Tesfaye's Family Reunion Part I - Arrival, his life in the Mercato, Dr. Hodes etc.

Note:  I was in Ethiopia to join in Tesfaye's family reunion (Feb. 26 to March 7, 2010) and in this post I have covered in some detail the first two days in Addis with Tesfaye and Dr. Rick Hodes, including my thoughts on arrival, my time getting a glimpse into Tesfaye's past life in the Mercato, and spending time with Dr. Rick Hodes at the Mother Theresa mission and his home.  My three day family reunion experience in Tesfaye's village, our visit to Gonder and last couple of days in Addis will be covered in a subsequent separate post.

I hope you enjoy reading about this wonderful experience. I suggest it will be helpful for the reader to again read Tesfaye's life history as gathered by Chloe Malle and reproduced down the right hand side of this blog, since during my visit I made a point of going to see first hand many of the key places that played a central role in Tesfaye's life journey to find help, to help me get at least some picture or sense of his life before I met him at Dr. Rick's house.

(Interesting videos are linked into the body of the post, any comments can be made by clicking on the post comment line, pictures can be enlarged by double clicking on them, and a link to my "Family Reunion Photo Album is both at the top of the page above and at the bottom of the page, which will be added to from time to time through the course of this week )

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25th, 2010:

DESCENDING INTO THE UNKNOWN

It feels like it took forever to get here (I left Vancouver the afternoon of Feb.22nd), but as I look out the window of the airplane as the new morning dawns I am excited to see we are flying over northern Ethiopia towards Addis. With the early morning light starting to bathe the hilly terrain below in that pinkish clay colour hue that comes out in the satellite maps that I have studied in preparation for this trip, I realize that in only three short days I will find myself in a small village somewhere below. As we get a little lower I see the narrow serpentine roads and paths that wind through the countryside dotted with thousands of tiny villages like Tesfaye's; something like 95% of Ethiopia's 80 million population lives in the countryside. Though over my years of travel in the developing world I have visited many villages in remote areas, as we are beginning our descent into the capital city Addis Ababa, a certain feeling of uncertainty about what exactly lies ahead gnaws at me.

As I look out the window again I see one of my favourite scenes, where for only a short time just a few long rays of sun poke through the clouds and shine on a very confined section of the earth like a spotlight (maybe it comes from all that reading of the Old Testament in elementary school in preparation for the international bible quiz competition, but it always conjures up biblical images in my mind of the Lord sending a message to the people). Lots of thoughts run through my mind. I think about the strange twists and turns that life presents us, and the events that led me and my family to Tesfaye. Out of all the many sad tales that exist here in Ethiopia, who knows why it was our paths that crossed and ultimately linked together, changing his life and ours in the process.

THE KNOWN: A WARM, SMILING GREETING FROM TESFAYE

I had arranged for someone to pick me up at the airport on arrival and to bring Tesfaye with him. After my long journey there was nothing better than to be greeted by Tesfaye with his warm, smiling face. Even though I had not been with him since the end of October, nor had I been in Addis since two years ago, it really felt like the proverbial "just yesterday" that I had been in Addis seeing him. We first went straight from the airport to the Sheraton hotel where I was staying. Although I had slept minimally the last couple of days I decided to make an effort to stay up until later. Tesfaye and I went up to my room for a few minutes for me to freshen up; while up there we took a moment on the balcony to survey the Addis landscape as we overlooked the grounds of the beautiful Sheraton. The luxury level of the Sheraton in Addis, up to now at least, really stands alone amongst its peers and is an anomaly in the country; none of the other cities have anything coming close. (I am told Addis has a couple of more new luxury type hotels currently under construction.) As we stood there Tesfaye pointed out in the distance the market area, the small "Mercato", where he lived his first four years in Addis; he also pointed out the "Black Lion Hospital", one of the two hospitals that turned Tesfaye away without help. After that brief interlude we started on our way to Tesfaye's place, as I was curious to see this "apartment" that he is sharing with another one of Rick's spine cases, Aselefo, who had successful surgery in Ghana around the time that Tesfaye had his in Vancouver (being deemed too complex for the state of Ghanian post surgical care).



 A VISIT TO TESFAYE'S "APARTMENT"
The driver who picked me up at the airport then took Tesfaye and me to Tesfaye's place. I had heard about him sharing an apartment with Aselefo but it was not quite what I imagined. It appears to be relatively new construction in not a bad neighbourhood that is maybe a 10 or 15 minute walk to Rick's house, where he used to stay; Rick was under great pressure from his landlord to reduce the number of people (close to 20) he has lodging in the space he is renting. Anyway, Tesfaye lives in a self-contained compound where a few families live in a few small one story concrete structures. Tesfaye and Aselefo share one small room with just enough room for their two small beds and a small night stand; they keep their clothes in a suitcase. There is another small room with a table for them to do some homework on. The bathroom and cooking room are communal.

I then unloaded the backpack I brought for the four day trip North to the village and Gondar, which I had filled temporarily on the way over from Vancouver, at Tesfaye's request, with a bunch of tuna snack packs and a new pair of black running shoes for him. His neighbours in the compound all seemed friendly, and there was a very cute two year old boy named Binyam who was fascinated by a greeting card that Haley and Jim had sent for Tesfaye, which made a very funny Mexican type cry and laughing sound when opened. He did not want to let go of that card and wanted to hang around us.

Visiting Tesfaye's School

After stopping for a nearby for a quick lunch consisting of a tuna sandwich (tuna is quite popular in Ethiopia not just in sandwiches but also in things like spaghetti sauce and on pizzas) I wanted to go see where Tesfaye is going to school now. It was actually a nicer and more modern looking school facility than I anticipated.We first dropped in on Tesfaye's math class and met some of his classmates, and it was clear they liked Tesfaye a lot. His teacher said he works hard and is in the top middle of his class. His English teacher was also very complimentary. As this was a new school for him this year they were not familiar with his past or what his back was like before, so they just learned about what he went through through an amharic language essay assignment he was given in which he wrote about his Vancouver experience. I was also able to get a glance at his report card which showed his standing, grades and some very nice comments.

KIBRAN TOURS

On the way to taking Tesfaye to Dr. Rick's house we made a brief stop at the office of Kibran Tours as it is quite close to Rick's house. I wanted to meet the manager Hana Girma who had been helping me coordinate some of my flights and travel arrangements surrounding the village visit. I was familiar with Kibran Tours from my initial visit three years ago with the Vancouver Federation mission I was on, and used them again for a few things on my return visit two years ago. For anyone wanting to go to Ethiopia I highly recommend using Kibran Tours to help with your trip planning and arrangements, as they are definitely one of the best Ethiopian tour companies that is also regularly engaged by the most well known international travel planners.

REST AND THEN HELLO TO DR. RICK'S GANG
Exhaustion caught up to me so after dropping Tesfaye off at Rick's I went back to the Sheraton to rest. I dozed off but was woken up by the driver two hours later, as he thought we had a specific appointment for him to pick me up to go to Rick's. My brain in a complete fog I manage to jump into the shower and then head over to Rick's house to see the whole gang that I last saw two years ago. It was great to see everybody, including Asmera, who spent 3 days in New York last October with me, Nanci and Tesfaye (tesfayesjourney.blogspot.com/2009/10/new-york-bittersweet-goodbye-part-two.html); she looked great in the new glasses we were able to order for her in New York and she was very happy with the prescription. I was hoping to be able to wait long enough for Rick to arrive at the house from the airport, as he was just coming back from a busy two week trip to the USA, but I was just too tired to wait any longer.

A PLEASANT SURPRISE VISIT FROM RICK
I went back to the Sheraton and ended up in the small bar as it was still serving snack food, and after about a half hour I look up and to my suprise I see Rick walking in looking for me; after landing he came for a swim and shower (this is the one regular escape activity for him in Addis that I am aware of) and hoping to find me.  We talked for about an hour about family and other things and I caught up on what he is working on these days: I heard about a huge head tumour case that grew aggresively in the last two years and was successfully operated on in the USA; he told me how he spent 7 hours with Dr. Boachie the Ghanian spine surgeon based in NY going over the waitlist for spine operations in Ghana and how the next batch of 15 out of a waitlist of over 100 was selected, with one of them funded at this point - it costs about $13,000 US dollars to do each one in Ghana; there are also a number of rheumatic heart cases slated to go to India for surgery at a cost of anywhere from $1500 to $5500. We talked again about the potential fundraising effort I am hoping to carry out in Vancouver in the fall to enable some of those operations to take place. We also talked about other initiatives such as schools and scholarships, and whether or not it would be more worthwhile to try to bring up the

level of care in Ethiopia rather than export the surgeries (the former being ultimately a desirable longer term goal but not easily done); and finally we talked about the April 14 debut on HBO of the half hour documentary movie done on hiim caled "Making the Crooked Straight", and the upcoming launch on April 13th in NY of the new book about him written by Marilyn Berger Hewett called "This is a Soul" (I got to skim a pre-release version of the book the next night when I went to Rick's for his famous Friday night Shabbat dinners).  In connection with that he will be interviewed on a number of shows including Good Morning America, Anderson Cooper and the Huffington Report, with the possibility of Oprah as well.

FRIDAY FEBRUARY 26TH, 2010:

ROUNDS AT THE MOTHER THERESA MISSION IN ADDIS
Mid-morning Rick picked me up to accompany him on his rounds at the Mother Theresa Mission in Addis. As he had been in the USA for the last couple of weeks he expected a pretty heavy backlog of new patients waiting for him, but the security guard wasn't sure if Rick would be there the first day back from the trip so he told them to come on Saturday. Although I am very comfortable now when I visit the Mission, having gone there a number of times with Rick on my two earlier visits to Ethiopia and even more so on this one, you can never really get used to the sights and stories found amongst the hundreds of men, women and children that end up there either on a short or long term basis. Through the wonderful dedication of  Dr. Rick and the nuns and many volunteers that give of their time there, there are a number of good news stories that come out of there, but certainly many sad ones as well. The Mother Theresa Mission is in general quite amazing: everyone gets good care and it is very clean, including the kitchen.  Rick showed me a new donated water purification unit that can be installed for about $3500, giving purified water that the residents can retrieve from a nearby waterline.

We spent a couple of hours there dealing with existing cases, including one in process where the 12 year old son of a policeman has a dangerous heart condition that was only discovered through the good fortune of being examined by Rick one day at the Mission and Rick recognizing an unusual sounding heart. It seems that in the course of having a lung condition treated a vital pulmonary artery had in error been tied off with potentially fatal consequences.  Rick is currently working on obtaining corrective surgery for him in the USA, not wanting to chance having this procedure done in Ethiopia by the same people that caused the problem that went undetected. There was also an adorable looking young girl with good English skills that looked like she was straight out of a Gap Kids brochure who was there to see Rick. As it turns out she is one of Rick's patients that went to California for heart surgery and spent a few months there living with a family, and had a lovely printed book of picture memories from her stay there. (Note: Mother Theresa Mission is one place where pictures are not taken)

TESFAYE'S PAST LIFE IN THE "MERCATO"
On this visit I wanted to take the opportunity to get a glimpse of  Tesfaye's past life in the Mercato, where he spent his first four years in Addis living and peddling his wares out of a wheelbarrow (see his Life History in the side column) while trying to find help. Tesfaye came to meet us at the Mission with Fitsum, another of Rick's back patients who had surgery in Ghana even though he is a little older that the typical one accepted by Dr. Boachie. Fitsum has good English skills and had been studying French, but for now is in a nursing program.

So Tesfaye, Fitsum, Bayele (one of Rick's assitants) and I then made our way by local collective taxi service up to the small Mercato area. I enjoyed getting the local flavour by going the shared taxi route (click following link for video:arriving at the Mercato and beginning to explore).  For the next two hours I
was able to see the streets where Tesfaye pushed his wheelbarrow making one or two dollars a day selling
gum, kleenex pens and the like, see one of the places he lived for a couple of the years he was there, and the night school where he attended some classes. The friendly school watchman who had been working there almost 27 years remembered Tesfaye well and said he was eager to learn. The whole time we were accompanied by Tesfaye's relative Aendalamaw from his village that also has been in Addis for five years living in the Mercato and going to school, where he is currently in Grade 12 (not that common in Ethiopia), speaks good English, and stands first in his class.

He is very polite and gave me a couple of his beautifully decorated pens that he makes himself and sells to earn some money. We always drew the attention of curious yet friendly onlookers of all ages. I can tell you that many of the people we encountered there remembered Tesfaye from those days of being completely bent over horizontal to the ground, and their reaction to the way he now looks was the same we experienced throughout my trip: "he looks amazing - he is reborn - it is a miracle from God!"   

Although Tesfaye had described to me what kind of  conditions he lived in at the Mercato, to see it in person brought his descriptions to life. For anyone, let alone someone with Tesfaye's extreme pain and discomfort, to work and live like that is something hard for someone living in the Western world to relate to; although he told me slept on a floor with around 20 others for the equivalent of 10 cents a night, I did not quite picture that it was a cramped 2nd level dirt floor of a small space which he would access by a small stick ladder (click following link for video of Tesfaye's living quarters in his Mercato days). As I have said from the beginning of this blog, Tesfaye has been through quite the journey getting to the point he is at now.
It really is quite remarkable that a very sick 12 year old straight from a remote village in the north, with a very debilitating back condition and initially unable to speak the local dialect, could survive and live in that environment for four years with his perpetual smile on his face. I have learned a lot from this young man. 

As we left our visit to the compound where he lived in the Mercato we ran into a young woman who also remembered Tesfaye from his days of being totally bent over and who was now amazed to see how he looks now. She was carrying a very cute young boy not even two years old and told us that she named him Obama - another sign of the widespread world popularity that President Obama enjoyed, at least then. 


FRIDAY NIGHT SHABBAT DINNER, FEB. 26TH, 2010  

After spending that most interesting and enlightening afternoon learning about Tesfaye's life for 4 years in the Mercato I went back to my hotel to freshen up before going to attend Shabbat dinner at Rick's house. This was the first time that the timing worked out for me to be able to attend a Shabbat dinner at his house, although I had seen movie footage and heard about thes dinners. Although Rick is an observant Orthodox Jew, he has modified his method of observing to take into account his life in Ethiopia, which includes 20 or so young Ethiopians of different religions living  under his roof. Therefore as a group song he sings the non-donominational "If I had a Hammer" while standing in a circle holding hands where very colourful head coverings, followed by the traditional Hebrew blessing on the Children, prayer for the sick, and blessing over the Challah bread. If there is anyone Jewish or otherwise with no place to go for Friday night dinner or interested in coming Rick will invite them. One guest this night was a 27 year old Jewish woman from Washington, Mollie, who works with the USA refugee asylum department in Washington and currently in Ethiopia for six weeks with her team doing field interviews; as it turns out she went to Mcgill University in Montreal for undergrad and knows some friends of my daughter Haley who went there.  There was also a church group from Spokane Washington involved in some church sponsored school in Ethiopia  that Rick met on the airplane the day before and invited to come to dinner (Click following link for Friday evening Shabbat dinner at Dr. Rick Hodes' home).

After the songs and prayers it is a potluck Ethiopian food dinner for everyone, self-serve and find any place you want to sit.  It really is a warm, amusing and relaxing way to spend Shabbat dinner in Ethiopia. Rick has a nice light-hearted and relaxed manner of interacting with the gang of "kids" that live with him, the same style of bedside manner that I have also observed on the many occasions I have accompanied him.

(To be continued.  by way of separate post,  the 3 day Village visit and Family reunion)

Tesfaye's family reunion - what an experience!

Wednesday March 3rd, 2010: I am back in Addis Ababa after an incredible visit with Tesfaye to his village for three days, followed by another wonderful day in Gondar with Tesfaye, his first time there. It appears that I got lucky and have access to the blog from here for now, but I don't have time to update now all that happenned.

In the village it was three days of celebrating Tesfaye's return as a man "reborn"; it was like witnessing the visit of royalty, with myself being treated like part of the royal party as well.   In Gondar I had the chance to see the Spread the Love Project addition to the first school launched by Justin, where I was greeted by smiling young faces who made a special appearance at the school even though it was a holiday.

I hope over the course of the next couple of days and more to be able to give some details and upload some images. Stay tuned, there is a lot to try and describe.

Off to the village after two interesting days in Addis Ababa

As mentioned on the Facebook Tesfaye page, it seems that access to blog sites is restricted, but I have just found by using remote desktop to get into my office computer I can bypass that. I only have time now to say that the first day in Addis Tesfaye was there to greet me with big smile at the airport and I saw his "apartment" and his school and later spent time at Dr. Rick's house with his gang, though Rick did not arrive from the USA until after I was back at the hotel, where he surprised me with a late night visit.

Yesterday was another great day revisiting the Mother Theresa Mission in Addis with Dr. Rick, and then going to the small Mercato with Tesfaye where I spent a few hours learning about Tesfaye's 4 years of life there - where he slept,ate, peddled his wares in the wheelbarrow, and meeting so many people who knew and remembered Tesfaye from those days and were so happy to see him and spoke so kindly about him. Although I had read and heard from Tesfaye many stories about his life in the Mercato, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Later I got to partake in Dr. Rick's well know Sabbath dinners.

I will fill in with more details and thoughts here probably in a few days when I return to Addis,sooner if I can, as in a few hours I am off to catch a plane with Tesfaye as we make our way to the village and see his family today.

They say that in life timing is everything - it's not easy, but almost there!

Monday February 22nd and Tuesday February 23rd, 2010: If it's Tuesday it must be?

A couple of days before Nanci and I left for Montreal I had bad news of an impending 4 day Lufthansa pilot strike that had caused my connecting flight from Frankfurt to Addis Ababa to be cancelled. Then just before leaving Monday I heard the strike had been postponed, giving me hope that my flight would be reinstated; unfortunately, it was not soon enough to reinstate that flight.So after spending Monday night and most of Tuesday in Montreal before catching my overnight flight to Frankfurt, here I am dealing with a 12 hour layover as I wait to catch my late night flight getting me into Addis at 7:30 am.   I did enjoy the benefit of some good timing on the way: I was happy to bump into Debbie and Michael Smith at the airport lounge in Montreal, even though I only had time for a quick five minute hello. Also, here at the Frankfurt lounge I saw Saba Batra, who is on her way back from India to Vancouver after a month in India visiting family. She is getting married in June in Vancouver.

As I flew here from Montreal I thought back to the short but sweet one day visit I had in Montrea, and  I found a certain symmetry in the fact that there I was with Nanci as she was visiting her mother for the first time since Rhoda had her heart surgery last summer, and I am about to accompany Tesfaye to his mother Yeshi's village where they will see each other for the first time since his back surgery last summer in Vancouver (more details are in my post of February 5th below).

In any event, I am anxious to finally get to Addis and see Tesfaye, as well as Dr. Rick Hodes and Azmera and the other young people living with Rick, and my young friend Workie in Gondar, and mabye also get to one of the Spread The Love Project schools in the Gondar area. It will be nice to reconnect with Ethiopia and all of  those people. I even had a chance here in the Frankfurt airport lounge to practice some of my limited Amharic language vocabulary on one of the staff, as I knew when I looked at her that she had that classic female Ethiopian face that you see in the centuries old paintings.

I truly am excited as I get closer and closer to sharing that reunion that is about to happen between Tesfaye and his mother and siblings; funny, That Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics glow and buzz that I felt so strongly and enjoyed from the Opening Ceremonies until I left on Monday, seems to be fading quickly. Although Ethiopia is far removed from the Olympic scene (though they did have one athlete representing Ethiopia in Vancouver), I will try to stay current on results as best I can and will be rooting from a distance.

Now I am going to try to sleep a bit before tonight's flight.

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.

Chloe Malle - Bright Young Thing (Entertainment & Culture: vanityfair.com)

Vanity Fair Magazine January 2010: Chloe composed Tesfaye's "Life History" that is reproduced on the right hand side of this Blog; she is featured in a January 2010 Vanity Fair article,Chloe Malle, Bright Young Thing Entertainment & Culture: vanityfair.com.

The Vanity Fair article has a beautiful picture of Chloe and also shows a picture of her lovely mother (Candace Bergen) from her senior high school days. Under her causes, she naturally mentions Dr. Rick  Hodes' work at the Mother Theresa Mission in Addis Ababa.  After graduating from Brown University, Chloe spent a year in 2008/2009 living and working in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, helping Dr. Rick Hodes carry out his humanitarian tasks. While there she got to know and become a good friend to the many young Ethiopians that live with Dr. Rick.  Tesfaye was happy he was able to see her again and spend a few days living with her and Azmera at her New York apartment, and Nanci and I were also very happy to finally meet Chloe in person (see my Postings about this, including pictures of Chloe, made on October 25 and 29,2009 covering our time with Tesfaye in New York from October 4th to 7th before we bade him farewell as he made his way back to Ethiopia).

Chloe's telling of Tesfaye's life story, which I actually only received shortly before he was due to arrive in Vancouver in May of 2009, moved me greatly not only on first reading but has continued to do so on every subsequent reading to this day. I know Chloe will be successful with her writing career and any other undertaking she chooses to take on.