Ethiopia Day 2

We arose and had a beautiful breakfast of French toast and syrup made by the lovely people at the guest house we stayed. I had no idea what was planned for this morning but when Geoffrey mentioned the Fistula hospital, I was immensely excited. I had seen this hospital on Oprah and the awesome woman who had the vision to start this hospital that works with many women suffering from this awful condition. Fistula is a hole. An obstetric fistula of the kind that occurs in many developing countries is a hole between a woman's birth passage and one or more of her internal organs. This hole develops over many days of obstructed labor, when the pressure of the baby's head against the mother's pelvis cuts off blood supply to delicate tissues in the region. The dead tissue falls away and the woman is left with a hole between her vagina and her bladder (called a vesicovaginal fistula or VVF) and sometimes between her vagina and rectum (rectovaginal fistula, RVF). This hole results in permanent incontinence of urine and/or feces. A majority of women who develop fistulas are abandoned by their husbands and ostracized by their communities because of their inability to have children and their foul smell. Traumatic fistula is the result of sexual violence. They said that they have girls as young as 12 who suffer from fistula and have treated women as old as 60. It broke my heart to see this on Oprah and I felt so priviledged to be able to witness the work they are doing first hand. I bought the book written about this project called 'A hospital by the river'. It is an inspiring book of the life of Dr. Catherine Hamlin and her husband from New Zealand and their journey in Ethiopia for the last 50 years. (Although her husband passed away many years ago.)
From here we went to our only souveneir shop stop at one of the local markets. I was not looking forward to this as it was cold and raining and I did not really go to Ethiopia to buy gifts. But nevertheless, we waited for the rain to calm down while Geoffrey warned us of the beggars that would be asking us for money. We were encouraged not to give any thing to them as it was very likely that these kids were not the actual recipients of what we would give, but rather, there were older men who were sending them out on the streets to beg.
The word went down the street that the "ferengi's" were in town. So each store that we stopped into would often charge us a much higher price than what the item was actually worth. The fact of the matter was, however, that the prices were dirt cheap. So I bought a few things but was exhausted by the end of it, having to say "No" many, many times -especially to one man who was trying to sell us a map! OH my goodness! I said No! lol. It was also on this day I realised how dark it was in all the shops and wherever we went. Come to find out that Ethiopia only has power every second day due to lack of water in the hydro lakes.
Anyway, we headed off from there to Nazaret. We drove for two hours through the countryside of Ethiopia. I was amazed at how there were always people walking on the side of the road. We drove past the huts, the fields, and industrial areas. There was also a small town that we drove through that looked familiar to me. Not that I had been there before but I had had a dream about it a while ago. That was pretty bizarre!
We arrived in Nazaret as the sun was setting. We settled in our hotel - the Rift Valley Hotel and found out what it is like to not have an elevator in a hotel where the altitude is far above what I am used to. It was breath-taking. Literally!
We began our nightly rituals here of meeting as a team, having a bible study and reflecting on our day and encouraging one of our team members. I already loved my team and the humour they brought into my life. It was a good night. Other than the look of our toilet, but that I was to get used to.