A daily struggle for many

Friday 3rd October

I woke up with a distinctly dodgy stomach and ended up going back to bed for a couple of hours while John met with Forum for Street Children (FSC). I caught up with John and Yared later in the morning. I was really impressed with the work FSC were doing. They work with children who have been physically and sexually abused. Many are homeless and illiterate. They can visit the drop in centre at any time and are encouraged to visit the safe home. House mothers spend the night with the children in the safe home. The children are encouraged to stay for up to three years, in which time they are given counselling, shelter, food, medication (if needed), and skills training. One of the main challenges is moving them from the safe house back to the outside world. They encourage the children to rent a small house together whilst FSC helps to find them work. FSC works closely with the local police to identify the children most at risk and intervene as early as possible.

I learned about the problem of trafficking young girls from this region to Djibouti, then across the sea to Saudi Arabia and Yemen, where they are put to work as prostitutes. We spoke to some of the girls at the drop in centre. The youngest had run away from her home in Djibouti. She was only 10 years old. Another girl told us how when she was living at home with her family she was beaten constantly. She is really happy to be somewhere safe now where she can be educated too. When she is older she would like to become a police woman.

After lunch back at the hotel, we met Abebe from JECCDO who took us to Dire Dawa’s second poorest kebele where they are running their second project. We saw a new school and some wells that had been dug to provide a clean water supply to the kebele’s residents. We drove alongside the train tracks to the agricultural training centre. In August 2006, heavy rains caused flooding in the region after the Dechatu River burst its banks. There were 256 casualties, 300 missing, and 10,000 displaced. 220 houses were destroyed. Abebe showed us the work JECCDO has been doing to stabilise the hillsides to prevent further landslides which contributed to the death-toll caused by the floods.

We then went on to Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity, a compound run by a group of nuns to look after the sick, destitute and dying. Sister Adelaide showed us around. The men’s compound had a large number of mentally ill patients. Sister Adelaide believes a lot of the mental illness is associated with the constant chewing of vast quantities of chat, a leafy plant which acts as a stimulant. There were a lot of patients suffering from TB and HIV too. Outside the compound’s gates, mothers were waiting with their starving children. Sister Adelaide admitted them and called for one infant to be sent to hospital as it was in such an appalling state.

She then took us to the Women’s compound. I met a young woman who had given birth to premature twins the day before. They were absolutely tiny and with her in bed. A little girl pointed at the babies and said three letters, HIV. The nuns were looking after over 1000 people with a multitude of complex problems, yet they were so strong and calm.

We left the Missionaries of Charity feeling very sombre, but at the same time happy to see Ethiopiaid’s money being put to such good use. We walked back through the Muslim side of town to the river. The architecture here was quite different to that of the Christian side of the town, just across the river. It seemed in a poorer state of repair but much more colourful. We got a photo of a chat-seller before crossing the river. The river is seasonal and the river bed is dry at the moment, but covered with litter. Hundreds of people have made their homes on its banks – a recipe for disaster when the rains come.

We ate dinner in a restaurant near our hotel then went back to last night’s bar for a drink in the tropical garden. We met a guy who told us we must go to the Harar beer factory if we got a chance. We were then approached by an attractive young Ethiopian lady who told us she was a ‘General Mechanic’ but who was clearly there to making a living in a more questionable way. She spent a long time flirting with John, trying to get him to dance and when she realised he was not going to change his mind, she started trying her wicked ways on me! John’s excuse that we both fell down a hill so couldn’t dance wasn’t working so we eventually decided it was time to leave before her friend joined her in her mission. A lucky escape!