So sorry to all my readers (all 2 of you) for not posting anything in so long. My trip was….hard to put in to words to say the least.
I wrote a lot of journals and notes while I was there but my internet wasn’t the best and silly old me forgot to bring the right kind of charger for my laptop. Excuses, excuses.
Bottom line is I haven’t actually been able to form a lot of clear, concise thoughts on everything I experienced. I’ve decided to start with the easy stuff and hope that it will lead me in to the topics I know I need to get in writing, but haven’t been able to do so.
When we got to Ethiopia we traveled about 4 hours south of the Capitol to Awassa. It’s a beautiful , almost tropical climate. A perfect description of how I always pictured Africa in my mind, with monkeys on trees and beautiful plains and flowering trees. There was something magical, sad, inspiring, and breathtaking about the contrast between nature’s beauty and some of the slums and towns we drove through. The vast contrast of everyday living in Ethiopia to the life I’ve always known will never cease to amaze me.
How can these people I see living in mud huts with 5 family members, seem so happy and content? Why are they so friendly to everyone they see? How do I find that inner happiness too? I was ready to feel sympathetic and sad, ready to feel excited to help. I can tell you honestly that jealousy is something I never expected to feel when visiting Africa. But I was. Jealous that they figured out how to get by on so little and still have a zest and appreciation for life that I have never come close to, and I like to think I am a pretty happy person.
It made me realize that my idea of how to help these communities is completely different than what I thought before this trip. And how counterproductive it would be to just hand out money on a street and fix temporary needs for these people. Next week I will be gone and so will that money and those same people begging will be back in that some spot.
Instead I think we need to work together to teach others how to improve their own conditions; how to rely on God and hard work to get the earthly things we need like clean drinking water, education and medical care.
This is not to say it was easy to say no to the mothers with naked, malnourished babies on their backs as they would come up to the car and ask repeatedly for birr, which is the Ethiopian currency. It was heartbreaking. I wanted to explain to her that I wanted to help but giving her money was more detrimental than helpful. If I was starving and so was my child and someone said that to me I would want to slap them. So instead we would try to say no and wait for her to leave the car window. Feeling guilty and disappointed.
And guilt is something I do think we should feel. Because over the centuries we have enabled this society as well as similar societies to accept this as their norm. White people come to town, give them money, and leave. That is how it has been for centuries. My way of thinking when I am short on money is to clean out my closet, pick up shifts at a restaurant, something because I have been taught not to rely on the charity of others. But now when poor Ethiopians need help, for the most part, and I’m trying not to generalize, instead of thinking like this, they wait for the tourists and missionaries to come to town and give them whatever they need.
This solves their temporary problem maybe, but we are taking away from them their work ethic, their independence, their pride, and so much more. I think it’s time we stop and look at what we are doing to help and ask ourselves if there are better ways to do so.
I’m excited to work with Hopechest and discover ways to enable the communities I saw rather than giving them handouts.
“Poverty alleviation occurs when the power of Christ's resurrection reconciles our key relationships through the transformation of both individual lives and local, national, and international systems.” When Helping Hurts.
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