is the statement that my, visibly shaken, wife presented me with the other day upon returning home from work at the hospital. I realize that I am bias when I say this, but Lynn is an amazing doctor, and not just clinically. She deeply cares about every patient she involves herself with and she is determined to comfort and reassure every one of them. It was hard enough during her residency to have patients die under her care, but at least she knew that with all the tools of western medicine available to her, she had always made her very best effort possible at keeping those patients alive. So try to imagine now, in Uganda, where she has almost none of those life saving tools at her disposal yet she still cares deeply about every patient and is still determined to do everything possible to keep them alive.
So many problems compound each other here that by the time most patients make it to Lynn’s ward they are so sick that no amount of medical knowledge or care is going to make a difference. For example, most villagers will simply live with symptoms until they become unbearable. When they become unbearable, most will first seek a traditional healer. Then they will finally decide to go to the hospital, but many cannot afford the transportation so they wait until someone can eventually get them there. Patients arrive in the back seats of cars and probably even on motorcycle taxis and then proceed to the medical ward where they either get a bed or just lie on the floor because all of the beds are full, which is most of the time. Finally, Lynn and her team get to diagnose the very sick patient and then determine how to proceed with the little resources they have. This is where the countless stories of death begin and I know for a fact that she only tells me about a quarter of the stories. The saddest part is that most of the patients are very young, under 35, and have these terrible viruses, diseases, and cancers that are both preventable and treatable in the west but, sadly, not here. Lynn is a very confident doctor, even though she doesn’t think so sometimes, and I cannot fathom the turmoil she must feel on a daily basis watching patients die in front of her knowing that in another place more could have been done.
With that being said, she has also saved a great many people and, more importantly, she is teaching the next batch of local doctors every method possible to save lives once she leaves. In the end, this experience is surely going to make her a better doctor and I greatly admire the resiliency and compassion she continues to exude while going to work everyday knowing that “People just die here”.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
Ethiopia part II – Tim and Kim’s Village
The moment I met Tim and Kim Otte I felt right at home. They are a Dutch couple a few years younger than me who have done a lot of traveling including a trip to Lake Tana about eight years ago. They fell in love with the place and decided that they wanted move there to build a lodge that would cater to travelers like themselves…and me, low maintenance. They are halfway through a very impressive project that started with them creating a foundation back in Holland, finding board members to volunteer their time to run the foundation and then raising a substantial amount of money to fund the project. They removed themselves from the board of directors and moved to Ethiopia a year and a half ago to start the construction of the lodge. They worked a deal through both the Dutch and Ethiopian governments that provided them with about 8free acres of prime land right on the waters of the lake, found a reliable contractor and went to work. When it is all done it will consist of 8 fully contained cottages, 4 thatched campsites with stone patios, a place for overlanders to stay, and a full kitchen and dining area. When I showed up Tim stopped what he was doing and gave me a tour of the whole place for about an hour and then Kim made me pancakes for lunch. I met Tim’s parents who were visiting for two month helping out and they invited me back for a traditional Dutch dinner later that night and since the place I was staying at was pretty much crap, I was more than happy to come back. When, a few hours later, I found myself eating imported Dutch sausage with sauerkraut, mashed potatoes and gravy, while listening to Metallica blasting on their solar powered ipod, I knew where I was going to stay for the next four days.
This place was amazing. The sun rises right out of the lake and the weather was Mexico hot everyday, but would cool enough at night to even make it a bit chilly. I was the only customer because the lodge is not even half done so they treated me like one of the family the whole time. We ate and hiked and Tim and I would go swimming in the lake every afternoon to cool off and “shower”. I also paddled papyrus canoes, read books, and sometimes just chilled in the sun. The only bummer was knowing that this would have been Lynn’s dream spot and that she could not be there to enjoy it with me.
Tim and Kim have a remarkable work ethic that is seldom seen. They are also very in tune with the community of Gorgora. They are well educated, seasoned travelers who understand the difference between a beneficial development project and outright exploitation therefore they have gone to great lengths to involve the community in their project, for example, learning the local dialect. They buy all the materials they possibly can from the surrounding area including the islands. They employ villagers and are training the locals to eventually manage the place for them while they scout other beautiful places in the world to expand. I probably should have explored a few other places in Ethiopia, but Lake Tana was just too perfect and Tim and Kim and his parents were just too hospitable for me to leave. They even gave me a ride back to Gondar so I wouldn’t have to endure the TB express again.
Lynn and I met back in Addis after a week and were able to get a couple of more days of vacation together before heading back to Uganda. The trip was better than we even imagined and although Lynn missed out on the part of the trip she was most excited about, she was very happy to be able to see her family.
This place was amazing. The sun rises right out of the lake and the weather was Mexico hot everyday, but would cool enough at night to even make it a bit chilly. I was the only customer because the lodge is not even half done so they treated me like one of the family the whole time. We ate and hiked and Tim and I would go swimming in the lake every afternoon to cool off and “shower”. I also paddled papyrus canoes, read books, and sometimes just chilled in the sun. The only bummer was knowing that this would have been Lynn’s dream spot and that she could not be there to enjoy it with me.
Tim and Kim have a remarkable work ethic that is seldom seen. They are also very in tune with the community of Gorgora. They are well educated, seasoned travelers who understand the difference between a beneficial development project and outright exploitation therefore they have gone to great lengths to involve the community in their project, for example, learning the local dialect. They buy all the materials they possibly can from the surrounding area including the islands. They employ villagers and are training the locals to eventually manage the place for them while they scout other beautiful places in the world to expand. I probably should have explored a few other places in Ethiopia, but Lake Tana was just too perfect and Tim and Kim and his parents were just too hospitable for me to leave. They even gave me a ride back to Gondar so I wouldn’t have to endure the TB express again.
Lynn and I met back in Addis after a week and were able to get a couple of more days of vacation together before heading back to Uganda. The trip was better than we even imagined and although Lynn missed out on the part of the trip she was most excited about, she was very happy to be able to see her family.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Ethiopia
You know how when people visit a certain place, they sometimes say, “I felt like I stepped back in time”? Well, when we visited Ethiopia we literally did step back in time because Ethiopia is the only country in the world that still follows the Julian Calendar as opposed to the Gregorian Calendar, which means they are officially 7 and a ½ years and 6hrs behind the rest of the world. It’s no joke, you have to make sure, when making plans with a local, that you ask whether you are meeting at 2pm local time or farenji (foreigner) time because they probably mean 8pm. It’s very odd, but then again Ethiopia seems to have spent their entire history choosing the road less traveled.
We arrived in the Capitol of Addis Ababa after an amazing trip to Egypt, unfortunately though, Lynn had just heard that her grandmother had passed away so the next day she flew to Scotland while I hopped a flight to Gondar in the Ethiopian Highlands. Just before we left Egypt I began reading a new book called ‘The Chains of Heaven: an Ethiopian Romance’ by Philip Marsden, which is an extraordinary account of how he walked from the famous city of Lalibela to the even more famous city of Aksum. Along the way he enjoyed many tales from locals and visited more than thirty monasteries, of which Ethiopia is famous for. Ethiopia actually has over 130 monasteries each one distinct in its own way. In Lalibela they are carved right into the mountains and in other places they are perched high on cliff tops that require hand over hand climbing of chains or ropes with no safety mechanisms and hundreds of feet of nothing but air below, hence the name of the book. I did not make it to Lalibela or the mountain top monasteries, but I was able to visit several monasteries in Gondar and on the Islands of Lake Tana some of which were built in the 13th century and still have original paintings inside that look like they were just painted.
I think the combination of being away from a big city, reading this book and visiting monasteries gave me a unique perspective of how genuinely faithful Ethiopians are to their respective religions, especially the Christians who make up 45% of the population. Being someone quite cynical of religious faith, I found it interesting that I was very much aware of their devoutness even the subtleties of it, such as a priest blessing random people on the street as he walks to the store. And, although I am a cynic, at the same time, I love history and the history of Christianity in Ethiopia is fascinating.
Christianity arrived in Ethiopia in the early 4th century right around the time Constantine had declared the Roman Empire to be Christian. The powerful Aksumite Kingdom took to it right away and it became the state religion. Here is where things begin to differ from the rest of the religious world, because as Europe and the Middle East fought religious wars for the next 1000yrs, Ethiopia isolated itself and practiced its own form of Orthodox Christianity for a millennium. One ruler, who was clearly a bit crazy, even introduced the branding of crosses on peoples foreheads and wrists and to this day certain groups of faithful still tattoo crosses on their foreheads and wrists using ash from sacred fires. The biggest celebration in Ethiopia is called Timkat and is celebrated every January 19th. This wildly popular festival commemorates the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist. In every city, every church elects a group of priests to guide the chosen monk, who carries a piece of the Ark of the Covenant on his head, on a long procession typically to some pool of water where the entire town parties all night and then, at dawn, jumps in the water to baptize themselves. The next day they proceed back to their respective churches. I was able to witness this celebration in the tiny village of Gorgora where they only have one church and, hence, only one parade, but that allowed me to get an up close and personal introduction to this great event.
I spent a day and a half in Gondar visiting some old ruins and monasteries and then took a short drive to the beginning of the Simien Mts. to see some gorgeous views and the famous Gelada baboons before heading south to Gorgora on the north shore of Lake Tana (refer to previous blog entry for bus ride story). My plan was to check this place out for a day or two and then continue south to Bahir Dar, but I had missed the weeks only boat and was not about to get on another bus just yet. I hired a boat to visit some monasteries on the local islands. The monasteries were built in the 16th century and some of the monks who live there have been on the islands for 30-40 years. They subsist by growing their own food and fishing and I was able to sit down with some of them and eat injera while they boiled pumpkins for a later meal. On my second day I was lucky to meet a guy from Addis who turned out to be a building contractor working on a traveler’s lodge being built by a Dutch couple about a 20min walk down the coast. We chatted for a while and then he asked if I wanted to see the jobsite so we walked over to Tim and Kim’s Village.
We arrived in the Capitol of Addis Ababa after an amazing trip to Egypt, unfortunately though, Lynn had just heard that her grandmother had passed away so the next day she flew to Scotland while I hopped a flight to Gondar in the Ethiopian Highlands. Just before we left Egypt I began reading a new book called ‘The Chains of Heaven: an Ethiopian Romance’ by Philip Marsden, which is an extraordinary account of how he walked from the famous city of Lalibela to the even more famous city of Aksum. Along the way he enjoyed many tales from locals and visited more than thirty monasteries, of which Ethiopia is famous for. Ethiopia actually has over 130 monasteries each one distinct in its own way. In Lalibela they are carved right into the mountains and in other places they are perched high on cliff tops that require hand over hand climbing of chains or ropes with no safety mechanisms and hundreds of feet of nothing but air below, hence the name of the book. I did not make it to Lalibela or the mountain top monasteries, but I was able to visit several monasteries in Gondar and on the Islands of Lake Tana some of which were built in the 13th century and still have original paintings inside that look like they were just painted.
I think the combination of being away from a big city, reading this book and visiting monasteries gave me a unique perspective of how genuinely faithful Ethiopians are to their respective religions, especially the Christians who make up 45% of the population. Being someone quite cynical of religious faith, I found it interesting that I was very much aware of their devoutness even the subtleties of it, such as a priest blessing random people on the street as he walks to the store. And, although I am a cynic, at the same time, I love history and the history of Christianity in Ethiopia is fascinating.
Christianity arrived in Ethiopia in the early 4th century right around the time Constantine had declared the Roman Empire to be Christian. The powerful Aksumite Kingdom took to it right away and it became the state religion. Here is where things begin to differ from the rest of the religious world, because as Europe and the Middle East fought religious wars for the next 1000yrs, Ethiopia isolated itself and practiced its own form of Orthodox Christianity for a millennium. One ruler, who was clearly a bit crazy, even introduced the branding of crosses on peoples foreheads and wrists and to this day certain groups of faithful still tattoo crosses on their foreheads and wrists using ash from sacred fires. The biggest celebration in Ethiopia is called Timkat and is celebrated every January 19th. This wildly popular festival commemorates the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist. In every city, every church elects a group of priests to guide the chosen monk, who carries a piece of the Ark of the Covenant on his head, on a long procession typically to some pool of water where the entire town parties all night and then, at dawn, jumps in the water to baptize themselves. The next day they proceed back to their respective churches. I was able to witness this celebration in the tiny village of Gorgora where they only have one church and, hence, only one parade, but that allowed me to get an up close and personal introduction to this great event.
I spent a day and a half in Gondar visiting some old ruins and monasteries and then took a short drive to the beginning of the Simien Mts. to see some gorgeous views and the famous Gelada baboons before heading south to Gorgora on the north shore of Lake Tana (refer to previous blog entry for bus ride story). My plan was to check this place out for a day or two and then continue south to Bahir Dar, but I had missed the weeks only boat and was not about to get on another bus just yet. I hired a boat to visit some monasteries on the local islands. The monasteries were built in the 16th century and some of the monks who live there have been on the islands for 30-40 years. They subsist by growing their own food and fishing and I was able to sit down with some of them and eat injera while they boiled pumpkins for a later meal. On my second day I was lucky to meet a guy from Addis who turned out to be a building contractor working on a traveler’s lodge being built by a Dutch couple about a 20min walk down the coast. We chatted for a while and then he asked if I wanted to see the jobsite so we walked over to Tim and Kim’s Village.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
All aboard the TB express!
Now I’m not saying that I have tuberculosis, but if it turns out that I do sometime in the near future, then it was definitely from this bus ride.
My intention was to simply mention my bus ride from Gondar to Gorgora as part of my larger story of my trip to the Ethiopian Highlands, but the spectacle that ensued became a story all its own. Our often handy, but sometimes horribly mistaken, Lonely Planet said that the 67km bus ride to Gorgora, on Lake Tana, was a cheap 1.5hr trip which sounded great so off I went. I arrived at the bus station and was directed to the bus headed to Gorgora. I was surprised to find quite a few open seats and for a fleeting moment thought I might get to ride a bus in relative comfort for a change, but in true African fashion, my fleeting moment was snatched from me as we were moved to a smaller bus. This bus, of course, filled up over the next hour and when we finally departed we had already consumed the Lonely Planet’s hour and a half. It still was not too bad as we headed off because we were only at full capacity and I had the very back seat next to a large window that I could keep open. However, as soon as we cleared Gondar we made our first stop to load on extra people. I thought it was a joke, that first crowd of people who ran up to the bus, but they all managed to cram on and my big window proceeded to be the entry and exit point for all newcomers’ stuff including bags of clothes, food, jerrycans, and very small children. For the next four hours I watched a scarily overloaded bus drop some people off but always manage replace them with even more people as half the goods in Ethiopia moved across my lap and, without fail, at every stop the folks who needed to get off would be all the way in the back of the bus with me. After more than five hours, having devoured an entire stalk of sugarcane and watched 3 million Ethiopians, many whom were coughing and hacking, get on and off the bus, I was literally the last person to disembark. My day ended well, though, as I was able to sit back with a cold beer, a big plate of goat & injera, a TV airing the BBC news and slowly digest another day in Africa.
My intention was to simply mention my bus ride from Gondar to Gorgora as part of my larger story of my trip to the Ethiopian Highlands, but the spectacle that ensued became a story all its own. Our often handy, but sometimes horribly mistaken, Lonely Planet said that the 67km bus ride to Gorgora, on Lake Tana, was a cheap 1.5hr trip which sounded great so off I went. I arrived at the bus station and was directed to the bus headed to Gorgora. I was surprised to find quite a few open seats and for a fleeting moment thought I might get to ride a bus in relative comfort for a change, but in true African fashion, my fleeting moment was snatched from me as we were moved to a smaller bus. This bus, of course, filled up over the next hour and when we finally departed we had already consumed the Lonely Planet’s hour and a half. It still was not too bad as we headed off because we were only at full capacity and I had the very back seat next to a large window that I could keep open. However, as soon as we cleared Gondar we made our first stop to load on extra people. I thought it was a joke, that first crowd of people who ran up to the bus, but they all managed to cram on and my big window proceeded to be the entry and exit point for all newcomers’ stuff including bags of clothes, food, jerrycans, and very small children. For the next four hours I watched a scarily overloaded bus drop some people off but always manage replace them with even more people as half the goods in Ethiopia moved across my lap and, without fail, at every stop the folks who needed to get off would be all the way in the back of the bus with me. After more than five hours, having devoured an entire stalk of sugarcane and watched 3 million Ethiopians, many whom were coughing and hacking, get on and off the bus, I was literally the last person to disembark. My day ended well, though, as I was able to sit back with a cold beer, a big plate of goat & injera, a TV airing the BBC news and slowly digest another day in Africa.
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