Trying to be Positive

In my blog you may have noticed that I have decided to concentrate on the positives – for the most part anyway - except maybe today. I could easily spend all my time and energy dwelling on all that is negative here but I try not to. I don’t think I’d be able to survive very long here if I did. I keep focusing on the fact that I am here to do a job and I must use all my energy on doing the best I can.

In truth, as you might expect, there is a lot to be negative about here. There is the dire poverty that most people live in – some have just enough to eat, others do not. I feel like people live completely on the edge here, one of the reasons being that there are no emergency services. So if anything happens you are on your own. Maybe those around you will help if they can. And there are no safety nets here like social services, so if you have a job and you lose it, you won’t be able to pay your rent and will therefore end up homeless very quickly.

I have seen and heard things here that are truly disturbing. For example, the number of beggars on the street – homeless women and small children, even a completely naked woman I have seen a few times in the middle of the road howling. I have no idea how they survive the freezing nights here. There are also an unusually high number of deaths I hear of around me. And the treatment of women - the fact that about 80% of girls have been genitally mutilated in Ethiopia.  The horrendous things I hear that the men have done to women here – one friend of mines husband’s niece had her eyes gouged out of her face with a knife by her husband because she wanted to leave him.

The harsh realities of life are all too obvious. People here have to work so hard for so little. Even the teachers at my college work about 10-12 hours a day including weekends – and that includes the dean of the college. There is no such thing here as free time, or leisure activities or relaxing. Most of those that can afford to, eat the same food every day for every meal. Even fruit is a complete luxury for those that can afford it. And most people do not have running water in their houses.

A seventeen year old girl I know recently said to me that it is a good thing here if a pregnant woman falls and her baby dies as it would be very lucky. When I asked her why, she said because dying would be better than living in these conditions.

It seems so unjust that there are those that are so lucky in world and those that aren’t – no matter how hard they work or how good they are.