Hi all,
Des is a friend who is currently in Ethiopia and Kenya on a six weeks trip.
as part of a group that have been reconditioning second hand computers,
installing advice on aids on each computer and now delivering to areas
where the need is great.
He had a contract to design the website for Rehab which was a runner up in
the Golden Spider award. He is very interested in accessible web design and
has expressed an interest in becoming an associate member of Vics when he
returns. I have also asked him if he will do an interview for Infovics
which I feel, should be interesting.
Anyway, in the meantime enjoy his travels and apologies for sending it late.
Noreen M.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Des McDonnell" <des.mcdonnell@xxxxxxx>
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<yseult@xxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, July 19, 2006 7:19 PM
Subject: Ethiopia
Hi all,
Hope all is well back home and that everyone is enjoying the heat wave. Apologies for the lack of contact - it was very difficult in Ethiopia. SMS has been banned by the government for political reasons, and the Internet is practically unusable.
I'm in Mombasa, Kenya at the moment and everything is still going great. There are more home comforts here but still plenty to see and do. The following account was written last week when I was still in Ethiopia, but I havn't been able to send it until now.
I'm now contactable on the following mobile number - +254 727341157 (Kenya)
Our blog is also availabe at http://www.caringstart.com
I'll see everyone in a couple of weeks. All the best, Des
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Iâm typing on my laptop in my room in the Taitu Hotel, Addis Ababa. The room is very basic to say the least. My window is missing a few panes of glass, which makes it rather chilly at night. I have heard mention of bedbugs so Iâm sleeping in my sleeping bag liner to try to avoid them. There is also a constant, unpleasant waft coming from the toilet next door where running water is far from guaranteed (there hasnât been any for three days now!). The common area of the hotel is decent and the food is fine, so all and all it has served its purpose over the last five days.
Since arriving in Ethiopia, we have seen and done so much. We flew into Addis and spent a few days here acclimatizing, before heading down south to the towns of Nazerath (known as Adama to the locals) and Urgelam where we have previously sent shipments
of computers. Here we got down to work training over 300 people, setting up websites and a network.
The work has been generally very rewarding, as the people are very friendly and very keen to learn. However, it has been the sights and the experiences outside of the schools that will stick with me forever. One of the highlights of the trip to Urgelam was a hard-fought football match between the locals and the âfurengiesâ (foreigners). In the end the furengies won out by one goal but it was a close run thing!
Some of the images of poverty from Ethiopia will stay with me for life. I have seen people drinking from puddles on the side of the street. I have seen others walking the streets on their hands as they have no legs. For all the poverty here, the people generally seem upbeat and are extremely friendly towards us. They are very religious (either Christian or Muslim) and as a result they do not tolerate crime. We had one experience where a few of the group were jumped walking through a town centre. Within seconds, the locals had come to their aid and the thief had been carted off to the local police station where by all accounts, he got the beating of his life.
Pretty much everyone in the group has been sick at this stage. One of the guys has recently had a particularly bad bout of food poisoning. Then again, he did spend last Saturday afternoon chewing on lumps of raw meat (a local delicacy in the south of the country), so it was probably to be expected. I myself have had a dickey tummy on and off over the past few weeks. One of the worst experiences was during an excursion into the Rift Valley organized by the principal of the college in Adama. The last thing I wanted to do that day was sit in the back of a boiling hot 4x4 as we went from scenic attraction to attraction. The public toilets I encountered along the way (think âTrainspottingâ, only without the actual toilet bowl) were far from helpful in my condition as you can imagine. After my ânormalâ western medicine had failed to improve my situation, I decided to try the local drug of choice â âchatâ (this was given to me by the head of the school and the head of the local chamber of commerce).
If you didnât know better, you would think you were eating just twigs and leaves. Youâre meant to chew it into a paste in your mouth. We took it with chewing gum to try to cover up the disgusting taste. I had been told to expect hallucinations and a heightened sense of awareness, but to be honest all that happened was that my extreme tiredness subsided for a while. There must be something to it though as many of the locals (including most of the taxi drivers I encountered) seem to be permanently buzzing off this stuff.
The shipment of computers that we rushed to complete before we left Dublin has been delayed due to red tape at the port in Djibouti. As a result, we have decided to change our schedule. We had intended to stay in Ethiopia for another week, but instead we are leaving for Kenya today. I expect Kenya to have a few more home comforts so Iâm hoping Iâll be able to send this email from there.
Yesterday saw most of the group fly down to Nairobi. Cormac and I delayed our flights to attend a conference on âICT Development in Ethiopiaâ in the United Nations Conference Centre here. To be honest the conference wasnât up to much, but the UN setup was well worth a look. I tried to go back this morning for another conference (this time on âOpen Source Software in Ethiopiaâ), but despite my best bluffing, I couldnât convince the burly security guard to let me into the compound. Thinking it was probably best not to mess with the UN, I gave up after a decent effort!!
Taxis and minibuses are our main way to travel around Addis. The taxis are ancient clapped out Ladas which the drivers (known as âpilotsâ) drive at crazy speeds, weaving their way precariously through traffic, people, goats, donkeys and anything else they encounter. The minibuses are also quite an experience. While trying to get from A to B the other day, the first bus broke down and I ended up helping the locals to push start it. After that failed, I jumped into a second one while ran over a dog. The driver thought about stopping, but after looking back at the dog whimpering in the middle of the street, seemed to shrug his shoulders and continue on.
Iâve been trying to keep up the running while Iâve been here. It was fine when we were down in the south of the country, but here is Addis I am finding it very difficult. I came very close to getting sick after just a couple of miles the other day. The city is almost 2000m above sea level, so the air is very thin. It is also very hilly and very polluted (leaded petrol is still the norm here), so maybe Iâll be better off leaving the running until the beach in Kenya.
Last Friday is without doubt the best example of the range of emotions and extremes I have experienced here. The day started with a visit to a HIV / AIDS clinic. The purpose of this visit was to get a clearer idea of the situation here to help in the development of an educational CD-Rom I am working on. The next couple of hours were some of the hardest of my life. Mary and I were taken on a routine round of house visits to people infected with the disease. I donât think I can properly describe the images we saw, but I can say that I have never in my life seen such poverty and desolation. What I saw in the first house will haunt me for the rest of my life. The patient was so skinny that until we were introduced I couldnât tell if she was a man or a woman. It was explained to us that she is nearing the end of her time. The care worker expects her to die within a matter of weeks. She is too far-gone and too ill to avail of the anti-retro-virual drugs that are available for free here. She has a child of about 5 and a sister that looks after them both. The rent for the house is about 1 dollar a month and it is somewhat subsidized by the government, but the family still struggle to pay this and to feed themselves. My heart was breaking at this stage. On the way out I handed 100 Birr (about 10 Euro and all the money I had on me) to the sister. I know this is perhaps a typical western reaction and is of little use to the sick woman, but perhaps it will be of some use to her kid and her sister after her day. I didnât know what else to do.
In total we visited about 7 homes. Some were physically worse than others. Some were little more than shacks â wooden frames with plastic sheets for roofs. These huts were homes to entire families. Some of the stories in the houses were also worse than others. Some of the patients were responding well to the drugs they were been given. However, it is still inevitable that they will die from HIV. In some cases both the husband and wife were infected and their main concern is what will happen to their children when they die.
In the afternoon Eoghan and I had to give a guest lecture to the Department of Computer Science at the University of Addis Ababa. I had been dreading this since it had come up a few days previous. I had been asked to lecture on the topic of âPractical Multimedia Applicationsâ. Thankfully it went really well and the heads of the department were very impressed. We are now aiming to co-ordinate some collaborative work between
UAA, Camara and UCD.
At this stage my head was spinning with all that had already happened throughout the day. After a quick pit stop at the Taitu Hotel so that myself, Eoghan, Cormac and Mary could get suited and booted, it was time to continue the roller coaster of emotions at a reception for Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern in the lavish surroundings of the Sheraton Hotel. I had a chat with Dermo himself and the photographer he had with him was keen to get a photo of the two Dundalk men, so donât be surprised if a picture of the two of us pops up in the Dundalk Democrate or Argus. The reception itself was an odd affair. Having seen so few white people during our time here, it was very strange to have all these ginger, sun burnt, freckled people all getting drunk on Guinness
is the same room. The hotel is without doubt the most extravagant I have ever been in yet it is completely surrounded by shantytown. I have been told that when it was being built the developers forced the people out of their homes without any compensation and just bulldozed down their shacks to make way for the construction.
So from the feeling of helplessness in the morning, through the nervousness of the afternoon to the self-indulgence of the night event, last Friday was without doubt one of the most memorable days of my life.
All in all, the past few weeks have been mind-blowing. Ethiopia has been one of the best experiences of my life. Here's hoping for more of the same in Kenya....
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