I’m back from Ethiopia!  After 17 fun-filled, tiring days, Ethiopian airlines finally got my tickets right & flew me home via Paris.  No, I didn’t go out & sight see.  I spent my 4 hour layover sitting in a freezing airport alone because I wanted my seat on that next airplane to DC!

I’m currently processing about 1700+ images for Doctors Giving Back & Touching Africa Ministries (as well as my teammates), but I do have one quick one to share.  This little boy drinking his disease-free water just about sums up one of the main reasons why we flew half-way across the world:  To bring God’s love in the form of clean, filtered water.  Ahhhhh….refreshing!

Well, I officially leave for Ethiopia in less than ONE MONTH!!  I am so not ready.  I gotta clean my house, put away all the laundry, pack, make a list, set out 17 days of outfits for the girls, make meals in the freezer….

I guess I just need to breathe.  My list is getting out of control.  But it is good to know that God is totally in control of this whole process.  I thought for sure going a second year I would not get nearly as much funding as I did last year.  Wrong.  I thought I’d be on my own for arranging food for my family.  Wrong.  I thought I’d have to arrange child juggling.  Wrong.  God has been showing my little mind in all of this.  I have little plans, little dream, little needs.  His are bigger, and better, and they are His.  I am just his vessel for as long as he allows me to be, and I am so okay with that!  I am not a forefront person.  I don’t like being in the spotlight.  I like to just support.  And support I will!

As I have been counting down to my departure on Facebook, I just realized I forgot to share with my blog family as well.  The photos on here are way bigger anyway. 

Here are some things I’m looking forward to….

…seeing John & Jana again.  The husband & wife team of doctors who become my alternate family while in Ethiopia & when I return.  I so love their company, their hearts & their vision for Ethiopia.  I am truly blessed to know them.

….the children.  I know they may like me because I’m probably the whitest person they’ve seen….ever!  But I like to think they like me too.  I’ll admit, I enjoy having a gaggle of munchkins following me around saying, “cam-er-A!”

…Solomon’s kids. Ahhhh…never have I felt so loved meeting a group of kids.  They hugged, touched, played & giggled with us the entire time.  I even got in trouble from the American adults for talking too much with them!  They love posing for group shots….whipping out their modeling poses.  It will be wonderful to see some familiar faces here.

…sorting.  I know it sounds weird, but as you sort through the massive amounts of donations made to this trip, you become in awe at all it takes to pull this trip off.  There are literally thousands of pills of medication, hundreds of thousand of dollars in medical supplies, hundreds of pairs of eyeglasses & shoes, and a small army of knit bears from Project Mother Bear.  It’s amazing.

….the feeding program at Solomon’s place.  To think that Solomon starting feeding these HIV/AIDS kids only one meal per month was devastating.  And now, by the grace of God he is able to feed them one meal per day!  And I am anxious to see my chicken!  Yes, I own an Ethiopian chicken.  We all bought one for their “village” so they could start chicken farming & becoming self-sustaining.  I can’t wait to see how it’s grown in the past year.

….glasses station!  This was one “medical” area where I was actually of use.  When I took breaks from snapping photos, I’d help out at the glasses station.  Here I got one-on-one interaction – because you couldn’t call it communication on my part – with many people who could see more clearly with the reading glasses they’d been given.  Yes, we oftentimes had men picking the most hideous pair of rhinestone glasses, but at least they could see!

….clean water!  This is probably the thing I’m most looking forward too.  We know that the majority of the illnesses we see, especially in the more remote villages, are caused by dirty drinking water.  The Ethiopian people don’t waste their firewood on boiling water, so they are drinking water that has run down a hill where animals graze & defecate.  Gross, I know.  It has been on the forefront of Doctor’s Giving Back’s mind to solve this problem.  The amazingly wonderful news is they have found a company in Florida who has a filtration system similar to a kidney dialysis machine that can filter 99% of the water!!!  We had enough funding to purchase 34, which was a little disappointing.  However, since God’s plans are bigger than our own, we got bested again.  The company in Florida asked to be able to give us 148 water filtration units at the same cost as the original 34 we were going to purchase.  Heck yes!!!  I don’t know how we are going to transport them all, but I know it will somehow happen.  I can’t wait to see the ramifications of that much clean water!

And this year, I personally get to be responsible for filling one 50-lb hockey bag of supplies!  I can’t fill it alone, though.  So if you are able to donate any of the following items, please let me know!  Thanks in advance for reading, for donating, and for praying. It is definitely felt!

“Tylenol(Adult tabs and Pediatric/Children’s syrup)
……Advil, Motrin (Adult and Pediatric/Children’s syrup)
Alieve
Pepto Bismol (tablets, not liquid)
Immodium (tablets and liquid)
Zantac 150mg tablets, Zyrtec tablets
Claritin or Clarinex tablets (Adult and Children’s)
Hydrocortisone Cream
Antibiotic ointment (i.e. Polysporin)
Naphcon A Allergy eye drops
Prevacid or Protonix (Omiprazole)

From the above list, the OTC meds that we usually run out of first are the allergy eye drops, and allergy meds, and the stomach meds like Zantac, Prevacid and Protonix.

Some good places to get these over the counter medications at a great price include: the Dollar Store, Walmart, and sometimes even Costco. DGB usually suggests Walmart first as it is hard to beat their prices on medications. We need as many of these medications as possible, so anything you can donate would be fantastic!!!!”

I think they call this a “fusion” video, right?  Video mixed with photography?  Well, I’m calling it that.  And if you’re a friend on Facebook, or a fan of my page, sorry for the redundancy.  I wanted to share this video with my blog readers.  It’s a 6-minute video I made on my perspective of our village trips in Ethiopia.  (Don’t worry, I’m not venturing over into videography…I just wanted to test out the video capabilities of my Canon 5D mk2).

Here it is….

Village Trip – Asossa, Ethiopia from Mandy Sroka on Vimeo.

And if you happen to know the information on this song, please e-mail me!  I’ve been trying to find it everywhere!  (hint:  it’s Ethiopian)

and here is the remainder of March 12th…..

We drove to this village after lunch.  I really liked this tree.

First we took a walk down to their water supply to check it out, and so Maureen could take samples.

Then I saw a wonderful thing happening!  Sharon had brought back prints of photos from her 2009 trip and they were being passed out to the children shown in them.  They were terribly excited to see themselves in a photograph.  The little boy in the front of this photo is holding his picture!  Maybe I can do that next year!

We quietly gave out some shoes to little ones as they were seen during the clinic.  Here is Delphine trying a pair on this little guy.

Time for some shots with the “faranji’s!”

And shots with the non-faranji’s….

This is how we lined the kids up the first time.  It didn’t last long.  As soon as Sentayu walked away from them, they got out of line.

This little girl was afraid of being seen by the doctor, until Jana let her be the doctor & use the stethoscope.  It worked very well!

Then it came time for shoe, clothes, & bear distribution.  We thought we had a good place, but people bypassed the “gate,” got more than one bear, and just wanted more and more and more.  We ended up having to zip our bags & leave, but not before we gave out a lot of things.

I swear…all we did was put shorts on this boy!  Apparently he liked running around naked!

As we were leaving I got to see the mill where they ground the wheat/grain/???? to make flour for enjira.

And all the bags waiting to be ground….

And to end, I’ll leave you with how we ended most of our working days:  Good friends, a Coke, relaxing under a mango tree.

This day seemed extra long once I went through all the photos I wanted to show  you, so I’ll do it in a 2-part blog post.  Sorry for the excess of photos, if that kind of thing bothers you, on a photo blog, which it shouldn’t…you should be thanking me….

Anyway…here is March 12th

We started out our morning as we usually did – at the clinic in Asossa.  I ventured outside a little more today to see what it was like for people waiting in line.  These people were directly outside the church doors, which is actually the last place they had to wait.

Before you got to the church, you had to make it past these blue gates at the front of the church property.

Back inside the clinic there was a very important area – our pharmacy.  Now Kari sat at the pharmacy table and kind of just fell into it.  It was actually the perfect fit for her.  She was so well organized that the pharmacy ran like a well oiled machine.  I think we need to giver her an honorary faux pharmacist license because she rocked it!

The next few photos are of goiters – a condition we saw a LOT of in Asossa.  “A goiter is a swelling in the thyroid gland which can lead to a swelling of the neck or larynx.  Worldwide, the most common cause for goiter is iodine deficiency.” (wikipedia)  So you know when you buy salt, and it says “iodized,” that is typically what keeps you & me from getting goiters.  Iodized salt is apparently not a common thing in Ethiopia.

This woman’s goiter had gotten quite a bit more extreme than most cases we saw.  Untreated, these seem to be a bit dangerous to me, especially because of their close proximity to the airway.

And of course a day at the clinic wouldn’t be complete without some bears!

After lunch I was taken to the Asossa Hospital to view & document the work that our construction team was doing.  The hospital does bring in funds, but the construction team also came with supplies, and more importantly, a knowledgeable team of construction men to fix their basic problem of no water.

Here is John, my guide for the afternoon, and also a construction buff.

This is Dibush showing off some of his handiwork.  He was hired by our construction team for the week, and, along with Mohammed, was a very hard worker.  This pipe is one of many leading into the different wards of the hospital.  The piping was so old and corroded that the valves didn’t work to let water flow through it.

This is Mohammed showing the section of piping he helped replace.  I was told that each time they cut a section of pipe, and put on a newer piece to replace it, more corroded pieces would break, threads would be stripped, and so on.  Things are just so old and decayed here.

This is the cistern in the rear of the hospital that is fed by the city water.  Since the water supply from the city is often unreliable, they have to store up a reserve in the cistern for delicate times such as surgery & deliveries.

Inside the hospital the team repaired sinks, putting “p traps” (???) in them so the hospital workers wouldn’t have to empty buckets so often.  This is a repaired sink….

And this is a sink not yet repaired.  See how it’s missing a vital piece of pipe at the bottom??  Looks kind of important.

On my tour, I caught another team member, Dan, sharing the photos on his camera with new friends he’d made.   Everyone wants their photo taken!

They really loved him!

Next we went inside the maternity ward where I found this new little guy & his momma!

The guys were replacing lights and/or fixtures so the doctors & nurses would be able to see their patients at night.

Part 2 coming later….