in which I totally lose it.

Growing up with a mom like mine, I've spent lots of time in the company of mentally and physically handicapped children. She's a pediatric physical therapist who's owned her own practice since before I was born. She's really good at it, and almost always positive about her patients and their futures.

I've always known that handicapped children were special, brave, hardworking little people and I've rarely seen them as very limited in any way. With the right amount of coaxing and determination they could (if not easily) lead happy, healthy, productive lives. And they manage to do it all facing more challenges than the average "abled" person will ever have to deal with in the entirety of their lives.

Yesterday, Betty (who is disabled herself after a childhood illness left her walking on crutches) took us to visit a mother of two twins, one of whom is handicapped. They're both 13, and while there is no Lugandan word for her disability, I can pretty decisively diagnose her with cerebral palsy.

I have known so many children affected with CP. Several of them 1/2 of a set of twins. Many of them are no longer children, but rather adults with jobs and responsibilities. College students cramming for exams and partying with their friends. Spoiled teenagers who are the apple of their daddy's eyes. In short: just like me. Just like you. "Regular", whatever that connotes. Average.

I say all this to try to convey what an utter shock it was for me to enter the courtyard of several mud huts, and be face to face with a 13 year old girl, in a red wheelchair, suffering (a very deliberately chosen word) from cerebral palsy. Immediately, my heart started to race and I could feel a very unfamiliar wetness creep into my eyes.

I am not a crier. The closest I get to tears back at home is when I've had too much to drink and I initiate a pity party in my honor. On this trip, I have stood witness to so many forms of utter poverty, desperate people, struggling mothers and disease ridden bodies that I've become pretty numbed to feeling anything more than compassion and anger.

As Betty introduced me to the girls' mother and described what she was trying to do to help the family, I could feel my composure slipping. By the time we made it into their shabby one room mud hut, I had completely lost it. I had to excuse myself and squat around the corner, weeping into my hands.

It wasn’t that she was so thin. And it wasn’t that she looked like she was maybe 7, instead of 13. It wasn’t her bald head or the flies that congregated by her eyes and nose. It was that in her moans and squeals, I couldn’t decipher anything human. And I knew it wasn’t because she was inhuman, I knew a desire to communicate, to ask for what she wanted, to laugh with her friends and talk back to her mom was contained inside the fragile, bald little girl in the red wheel chair. I knew that inside of her was an adult with responsibilities, and a college student and a spoiled teenager. But I also knew that she had no hope of ever getting to lead a life that was any different from the one she was currently leading. All of the different possibilities and hopes that are contained in a little girl of 13, even the most destitute, were completely, 100% absent in this girl.

Betty confirmed this, when she told me that for kids this disabled in Uganda, their parents –at best – are just trying to keep them alive until they die. Betty gave this little girl less than a year.

Her mom couldn’t afford to buy the protein her daughter needed to stay alive. Which was bad enough, and a familiar enough tale at this point in our trip. But what seemed almost worse to me, was that Betty (a very educated, in the know, advocate for the disabled) didn’t really understand me, when later in the car I tried to describe what services my mom provided for disabled children. Physical therapy? Speech therapy? Cognitive therapy? Therapy? All of these were foreign terms to her, and required lots of explanation to convey their meanings. Parents don’t even talk to these children. They never learn to speak, or communicate. They’re lucky to even see the light of day, as most parents have to lock their children inside while they go to work. This girl, Betty described as “lucky”. Lucky because she has a donated wheelchair and is able to sit outside.

The best these kids can hope for is to get born into enough money so that their parents can afford to put them in an institution. Otherwise, “life” is a word that’s completely off base in describing the future that’s in store for them. They will not lead productive lives. They will not laugh with their friends. They will not go to college. They will not raise families. And they will never have adult responsibilities.

It’s the most upsetting, harrowing and depressing situation I’ve seen here in Africa. And on the rest of our silent car trip down to the Equator, I tearfully pondered possible solutions and came up with nothing.

from point a to point b

After arriving in Mbale, Uganda on a 10 hour overnight bus ride from Nairobi, Lisa and I emerged bleary eyed at the bus stop in search of transportation to our hotel.

We looked to the left. No cabs. We looked to the right. No cabs... but a suspiciously large group of boys on motorcycles. And so the boda boda makes it's first appearance on our African adventure. Ubiquitious across Uganda, but for some reason not seen (by us anyway) in Kenya or Ethiopia or Tanzania, the boda boda is a little motorbike (or bicycle) with enough space for the driver and one (or 2, if squished) passengers. Never helmeted, and never approaching a speed less than that of light, or a bullet, bodas are the ride of choice for tons of Ugandans.

Boda bodas originated on the Kenyan-Ugandan in the 1960s and 1970s as a way to get between the two border posts without going through the hassle of vehicle registration. The boda boys would shout "boda-boda" (border border) which is how they got their name. In Uganda now there are an estimated 200,000 professional bicycle boda boda drivers, and 90,000 professional motorbike boda boda drivers.

When riding a boda (after negotiating a price, which usually equals about $1 USD no matter where you're going) ladies who are not prostitutes generally sit side saddle, while men sit in the safer, "cowboy" style, straddling the bike. The women often do this while carrying groceries, baskets, or even more terrifying: babies (as usual... women doing all the work and hard stuff and men enjoying the ride, I swear it seems to be an African theme, don't even get me started).

Our first ride in Mbale was notable as we both had to carry our giant (GIANT) bags on the bikes with us. Lisa's wore hers, mine was tethered to the back of the motorbike using a thin piece of rubber. Halfway there the rubber snapped off hitting me in the face (ouch), but more importantly, leaving me to keep myself and my giant (GIANT) bag on the speeding motorbike of death. Luckily, we got there in one piece... but the fun wasn't over yet!

In order to get back into town, after we stowed our giant (you get the picture) bags, we had to flag down a bicycle boda boda. As it turns out, bicycle boda bodas like me just about as much as I like them. The boda boy that was carrying me had a lot of trouble getting started (Lisa contends he didn't know what he was doing, I think I was too much woman for his bike). He couldn't quiiiiite get us balanced, so we'd lurch forward and then tilt over... and repeat... and repeat... and repeat. By the time we'd gone a few meters we were pretty much the best entertainment in Mbale, judging by the crowd of Ugandans, laughing behind their hands. I eventually jumped off and found a stronger, more experienced boda boy. But I've vowed to never get on another bicycle boda ever again... a promise I've kept so far.

Now that Paul's arrived, we've been taking seperate boda bodas to and from the matatu (mini bus) park (previously, Lisa and I would save 50 cents by piling onto one, but it's much less enjoyable). It's super fun (especially since Lisa and I have abandoned all illusions of ever riding like "proper ladies" and sit "prostitute style" instead), if slightly terrifying. In Kampala, there is always tons of traffic, but the boda bodas don't really heed by any rules. They swerve through moving and stopped cars buses, and trucks, drive on the wrong side of the road, and take steep, off road shortcuts... in short, it's a BLAST.

In which I almost redeem my repatriation of remains clause

So far here are the words I know in Amharic:

Ah mah seken aloo = thank you!

Bekka = enough

Selam = hello

Cuss ba Cuss = slowly, slowly (you have to really accentuate the C sound to get it right)

This last phrase I used copiously on our 3 day hike up into the Simien Mountains in north west Ethiopia. We hiked 22 miles up to almost 4,000 meters above sea level. My lungs felt like they were going to explode and ooze out of my body, leaving me a sad, dirty, windblown corpse. Luckily, we were accompanied by a guide (who spoke english) and a scout (who did not). The scout, with his intimidating looking gun (what was he protecting us from? babboons? kids who coveted our water bottles?). He became my pesonal bodyguard and best friend of the trip. I vacillated between dramatic huffing abd pugging, to accentuate my struggle and apologetic looks that he had to wait for me. We bonded over Beyonce on my iPod as I tried to catch my breath.

Despite my proximity to unglamorous death, it was really a wonderful time (sorry no pictures! I'm still in Ethiopia! land of the slowest internet connection ever!) And I felt a really great sense of accomplishment upon finishing our third day, alive.

I have a lot to say about Ethiopia. None of it terribly cohesive. So here's a list:

* They really love empty water bottles here. But it feels weird giving someone your trash, even though you know that they want it. It's hard to get used to, and feels vaguely insulting. But they ask for them constantly.

* The food is super good. I'll be sad to leave. I haven't gotten sick once (knock on wood) and have even started branching out to salads and raw food!

* There is a really awsome blanket culture here. Especially up in the mountains. People walk around wrapped in blankets all day long. I wish it was culturally appropriate in the states. How awesome would THAT be? (answer: totally awsome)

* Ethiopia is not for the faint of heart. As in the physically faint of heart. There is a LOT of uphill walking to be done, even just to get around in a very basic way. Also the sights are usually strategically located up a massive mountain that takes an hour or so to walk up (especially if your speed is cuss ba cuss like me)

* Little kids love love love practicing their English here. They usually just know "hi" or "good morning" but today Lisa and I hiked up to see a monastary (up a mountain, I wasn't kidding about that) and when school got out at least 35 kids asked me what time it was. Because they had just learned it in class.

* Kids also know how to ask you for stuff. Water bottles are the most popular request, but sometimes they just want some water (which is easily shared). In the Simiens the kids would come up behind you and whisper "water, waaater, waaaater" or something ot that effect and it was really creepy. Now I like to creep up behind Lisa and say "satan, saaaatan, saaaaaaaaaatan". It hink things like this happen after 5 weeks of uninterrupted togetherness.

So those are my thoughts currently. Sorry they're not more cohesive. I wish I could post pictures because I have a lot of really amazing ones... but I can't! It's Ethiopia for Christ's sake! Which brings me to my next point. We're in Lalibela now, home of the rock hewn churches that King Lalibela made in the 13th century to be a "second Jeruselum" which is kind of weird, made weider as you tour the churches and the guide is like "This is where Christ was crucified, this is where he was born" etc etc. And it's like... uhm.. but he WASN'T actually born here! It's like an ancient Disney World for Jesus lovers, I guess. Tomorrow is Ethiopian Good Friday, so that should be even more interesting. Or disturbing. Depending how you look at it!

I leave here Saturday and then have about 3 more days in Addis and then it's off to Kenya!

xoxo erin.