Evening at Melush’s Family Home

Sunday 30th March

Last night Melush called to invite me to his home to meet Jean and Sandra.

Jean is Melush’s Sister-in-law. She was married to his brother who died in 2002. He had set up a trust to support his old school and Jean has now taken over the fund raising aspect of this as well as providing training for nurses (together with Sandra who hails from the Isle of Arran) on her regular visits. The name of the trust is the Aysanew Kassa Trust – an independent charity supporting several local schools and the local community. Next project is to build and stock a library for the community.

We all met at Melush’s family home – Mum, a very striking elderly woman had organised dinner for all, including meat despite the fact that they’re all fasting. Also met Semu aged 61 going on 16 (I kid you not). Semu has lived in London for the past 35 years (Maida Vale end of Kilburn) raised her family, has grandchildren, retired and returned to Gonder to build a house and settle. But not sure at the moment that she will manage to do that. She is feeling very lonely and doesn’t feel she fits in. But it’s early days. I hope to get to know her better.

I had a long conversation with her and Sandra about the situation in the south of Ethiopia.

Sandra had taken two groups of nurses to visit a hospital about 40 km south of Addis. Unusually, there have been no rains at all this year leading to a massive shortage at the present time. They were allocated one small bottle a day.

Semu then told me that much of the water was being diverted to new farms growing flowers for export whilst people were going hungry! Semu, a member of Greenpeace then went on to tell me about an assignment of contaminated fertiliser that was delivered 5 years ago. They knew it was contaminated but forced the farmers to use it because they couldn’t afford to ship it back. The consequence being that much of this previously good farmland is now useless.

Sandra told me about the work of the Taru Centre, an organisation in Gonder that works with Street children. She had been that day to visit it and recommended I do the same.

At this point, Mohammed came into the house and was greeted with great pleasure by everyone. Mohammed came through the Taru organisation. He lives with his mother and 3 sisters. As a child he caught a viral disease that affects the face and eats away at the cartiledge so he lost half his face. For many years his face was an open wound. He couldn’t go to school. Eventually, a charity picked up on it and Mohammed was treated. Last year he went to London to the Kensington and Westminster Hospital where two plastic surgeons offer their services for free. I think it’s called ‘faceback’. They were unable to continue with surgery because Mohammed had a rare condition attacking his skin (like TB of the skin) and so he came home.

He has now recovered and next week, returns to London for continuation of the surgery that will recreate his face and give him a future.

Sandra also told me of a hospital in Addis she wants me to visit – it’s called the Fitsula hospital and caters for young girls. A huge problem in Ethiopia is the number of young girls made pregnant before maturity. Because their bodies are not fully developed they end up going through days of labour which only finishes when the baby dies and is eventually still born. The damage caused to the girls’ bodies causes bladder and bowel problems so they become incontinent. They are then housed outside the villages/towns because of the smell. The hospital in Addis is the only place treating them and it can only treat a small percentage of the young girls affected by this.

Melush organised a taxi home. We dropped Jean and Sandra off on route. Then a nightmarish journey back into Gonder. The roads are just as full of people walking at night as there are in the day. The car journey is something you just want to hide your eyes and pray you’ll make it!

And that brings me to the end of March – only two months!