A Redraft (21/8)

Sundays, like back at home, are often a day of doing as little as possible and last Sunday here was very similar. We had all gone to mass at the Don Bosco school on the Saturday night so I knew that I could have a lie in – Orthodox chanting (wailing) and drumming dependant – and then get away with doing relatively little all day. This is obviously great, but does give you too much time to think – and if you’ve never been warned before – thinking is a very dangerous pastime.

Actually, Sunday morning meant a trip up to the football stadium. I was up at 8am and found a note under my door from Tommy (as per usual, he was up first!). There are regional football finals taking place in the Mekele Stadium over the next week or so and two of the beneficiaries are playing in the Under 17 team. One is a boy called Haftom who was a brilliant student in my class for the one English lesson he turned up for (and we laugh about this together now), the other was Tesful who had lost his mother on Friday.

A group of the boys who attend the project had been selected to set off the fireworks for the opening ceremony and then act as ball-boys. At first I found this a little odd, that when the city was making a big fuss of this tournament – stadium repainted, lots of VIPS etc- that they would ask ‘the streetboys’ to take charge of these prominent and important jobs. However, they completed their jobs with commitment and diligence. I guess it’s not just me and Tommy and the sisters who realise just what potential these children have, regardless of the label they have. I certainly felt a little guilty for my initial thoughts and took great pride watching them carry out their jobs.

By this point, Tommy and I had been moved into the grandstand with all the aforementioned VIPS. We were told by some of the Tigray football officials that we were very honoured guests – we were the only two white people in a crowd of over a thousand – and even ended up getting seats with the sports ministers and other important Ethiopian FA officials. Maybe, like the boys, they thought we were Rooney and Ferguson on their summer holidays! We didn’t really want to, and naturally made sure that the boys could still come and find us (dodging the federal police with their rifles), but felt it would cause more offence if we didn’t sit there!

Tigray won 3-1. Afar walked off the pitch after the third goal, but later returned after officials and the previously mentioned federal police intervened. Haftom was on the bench, got warmed up, but never came on. Tesful was in the stand and we both went and gave him a big hug. The whole Tigray squad were all wearing black armbands as an act of solidarity and Tesful also told me that a group of the boys had been coming over to his house to help him and his sister who is just 11. When Daniel was falling asleep in my lesson on Monday I knew exactly where he had been all night.

The first of the Sisters guests had arrived by lunchtime. They are holding a four-day planning workshop with CARITAS Germany who are the biggest donor to the street children project. Since the last budget was worked out, the project have begun providing food for all beneficiaries and there are still some things CARITAS don’t fund such as social work for the families as well as the students and the loaning of capital to older beneficiaries to help them get on their feet. Sr Medhin, Sr Fisseha and Sr Abeba (who worked with the project before moving to Alitena) have a long week of target setting, evaluations and forward planning – we’re all hoping and praying that everything goes to plan so the good work can continue.

For me the afternoon was spent largely on the settee talking to Sr Fisseha and Sr Abeba. Tommy also joined us and we discussed whether or not on the following Saturday we would be going on from Alitena to Axum for some sightseeing or not. It was decided that we would not.

We have done a minimum of visits outside of the project, but we are both happy with that. Our visits have largely involved the children, and I certainly wouldn’t have had it any other way- next time, I want them to come to Marian Korkor too! I came here to work with the children of Abba Gebremichael; I can come back some day to be a tourist. Going to Axum would have also meant not watching football with the boys on Sunday, and possibly losing half, if not all of Monday – our last full day with these very special children in Mekele.

I guess the fact that we were only here for a short time longer was beginning to dawn on us.

We both agreed that actually we hadn’t dealt with, nor properly processed, much of what we have seen, heard and experienced. Its not like we haven’t had the chance, there has been time, and Tommy and I (and John when he was here) talked about the children for hours on end. I guess I feel like while I am here I can look after them, and teach them, and take them to dinner, and keep them out of trouble. In a weeks time I’ll be on a plane home, to a place many thousands of miles away.

I do feel ready for home though; there are a lot of mixed emotions going on. I am missing a lot of things and a few people very very dearly. Africa is a long way from Essex, and for a first time doing work like this, 6 weeks is a long enough time. It was frustrating and upsetting that the two calls I got on Sunday evening from Naomi and my mother were on such bad lines that I couldn’t hear a word they said. I really needed to chat, but it wasn’t to be. I then returned to my room and wrote what was my most depressing, pessimistic and negative blog entry yet. It focused on all the very sad things I had seen and heard and I forgot about the love and joy and happiness and hope that I have experienced here alongside all the difficulties.

Luckily, by Tuesday I still had not posted it because I knew where it needed to go – into the ‘recycle bin’. That explains the back log of entries, for which I apologise.

It is very easy to have days when you feel what you are doing here is just a drop in the ocean. You feel that whatever you are doing it is just a very brief moment in the lives of these children. I’ve taught them English for an hour today, but where are they going to sleep? I’ve taken them for a mango juice, but where will they eat on Sunday? I’ve taken them to the museum for the afternoon, but how are they ever going to get a job? I was also think a great deal about Tesful and his sister, I was thinking of Marc, another beneficiary aged 10, whose roof has fallen in on his house (his father is disabled and does not leave his bed), I was thinking of the homes I had been to visit, I was thinking about going home to my life and all my comforts.

I have been warned that the transition back home is harder than the one out here. Actually it is quite easy to get used to the children and their lives. As soon as you know a poor person and they becomes a human being, it is easy to love and to care for them. During the last 5 weeks we have got to know some of the poorest children living in one of the world’s poorest countries; yet I have also been taught so much. About love; about hope; about dreams; about service; and about truly caring for others.

Monday evening saw the arrival of John Bradley, another Irishman. He has taken a leave of absence from his job as an accountant with PriceWaterhouseCoopers to spend 3 months with the Sisters. He is another Vincentian Lay person, like John O’Callaghan. I was lead to believe he was just 20 years and about to take the ‘Ma Mouche’ title from me, but after a lot of ‘pulling my foot’ (!?) by the sisters, they revealed that he was actually 27.

I found it a really positive experience to feel that someone would directly be following on from us. I didn’t want to ruin his experience by giving him too much information but after the project we took him to Milkano with a large group of the boys. There were many of the usual suspects who join us each day who I know will look after John, as they have done us.

These are the group that have the strongest English, and enjoy helping us out with shopping and other errands around town. They have made a big effort from the start and seem to be the group that always ends up spending most time with all the volunteers. They are also the group that includes those who are more ‘street’ that others in the project as many have nowhere to actually call home. I guess it also about survival and they know that they will be looked after in return for their friendship and ‘guard skills’. – They are very concerned about me and Tommy staying in Addis as the ‘tiefs’ (theifs) even steal cars there!

One such of these is Mogus, one of Tommy’s students and aged just 12. Me and him have gone past the handshake-shoulder stage to developing our own handshakes which he loves. I’ll shake his hand all day long, as it brings a smile to otherwise tired and sad eyes. He sleeps in a sports bar; only allowed in at closing time and not allowed in during the day.

We teach yet another Ethiopian how to take a photo with a digital camera (you cannot buy one in Mekele and it is great amusement to all here) and the waitress takes a fantastic group picture of us all enjoying our juice. Even Mogus has a big grin.

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The boy who gave Tommy the note asking if I would take him back to England with me today plucked up the courage to ask me if I had got it. I said yes. He just stood their grinning, hands behind his back.

I’ll never know what he thought I was going to say.

I said thank you, but that it was not possible and had to walk away before I burst into tears.

48 hours on I still don’t know what I should have said. He didn’t come to the project on Tuesday. I felt like crap.