One of our main tasks was working at the Mother Theresa home. This was a huge emotional undertaking. Before we even arrive at Mother Theresa’s home, we had quite the trek. We walked 40 minutes one way to get there every Tuesday and Thursday. We followed a drainage ditch in which everything from water, oil, sewage, and garbage flowed.  Through a forgotten dump that has been filled in with dirt and turned into a soccer field. Up a dirt road, past small houses. Past schools, beggars, businesses and shops, past a beggar that often wore no clothes and slept by the road with a pile of garbage that also served as his belongings. This is all before we arrive at Mother Theresa’s home.

Once there, the facility is divided into different buildings and rooms. There is the men’s side and the women’s side, with in each side they have it divided into rooms of people with TB, AIDS, mental and physical disabilities, the sick, the dying, the hurt, and children.

Those receiving care at Mother Theresa's home

Us girls worked on the women’s side, while the boys worked on the men’s side mostly with disabled children. The boys played with the children, bathed them, brushed their teeth, fed them, and gave massages. The also occasionally helped serve food to the men.

Gena pushing children around

Ruslan having fun

Us girls did a variety of things. We usually started the day by helping serve breakfast which was followed by cleaning. Everyday there was a huge pile of laundry to be done. We helped wash clothes, hang them up to dry on the roof, and then fold the sheets and clothes that were dry. We helped clean rooms, move people, and crunch dried chilies. We also played with the disabled children, who liked to dance and clap their hands. We also brushed their teeth and fed them lunch.

Lunchtime!

Ready for love!

Our first day there, we saw a deceased woman being carried out on a stretcher and at once we knew this would not be an easy job. It was often difficult to see so many people in one place who were in such need of love, care and attention. We saw how the volunteers there were also people who were being treated for one thing or another. Everyone helped everyone, people in wheelchairs helped fold clothes, the lame helped feed the disabled. It went like this in every room. I was amazed to see such love, God’s love is for everyone. We wanted to do the same, our main job became rather simple.

Just love the people.

I want some love!

Ok, so I am finally sitting down to write out a TON of blogs! I know. I said I would do that like two weeks ago. I’m sorry, that’s all I can say. So I don’t want to forget about Ethiopia, but lots of things are going on now. I will work my way through Ethiopia and end with what is going on now, or I will throw in the current stuff while putting up posts on Ethiopia. Who knows how this blog dump will go.

We will start with where I lived in Ethiopia and what we did there. We lived in a small oasis of sorts in the midst of the big capital city, Addis Ababa. It really was like an oasis, we had big walls around our compound and there was a beautiful yard with a Hollywood swing, some other lawn chairs and umbrellas. We built a fire pit while we were there so that pretty much completed the oasis picture.

First breakfast outside

The swing with the smaller one bedroom building behind

The compound is made up of three buildings. There was the main house where the missionaries lived, and where we did a lot of our construction work, there was another building that had three bedrooms and one storage room. The third building simply had one bedroom with a bathroom as well staff showers and a space to dry laundry.

View of main house

Our quaint little kitchen

We did quite a bit of construction work while we lived in this quiet oasis, which certainly was not quiet while we worked! We did several projects. One was to take apart three rooms to replaster and repaint. Before we did any plastering, we had to pound four holes in the walls to make room for some plumbing. This sounds like a one day thing, which maybe it would be in North America, but we were in Ethiopia. The walls that we had to pound holes in were made of solid rock and cement. Again, walls in North America can be made with solid rock and cement, but in North America we have power tools, and again we were in Ethiopia where they do not have such power tools. The walls we pounded holes in were 50-60 cm thick and all we had was one chisel, hammer, and a giant crowbar.  Not any easy task!

Ruslan pounding away at the giant rock

Making a trench for the plumbing in a small dusty room

I will make a long story short and just say that after pounding and pounding, recalculating, pounding some more, recalculating again we discovered that one of the walls was 2 meters thick making the plumbing project impossible! This naturally was only discovered after 2 of the 4 holes had been made. Since the calculation was not our fault we were treated to a burger and pizza joint, making it all worth it.

Mmmm, my first burger in 3 months!

So now our projects turned into filling in the giant holes, before replastering. We replastered and painted three rooms before we left Ethiopia. We also built a nice fire pit, moved a rock pile, cleaned up some areas around the compound and created a wood pile. All of which we were able to enjoy.

One tough team, moving rocks and mountains!

My last posts were about getting our visas in Turkey and all the adventures we had there. Way too many adventures, so this post will mostly be made up of pictures! Hooray!

In front of the Hagia Sofia

Rise and shine in the Istanbul airport

In Ankara

Spending time with Riza's sister's family

Beautiful Ankara

Visas. It is almost like a bad word now, it’s hard to not say the v word without cringing. I am happy to say we have overcome our fears and received our visas for Ethiopia!… almost.

We went to the Ethiopian embassy here in Ankara on Monday which proved to be a much more difficult process than originally thought. We wandered around trying to tfind the building and when we did find it, it was empty. A neighbor said that they had moved. By chance, Yulia pushed the intercom/doorbell and someone answered! They informed us that yes, the embassy had moved locations and she was able to give us the new address!

So off we went, and since it was snowy and cold and we had already been wandering about in the snow for almost an hour, we took a taxi. Upon arrival, we were met with friendly staff who seemed eager to help us. After we explained our situation, I was asked to go back and answer a few questions. I got a little nervous remembering all the trouble the India team had the interrogations they ahd to go through. The man at the desk was quite friendlt though, we shook hands talked business and then he said ‘wait here.’

The words ‘wait here’ can be so scary. What does that really mean? Is he trying to help us, is he asking for advice from soneone else, is he going to get the visa forms for us? Who knows!!! So I waited. It really was not all that bad, it just was so uncertain.

He did come back though, and said with a smile, ‘ok we can help you out!’ Hooray, hooray!!! He told me that normally people from Ukraine and Moldova are under the jurisdiction of the Ethiopian embassy in Moscow and he only needed to check and see if you could actually give us visas. Everything was fine. We shook hands again and he told me to come back on Wednesday afternoon.

We filled out our forms, paid the money and away we went. Simple as that!

All is good, we came back Wednesday to pick up our passports and visas as planned. I was again, called back into the room. ‘Ah, man what could this mean? Did he discover that he could not give us our visas? Was there a problem with someone’s? What???’

This man was so friendly and nice, he greeted me with another smile and hand shake. It can’t be that bad if he is smilling. He said everyone was able to receive their visas except for me. Me? Didn’t see that one coming. He said that apparently America and Ethiopia have a special deal. Americans MUST apply for a 2 year visa, which he is not authorized to give. No problem though, I can still get mine in the airport in Ethiopia. I can handle that problem.

So we walked away with our visas and passports in hand! We are ready to go to Ethiopia on Tuesday the 21st. We have been going to the local universities here and talking with students as well as seeing some of the history and culture of Turkey. We are enjoying our last few days here with Riza’s sister and family.

Whew! What a whirlwind of a time we have had! We are not in Ethiopia like some of you might be expecting. We are currrently in Turkey, Ankara to be exact. Let me tell you how we came to be in Turkey.

Things started out a little crazy in Ukraine, they almost did not let me go on the flight since I had apparently overstayed *we are still not sure how this worked out.) Anyways, I had to pay a fine.

Our flight was delayed so we missed our connecting flight in Istanbul. We ran around with this man who was trying to help us find our plane, but it had already left. So, luckily the airlines put us up for the night in a nice hotel with yummy food!! We got to see some of the city, take some photos, and buy a few things. We changed our flight, went through security, were about to board and just as we were handing our tickets they told us Ukrainians could not go to Ethiopia. WHAT?!?! We were completely confused. The man we talked to did not speak perfect English nor was he very helpful. All we understood was that Ukrainians and Moldovans needed a visa before boarding a plane to Ethiopia.

So the man led us back through the passport checkpoint and told us we simply could not go. We stood there dumbfounded for awhile, not sure of what to do next. So we went to change our tickets again and explained to the man our situation. This man was a bit more helpful. He told us about some visa database that said Ukrainians could only go on business visas. He helped us change our tickets to Tuesday since we were hoping to go to the Ethiopian embassy on Monday.

After asking about hotels, we found that hotels in the big city of Istanbul are very very expensive. So after waiting for almost 2 hours for our bags, we sprawled out claiming a chunk of benches as our home for the night. We ate kielbasa, mandarin oranges, and chocolate for dinner. We slept alright except for the 3:30 cleaning crew and a few other loud stranded passengers looking for a place to sleep.

The next day we went in search of information. We borrowed a computer, and were able to skype with Riza, a fellow DTS student back in Ukraine who is conveniently from Turkey. He told us many great things. The Ethiopian emabssy in Istanbul does not give visas, but the one in Ankara does. It takes about 5 days to process a visa so that meant we needed to change our tickets again. Where should we stay in Ankara? With Riza’a family of course!!

Riza quickly explained how to get from the airport, to the metro, to the bus station, buy a ticket, and go to Ankara. It is still a miracle to me how a group that does not speak much English get from one city to another that is 7 hours away!! Oh the Lord is so faithful!!

So now we are staying with Riza’s sister and enjoying Turkish hospitality. His family is Muslim, but not devout Muslim. The do not speak English or Russian so our conversations have been very interesting to say the least! Hopefully I will be able to give you more details soon!