beautiful gardens within the crowded city, Salem’s was originally established to help mothers of twins earn a living through basket weaving. Today, it has expanded into a full compound and shop with the artists on site. In addition to basket weaving, Salem’s also has weaving, jewelry making, and other products through a co-op system. The founder, Salem, met us to give us a tour and more information about the establishment. We were able to meet some of the original women, (mothers of twins) as well as meet other men and women who have joined Salem’s. Actually-fun fact-an interesting tidbit we have learned during our time here is that men are traditionally the weavers in Ethiopian culture. The women would do the spinning and prepare the materials for the men to use. Salem’s is now experiencing great success. Through an organization based in Idaho that helps artisans in countries like Ethiopia to sell their products in the American market, Salem’s goods are available on Walmart.com and she hopes to be on Macys.com and in Anthropologie soon! They have also purchased the compound across the street and are poised for expansion. After we had learned about Salem’s, we all headed to the shop and were excited to buy the products we had seen being made. Everyone was very friendly, and it was great to be able to support their business.

 Following Salem’s, we went to lunch and met up with Biniam. We all enjoyed lunch, and ran into the director of Cherokee Gives Back here in Addis. The only confusion arose when Julia had ordered fried chicken, but was served stir fried chicken. The power was out when we first got to the restaurant, not an uncommon problem here, but came back on while we were eating and we found that this is the first restaurant we have gone too that has televisions, which is common place back home.

After lunch we went to Destiny Academy, a Kindergarten through eighth grade private school. The campus is divided into two campuses, one for the younger children and another across the street for fifth grade and up.  Hareg, the founder of Destiny, met us at the campus for younger children first. She remembered the group from two years ago very fondly and was really excited to see us! Our group split into two groups, and one group went to first grade, and my group went to third. The classes are taught in English and Amharic from a small age,(in government schools English doesn’t start until the students are older) so when we walked into the classrooms the students stood and greeted us in English. In the third grade, we sat in on a review lesson about “The Universe.” The students were extremely bright, and had taught me a few new things about the solar system, all in their second language. After some serious learning, we played with some balloons we had brought and fun was had by all.

Across the street at the second campus, we visited the classrooms of the oldest students before settling down to take part in a worksheet about life science with a fifth grade class. We all crowded into the classroom and learned about amphibians, locusts, and kidneys...to name a few of the topics. For the last question, the teacher asked the guests to answer… meaning us. So when he asked for a definition of contamination (talking about food) I raised my hand and answered that it was when “bad things get in the food and make it unsafe to eat.” Next, to my surprise, he asked me to come write it on the board! As I wrote the wordy definition on the board, there were giggles from the classroom, most likely due to my less than average handwriting. It was fun nonetheless and great to share this time with such gracious teachers and students.

After stopping by the grocery store to spend the last of our Birr, we returned to the house to shower, pack, and eat dinner. Now we are getting ready to leave for the airport (we go in five minutes) and it is definitely not an easy goodbye. Wish us luck on our flight, and we can’t wait to see you all back home!

-        Florrie McCard, ‘14

Thursday, April 04, 2013

Dear Mom, I actually did not jump the fence to touch a lion that was an April Fool’s day joke. Love, Julia.

Julia and I woke up this morning on time!!! We set out with our lady friends plus Matt to go shopping… we were all sooo stoked. It was a little bit of a bumpy ride and Florrie especially loved it. Matt helped us with the haggling of the store venders while we bought some great authentic items at Posta Bete. Florrie got a lovely traditional gown while the rest of us bought Ethiopian t-shirts and bracelets. Needless to say, we were tossing Birr out left and right.

After our early morning of shopping, we headed to serve lunch at the soup kitchen known as Hope Enterprises. There we met Pastor Matthews who assigned us our jobs for the afternoon. Julia and I got the job of folding injera which is our favorite thing to eat in Ethiopia (not) while Erin and Yeon Mi got to go personally serve soup and they made many new friends. Florrie and Mr. and Mrs. Turlington took tickets and passed out the injera. We served 1000 people and it was super rewarding.

Afterwards, we made our way to the Lime Tree where all we wanted was dessert, but it was unfortunately not offered. Julia and I both ordered burgers, but when we received them they were covered in mayonnaise which just doesn’t seem right. The Lime Tree was filled with firengees (foreigners) which was an unusual sight to see them all in one area. Also Florrie walked in on a man in the bathroom and said, “Oh hi….sorry”.

After lunch, we went to Berhan Yehun meaning Let There Be Light and it was an after school program for kids in a dump area. We watched a really sad, short film that Julia managed to sleep through. She is actually horrible. (Julia says: In my defense, we were sitting in a dark room. It was raining and we were watching a movie… and Yeon Mi fell asleep, too.) We later got to meet the kids in the program and had a great awkward time passing out t-shirts and pencils. The rain eventually stopped and we got to go outside and play with some bubbles. We immediately made friends and were swarmed by a bunch of kids that wanted to play with us. Other than our great personalities they especially loved our blonde hair and light skin. We got our hair braided and we both got boyfriends! Mine was 10 years old and his name was Bimero. He even took me aside to tell me that he loves me. Wow, first date and he already used the L word, big step. One day, he wants to be a doctor or a pilot and he will fly to America to be with me. Julia’s boyfriend gave her a lovely blue ring out of nowhere and would hold her hand while taking her places. The kids loved to take pictures with our cameras so we just let them go wild. Eventually it was time to go and we were sad to leave our new friends at Berhan Yehun.

We arrived to the house and had Lebanese food with french fries for dinner. After dinner, we got a special treat of finally being able to dance! Our neighbor, Ashenafi, came over with one of his friends to teach us and they showed us traditional Ethiopian dances like Amhara and Garuge. A lot of awk twitching was involved and kinda made us look like chickens, but I liked it. Since they showed us some traditional dances, we all thought it would be a great idea to show them some American classics like the “Wobble” and the “John Wall”. After a lot of crazy dancing, the goobers went to bed, but the coolest of cool stayed up to dance more, even with our guard Telahoun outside. Things got a little crazy and photos are to be expected later on facebook so keep an eye out!

Sad it’s our last day tomorrow, but can’t wait to each chickfila. Peace, luv, Africa. Deuces. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox                                     -        Aubrey and Julia, ‘13

Wednesday, April 03, 2013

It was another early morning. We left at 8am and started our busy day. It took us about two hours to get to Debre Zeit , a town 45 kilometers outside Addis Ababa. It was not a pleasant drive. Traffic was bad, the weather was hot, and air pollution was severe. It was almost impossible to open the window to get fresh air. When we finally arrived, everyone felt relieved and was pumped by the fresh air in the country side.

Our first visit was a chicken farm run by the Dutch. The owner introduced the farm to us. About 25 years ago, lots of businessmen from Holland decided to come to Ethiopia and start farming businesses. The owner of this farm told us that the object of the chicken farm is to create jobs and alleviate poverty as an alternative to hand-outs. The chicken farm was a combination of missionary and farm. The owner said that there is a bible study class for the people there, and the farm is in progress to start a school for three hundred children. Instead of sending their profit back to Holland, the Dutch spend the money here in Ethiopia to build schools for children and create jobs for locals. (They are noble people). We also visited their compound for baby chickens. They flew 6000 baby chickens from Holland two weeks ago and they are hoping that one day they can reproduce chickens here in Ethiopia. All of us paid close attention, especially Aubrey.

One of our Dutch friends also showed us around Genesis farm, a farm focused more on plants. Their motto is “food for the body and food for the soul”, which means they not only provide food for locals, but also provide them with spiritual guidance.  

After looking around the farm, we went to a resort which is located on the town close to the farm. The resort was right next to a large lake, so we could enjoy the view and the food. We all ate Western food there. While we were eating lunch, three cats approached to us and walked around us. Ms. Turlington, who is a cat-lover, took many pictures of those cats. After lunch, we went to another café to view the better scene of a different lake. Some of us drank macchiato in the café and enjoyed the view there.

It was a long way back to the house. The traffic was not any better than this morning and the afternoon sun gave some of us sunburns. Luckily we stopped by a nice ice cream store. All of us truly enjoyed it, especially Julia. She said ice cream was the highlight of the day. The drive from the ice cream shop to the house did not seem that long because of Will’s (our friend from the house) “sweet and sour game”. He waved to and greeted every local Ethiopian we encountered on the road. Those who greeted back were “sweet” and those who ignored him were “sour”. It was entertaining.

We had an Ethiopian guest, Nahu, a friend of Biniam’s, join us for dinner tonight. He is very knowledgeable and everyone learned a lot from him. He talked about Ethiopian history, education, economy, medical care, traditions, and religion. For example, we learned that Ethiopians are extremely proud of their identities because Ethiopia is the only country in Africa that has never been colonized by western culture. Ethiopia is also the safest country in Africa for white people because of the lack of animosity. We indeed gained deeper understandings of Ethiopian culture tonight.

Right now everyone is gathering around in the living room staring at a special, hand-labeled American map provided by our friend, Matt. After being immersed in African culture for several days, I guess all of us are missing America a little bit.  It’s been a fantastic day and we are all looking forward to tomorrow!             -  Erin Xu, ‘13 and Yeon Mi Hwang, ‘14