Friday, February 5, 2010

Reunion Time at last - I'm booked to go!

As I mentioned in my previous post on Friday January 15, 2010, I have been trying to juggle my schedule so that I can fly to Ethiopia this month to finally travel with Tesfaye to his village for his first reunion with his mother and siblings in over two years and, more importantly, it will be the first time that they see each other since his life altering surgery.  I am scheduled to fly from Vancouver on February 22nd to Addis Ababa via Montreal and Frankfurt, arriving the evening of the 24th; I will fly back to Vancouver early in the morning on March 6th.

I recently spoke with Tesfaye to tell him I am booked and, as you can imagine, he is so excited for himself and his mother that this time has come. I too am excited, for I have been hoping and dreaming of one day being able to share in what will surely be a very special moment in Tesfaye's journey of hope. After spending the first couple of days in Addis I plan to fly with Tesfaye on the 27th to Bahar Dar, the nearest city you can fly to, and then it is about a 4 hour journey by car to the nearest town of Agew Gimjabet, followed by a 1 hour and 45 minute trek on foot to Tesfaye's family village Gimja Bet Maryam; I will have a chance to meet Meheret, the shop owner Tesfaye and I would call to get word to Tesfaye's mother to walk to town from her village at a predetermined time and day to receive our call, as she has neither phone nor electricity in the village.  I expect I may sleep one night in the town and one night in the village. On the third day if it appears that I can fit it in, I may fly from Bahar Dar up to Gonder for a day and night to visit my friend Workie and to see one of the Spread the Love schools, either the original or one of the two new ones. For now, anyone interested in viewing a map of Ethiopia and those locations can go to http://www.blogabond.com/gs99van and zoom in and out of the map for different views and detail. I did not yet have time to figure out how to reproduce a map like that on this site.   When I am away I may provide updates and photos on both that site and this.

I am also looking forward very much to spending some time with my hero Dr. Rick Hodes and catching up on all of his current activities and projects.  I will report back on this also. I will see him in Addis, and maybe in Gondar as well, as he is going to be there with a mission coming to visit from the US.  Israel has opened up the list  again of Ethiopians eligible to emigrate to Israel, so the JDC is gearing up the clinics and compounds again for that. The list had been cut off back in 2008.

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