Sept. 12, Lalibela to Woldia
Visited the government-funded Lalibela Hospital in the morning, where two doctors and seven nurses serve 25,000 people. Because of the lack of professional staff, they train community-based leaders to go out and provide some services. Those workers report back on rapes and domestic-violence cases. Some women have to come covertly to get birth control because their husbands disapprove. But some men will come in for vasectomies after having six or seven children. Some women come in after trying to abort by using roots inserted into their vaginas. Many 15- and 16-year-olds come in to give birth. Some come with obstetric fistula. They believe it has a spiritual cause rather than a physical one related to labor and delivery. Patients travel by foot up to 75 miles to get there.
I walked past old metal-rail beds in a tuberculosis ward, and had a tinge of anxiety about catching it. But I was assured that by the time patients are admitted, it's no longer contagious.
I saw a woman with a 1-year-old baby who was sick from pneumonia and malnutrition. Those are the leading causes of infant deaths. I heard some heartbreaking stories, including one from a woman who gave birth to six children and lost four to malnutrition. "If I have the capacity, I will send my child to school, so he will not be illiterate like me," she told me.
And then there was Mengistu, an adorable boy of about 12 whose father brought him to the hospital two years ago for diabetes treatment and never returned for him. So the hospital is raising him and sending him to school. About 17 children are living there under similar circumstances. Sometimes foreigners come through and decide to adopt them.
Drove in vans to Woldia, along winding mountain roads with steep cliffs, verdant green hills dotted with tall, spiny eucalyptus trees, fan-like banana, papaya and umbrella-shaped trees and cactus. Rode past wheat and corn crops and rock-terraced hills. Stopped to watch a fleet of monkeys and baboons racing down the hill. Saw children who looked as young as 5 herding sheep, goats, cows and donkeys. Looked down into the valley to see travelers on foot heading up mountain roads with their possessions tied in bundles on the ends of sticks carried on shoulders.
Wherever we passed kids, they stopped what they were doing to wave at us, some running down hills, smiling broadly. We passed some of the most breathtaking scenery I've ever seen, and I marveled, once again, at how much beauty and joy there is despite the hardships. After dinner, I had an interview with a remarkable 16-year-old sex worker in town (to be published in an upcoming column).
Lal Hotel, where we're staying tonight, is a little creepy and dirty. I'm sitting on the bed under a mosquito net, but most of the bugs seem to be inside it rather than outside. One person in our group, fearful of bedbugs, personally sewed and brought her own bedroll. Another plans to sleep on top of her bed cover. I'm just taking my chances.
