After leaving home in Orange County at 4 am the morning of June 18, I found myself haggling with an Ethiopian immigrations officer nearly 30 hours later, about 8 pm Ethiopian time the night of June 19. The officer vehemently insisted I provide an address for my place of residence while in Ethiopia and held my passport hostage until I was able to provide one. The major impossibility in this conundrum was the fact that addresses are largely non-existent in Ethiopia and in fact most streets don't even bear names. I eventually dug up the phone number of a nun I would be staying with and the immigrations officer finally acquiesced, letting me on my way.
The thirty-some-odd hours in between California and Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia, had taken me through Chicago, Frankfurt, and Sudan, resulting in a somewhat-discombobulated version of myself stepping off the plane. The smell of fuel exhaust mixed with the smell of burning trash reminded me of similar olfactory pleasures in Kyrgyzstan and the slightly ramshackle nature of the airport, at least by American standards, brought me back to some of the provincial airports of China.
Dr. Larry Thomas, director of Tropical Health Alliance Foundation, met me outside the baggage claim, joined by filmmaker Sean and recently graduated pre-med Joey. Together, the four of us followed our driver, Ayu, into the Ethiopian night outside the airport, which was permeated by the smell of car exhaust. The smell and the sights of neon signs and half-constructed buildings gave me the strong sense of being back in Wenzhou, China- where my family's China tour had made an emergency landing over a year prior. Along the way, Joey informed me that in Ethiopia, a surprised gasp meant "I understand" whereas "yes yes yes" meant "I don't understand." In my sleep-addled state, I accepted this paradoxical custom without a second thought.
When we finally arrived at the gated compound of St. Mary's School, where we would stay during our time in Addis, it was already time to turn in for the night, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that the guest rooms at the school offered soft beds and hot water.
It wasn't until the following morning when I would meet the sisters of St. Mary's School. Sister Mary, a lively Irish nun whose stage 4 ovarian cancer was now in remission, busily cooked us a hearty breakfast consisting of fried eggs, Ethiopian sausage, and porridge to provide us sustenance for the day's journey into southern Ethiopia. After determining our plans for the day, Dr. Thomas, Sean, Joey, and I left the gated compound en route to the city proper.
The thirty-some-odd hours in between California and Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia, had taken me through Chicago, Frankfurt, and Sudan, resulting in a somewhat-discombobulated version of myself stepping off the plane. The smell of fuel exhaust mixed with the smell of burning trash reminded me of similar olfactory pleasures in Kyrgyzstan and the slightly ramshackle nature of the airport, at least by American standards, brought me back to some of the provincial airports of China.
Dr. Larry Thomas, director of Tropical Health Alliance Foundation, met me outside the baggage claim, joined by filmmaker Sean and recently graduated pre-med Joey. Together, the four of us followed our driver, Ayu, into the Ethiopian night outside the airport, which was permeated by the smell of car exhaust. The smell and the sights of neon signs and half-constructed buildings gave me the strong sense of being back in Wenzhou, China- where my family's China tour had made an emergency landing over a year prior. Along the way, Joey informed me that in Ethiopia, a surprised gasp meant "I understand" whereas "yes yes yes" meant "I don't understand." In my sleep-addled state, I accepted this paradoxical custom without a second thought.
When we finally arrived at the gated compound of St. Mary's School, where we would stay during our time in Addis, it was already time to turn in for the night, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that the guest rooms at the school offered soft beds and hot water.
It wasn't until the following morning when I would meet the sisters of St. Mary's School. Sister Mary, a lively Irish nun whose stage 4 ovarian cancer was now in remission, busily cooked us a hearty breakfast consisting of fried eggs, Ethiopian sausage, and porridge to provide us sustenance for the day's journey into southern Ethiopia. After determining our plans for the day, Dr. Thomas, Sean, Joey, and I left the gated compound en route to the city proper.
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