March 23, 2009

I have so many stories I don’t know where to start. Last week a friend of Barbara Cooper came to help at the Trampled Rose. She also wanted to take a trip south to the Omo Valley. Kassa and I jumped in the car for a couple of reasons. The first I didn’t want Barbara to kill me if I let something happen to her friend and the second because Kassa had never been to the Omo Valley and we were thinking it would be a nice place to take any of you who would like to go in October as part of our volunteer trip (October 14 through 24, 2009).

The trip was dusty and hard. But I learned so many lessons. First, I learned that mercy has two faces. The first kind of mercy is the guilt most of us feel when we see people who are still dying of simple things caused mostly by the lack of clean water or any water at all for that matter. But the problem with this kind is that it causes us to throw money or things at a problem rather that to look for real ways to help.

I saw this when we arrived to visit the Merci people. They are the ones who use the lip plates and stretch their ears. When we arrived it was almost like a riot demanding water bottles and money. I escaped the crowd because I had “lost” my camera. But really this gave me the chance to focus on the children and the elders, to really see the suffering and connect on a human to human basis.

This caused me to start thinking about real mercy or compassion. What does it look like? I think it is when we really understand that we are all living on the same planet at the same time. It comes back to the golden rule. What would we want someone to do for us? We are working on developing some ideas on how to visit these people groups and honor them with true love. Who wants to come?

I felt like I had stepped into the pages of National Geographic. The women wear goat skin skirts and lots of necklaces. The men are dressed in native clothing and lots of jewelry of their own. Often they were painted with white and orange face colors. We had the joy of watching some of the traditional dancing but my favorite time was when I “accidentally” met a tribal chief and talked with him about the problem of Fistula in his village. I left my phone number and the promise to meet again.

Last week I spent working. I have an unofficial receipt for a service, so most of our time was spent trying to find a legal solution. Kassa really had the most of this burden. I never imagined that one receipt was legal and one was illegal. I do wish someone would write a manual.

I’ve been walking in the early morning most days. It still seems a lot ironical that I need to exercise to burn off my extra calories and I am on the street with people who are working for enough food to eat one more day. It was the worst when I walked by a man with a shovel cleaning out the waste from a ditch. I almost lost it.

I’m especially proud of our little dog Ishi. One of the guards broke into the compound of the Trampled Rose to steal the used clothes that you have sent. Ishi heard him and alerted our loss control officer, Ato Tesfay. She saved the day.

I am having my own issues with loss control. The lady who helped me clean my house decided she loved some of my things enough to help herself. After she took my wedding ring I decided it was enough. So I am back to washing my clothes in my little pink bucket. So just in case you are reading this on a down day, remember how lucky we are to have dishwashers.