GoKulbisGo

Lukas writing…While we were in Harar, we stayed at our friend Wynne’s house. Her house is in Haramaya University campus that also had a zoo. One day we visited the zoo and we were amazed at what we saw. There were many animals for such a small zoo, but all the animals had very tiny cages. There were monkeys, birds, lynx, dik-dik, hyena, bunnies, a cheetah, and 3 lions. One of the monkeys had an infection on its butt and could not sit down, They fed the monkeys stale bread and water and gave them very small cages. The birds were in cages in the back and you could not even see them. There was a lynx type-of-thing and some of the students that were in the zoo at the time started hitting the cage to ... read more

Ruta writing...It is always fun to see the joy that donations bring. Here are photos from the distribution of donations of shoes and socks from my colleagues in Accenture. Upon seeing some of our past pictures from Ethiopia, on their own initiative, Rob and Beth organized a shoe collection drive. They gathered sports shoes, cleats and baby shoes. These children live in tin shacks in our area or they basically live on the streets. Shoes are a tremendous gift to them, particularly now that the rainy season has started. The rain comes down in buckets and the weather can get quite chilly. The streets turn into thick, mucky mud, and slogging around with shoes with holes, or with flip flops or in bare feet is not pleasant. I am sure that new shoes make a huge ... read more

Kovas writing… It was a tough day at my summer job teaching at the Somalian School. On my way home, my head hurt, and I was physically tired. As a taxi finally arrived, I got into the front seat and waited to get to my destination. Our taxi driver stopped at the side of the road to drop off a few people. Since there was a parked car in front of him, he had to veer into the left lane of traffic. This caused an argument with a big, yellow truck full of rocks that was behind. In retaliation, the driver of the truck threw water into the window of our line-taxi van. No fair! The water hit me too. The driver, furious with the truck driver, finished getting into the left lane but then parked ... read more

Kovas writing… At fifteen years old my first job is not caddying or working at McDonalds, but it’s teaching Somali citizens displaced in Addis Ababa. I have been working for over a month. I like it, and I’m good at it. I am a teacher at the Shiloh International School, which has students from Saudi Arabaia, Egypt, Dubai, and many from Somalia. This is one of the few schools they are able to attend, because it is an inexpensive international school. Ethiopia does not allow non-Ethiopians to attend their public schools. Because it is a new school, they are happy with all the help they can get. My dad had previously met James, the founder, principal, and one of the teachers in the school, and helped him teach classes at the school. My dad took me ... read more

(Ruta writing) Tadas and I delivered baby toys that were given to us to pass onward to the 50-60 babies at the Arat Kilo Child Care Association. Of course the toys were a huge hit. At first when we displayed all of the toys on the ground, the babies (ages 1-3 years) simply stared in awe. Tadas sat down on the ground and started playing with the toys as if he is a little kid, to the great amusement of the children. They particularly liked the pop toy in which you press the top button and the bottom balls spin. There were squeals of excitement at the turning balls. The stuffed animals and puppets were also very popular, although I got the impression that the children had never seen puppets before. We also donated baby clothes ... read more

Living in Ethiopia for the year, we, the Kulbis family, have been awed and amazed by many things but among the most significant impressions has been the deep generosity of our friends and families in the US. We have been humbled by the packages sent to us from our family and friends to distribute to Ethiopia’s poor. We acknowledge and appreciate the significant time, expense, and efforts in collecting, packing, and sending the items to us for distribution. Thank you all! We have taken the role of distributing your generous donations very seriously and have tried our best to allocate the items most effectively to folks who have limited options of receiving help from other sources. We pooled together donations received from home, primarily from Riverside, Chicago-Lithuanians, the Matulaitis Catholic Mission in Lemont, and Accenture co-workers. ... read more