llnesses in Soddo
I sit by our hotel every morning. In a place where there are no tables but blue chinese tabourets and blue wax cloth is laid upon a slab of concrete instead of a table. Having tried the coffe in differnet places here and there for the past two weeks I found the coffe here the best.
A bit away from me leaning against a post stood an adorable little girl with a shirt wrapped around her head. She was about 3-4 years old. It semed as if she was trying to hide her shaven head. I halfed my bread to share it with her.
Suprisingly I got a negative handgesture and an amharic word “eat!” as an answer. This is the first time when a child out of a bunch of children begging on the street refuses the bread offered by an adult.
There was care and politeness in her eyes.
I called her to come and sit with me. I asked if she wanted any tea and finally got a chance to share my breakfast of the poorer sort.
Her whole appearance told of a very poor child but I didn’t see any greed in the way she ate. Furthermore I couldn’t understand who and how had thought her to behave so politely.
Next morning I brought a woolen hat with me to replace the shirt on her head with that. I figured she had lice an that’s why her head was shaven. I called her to come to me to help her put on the hat.
Unexpected situations here are daily. There was nothing in her face that would have suggested to what I saw when I removed the dusty yellowed shirt from her head. There was not much of infection ridden skin on her head left and maggots were the only thing missing from the dirty and pussy open wound on her head. It was impossible to put on the hat I had brought with me from the hotel.
Though the removal of the shirt made my knees weak I asked if I could take a picture. There are quite a few of these kind of situations and it obviously was not fatal. It is not possible to take the child to the doctors because then all of the Soddo streetcrowd shows up in the clinic and won’t leave until they are in full health. Or they block me on the street. In every unexpected situation you have to thoroughly analyse the twists of the local culture which at times seem so obscure that you just rather shut your eyes and not see them.
I gathered from the locals that the girl works in the cafe as a cleaner. I asked the mother if she minded going to the doctors? Her reply – “no power!”
Meanwhile Hillevi was down with malaria. I had skipped my coffe for few days for that reason. In the Ethiopian culture an ill person is never left by themselves. I was sitting beside her on the bed and was staring at a 1,5l pack of juice on our table. This juice reminded me of the small girl.
An import mangojuice that costs half of the monthly salary of that little girls mother. The juice was given to us by the local doctor who advised not drinking the local ones. The juice sits on the table like some kind of a red light reminding me the story of that litte girl whose mother has never had the money to buy her an egg. Me and Hillevi dont’t unfortunately like the juice.
The next day Hillevi was up and moving. Though not handeling schools business yet but moving. In two days the illness was treated and the recovery didn’t take more than three days.
There is a tremendous charm in being here because situations change without having longingly waited for it for years. Thanks to our conversation with the girls mother the skin on her head got treated as well and without much effort. It seemed as if we just motivated the mother to just deal with it and with not much expenses.
Still a person gets used to things quickly and it is amazing that having been in the middle of all this poverty and illnesses we don’t notice it any more like we used to.
We choose to enjoy a good meal even though it’s not good for us. I invite over dear friends not the people who are in need. In Estonia I lead a life just like that. I forget how little it takes to notice. We even forget to ask that we could be the little finger of change not to mention the arm.
Just as we have been given!
