Back to Bora, Ethiopia Trip -- Day 4

There is nothing quite like going to sleep late and waking early -- particularly at 9,000 plus feet -- to make you feel rotten.

Although the barn was more comfortable than the hut I'd slept in last year, my body's internal clock was a mess.  At around 4AM, it told me I needed to get up, and despite my best efforts to get a couple more hours of sleep, I was still the first one out of bed.

Bora in Early Morning Cloud Cover

An advantage of being up first is a little privacy.

One of the creature comforts we sacrifice in traveling to Bora is a toilet.  Our bathroom consists of a small grove of false banana trees (enset) behind the cooking hut, and whatever paper or wipes we carry in.

I noticed many of the people in our group were afflicted with what I called "mountipoopiphobia" the fear of going to the bathroom on the mountain.  Really, it isn't that bad, but for some folks the subject became a bit of an obsession.  Having been backpacking plenty in the past, I was not afflicted with this fear, and was able to take care of things without any issue.

After I returned to the compound, one of the children was encouraging one of the local dogs to come inside and "clean up" a spaghetti spill that was on the ground.  The dog was quite hesitant to enter the compound, but eventually, with plenty of encouragement, came inside and gobbled up most of what was still on the dirt.  I had another experience with the same dog the next day, and it was amazing how differently the animal behaved when there was meat involved.

Others started to rise a short while later, and after a light breakfast, which no one seemed enthusiastic about, it was time to head up to the clinc site.  As we prepared to go, the Chief saddled his horse and left with his brother for an appointment.  I later learned it was a funeral, which would prevent him from being present during the clinic's grand opening ceremony.

The trail to the clinic from the Chief's hut

The route up to the clinc from the Chief's hut was fairly short, but all uphill, and in some places quite steep.  I was experiencing nausea and a mild headache, and decided I would see if it was possible to go slow enough up the trail to keep from breaking out in a flop-sweat.  As it turned out, it isn't.

When we reached the clinic, I could see that the structure was in place, but there was still a lot of work to do.  The clinic lacked doors and windows, needed plaster and paint.  And there was no furniture.  With tables and chairs carted up from the nearby church, conditions were about the same as they were the last time I was here for clinics.  As the construction wraps up in the next few weeks, the site should become downright civilized.

Installing the sign for the grand opening

I ended up helping to install a sign over the door, played with children, and spent a few minutes shadowing Amber as she saw patients.  Then fatigue and more nausea hit me like a ton of bricks.

I ended up walking back down the mountain to the barn to get a couple more hours of sleep.  And then back to the clinic for the grand opening ceremony -- which took much longer to organize than to conduct.  The official opening was the culmination of nearly two years of planning, fundraising, and work by Dan, Amber and many others.  I felt lucky to be there to see it.

Then we traveled back to the Chief's hut for dinner.  Somewhere along the way, I'd missed lunch,  but with the nausea, I really didn't "miss" it at all.  By dinner time, however, I was feeling much better and was finally hungry.

Singing and dancing around the fire

Traditionally, we slaughtered a goat or sheep to celebrate the trip and honor our hosts.  But killing and preparing a sheep takes hours, and we'd gotten a late start.  Fortunately, our fearless leaders decided to serve a two step dinner -- Mac and Cheese as the first course, and the meat later (around 11PM, as it turned out).  The smell was incredible once the cooking started, and the wait time was filled by dancing and singing around the fire.  It was inspiring and fun.

Sheep cooked by headlamp

I turned in soon after eating a small portion of the sheep, sorry that tomorrow morning we would be departing Bora.

All photos were taken by Curt Good and unabashedly swiped from his Facebook posts.

Back to Bora, Ethiopia Trip -- Day 3

I woke up on day 3 feeling refreshed after an excellent night's sleep.  The resort in Arba Minch has mosquito netting around all the beds, and for some reason, once deployed the nets seem to provide a sense of isolation that just encouraged deep, restful slumber.

Or maybe I was just really, really tired.

After a good breakfast, we were more or less on hold.  The van we'd arrived in last night needed work in order to make it up the mountain road to Chencha -- our jumping off point for the hike to Bora.  Eventually, it was decided that we should walk down to the hotel driveway to the main road (which was quite muddy), and meet up with the van there.  Given the weakened condition of the van, I suppose it was an intelligent precaution, but it as things turned out, that road was the muddiest spot we would walk during the entire trip -- by quite a lot.  I ended up with mud all over my shoes, and my calves and there was no prospect of cleaning up for at least three days.  Well, mud would be the least of my worries.

We hopped in the van and drove to...a gas station.

There, our African counterparts spent the next hour or two trying to figure out how to get the van in better running condition.  The core problem was water in the air filter -- a simple problem to solve in the United States.  Here we would simply pop in a new air filter and head on down the road.  Unfortunately, in Arba Minch, there were air filters, but none of them fit into the housing on our van.  And the compressed air available (our second choice for fixing the water problem) had water vapor in the line (no dessicant), so that didn't work either.

Ultimately, the van's performance improved enough that we thought we could make it to Chencha.  A quick lunch at the Ferengi (read:  white foreigner) hotel, and we were on our way.  The road up was beautiful, but also a tough ride.  I felt every bump and washout in the road, and it seemed like much longer than 90 minutes.  By the time we reached Chencha, I was really happy to be out of that damned van.

On the last trip, we stopped at the Chencha guesthouse, and unloaded baggage, but this time, we drove to the sports field and unloaded from the van there.  Then we started our 6 mile hike to Bora.

I'd done this once before, and so knew how to manage it a bit better.  I paced myself along the way, knowing that once we got to the top of the mountain, we weren't quite done yet.  I had a bag of tootsie rolls with me, which I was passing out to children I met along the way.  That worked pretty well until I got to a school, where there was a huge mob.  I handed the bag off to Dan, our team's leader, and he threw the candies across a field.  It was the only way to prevent being virtually mugged for tootsie rolls.

Note to self:  next time keep the candy under wraps during the hike up.

We reached the summit of the mountain just before sunset, rested a few minutes, and then descended to the "Chief's hut."  I'd been there before -- the Chief's hut was actually a collection of structures where the "chief" of Bora lived.  There were two huts, a barn, a cooking hut, and the entire structure was enclosed in an enset (false banana tree) wall.  I was assigned a spot in the barn, along with the late-night crowd.  If you're reading this and thinking -- hey, Tom doesn't stay up late at night, he's a morning person -- you would be right.  I was the odd man out, and had to flex to make the sleeping arrangements work.  As it turned out, there were pluses and minuses to this.

Dinner was spaghetti, and I basically skipped it.  The combination of the physical challenge of reaching the huts, and the altitude (a little below 10,000 feet) had suppressed my appetite.  After we ate, we listened to incredible singing, mostly by young girls from the village, around a bonfire.  Let me tell you, the girls that led the songs have incredible voices, and the songs are surreal and beautiful.  I will never tire of listening to their chant-like singing.

We made a quick excursion to "the cliff" a steep drop-off into a ravine not far from the Chief's hut, but the trip was cut short by reports (I never saw anything) of hyenas.

I turned in around 11PM, but didn't go to sleep right away.  As the others sleeping in the barn drifted in, I listened to jokes and banter, laughing quietly, and not wanting to miss anything despite my fatigue.  Eventually, I slipped into sleep (as a contingent went back to "the cliff").  My last conscious thoughts were feeling contented and very much "at home."

Back to Bora, Ethiopia Trip -- Day 2

This was the longest day of the trip.  It started with me rising on my own, just before my  6:30 AM wake-up call.  I boarded the 7 AM shuttle for the airport, and was at the gate by 8, a couple hours early.

It was there I met up with the balance of the Vision team -- sans Curt, who was already in Germany, and would be meeting us on the ground in Addis.  We sat in the waiting area and chatted each other up a bit, all of us trying to get a feel for the other.  This group was going to spend a lot of time together over the next nine days, and we all wanted to feel as comfortable as possible.

The flight, on a new Boeing 787 Dreamliner, was routine, although for me it was a little uncomfortable.  My last trip to Ethiopia (when we adopted Thomas, a little over a year earlier) had included free upgrades to business class both ways.  I'd had my hopes up for this trip as well, but no such luck.  I ended up with a bulkhead seat -- lots of leg room, but the adjacent middle seat held a large man who tended to spread into my space when he slept -- you all know that scenario.  Thirteen or fourteen hours later, when we arrived in Addis Ababa, I'd managed to sleep a couple of hours, watch a couple of movies, and edit over one hundred pages of one of my novels.

Yeah, I was pretty tired.

Customs was fast, and my bags were already out once I hit baggage claim.  Our entire team, including Curt who waited for us in the baggage area, were out in record time.

Alas, our African companions for the trip (Dawit, Million, the van driver, and Ally -- who is an honorary African, actually holding a U.S. passport, but living in Ethiopia), were not yet at the airport.  We spent a little while alternately guarding our bags, and soaking up the warming morning sun.  Eventually, the van arrived, supplying us with one of our bigger challenges for the trip.

Including our driver, the party had eleven people, and the configuration of the van was such that every seat had to be filled.  That included the narrowed rear seat where I sat, and the torture seat in the first row with a metal bar across it.  We were very cramped inside.  And every available niche, plus the luggage rack on top, was completely packed.

Soon afterward we began the ten hour drive to Arba Minch, which included dramatic scenery, hazardous driving (mostly due to sheep and cows wandering in the road), and one incredibly sore set of backsides.  After stopping at Hosana for lunch, we continued further south, getting to within about an hour of Arba Minch just as the sun was starting to set.

That's when the crazy stuff started.

The last 90 minutes of "road" to Arba Minch is largely unpaved, and since there had recently been some heavy rains in the nearby mountains, the road had several streams flowing directly across it.  We drove through the first swollen creek, which had water about a foot deep, without issue.  The second one was more than twice that deep, and I was feeling a bit nervous about the water levels as a local waded across in front of us, and the water climbed past his knees.  We got through that one, too.

Creek three, however, was at least another foot deep, and the flow was strong.  Just downstream of the crossing point was a ten foot drop -- a mini-waterfall.  I envisioned the van floating in the stream, hitting the rocks at the base of the waterfall, flipping over, and getting pushed even further downstream.  I would have a front row seat if that happened.  I considered how difficult it might be to squeeze out one of the back windows, and decided it would be nearly impossible.  I started wondering if I could release the rear door from the inside.

One of my companions asked if there was a way around this spot, and indeed, I knew of one -- at least a four hour detour.  No one was excited about that option.

A bus ran through the creek as we watched, and seemed to have little problem.  Of course, our van was much smaller, but our driver seemed convinced he could make  it -- at least that was my interpretation of the rapid-fire talking going on in Amharic.

I and a couple of others suggested we all get out and wade across, letting the van go forward without passengers.  But before the idea could even be considered, we were moving forward.

Of course, we didn't make it.

The van became stuck in the deepest, swiftest part of the stream.  My theory -- the strong flow of water pushed us downstream a few feet, and our tires became lodged against rocks too large to easily roll over.  We were held fast, but at least we weren't floating.

Within minutes, a pack of Ethiopian men and boys, people just hanging around the crossing area, were in the water trying to give us a push out.  The van rocked back and forth repeatedly, but couldn't seem to break free.  I saw a truck on the far side start to get a strap out, and thought we would be towed to safety (the truck drivers were undoubtedly getting a bit impatient as we were blocking the road for a good twenty minutes prior to this), but this plan never seemed to go any further..

That's when the engine to the van died.

Water started to seep into the van, as we seemed to settle deeper and deeper into the stream.  We finally concluded we needed more muscle on the outside of the vehicle and less weight inside, and  all the men (except for the driver) and Ally piled out into the water to push.  Of course we were all in our clothes, which, in cases like mine, were supposed to last at least one additional day.  Whatever we could manage to get off the van's floor, which eventually ended up with about three inches of water on it, was put on the seats.  Unfortunately, that didn't include my suitcase, which, unbeknownst to me, was under my seat.

While we waited for things to get coordinated, the women (Carrie and Kristen) were forced to toilet in a plastic Target bag.  Welcome to Africa!

It took about two minutes for all of us to push the van out of the stream, first going back a little to steer around the submerged obstructions, and then making up the far bank.  I was thankful for the help from all the men and boys at the stream -- we couldn't have gotten out without them.  Our Ethiopian guides dispensed tips to the leaders totaling approximately $30, perhaps the best money spent on the entire trip.

By now it was dark, we were personally soaked, some of our baggage was wet (including my main bag), and the van wouldn't start.

We tried calling to Arba Minch, appealing to the DOMA Medical Team for help traveling the remaining one hour to our hotel.  They had been in Chencha that day running clinics, and hadn't yet arrived at the hotel.  In fact, don't think we could even raise them on the phone, and I'm not sure what they could have done that wouldn't have taken at least another two to three hours to implement.

Then a miracle happened.

After draining the air filter housing, and monkeying with some of the engine wiring, the diesel van actually started.  We all piled inside, soaked to the skin, and continued on our way.

It became obvious that the van wasn't working properly as soon as we hit an uphill section of the road -- power was minimal.  Fortunately, Arba Minch was basically downhill from where we were, and we managed to limp into the hotel parking lot.  I knew that tomorrow's trip included a steep climb at grade, and the van, in its current condition, would never make it.

But that was tomorrow's problem.

Once at the hotel, a very nice one by rural Ethiopian standards, I unpacked my wet things extremely thankful I had taken the time to put nearly everything in plastic garbage bags before leaving home.  I hung the few wet items in my room to dry, and followed that up with a hot shower -- the last for several days.  Afterward, I walked over to the hotel restaurant, and we met the Medical team.

Unlike my last trip I took with DOMA International, where the medical team was roughly the same size as the vision team, this time the medical team was huge.  With translators and guides, their group numbered, I think, 16.  I was far too tired to try to deal with all the names, so I sat down in the next open chair, and met those around me -- figuring I'd have plenty of opportunity to get to know everyone else during our next three days in Bora.

I had little appetite, could barely keep my eyes open at that point, and was happy once the dinner was finally over.  Curt, who was my roommate at the various hotels, and I walked back to our room, and I considered how we had been both lucky and unlucky that day.

Unlucky to have the van stall out in the middle of the stream, but lucky that there had been all those Ethiopians loitering near the crossing who were willing to help us get out.  Sure, they expected to get something out of it, but I reflected on how unhelpful most Americans would have been under similar circumstances.  Ally had even remarked that if this had been Kenya, all our luggage would have been stolen in the process -- perhaps a slight exaggeration, but I understood the point:  Ethiopians are kind, respectful and friendly people who are willing to lend a hand when needed.  And as far as I've been able to tell, they don't take advantageof a situation.  Maybe these generalities are not true in every case, but in my experience it has always been the case.

It is one of the many reasons I enjoy traveling to this country.

As I drifted off to sleep, I knew tomorrow would likely present additional problems -- particularly with the van.  But I wasn't worried.  Everything would sort itself out eventually.   After all, This Is Africa (TIA).

Here is Curt's photo of the van, midstream.

Back to Bora, Ethiopia trip - Day 1

In May of 2011, I traveled with DOMA International to the remote Ethiopian Village of Bora, to assist in medical clinics and learn to understand and appreciate the challenges and beauty of life in this remote corner of the developing world.

From November 4 -14, 2012, I revisited Bora -- both to see first-hand the progress being made on a permanent medical clinic, and to reconnect with the wonderful people of the area that had been so welcoming and open during my first visit.

I woke on Sunday morning with a familiar feeling -- "why did I ever agree to go on this trip."  A week earlier we  returned from a fabulous cruise to Hawaii, and I was wishing I could spend a few  more days at home.  I often find myself having this regret as trip departures approach, and as a result, was pretty sure I'd change my attitude once the travel got underway.  Eventually, that proved to be the case, but at the time I was feeling a bit down.

All morning I fussed around the house finishing up unimportant tasks and, a bit grumpy, looking in drawers, closets and corners for anything I might be forgetting.  I knew from the last trip that anything I brought along would likely be hand-carried up the mountains  (a 6 mile hike with a couple thousand feet of vertical gain), and certainly didn't want some poor porter lugging extra weight so I could have yet another pair of shoes or another jacket.  But how many pairs of pants do you need for an eight day trip that includes three nights in a sleeping bag?

A recent report from Amber, the leader of the medical team, said the weather was unusually wet.    At the last minute, I decided to throw in a pair of hiking shoes, and put nearly everything in plastic garbage bags -- a decision I'd be very happy I'd made later, but not for the reason I originally expected.

Because the only direct flight from the US to Ethiopia leaves from Washington DC at 10:00 am, I had to fly to Washington the night before the long haul flight on Ethiopian Air.  While I appreciated having as much time as possible at home, I definitely hated taking the last flight of the day from Chicago to DC, knowing if there were any problems, there was no easy back-up plan.  As it turned out, this time I was lucky.

Once I reached the airport in Omaha, I was able to check my main bag all the way through to Addis Ababa -- a luxury as the suitcase had no wheels, and retrieving it in Washington DC and hauling it to my hotel would be a pain in the neck.  My two flights went off without a hitch, and I rolled into the Hampton Inn near Dulles Airport at around 1:30 in the morning, knowing that at 7:00 am, I needed to be on the shuttle to the airport.  That would represent the start of a fatigue that would never completely leave me throughout the entire trip.

As I laid in bed, trying to go to sleep, I reviewed the list of people I thought would  be my traveling companions -- a list I'd compiled from emails I'd received.  Two of the team I already knew -- Dan, the leader of our team, and Armin whom I'd traveled with on my previous visit.  Both these guys were a lot of fun, and part of the lure of making this return visit.  Joining us would be Jamie, Carrie, Kristen and Curt.  I was a little nervous -- small group dynamics can be tricky, and one or two rotten apples can be the difference between a fun trip and misery.

As I drifted off to sleep, my final wish was for a team that would bond well, accomplish our assigned tasks without major problems, and would be fun.

I wasn't going to be disappointed along any of these dimensions.

Off To Ethiopia

After a nice 50th birthday celebration, followed by a fabulous cruise to Hawaii and back, I'm off on my second aid trip to Ethiopia with DOMA International.  Looking forward to seeing the changes in the village of Bora, where the Hidota Medical Clinic will have it's grand opening next week.

I plan to keep a journal of the trip, and will record the entries here upon my return.

Dropping a Few Pounds

I know I'm far from alone in fighting the battle of the bulge.  You can hardly pick up a newspaper today without finding an article somewhere that talks about how overweight Americans have become.

I've spent a good deal of adulthood hovering somewhere in the BMI defined "overweight" category.  Whomever invented that scale must have been rail thin, because even at my "skinniest" I can only barely seem to creep into the upper end of the "normal" range.  Or maybe the inventor is simply sadistic.  Although I've been a regular exerciser for many years, I've always managed to eat enough to easily replace whatever I've burned off in calories.

For most of the last ten years, however, I've had things pretty well under control through regular distance running -- particularly with regularly scheduled marathon races in my future.  That all came to an end a couple of years ago with a knee injury.

I tried the normally prescribed fixes for the knee -- rest and recovery.  Over the course of a couple of years, no matter how much cross training I did, and no matter how long I laid-off, it just seemed to get worse.  That finally resulted in a trip to the orthopedist, and knee surgery this summer.

With a repaired knee, I was mentally ready to run again.  Except my body was far from ready.  I'd added almost twenty pounds since my last regular running activity, and was forty above what I considered a "running friendly" weight (the one just on the BMI normal borderline).  So I promised myself I'd diet, and reward myself with a return to running upon success.

That was six weeks ago.

Dieting is a funny thing, at least for me.  I find myself able to restrict calorie intake, at least for a while, but frequently run out of gas as I reach the point of diminishing returns, and mental and physical fatigue.  The failure usually starts as small "cheats" on the diet, which grow on a day by day basis until I'm no longer really following it at all.

And another oddity I've noticed -- I almost always do better with a new diet regime, than I do trying to repeat an old one, even one that's been successful before.  Not sure exactly what that's about, but it does appear to be a fact.

So this time I'm using a Bodymedia fit monitor, and receiving daily emails from a nutritionist.  So far, I've lost seventeen pounds, but have hit a stretch where things are getting more difficult.  It's not so much that I don't know what to eat or how to exercise, it appears to be more a question of accountability.  I'm liking this system, at least thus far, even if constantly wearing the Bodymedia does sometimes make me feel like I'm somehow under house arrest.

Four hours to install? Really?

I've always loved giving birthday gifts to my wife, Paula.  After 26 years of marriage, and another six years of gift-giving prior to that, I can still seem to come up with new ideas for presents that express how much she means to me.  Admittedly, some of them might seem a bit odd, but they're all original, and all meant just for her.

I give this introduction to help explain why I bought her a beach umbrella for her birthday this year.  You see, we live on a lake, and our little kids go swimming almost every day during the summer.  And while they're in the water (for three hours, sometimes) an adult ends up sitting on a small concrete pad close to the water, baking in the sun.  A little shade would have been welcome, especially during this year's extremely hot summer.

And I didn't give her just any old beach umbrella, but instead bought an 11 foot, telescoping, European side-hanging, fancy-pants umbrella.  I had it shipped to my office, and managed to sneak it home, unpack it, and even had it partially assembled on her birthday.  She loved it.

It survived less than three weeks.

I guess the fancy-pants umbrella designers have never visited Nebraska, where we get a little wind now and then.  One fine day, Paula opened the umbrella in a modest breeze (circa 15mph).  A gust caught it as it was popping open, and despite 250 pounds of sand in the base and three sandbags on top of that, it still went down.  The main shaft was twisted, damaged beyond repair.

That's when the idea of the pergola came up.  These things are designed to withstand hurricane-force winds. Certainly, it could survive "normal" Nebraska weather.  I hoped.

Anyway, after a few adventures with the homeowners association which entailed getting another concrete pad poured an additional five feet from the water's edge (long story there), I ordered a Pergola kit from "Average Joe's Pergolas" in Melbourne, Florida.  The kit said it would take two inexperienced people four hours to install.

Now admittedly, our pergola was probably a bit bigger than average -- roughly 18' x 23' -- so I figured 5 hours.  That seemed perfectly reasonable to me.  Maybe even padded.

The kit arrived Wednesday of last week, and we had a family get-together planned for Sunday at the house. Usually everyone hung out down by the water while the kids swam, so I wanted to have the pergola up by then.  After all, it was only going to take two guys 5 hours, right?  No problem.

Well, it took at least an hour to unload the truck, and another two to get all the materials into the back yard (thank goodness for ATV's, it would still only be half moved now if I'd had to carry it).  Then I needed to drill holes in the concrete to anchor the pergola -- took three charges on the battery powered hammer-drill to get those done, despite having a brand new drill bit.

By Friday morning, when Bill came over to help me, I already had five hours into the project, myself.  The two of us worked on the assembly from 11:00 until 3:30, and had it more or less done by then.  As a footnote, the stainless steel screws we used to secure everything were quite difficult to put in.  The heads stripped unless a constant heavy pressure was consistently applied to the driver, which can be hard to do when you're on top of a Pergola, sitting on 2x2s and the structure is wobbling all over the place.  When you strip one, you get to use a hack saw to cut it off, and then try again.

I did the wrap-up/clean-up work on Saturday, including cutting off all the remaining stripped screws, and picking up the site.  Total time was about 16 man-hours, twice the advertised time.  And it was tough.  And I'm still finding splinters.

But the pergola looks absolutely great.  Here it is -- tell me what you think...