Ethiopia: SATURDAY/SUNDAY

TITLE: SATURDAY/SUNDAY

Hello again!

We just returned from Bahir Dar in northern Ethiopia. It was an exhausting trip. We left yesterday morning on a small plan. There was only 5 of us (the other five went on a road trip to a small village south). As to be expected in Ethiopia, our plane left late so we didn’t even have time to set up and sort our drugs before the clinic opened. The conditions in this northern town were so bad and the children were so sick it was heartbreaking. Let’s start with yesterday… we saw about 130 patients (since we only had ½ the team and were running for only ½ day this was a lot). The majority of them were extremely malnourished. We set up at about 12:30 and ran clinic until about 5pm. Then we left for our hotel which was on Lake Tana. It was a beautiful setting but we were so tired, we only had dinner and then headed for bed.

We opened clinic again today at 8am. When we arrive at our location, there was a line of people waiting at the gate. It was the poorest of the poor and many had been waiting all night for us to arrive. Dr. Beyda explained that these were people from the Tana Tribe and that they had traveled far to see us (many of them with no shoes). Their personal hygiene was so extremely poor and the malnutrition was even worse than yesterday. There were so many adults that we ended up having one doctor see adults and the other two focus on the kids. Dr. Beyda was the adult physician. His last patient of the day was a 90 year old man who asked him for medication to help him die. There were so many times during the day that I wanted to cry but we all held it together well. We intended to only see 100 kids today but we couldn’t turn our backs on these people. We ended up seeing about 130 again during our ½ day clinic.

After we closed shop, we took an excursion to the Nile Falls which are at the mouth of the Blue Nile River. It was an tough drive through rough terrain. All the while, we were passing through small villages with masses and masses of sheep-herders and farmers all living in the most dismal conditions. Since today is Saturday, it was market day for these people so we were constantly having to slow down to allow goats and donkey wagons and masses were always in the road (I am not sure they have seen a truck in days). We parked at a spot near the river and then hiked up about 45 minutes to the falls. It was breath-taking. A very interesting end to an emotionally exhausting day. We flew back to Addis and grabbed a quick bite to eat.