Having the chance to totally immerse myself in the Kore
community of Addis Ababa to live and volunteer for 3 weeks was an incredible
experience. Getting to live there and
experience what life is like for the children whom I worked with at the school
was truly amazing. Traveling around Tanzania and Ethiopia had been relatively easy for Jon
and I since we lived in India. We are
both extremely adaptable because of that experience. But I still was not prepared for how quickly
and easily adapting to living in difficult conditions would be for me. I was very grateful for being so adaptable. The volunteer guest house I lived in hardly
ever had running water and the electricity was an on again off again
thing. Just on the short walk from the
guest house to the school, I would get a layer of red dirt covering my clothes
and body which would only increase after the first break, or recess, where the
kids used me as a human jungle gym. Not
being able to shower regularly was a whole new world for me. I got used to using baby wipes and thinking
that I was clean. It is amazing how your
perspective can shift so fast.
Our guest house was luxury living for the area of Kore
though. Many of the people who live
there do not have running water or electricity in their homes. Those with more money have concrete floors
and others have dirt floors. During the
dry season the red dirt becomes dust, which floats around and sticks to every part
of you. During the rainy season, the
dirt becomes mud, which also cakes onto everything and gets all over you when
you walk. The majority of people walk
for transportation so you are always getting dirty. I understood what it was like to be dirty, constantly. And I realized what a privilege cleanliness
is because for many people it is not an option.
If you have dirt floors and no running water in your home, how would you
ever really get clean? As I sit in my clean house in Seattle with my running water
and electricity, I am constantly reminded what a privilege it is to be
clean. I feel like my relationship to
water has changed very drastically and will never be the same. I value it more, I understand it more, and I
can no longer waste it. I am so
immensely grateful for this new understanding.
Around the neighborhood
On my walk to the school
Kore neighborhood homes
The volunteer guesthouse where I stayed
Me and Stephanos, a boy who worked at the guest house.
No comments:
Post a Comment