Travelling across Ethiopia
A journey across Ethiopia - inspirational for its sights and
sounds and people.
04 October, 2008 by Veronika Fillitz fm4.orf.at
The country that we call Ethiopia contains a region that is said to be the most important in the history of humanity. It is from what is now the capital, Addis Ababa, that archaeologists will tell us that humans migrated around the world.
For such an important place in the story of mankind, my first impressions of
Addis Ababa were rather unremarkable - a sprawling city that could be anywhere
in Africa with cars and buses and masses of people hanging around public buildings.
But this was a stopping off point for me to travel further into some of the
rural areas in Ethiopia and to get a glimpse of the work being done
by the doctors, nurses and support teams of Licht
für die Welt - the Austrian charity that helps to bring access to eye-care
in some of the most remote regions of the world.
Jijiga
We flew onwards to Jijiga, a city that is East of Addis, near the border to Somalia. And from there I visited a field hospital and saw for myself the work of the eye specialists and the daily challenges they face, patients who needed anything from simple check-ups to more major operations to remove cataracts. I was also invited to go to some villages and this is where I really felt the culture shock begin.
As I walked into one small village, I was greeted on the way by young children who would come up, walk alongside of me and start to chat away in their local language. The fact that I couldn't communicate with them didn't seem to put them off. It just made them want to put more of their questions to their European guest. The colours of the landscape, the houses and the warmth of the people made a great impression on me. Here was a country that had been beset by years of war, poverty and drought yet these people were determined to do their utmost to invite me into their homes and make sure I was fed.
Staying put
That really made me think because we are often lead to believe by some politicians and sectors of the press in Europe that all people in developing nations in Africa want to do is get in a boat and come to our shores. Maybe a trip to a place like Ethiopia that has known real poverty would help to modify those ideas; writers who know the continent well echo the view that despite the daily problems they face, most people whether they live in Addis Ababa or Accra have only one major goal - to face up to their own challenges at home and make a brighter future in their own countries.