BY ANNA REED
Lollipops were being handed out one-by-one to 45 street kids waiting patiently but excitedly in a class room with a green tarp for a ceiling. I was trying to pass Temesgen like I was every other boy. He was nervous about being singled out and hesitant to be followed by a white American with a big camera. Each kid was handed a random lollipop without regard to size or flavor, but when his turn came up, I sneakily tried to give him one of the biggest.
He was terrified of being singled out. In the hierarchy of street children in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, he was on the lower end. I had seen him a few nights before begging for food from individuals and restaurants only to have to give it to the older, bigger streets kids in his neighborhood. Having a white girl from the United States follow him around with a big camera made him uneasy sometimes. On our last day together I wanted to treat him as any other kid, at least in front of the other kids.
After each kid had been given a lollipop and the wrappers were scattered, I pulled him aside and gave him my sunglasses he had jokingly tried on several times in our week and a half together. They were just for him. He was being singled out again. But they were given to him in private.
His smile was nervous and excited. He tried to give them back, thinking they couldn’t actually be a gift. I motioned that they were his to keep. His eyes got big, he bit his lower lip and his cheeks rounded with a smile. He wasn’t nervous anymore, just excited. He kept the sunglasses on the rest of the day. He wore them proudly, not caring what the other street kids thought of his gift.
BY CARA WILWERDING
She unfolded the crumpled, yellow sheet of notebook paper, and a pressed passionfruit flower fluttered onto her lap.
Abeba. It means flower in Amharic.
Sitting in a waiting room with baby blue walls, cream-colored benches and an open metal door that lets in the occasional fly, we exchange hugs, laughs and goodbyes. The room smells like antiseptic wipes. Crisp raindrops patter on the crumbling concrete outside.
This was the last time I would see Abeba Meaza, a 60-year-old breast cancer patient living in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
She’d fought with the disease for four years, but breast cancer didn’t scare her. Abeba saw a cure in her future. After experimentation with both, she’s now using traditional and herbal remedies rather than chemotherapy and surgery.
Retrieving another gift from inside the folded notebook paper, Abeba kissed a navy blue crucifix before making the sign of the cross. A smile spanned across her face, as it did every time she talked about God.
“Everyone can tell me that I will die, but I believe in God and I will survive,” Abeba said. “Human beings can’t determine my life. I don’t worry about that.”
BY ANDREW DICKINSON
The kid in the sport coat and polo t-shirt stood near the always-busy taxi stand staring at everyone’s knees. But he often looked up.
He reads the letters off of a contraception billboard to his mother who stands next to him. He tilts his head way back, a smile on his face and his eyes seemingly getting larger than ever before. His mother laughs at what this 7-year-old was reading about birth control.
Sisay Godeta was about to head across Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from the Abinet neighborhood to the Shiro Meda neighborhood on his way to see an American M.D. at a clinic where, according to word of mouth, a doctor with House-like abilities sees patients every Saturday starting at 10 a.m. The clinic was about five miles from their home. It was 6:10 a.m., and they were on their way.
Sisay’s mother, Abonesh, is so desperate to help her child that she knows she must arrive early to get a spot in line. The small clinic offers more hope to the family than Ethiopia’s largest hospital.
This is a story about Ethiopia, the medical care its people need and its lack of resources that hold it back.
When they found the public minibus that would take them one leg of the journey for a seemingly easy 1.50 birr ($0.08 U.S.D.), they crammed into the middle of the back row, Sisay on his mother’s lap. As the van jostled and bounced on the rocky streets, carefully but quickly finding the whole in the roundabout traffic to squeeze into, a giggle skipped out with each bump. His eyes widened again as he soaked in views of the city he rarely gets to see, exclaiming what he saw.
“Lion!”
“Dog!”
“Machina!”
By 7:15 a.m., just one minibus switch and 3 birr ($0.16 U.S.D.) later, the pair was walking through the big, blue gate of The Cure Hospital.
One other family was already there, a mother and daughter, also waiting to see the miracle doctor. By 10:20 a.m., 20 minutes past the clinic’s start time, the doctor, along with his translator, nurse and a few volunteers, arrived to an overcrowded waiting room – he arrived to Addis Ababa at 3 a.m. and would see 60 patients that day. Most usable seating on the edges of the parking lot were filled by waiting patients and their loved ones.
Sisay immediately approaches the doctor but doesn’t say anything. He just stands and waits and watches, looking up again. The doctor leans down to listen – Sisay speaks quietly – and asks the future patient’s name.
In his typical soft, slow and enunciated tone, he responds.
“Sisay Godeta.”
BY ALLISON HESS
I glanced at my cinched Pendleton backpack. I had been carrying two kilos of rice in my bag for three days n0w, waiting for the right moment to give it to Webelem as a gift. I looked around the coffee shop that was at the most a 6- by 20-foot room and into the eyes of the three other people sitting on the animal skin-lined stools and conversing in Amharic, a language I still did not understand. But that did not matter.
I had spent almost a week with Webelem. She opened her small coffee shop a month ago. It might as well been located in a ditch. If trash were thrown from a moving car, it might come through her window.
In the back of her shop, behind a thin gold curtain, was a double bed with a teddy bear in the middle. The shop was her home. She moved out of Addis Ababa five years earlier to work in Lebanon and, later, Dubai. She managed to escape her horrible work conditions to return to Addis Ababa, only to have her mother die. And here I was, just a 19- year-old American student, who was attempting to develop a story about one of the most deeply rooted elements in Ethiopian culture: coffee.
She did not exactly understand the reason behind me coming day after day to sit, take pictures of her and ask question after question. She did not understand why I asked so much about her past and why I cared about her future. According to business owners who surrounded her shop, I was just a rich American looking to exploit an innocent coffee shop owner to the West.
But Webelem knew differently. She had said just the day before that I was like a daughter to her.
I glanced again at my bag. I did not want Webelem to think that I was pitying her, because my opinion was completely the opposite. Regardless, I knew that it was an Ethiopian custom to bring food as a welcome gift when entering someone’s home, and this was her home.
I looked up to give her the bag and saw her holding a jebena, the traditional Ethiopian-style coffee pot. She smiled at me and motioned the pot toward me. My translator, Haimanot, explained to me that she wanted to give me the black pot, her favorite one, so I would always remember her. This woman, who made an equivalent to about $2.50 per day, was giving me a pot for which she most likely spent days or even weeks saving.
I tried to tell her that it was a nice gesture, but she needed the coffee pot far more than I ever would. I had the memories and photos to remember her by. I did not need to take something from her that was necessary to sustain her struggling business. But she did not understand. Her hospitality was clear, and her intentions were undeniable. I was leaving with her jebena, no matter the cost.
BY SHELBY WOLFE
We walked slowly from the living room toward the green metal gate of the AHOPE compound for HIV orphans.
“Hey girl, I’ve got to get going,” I said.
I’ve never been good at goodbyes, so I tried to cover up what I was really feeling with simple talk and chatter.
I wondered how she was feeling and what she was thinking. Did I have an impact on her like she did me? Will she miss me? Have I affected her and her life in any way at all?
I began to feel that my work and being there for the last two-plus weeks was insignificant and maybe even selfish. I remember thinking that as soon as I walk out that gate, I get to leave and go back to living my life in America. She has to stay there living in those same conditions with very little hope for a future with a family. Did I really make a difference in her life?
We stood at the doorway of the gate. I wished her good luck with everything, and that I was so happy that I was able to get to know her. I told her I thought she was a wonderful girl. She smiled and looked down at her feet. I told her we could stay in contact through Mengesha, a caseworker at the orphanage, and I would miss her. I hugged her and said, “Goodbye. I’ll see you later, Rahel.” She said, “Goodbye.”
I turned toward the gate to leave. I could feel tears burning in my eyes. I stepped halfway outside of the compound and turned around to wave one last time to Rahel. She was still standing there, facing the gate with a solemn expression on her face. She raised her hand and waved hesitantly. We stared at each other for a while until I shut the gate behind me and headed toward home.
Solomon Balcha draws with children in the pediatric ward of the Black Lion Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on May 14, 2013.
BY MORGAN SPIEHS
Solomon Balcha walks the nearly two miles of hilly roads to the Black Lion government hospital.
This doesn’t sound like too big of a feat, but considering what Solomon had been through today, it is.
This is a story about the dedication of the Fekat Circus brotherhood.
Solomon is one of the more than a dozen performers in the Fekat Circus. Many of the performers had hard lives before finding the circus. Solomon grew up in the streets of Addis Ababa.
During practice that day, Solomon hurt his back while the group did a human pyramid. Instead of taking a break, Solomon does 200 push-ups. They’re not even regular push-ups. With his feet high on a two foot high wall and his hands on two inch high blocks, he powers through the reps.
Later, during a dance routine, another performer uses Solomon’s body to kick off and do a flip. The performer kicks Solomon in the throat instead of the chest. Solomon falls to the ground and takes a moment. Within minutes, the circus performer is back on his feet and returns to the routine.
The most challenging routine for the Fekat Circus members consists of jumping through wooden rings that aren’t much bigger than their bodies, over a table and through another ring. One performer jumps through the hoop and Solomon follows. The hoop tips and Solomon runs into it full speed. The ring collides with Solomon’s mid-section and snaps into four pieces.
Solomon rolls to the ground, covering his face with his arms. Birhanu and Dereje hustle to his side. George comes over and taps Solomon’s stomach and begins to pick up the shattered ring with help from Kasha. Dereje starts clapping and yells, trying to salvage the group’s moral. Solomon picks up his head and tries to get up but not before Dereje pushes his head back down. When he finally lets Solomon get up, Dereje follows him, clapping and yelling behind him.
After the morning session ends for the day, lunch is served. Solomon sits outside the kitchen on a rock pathway and eats his meal of traditional Ethiopian food with his fellow circus performers. Then Mered bumps the paint splattered window shutter. The shutter falls and hit it’s victim: Solomon.
Within a few hours Solomon showers and starts his trek to the hospital.
The performers head to the Black Lion Hospital every weekday afternoon to the pediatric ward and dress as clowns, read books and do just about anything to make the kids laugh. Solomon provides the children with books, markers and other materials to draw. He helps them with puzzles and plays games with the children well enough to participate.
On the two mile walk to the hospital, Solomon says, “It’s been a bad day.”
He puts his hands on his back and says it will be fine. He spends the next two hours at the hospital with the children. He then walks the two miles back to the Fekat Circus.
BY BRIANNA SOUKUP
I grabbed her hand and said, in English, “I’m leaving tonight, so I won’t be here tomorrow.” Her eyes didn’t move. She didn’t understand what I was saying. My translator, Zewditu, quickly told her what I said in Amharic, and she immediately squeezed my hand.
Melashiw asked Zewditu if I would be coming back again next year. I shook my head, “No, no,” I said. “I probably won’t be coming back again for many years.”
I hugged her and then shook practically everyone’s hand who lived within a five mile radius. A storm was coming in and the driver was anxious to get back into Bahir Dar.
I looked out the van window and waved at Melashiw and her sister, Destaye. They stood in the doorways of their homes and waved back at me.
When I looked at them for the last time, I imagined myself at their ages. What would I have been doing on a Saturday night? Getting yelled at for going over my monthly text allowance, or maybe complaining about my old and ugly Grand Am.
For a week, I watched these two teenage wives endlessly cleaning, cooking, nursing and fetching water and firewood. At 14 and 16 years old, they were the hardest working housewives I’ve ever encountered.
It wasn’t the life they wanted, but it was the only life they knew.
BY STACIE HECKER
A thin-framed woman with thin-framed sunglasses lounged on a mattress tossed into the corner of the dilapidated concrete one-room house. Her cheekbones were gingerly touched with the sunlight peering over the top of the tin fence surrounding the house. The water droplets from her bath in a bucket moments ago were back-lit from the same sunlight. She was a beautiful woman, but she would never know just how beautiful she was.
“Stacie, are you tired?” she asked with a grin. Her head was turned toward no one in particular, but her comment was for the younger woman awkwardly sitting in a rickety wooden chair beside the mattress. The woman wearing sunglasses must have heard another of the younger woman’s stifled yawns. She did have excellent hearing.
“No, really,” the woman replied, slightly agitated. “I’m okay. I’m tired, but not sleepy.”
The woman with the shades laughed, a dainty trill for a dainty woman. “Come and … uh… come and sleep, Stacie.” She patted the empty spot on the mattress a couple of times and waited expectantly.
The mattress was big enough to comfortably fit the woman, but not Stacie and the woman. The blanket lying softly on the bed was wild and full of life compared to the rest of the small home. The pattern was a mix of the gold and the blue just before midnight; colors swooped and soared, leaving a grandiose impression. She wondered if the residents knew how lovely it looked in that corner.
“Okay Fate,” the younger woman said, struggling between a laugh and a sigh.
As she lied on the mattress, Stacie’s eyes glanced toward the ceiling. One orange light bulb strung up by wires was fighting away the darkness as the sunlight faltered and began to slip away. She looked to her left to see Fate’s thin body next to hers. She should have felt awkward and uneasy lying there. Stacie never curled up next to her best friends, let alone a woman she had met two weeks ago. And yet, Fate had showed her a kindness and immediate warm rarely afforded in America. She didn’t feel uncomfortable. She felt right.
This is a story about knowing when you’ve connected with someone on a personal level – not their story or face – but their humanity.
BY KAY KEMMET
Ruth Tesfaye shuffles through a drawstring backpack. She searches for a notebook and pulls out a crinkled sheet of paper with curvy writing and heart stickers spaced throughout the torn paper.
She hands me a letter, and as I read her broken English, my eyes begin to water.
“Lovely msg for lovely person from lovely friend. I love you.”
She grabs the drawstring bag again and reveals an Arsenal soccer team logo as she pulls out a stack of photos. One photo is more faded than the rest and torn on the edges. She shoves it into a new photo slot in the black photo album I bought her that morning.
There are two women in the photo. One has long, soft black hair and dark skin, darker than Ruth’s. Ruth shoves the photo into the slot, further crinkling the only photo she has of her mother. She smooths the photo out and moves to more recent photos of her “sisters,” young girls who live with her at the AHOPE Orphanage in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
We finished placing the small collection of photos into the album, and stared at each other blankly. We ran out of words to exchange after I had exhausted my Amharic and she had done the same with English.
I stood up to give her a hug. I felt the need to not only break the awkward silence, but also to speed up the goodbye. Ruth wrapped her arms tightly around my waist and buried her face into my shoulder. I felt her tears before I heard her sobs. I sat back down on her small bed and cuddled the young girl in my arms.
I kissed her forehead and told her I would never forget her. I promised to tell her story to the world, the story of a teen struggling with HIV, not in terms of survival but in terms of acceptance.
BY KAYLEE EVERLY
Abass Yusuf Muma, 20, gingerly reached out his hand toward Challa, a young hyena. It backed away slightly and then came forward choosing to trust Abass, his adopted brother.
After a few minutes, Challa started to walk away pausing and looking back about every fifteen feet as if to say, “Are you coming?”
Abass followed. Deep into the farmland of rural Harar, Abass climbed through fields of tall grass, jumped over streams and ducked under branches. About half an hour later, he had arrived.
He climbed up on to a big rock and watched as several hyenas fought 50 feet in front of him dashing in and out of a cornfield. Challa laid down just outside the field, and Abass went over and sat next to him.
Then testing him further, Challa went into the maze of corn, and Abass followed. Branches and corn stocks intertwined creating a shelter for the hyenas.
“Hyena house!” Abass exclaimed in a whisper.
This is a story about the brotherhood that has formed between a man and the hyenas over the course of two decades.
Fountain of the sun 