Disturbing

Today was sobering. It's our last day in Korah and I find myself feeling sad to say goodbye to the sweet children I've met and yet, I'm not sure I could take much more.

I am here to arrange a medical brigade to Korah for my physician group but I am also here to bare witness. So here I go...

We fed the kids and families from the Hope for Korah program. As they finished eating each person brought their plate to the front of the room and dumped any leftover scraps into a plastic dishwashing bucket. Eventually the pile of garbage fills about a third of the bucket. When the last person leaves the Ethiopian woman who has been helping us to serve the food takes the left over injera and drops it in the dish bucket. She then dumps the remaining wot (a sheep stew) into the dish bucket. I think she is going to throw it all away or feed the stray dogs in the alley. She isn't. She starts mixing and I notice one of the men has brought in 9 boys. I haven't seen them before. The Ethiopian woman stops stirring and places the bucket on the floor. The 9 boys rush to their knees and huddle around the bucket.

And they eat.

PLEASE STOP AND IMAGINE THIS. THIS REALLY HAPPENED. THIS SHOULD NOT BE.

Sigh....

And finally....The center of this sad part of the world...The Korah Dump.


There are no words.

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Raw

Maybe it's the fact that I haven't slept more than four hours a night on this trip or that I'm missing my kids like crazy and surely it's the crushing weight of all I have seen this week...but I am raw. This week has peeled me down to the core of my own humanity. I know that sounds dramatic but there IS real life drama here.

It's my last morning in Korah. We will work today to try to forge the last of the relationships we need to be able to return and make a dent in the suffering.

And all I can think is...a dent isn't enough.

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Best Blessed Day Ever

By the time my head hit the pillow last night it seemed as if more had happened then was possible for a single day. And every bit of it, every moment, felt as if I had been led to be here.

We arrived in Korah in the morning to what has quickly become our usual and oh so WONDERFUL greeting by the kids who joyfully run beside our van as we drive up the earth and stone road to the Korah Clinic/Mission 61 compound. Yesterday we even had one excited boy jump a ride with us on the back of the van. As a mom it scares me but their excitement to see us is heartwarming. As soon as we open the van door they rush to hold someone's had and we each quickly have two or more little ones attached to us. In fact by day the kids have already found, no CLAIMED, their favorite person.

It is impossible not to be encouraged by these beautiful children. They make you want to make a difference.

But how?

That has been my personal question for some time now. How do you make things better when the problems are so vast?

I think yesterday I had my answer. I need to focus on what I can do and go deep.

And here in the little corner of the world I am certain I have been delivered to do so. Today in Korah Ethiopia a place I have no rationale reason for being, I met with the medical director of the Alert hospital a "Leper hospital "we had no prior intention of visiting. Without appointment we visited with the medical director and asked simply, "what do you need?" Her response about dropped me to the floor. She proceeded to tell us that they were in the process of building a new emergency department: It would be ready in two months. Also they had one of their physicians currently training in an EM residency THE FIRST EVER emergency medicine doctor in Ethiopia. She went on to ask us for help in training and developing her ER. Could we do that?

YES. Yes we can.

I am the ceo for a world class emergency medicine group. We have 200 providers on staff. We see 500,000 ER patients a year. We run teaching programs and have developed a training program for ER docs in Haiti. YES WE CAN HELP!

It's hard to take in. How perfect a fit this is.

This on top of being able to feed 600 kids yesterday.

Let me tell you yesterday was as close to a perfect day as I have ever had.

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45 hours of travel. Worth it.

Our first full day in Ethiopia had us visiting Rafiki a boarding school in Mojo, followed by lunch at an outdoor restaurant for injera and tibs and orange fanta, then we were off to the goat market to buy live goats for tomorrow lunch, and then best of all we went to Korah!

In Korah we saw the Korah clinic. Project 61, and Mission Ethiopia. What an amazing group of individuals and organizations there are working here. And yet the need is so great, so utterly desperate it's hard to understand how they could even make a dent in the suffering in this miserable place. So much more is needed.

So much more....

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