I stood in line at the gate and waited while the attendant started talking to her supervisors, then on the phone in French. Then I watched the gates CLOSE!!!! It turns out I had no ticket but lucky for me there is a flight in the next two hours and I should be able to make my connecting flight home in time to say Happy Birthday to my mother, Sue Davis. (Happy Late birthday to Briana too.)

Spain was so exciting. I got a chance to speak with a group that not only made a significant donation to us but invited me back at the end of October for a week’s speaking engagement. But most wonderful were my new friends. I’m not sure I remember feeling so comfortable with people so fast. I LOVE Madrid! I also got to see Patricia who wrote about the Trampled Rose in her thesis on Gender issues. I studied the fashion on the streets so I can give you an update soon. For now the dresses are all short! They are wearing tights. I guess it’s back to Jazzercise for me.

I can’t wait to go back. I promise to practice my Spanish in the mean time. Vamos a hablar!

Next was Paris. Christiana invited me to spend the night at her home. We had a delicious dinner of rabbit cooked in mustard sauce. She said it is very typical. Then cheese for dessert. I think we should take up the custom! Her home was more than cool in downtown Paris complete with a courtyard. Just like the movies. I got to meet with some other members of Gwadenia and show them our new DVD. You get to see it too at the coffee on April 24 at the Colorado Springs Country Club.

Thank you to all of you who believe in our dream! Let’s keep up the good work. This trip was truly Magic. I’m coming home with enough good energy to actually win the energizer Bunny contest this time.

It looks like we already have a group trip planned in October. Let me know if you’d like to come play with us.

I’ll be back in my office April 20th. I’d LOVE to hear from you!!!!

I’m in Madrid, Spain, and it is beautiful. The food is amazing! I can’t decide if the favorite thing I’ve eaten is sardines over home made potato chips or grilled prawns served over rock salt. I’m staying with my friend Elena. She read about our work at the Trampled Rose in a newspaper here and has been helping us every since. Another very sweet friend, Patricia also read about us and organized a speaking time for me at the University of Madrid Medical School. I also got to see Patricia who wrote her thesis in Ethiopia about Fistula. We are having lunch today.

Elena took me to the supermarket and you have to wear plastic gloves to touch the produce. Isn’t that cool? I think I’ll start a movement in the USA.

I’m drinking lots of coffee this morning and trying to answer all the emails I could not get to in Ethiopia. The small rainy season should have started by now so there is an extreme shortage of water causing a lack of electricity. I was at the Sheraton Hotel last night hoping to finish some work at the Internet office and they even lost electricity.

Tomorrow I’m going to Paris to meet with Gwadenia, the group Cristina Gompertz started. They have been so helpful with so many things. I can’t wait to show them the pictures of our chicken farm. It’s so CLEAN because we haven’t been able to keep our sweet little chicks alive. I think we got to the root of the problem (we were cooking them in the chicken house). So….. we still have a little time before Easter to make a profit. I always thought that chickens just raised themselves and the humans threw a little food at them occasionally. Now I know. I will have more respect the next time I eat chickens. But now after kissing their little faces and giving them names, I’m not sure I can eat chickens again.

I have to say this has been — if not the best trip ever — one of the very best! It felt so wonderful as each way I turned great things happened. But the very most fun story!!!!!!

Our staff in Ethiopia is all very committed and hard working. There is a great shared feeling of hope and vision. But Kassa and I were the ones to work together the most. We would do twelve hour days and he would still push me for more work. I did make it to the spa and out to dinner a few times with friends but most was work. But it was the fun kind of work that quickly showed results.

On Friday I was feeling disappointed that most of my time had been spent with paperwork and not as much time as I love with the women of the Trampled Rose. So I headed myself on over to their school and sat down to work on my own skills on the Fidel, the Ethiopian Alphabet. We worked for about an hour and I decided that the teacher could not be too angry if I was bored and disrupted the class. So I started singing children’s songs with actions. The ladies loved it and it turned into dancing and singing from all the areas. I felt so lucky to have such friends.

We will have finished our third year of being a licensed NGO at the end of June. I won’t be back to Ethiopia until the last week of July or the first week of August. So we’ve been quite worried about getting the proper paper work done so that we have no interruption of services for the women who live at Women for Women. Also, I really don’t want to do anything illegal. The fear of prison in a developing country is even bigger than my fear of being stung by a bee swarm or loosing my mascara in the jungle.

So we worked. One day we needed seven signatures including one from the US Embassy to verify my signature. We kept at it and got pretty good results. Finally, we were down to my last day. I did have some dreams about saying goodbye to friends and having a relaxing dip from my little pink bucket (I didn’t have running water one day in three months in my house). But we didn’t give up our hope of the last day. After Kassa picked me up in the early morning we headed straight to the office to print off the final fixed asset report only to find that there was no electricity. So Netsenet took the computer in the car and went searching the city to find electricity to print the report. It was done! We ran it to the DPPA office only to discover that on the employee report about educational levels we could not leave the space blank — it had to say, “none”. So back to the computer. We fixed this detail. It was now about 4:00 in the afternoon but the office doesn’t usually close until 5:15. We took our paperwork back to the DPPA only to discover they needed one more paper from the Ministry of Justice. We knew it just wouldn’t happen.

The last time we got our agreement it took me over a year so I was disappointed but knew that step by step we would keep trying. As we walked past the secretary’s office, I stuck my head in her office to say “Goodbye.” We’ve become friends over the years and I did want to have one last chance to see her but her office was packed with people. She called me in and told me to wait. We waited….. finally after everyone was gone she checked to make sure everything was finished. When we told her what happened she called her boss and sent us into his office. He has also been a great supporter of ours and VERY helpful in every way. When I told him what happened he threw his hands up, asked me for the agreement, and signed it right then and there. So…WE ARE OPEN LEGALLY FOR AN ADDITIONAL THREE YEARS. I CAN GO BACK HOME WITHOUT WORRY!!!!!

I know it’s been tougher to communicate with you all this time, but I sure miss you! I’ll be back in my office by April 20th. I’m sure I’ll be able to get at least some more connection time before then. See you soon!

We have been in the process of getting ready to renew our NGO and finalizing our reports for this last year and quarter. It sounds simple but little things like “the format is not the one we want,” “you didn’t put a place for our signature,” etc.  This makes me long to come back to the time of emails or even faxes!  No matter, I really am more adjusted and understand some of the reasons for the problems. I’ve just learned to expect that something that may take me an hour at home will take at least five days here.

I have had some fun time watching our ladies bloom and realizing that lives really can be changed. I even took the whole night off on Tuesday and turned off my phone and read a book. Just what I needed. I’m down to my last week here and there is always more in life I want to do. 

Today has been movie star time. I met Cristina and another friend for coffee in Isabelle’s home. It’s beautiful. I can’t imagine how she was able to make such an oasis here. Then Cristina and I had some time for lunch while we were waiting for one of her friends to meet us. Her name is Marie and Cristina told me that she is a very famous author in France. She interviewed me for a story in Elle, France. Of course that is no guarantees or anything, but…… it sure could help the women for us to be in such a well-read magazine.

I remember in college when I finished my one semester of French and thought that there was no need to ever take any more. Why would I ever need it? Lesson to anyone thinking of dropping out of French.

Speaking of students, I remember when my daughter Melanie wanted Hamsters or Gerbils or some kind of rodents for her science experiment. I promptly told her no but her dad, being a scientist, thought she should be encouraged to explore anything she wanted so they went out to buy the rats and put them in her bedroom. I remember the report went something like this “due to the fact that 3/4 of my experiment died…” I’m remembering this story as our little chickens are fading on us. They are still alive but we decided that our chicken house may be too hot. Help if you know anything about chickens!!!

I’m in the process of renewing our NGO license. It’s due at the end of July. So far I’ve spent one week in offices with responses that make no sense to my American mind. The struggle continues…..

But, our ladies are doing great, we had our first award ceremony and I looked around at the 82 women who are currently with us. I’m amazed that we are even able to get three meals served to all of them let alone change their lives. One thing I loved the most: At the end of the ceremony our Phase II director had them all write love notes to each other about what they appreciate in each other. I started to cry as I realized what a short time ago they could not write one letter; what a short time ago they had no one to love or be loved by. It’s worth it all!

So… Monday night was one of the first nights I haven’t had visitors from home. It has been so nice. One of the hardest things here is the loneliness. I’m so used to having all of you to go out for lunch or Monday Martinis. I just miss you!

We’ve been busy here working on project proposals, setting up the schoolroom, buying things for the sewing training, beauty shop, and small market; thanks to the generous donations of you all. And thanks to Chandra for working on the market, selling our Trampled Rose baked chocolate chip cookies. Our NGO license renewal is up either in July or October (we’ve been told both), so I’ll aim for July and we might have it through by October.

Really, things have been so easy here compared with other trips. I just had lunch with someone from UNFPA in Africa and they told me that they would like to work as partners with us going to the places where we have educated about the causes and cures for Fistula (phase III) in the countryside and follow up with funding for medical facilities. I also ran into our American Ambassador and he asked for a meeting to discuss our work. Thank you to all of you who have made this happen.

Can you believe that I’ve even heard rumors that I speak Amharic well enough that some people really think I can?

Most of all, I wish you could hear the laughter, see the faces, and feel the hope of the women here that had none. One told me of the last place she stayed before she found the Trampled Rose. She shared a small room with other Fistula victims. They only had enough room to sit and sleep, they all leaked and the floor was mud. Aren’t you glad we had the courage and the stubbornness to keep on going until she could come to us?

THE MOST EXCITING NEWS!!!!

Kassa and his wife are having their first baby and they have asked me to be the God Mother. I’m hoping for a girl but they both are pulling for a boy. She (yes I did say she) is due in June.

The volunteers also got all the storage areas cleaned and organized and Suzie had lots of opportunity to train about what actually causes Fistula. The women were so relieved to realize that it is only a physical problem and really not a curse from God.

The funniest story of the trip: We were on our way to Bonga in a small mini van. It’s a five hour trip into the southern jungle from the nearest airport. Really, we had to go. We’re from Colorado — we can do it outside. So we stopped and we were almost in ready position. Suddenly we heard a rustle, then another, then another. In seconds we had a man WITH A SPEAR and another with a MACHETE(!!!!) watching us. Needless to say we hopped back in and waited for our driver to find us a better stop. I still can’t stop laughing.

The trip to educate the people in the countryside was wonderful! We figured that we got a chance to speak to at least 50,000!!!!! They really got it and their response was so encouraging. I’ve been working all day on a proposal for more funding.

But, this is the best news of all….. After nine months of fighting for a Chicken farm we are open!!!!!!

This is the only problem: I’m not sure we can really slaughter any of them. They all have names already and our rooster I named after my husband, Kevin. How about if we reexamine the business plan and just sell eggs?

Tonight we have several more American volunteers coming from Kenya and then tomorrow I am working with someone from IFISH to start an HIV testing project. Wouldn’t it be awful if we teach the women how to live financially and they are actually sick?

Yesterday I had lunch with Cristina and someone from UNFPA. All kinds of good ideas are brewing. But until then, I miss you, margaritas, and Starbucks!

On Saturday I went to see the preview about what we will be doing in the countryside. It was in the RUSSIAN CULTURAL CENTER!!!!! I was surrounded with photos of Russian war heroes including STALIN!!!!!

It was so strange! Don’t forget my husband is a reserve Colonel in Space Command. I graduated from Air Academy High School. I almost didn’t make it.

But then the show started. First, we have a HUGE banner with our name and the Vision statement: “Doing our Part to Help Eradicate Fistula in our Lifetime in Ethiopia.” This will go on the truck that heads out tomorrow to the most fistula-saturated areas. Then we will be introduced by the respected members of the community. We have a letter from the Ministry of Health telling all the areas to welcome us. Next we will have traditional music to attract the people. Then the play begins. It is a story about one family. The play starts with the father screaming at the mother to prepare the best food because their son is coming home. The son arrives and is treated with high respect. He went to school and became an engineer in Addis. But eventually he asks the question, “Where is my sister?” The father replies that the sister has been cursed by God and put in a hut. The story goes on and the son holds the father responsible because the sister never got an education; she was forced into early marriage, and she had no medical attention in her early child labor. Finally the story ends when the girl returns to her village after staying in the Trampled Rose and being cured at the Fistula Hospital.

This is even more heart-breaking. At the end of the performance the people are given ten questions. Some are this:

• Should a girl have the right to an education? - Yes / No
• Is fistula a curse from God? - Yes / No
• Should a girl go to the hospital when she is having a hard time delivering her baby? - Yes / No

It continues on like this. The ones who have 100% correct go into a drawing for a water can so they can transport water from the source to their homes. How tragic!

But don’t you think that we really can change this? Can you imagine how we will feel later in our life when Fistula is unheard of all around the world? I think we can!

Now back to me. In my spare time I have been cooking for the homeless and feeding them at night. Plus going out dancing later just in case this sounds too pure.

I’ve been following the days of the saints and going to the churches to feed the most desperate in the middle of the night. How fair is it that most of us are on a diet while others have no food? My new idea is to have one day declared “Feed the Homeless” day. Every family will commit to making food for three homeless people and for one day no one will go hungry. What do you think?