Thursday, May 6, 2010

Tesfaye and Dr. Rick Hodes (and it's a small world)

I have been somewhat lazy or busy or both the last few weeks, so this weekend, at least for myself , I hope to finish off the summary of the end of my March trip to Ethiopia. I also would like to put together some information and pictures from my trip to New York with Nanci to partake in some of the events surrounding the new book and the HBO documentary about Rick's humanitarian medical work in Ethiopia, and to post some links to many articles and interviews that were written and conducted with Rick in that regard.

From the "it's a small world" department, recently in Los Angeles my son Justin had a taxi driver from Ethiopia and in the course of discussion Justin mentioned my recent trip to Ethiopia to Tesfaye's village. As it turns out the driver is also from the Gojaam area and, in what can only be described as an unbelievable coincidence, she happens to be from the very small town of Gimjabet (see below post)-- this is the closest town to Tesfaye's village, the town that we slept in and which served as our base for the daily trek back and forth to Tesfaye's village, the town where we had the first reunion with Tesfaye's mother. Out of a country of 80 million people, a town of maybe a couple of thousand people, a small number of Ethiopian immigrants Los Angeles, and out of all of the taxi drivers in Los Angeles, what are the odds of Justin getting a taxi in Los Angeles with an Ethiopian  driver that comes from Gimjabet?!!

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