On my fifth day in Ethiopia, as we descended into the Rift Valley, I was (at last) content to be here. The lush green valley, speckled with banana, mango and papaya trees as well as maize and sorghum plants, gave me the impression of life well-lived. Indeed, this was a prosperous part of eastern Ethiopia--hosting the largest market in East Africa.
The single lane highway was paved and precisely marked. The houses, set in small groups, were made of brightly painted concrete, red brick, mortar and stone, or eucalyptus framing with animal-dung "stucco". The laundry hung in ordinary lines, to dry. The roadside, and at times the road, was occupied by donkeys, goats, camels and cows, as well as the child-sized herdsmen that followed them with a stick. The brightly-clad women brought joy to the eye and the heart, even as they balanced impossibly large loads on their heads.
We have spent four days in Dire Dawa and Harar visiting the family of Faven and Yohannes. Our time with them has been a blessed gift - and a crucial time of healing (most apparently for the family here, who had to make the painful decision to place their beloved "children" in an orphanage--unsure if they would ever see them again). It has been an emotional journey. We have encountered the unexpected: one brother is currently in jail, and the other two siblings cannot find work and have sold everything in order to survive. Their life is very hard, and they live away from their extended family. It is a heartbreaking truth that so many people face here, and it is hard for our kids to understand the layers of complexity in their circumstances. For instance, Faven would like us to simply give them money. It is not so simple. With limited time here, we feel a certain helplessness to create a positive influence on their lives. Nonetheless, we will search for some way of helping. We have encountered joy, as our children have been reunited with their siblings, grandmother, aunts, uncles and cousins- as well as a whole community of neighbors who knew them as babies. We have encountered truth, in the telling of the love story that was the beginnings of Faven and Yohannes' life here. We have encountered sadness at the recounting of the many losses.
Their family is large, and each day we are meeting more relatives--and the joy that they are experiencing in the presence of our family is both humbling and consuming. Aunt Mali places both of her hands on our cheeks repeatedly and says, "I like you. I love you". Her smile and her tears - both infectious. (She is in the background of the picture above of Yohannes and his grama.)
Our trip culminated in a family feast at the home of Bekela Aliyu - maternal grandmother. We gathered on the floor of her two-room mud hut, on thickly decorative carpets. Already set on the floor was injera, rice, salad, spicy meat, spicy lentils and potato chips! They served us tall bottles of cold pop. Women kept entering with more and more dishes of food, and placing them on the floor in front of us. The men and children were served first (with the exception of me); the women ate later. Once the children had finished eating, they went out into the courtyard and played with a ball that we had brought with us. In the courtyard with the kids were two goats, a chicken, a dog and a cat.
We enjoyed a lazy afternoon visiting, drinking freshly roasted and hand-ground coffee, while many of our hosts chewed chat (an addictive, mind-numbing leaf that is prolific in this area).
It was truly amazing!
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| Yohannes with his cousin Abee |
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| Aunt Mali |
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| Buziyay, Yohannes, Lauren, Faven, Dagim |
Saying goodbye was hard. Watching the family members hug and kiss and squeeze all of our kids was tearful...and warmly satisfying. Our kids have roots here in Ethiopia; this is their beginning. When we came here in 2009, we closed a circle by letting the family know what had happened to their much-loved children; but this time, in the words of Aunt Mali, "Seeing you here is a new beginning".
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