I dreaded the day. Colleagues were still at the retreat so there was no hospital work today. Cory, a pulmonologist from Brown staying at my hotel was a regular breakfast companion, but left at the regular time for the hospital. I lingered trying to invent activities to take up the time of day. No hot water (and the room is always about 50 deg in the morning), so I bundled up, skipped my morning shower and caught up on internet and paper work. Finally decided that I would return to the Ethnological Museum that I had not visited for 8 years.
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| Some students outside Ethnological Museum |
This is on the main campus of the Addis Ababa University, the largest in the country. It is the former estate/palace of Haile Selassie and previously his emperor father, Ras Mekonnen. It is quite lovely (for Ethiopia). The museum while clearly up to third world standards (!), has exhibits that are well annotated in Amharic and English and tell some fascinating stories. For example, there is an exhibit of Muslim artifacts from the town of Harar. I visited there a few years ago, an historically all Muslim town. The story accompanying it described the myriad uses of baskets in the daily life, and of the jewelry abundantly worn by the women. In the mid 19th century Jewish goldsmiths from Yemen came to ply their craft, knowing of the desires of the Muslim women for their jewelry and knowing the primitive nature of it.
The day only got more interesting. I had a call from the doctor who I had operated on Wednesday for trigeminal neuralgia. He was concerned that he had the desired numbness of the face, but was not numb in his “trigger” area. We decided that he would be driven to where I was at the university and I would talk with him and examine him. I was not completely pleased with the result, and after many phone calls to the O.R., the sole resident at the hospital, etc we arranged that I would declare an emergency on Saturday and repeat the procedure. It remains to be seen if we can pull it off.
After meeting with him and his family, having tea, and talking for quite a while, they directed me to the largest and loveliest cathedral in Addis, St. George.
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St. George Cathedral
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It is quite a wonderful setting and fascinating to see the remarkable devotion of the people to the structure.
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| Devotion |
Makes one think of the Western Wall in Jerusalem as a metaphor to try to understand what I witnessed.
Incredible traffic jam as I sat in a hot, crowded minibus for what should have been a 15 minute ride back to my hotel, that extended to nearly an hour.
Fortunately hot water had been fixed when I returned. Barely had time for a shower and then Cory and I walked 1 1/2 miles to meet Alexa and then walk back another mile to Rick’s house.
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| Alexa and Cory |
Alexa was a childhood friend of my sister-in-law, Sharon Kaufman in San Francisco. She lives in Berlin, is a free lance journalist, and arrived in Addis 3 days ago. She has a 3 month gig with the BBC to be executive editor of a series of radio programs that they want to produce in Addis around the subject of maternal health, a serious issue in this country.
Shabbat at Rick’s house
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| Some of the kids at Rick's house |
was again an extraordinary treat. Alexa and Cory were thrilled to be there with the kids and Rick. Also there was Adam, a general surgery resident from UCSF who is trying to bring some semblance of sanity to the completely disorganized E.R. at the Black Lion Hospital. Also Robel, who Lynn and I met here last year. Born in Ethiopia, but living in the U.S. for many years and now a graduate student at the school of International Studies at Columbia in New York.
There are many frightening barriers to safely walking at night here (not the people, but the sidewalks and streets), but Cory and I and my trusted flashlight ended an exhilarating day.
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