War... and War on Toilets

A Stool Sample Here?

Building a hospital in a foreign country requires immense amounts of research, commitment and determination. Determined to show my commitment to research, I decided that the best way to explore the current healthcare situation in Ethiopia was to get a severe bacterial stomach infection after a few days in Addis. Fried fish at the hotel did the trick.


Over a span of about 10 hours, I had diarrhea 12 times and threw up at least 10 times. I didn’t feel sufficiently prepared to explore the local clinic until I was unable to keep even water down. We went to what the embassy told us was one of the best health clinics in Addis… It would have been shut down in minutes in the states.


When it was my turn to go back to the lab for testing, things got interesting. I was happy to find that at least the needle for my blood test was packaged (the blood vial itself was reused). The lab tech then handed me a cup the size of a bottle cap and a mini spoon for my stool sample.


Here’s the scene… I’m so dehydrated I’m as white as Michael Jackson. My eyes are sunken in because I have gotten no sleep and feel like death. I’m carrying a plastic bag for the timely throw up session. And here I walk into a squat toilet bathroom with more splatter than a Jackson Pollock about to try and poop in what is closer to a thimble than anything else. It wasn’t happening… I had been trying not to have anything run out of me for the last few hours and now I couldn’t get an ounce to leave. I retreated back to the waiting room before discovering a bathroom with a western toilet. I threw up in it first. The stool sample was successful… let’s just leave it at that.


After a short wait, the doctor diagnosed my stomach infection and prescribed antibiotics. By the end of the day, I was ready for ice cream. Consider Addis’ healthcare services thoroughly researched.

War on Countless Fronts

Ethiopia is a country at war…eh, wars. There is the always tense and long-lasting border war with its neighbor to the north Eritrea. There’s the American mandated…ahem… supported occupation of Mogadishu in Somalia. There’s the war with Sudanese rebels crossing the border into the Gambella region of Ethiopia and killing an indigenous, unarmed tribe and stealing their livestock. There is a war with the rebel group in our region near the border with Sudan which has resulted in the accumulation of a large number of tanks in our regional capital (Which have recently crossed into Sudan and killed members of their military).


There’s the war against Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (racist organizations with a political agenda against Africa, according to Ethiopia's government run news) for bringing attention to serious human rights violations (allegedly) committed by the Ethiopian government and forces.


Then there’s the war in our area… Perhaps the most deadly in recent weeks. It’s happening just a few miles away from our isolated home of Kamashi. The Gumuz and Oromo people are at war again. I won’t begin to try and explain who attacked who because the truth of the matter is that I will never know or understand.


No one is positive exactly how it started. But somehow the conflict turned into a massacre of local villages. Hundreds of people were killed and thousands displaced. While much of the fighting was with old soviet guns, both tribes still use spears to kill each other. One of the tribes actually still uses bows and poison arrows to kill their enemy.


The reports that we have heard are disturbing beyond what anyone could imagine even happening in a horror film. Women and young girls were raped. Women’s breasts were cut off. Men’s genitals were cut off. Unborn babies were cut from mother’s pregnant stomachs. Then there’s the act that I still have trouble believing (or maybe it’s just so horrible, my mind won’t accept it). Allegedly children were slain in front of their parents who were then forced to eat their flesh at gun point. (I am not taking a stance on who did what or if any of this was actually done… I’m just relaying what locals have said.)


Perhaps just as disturbing as the attacks is the absence of news agencies. There have been allegations that the government has blocked all outside news agencies (and human rights groups) from the area.


Things seemed to have calmed down a bit as there haven’t been any large scale attacks. Tension is palpable though. Kamashi is an anomaly in that both of the warring tribes live together in a small town of 4,500 people. They have coexisted peacefully for so long and it seems to be a bond that is continuing through this incredibly stressful time. We do however see a large number of men walking around carrying guns and spears. At times I have spotted a few pick-ups loaded with armed local militia speeding down the dirt road (ala scenes from Black Hawk Down).


As ferengi (the name Ethiopians give to all foreigners), we are relatively safe. We are obviously not from either tribe and are living in an area inhabited by both peoples. The real issues are in the outlying homogenous villages. We also have many friends and local contacts in the community that would help us out in any situation. We are, however, the only 2 ferengis for hours and hours.


No worries though, I’m the official Benishangul-Gumuz Regional Warden for the American Embassy in Ethiopia. We went there to register our trip and ask about emergency evacuation and assistance. They had no representatives in the area so if we wanted emergency services and contact, I would have to become the region’s contact for all registered Americans… so Me and Courtney. So right there under the massive pictures of a sneering, malevolent Dick Cheney, a deceptively evil Condaleeza Rice, and as usual, an extremely perplexed yet incomprehensibly confident G.W., I raised my right hand and became Warden Nevin!

Living Ain’t Easy in Kamashi

We couldn’t have come to a place more poles apart from New York City than Kamashi, Benishangul-Gumuz, Ethiopia. Kamashi is a small village in the extremely rural western region of Ethiopia bordering Sudan. Our neighbors in Brooklyn sat out on the stoop blasting music until 4am… some of our neighbors here carry gourds of water on sticks as they walk barefoot for miles wearing nothing more than a tattered old skirt.


We are staying at an abandoned dorm more suited for a horror movie setting than anything else. The building had a lot of potential when the government built it to accompany a vocational training center. Both buildings sit empty and overgrown. Another failed project and wasted money. We haven’t had running water or electricity for 2 weeks. We have been collecting rain water to boil and wash dishes. Without running water, we smell almost as bad as the bathroom with 5 squat toilets which have stored shit and housed flies for the last 4 years with no water to clean them.


The bugs are…well… Sub-Saharan African… There are more mosquitoes prancing around filled with Malaria than any other place in the world. At night, we have beetles which are more like mice with wings kamikazeeing into our tent (which we have dubbed “the sanctuary”). There are many bugs slithering around that are much larger than any of the rodents we found in our NYC apartments. Then there’s the ‘Swarm.’ We aren’t quite positive what the swarm is and we don’t really want to find out. Sometimes when we are standing there we will hear what sounds like an 18 wheeler full of the world’s loudest bees screaming by at 100 mph. I immediately dive indoors for protection when I hear it coming. Courtney claims she saw the swarm overhead… I don’t believe her though. I think she just wants to sound tough.


Don’t worry about the bugs… we packed 8 bottles of Deet and 4 cans of Premethin treatment to battle the bastards. So that’s 12 bottles of protection that the TSA at Dulles Airport decided we wouldn’t like to have one of while in rural, sub-saharan Africa. They removed every single bottle. I can’t blame them though. Between being racist and embarrassing innocent little grandmas at the security check, they have a tough job… Assholes.


Rising world food costs and a depletion of Ethiopia’s food supply is hurting places like Kamashi. The local bread shop has doubled the cost of bread in the last month (if it is even available at all). At the Saturday market, villagers sit behind miniscule piles of increasingly more expensive crops. You can find potatoes, garlic, onions, spices, and the occasional piece of fruit. We couldn’t find any beans or lentils anywhere in Kamashi when we went hunting for them. We are thankful for the food we brought from Addis and the easy, instant American food the volunteers who dropped us off in Kamashi left us. When food prices in the US go up we all bitch and maybe change how we budget. In places like Kamashi, they stop eating.

Why Are We Here?

With talks of war, food shortages, malaria and other issues, we have been confronted many times by people questioning why we are here. The answer is simple. Think of all the reasons that would make us not want to be here and those are precisely why we are here, building a hospital in Kamashi.


War is horrible… but people here have dealt with it their whole lives. Malaria? People here die from malaria simply because they don’t have access to healthcare. People here die of dehydration from the same sickness I had cured in hours with antibiotics in Addis. People here ration food to survive… not to lose weight like in the western world. The average life expectancy is nearly half that of most European countries. Death is accepted as normal… because it is. What better place exists to build a hospital? (However, if someone needs 2 experienced people to manage the construction of a hospital in the Caribbean in the near future, we wouldn’t be too opposed!)


The question should then become, how could we not be here? When you think of the opportunities we have in our lives, it seems absolutely ridiculous not to help people who will never even dream of the things we have at our fingertips every day. Helping people in need doesn’t mean assisting those who live in tolerable enough conditions for us to spend a little time.


I was reading National Geographic last week which had an article on the earliest known inhabitants of Britain, people that lived at Stonehenge almost 5,000 years ago. Researchers believe they lived in mud and thatch homes, farmed for subsistence and carried spears for hunting and protection.


These are my neighbors…




~Courtney and I would like to apologize for not responding to all the emails in our inbox. Internet is very elusive in Ethiopia and we have been having a difficult time with work contact, let alone personal emails. It has taken hours to upload this blog and we figured it was the best way to reach the most people. We still love you all very much and really enjoy receiving emails... we will do our best to respond, but can make no promises. Don't forget to check page 2 of photos!
Hope everyone is doing well.
Courtney and Paul

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