June 18, 2010
11:00PM

We’ve just returned to the guesthouse after a looooooong day.

The whole team hiked for about 4 miles up and down and all around
Entoto National Park today. It was beautiful. It was what I have
always pictured Ethiopia looking like.

Long, windy, rocky, muddy dirt “roads”, small huts surrounded by
little gardens, green grass, and hills.

We could all breathe up there. Ah, it was nice.



After we hiked all around and Josie had made friends with every sheep
and goat on the mountain, and after she had had her fill of hiking,
thank you very much, we toured an old old old Orthodox church.

It probably would have been more intriquing if I hadn’t been trying to
appease a hungry 3 month old and keep quiet/help a 3 year old be
interested in Ethiopia’s religious history. Not exactly a field trip
for preschoolers.

It was pretty fascinating though. The church had some amazing
paintings that have been preserved for ages.

I missed most of the actual tour because I had to feed Lucy. Good
thing I left and fed her in the car, because we found out later that
the Orthodox faith believes a woman is unclean during menstruation,
pregnancy and while breastfeeding.

We all had to take our shoes off and wear long sleeves inside the
church. Can you imagine if I had fed Lucy inside there??? Oh my. So
glad I didn’t.

Part of the tour was a visit to a church in a rock – amazing – where
the church members met “underground”. Pretty crazy to see and picture
what it must have been like…

After the tour we hiked some more (by this point I’m amazed Josie was
even able to lift her big toe), down to a look-out over the city. It
was a little overcast, but still a sweet sight. Josie & Papa also
explored a cave in the side of a hill with the rest of the team.

Not me, I’m not into that whole “small, dark spaces are cool” thing.
Not one bit.

We made our way back down the mountain into town and had our team
meeting at the home where the Anderson’s are staying.

Dr. Tim Tuesink joined us for dinner, and I have to say he is one
intriguing man! Wow. He is definetly living his days well. He is
involved in a whole host of ministries and non-profits, but the one
that has struck me most is that he is chairman of the board for the
Fistula hospital here in Addis. The facts he conveyed to us were
staggering. The work he is involved is commendable at the very least.
I can’t wait to tour the hospital and midwifery school they have
recently opened and see with my own eyes what they are doing.

Vic (Dr. Anderson, our team leader and DTS professor), drove the four
of us home through the eerily quiet and dark streets of Addis just a
bit ago after our meeting. It was my first time being out on the
streets after the sun was good and down, and it was pretty spooky. No
street lights, hardly any cars (STARK contrast to daylight hours) and
empty sidewalks.

Perhaps besides being spooky and eerie, the streets of Addis at night
are mostly heartbreaking.

Prostitutes on literally every corner.

Because of what I mentioned before about a women being “unclean” for
so much of her life, it is considered completely acceptable for a man
to pay a prostitute.

Looking out the window of the Land Cruiser as we passed a side street,
I saw the eyes of a girl, and she was just a girl, and I didn’t have
to see another.

It didn’t matter that there are thousands of prostitutes in Addis. Of
course, it DOES matter, but at the same time it doesn’t.

Seeing one girl willing to sell herself to anyone who will pay is the
same as seeing a thousand willing. It’s equally heartbreaking. And I
realized that when I saw her eyes.

This virus of an issue has a face to me.

It broke my heart.

There I sat, holding one of my baby girls and sitting next to my other
baby girl while staring at somebody else’s baby girl on a dark, lonely
street corner, willing and waiting to sell herself.

It was a sad ending to a great, great day.