June 20th

Yesterday was a work day. I met with government officials. One of the requirements here is that we submit an annual audited report. I think it’s a good idea anyway. So we hired a CPA from England, complied with everything and took our report in. Silly us….. we forgot to have a letter of permission to comply with the requirements. How could we not guess this? So I’ve had a bit more fun. I’m still arguing my case today.

After work, I got all dressed up to take my very good friend Patricia out for dinner at the fanciest restaurant in Addis. She is going back to Spain next week and we wanted some time to enjoy our friendship. So I wore a little black dress with my highest strappy sandals, a red purse and matching red lipstick. Even in my village I felt a little bit silly. Where I live I’m the only foreigner I’ve seen so I usually get stared at anyway, but last night again the strong injustice showed.

I was on my way in the taxi, a little late, how unlike me! You know the feeling you have when you see a stray dog in the street? Well multiply that by ten thousand million and you will know how I felt. I was in a very busy intersection in one of the most dangerous parts of town, Arat Kilo. It was during rush hour and there were people and cars everywhere. It was a five stop intersection and right in the middle of the street a very drunk man had fallen and couldn’t get himself back up.

I quickly looked to see who was helping. Not one person, so I knew it was up to me. For those of you who know me well you are well aware how much I hate crossing the street in traffic. My two older sisters were killed at the ages of three and five by a car. After that kind of tragedy you can imagine what a good job my mother did with me of teaching me to be careful with cars.

I got all the courage my little high heeled heart had and started out. I saw one well dressed man and asked him if he spoke English. I was more than a bit upset as I closed my eyes each time a car barely missed him. The man told me that he did indeed speak English. I begged him to help. He looked at me with such moral superiority and informed me that he would NEVER help a man who had been DRINKING.

So I headed out into the middle of traffic with my red purse on my shoulder and started directing the cars away from him. Then I tried to pick him up, but just like the law of gravity, a grown drunk man is very heavy especially when you are dressed for a dinner party. Finally some men across the street took mercy on me and came to carry him to safety. I made it back to my car dodging some military trucks and cried for how we all overlook the value of each human life.

On to a wonderful dinner at Castelli’s. It was my first time to enjoy pasta with Truffle sauce. Yum! we were the last to leave. My taxi driver friend, Terefa picked us up. As we were on the way back to my house a young boy, he looked about ten or eleven, threw himself in front of the car and begged us to kill him. We missed him by inches and he kept jumping in front of the car. Finally we had to leave him. How fair is it that a boy that age could be already hopeless?