Supplying Smiles

I drove a leper home the other day. We jounced along the rutted, rock-strewn roads in the rural bush of Ethiopia to the man’s beehive-shaped hut. It was the first time he had been in a car.

Inside his thatched “tukul” home, it was midnight black, with only a shabby screen to divide the small, mud-floored space. The man had lived with leprosy – and utter poverty – for the past 10 years. He begged for help to replace his leaking roof.

When I gave him 100 birr (about $12) for the repairs and a little extra for food, he kissed my hand over and over again.

It was more than humbling.

Experiences such as these replayed in various versions throughout my five weeks in Ethiopia, where people accept even the smallest gesture with overwhelming gratitude.

In August, my husband, Zach, and I traveled to work at Soddo Christian Hospital in southwestern Ethiopia, where my parents, Duane and Jackie Anderson of Coeur d’Alene, spend most of the year as missionaries. My father, an orthopedic surgeon, serves as the director of the 2-year-old facility.

The flight was a grueling 17 hours from Washington, D.C., to Addis Ababa, the nation’s capital of 3 million people and the hub of the African Union.

Ethiopia is one of the few African countries never to be colonized. Up until the 1970s, it was under a feudal system, led by a monarchy. With an agricultural economy, the country is one of the poorest in the world; the average annual income is roughly $120.

About 250 miles to the south of Addis Ababa, Soddo rests at 7,000 feet elevation on the edge of the Great Rift Valley. Misty green mountains hedge the city of about 50,000 people – and one paved road.

The hospital compound, with almost 10 buildings plus homes and storage areas, is nestled at the heart of the bustling city.

The roads are crowded: Rickety horse-cart taxis jangle along, drawn by emaciated-looking animals. Boys smack loaded-down donkeys, urging them into a trot.

People line the streets – boys offering to wash shoes with dirty buckets, cripples begging for coins, others milling around visiting or playing pingpong or foosball at roadside tables.

Ethiopians are very friendly, always wanting to stop, shake hands and talk. When we ventured out onto the red-dirt roads, flocks of children followed behind with big, wondering eyes, or they called “faranji” (foreigner) and “money, money, money” or “you, you, you.”

We greeted people with the local language of the Wolaitta, saying “lo-oh.” Young and old alike were tickled to hear us attempt their language, even the simplest of words.

Ethiopia’s national language is Amharic, but in all, there are more than 70 major languages.

Providing medical care

Zach, a dentist in Post Falls, set to work in the hospital’s one-room dental clinic, staffed by a nurse with limited training in dentistry. Roughly 70 dentists practice in Ethiopia, so virtually none of Zach’s patients had ever settled into a dentist’s chair before.

Once word spread that a faranji dentist was at the hospital, his office flooded with patients. Several came from 500 miles away.

The majority needed rotten teeth yanked – the result of too much soda and too little dental hygiene. Zach also likely performed the first root canals in the region.

Treatments weren’t always easy. Work often was interrupted by power failure. Hand tools stopped functioning, and the water in the dental room seemed to run at whim.

During our stay, several patients came to the hospital with massive tumors of the mouth, disfiguring their faces and making eating and breathing difficult.

The mouth of one teenage girl was filled with a gelatinouslike mass that bulged out her cheek. It had grown to the size of two grapefruits in only six months.

Zach assisted in the surgery to remove it.

Many people wait until their condition is unbearable before they seek health care, deterred by either cost or ignorance. Some leave infections untreated for months, despite pus oozing out of gaping wounds.

One of my dad’s patients, a 13-year-old boy, nearly died from an infection that left his femur looking moth-eaten. After four surgeries and a month in the hospital, his life was spared.

Teaching English

My mother and I spent the month of August teaching an English class at a Bible college. We trudged nearly 45 minutes every morning along rutted roads awash in streams of mud.

August is near the end of the rainy season, and we often arrived with our legs splattered.

The 12 men – pastors, evangelists and music leaders – were eager to learn and welcoming of their American teachers.

On one occasion, two students asked the difference between “love” and “like” and if two male friends could say, “I love you.”

I told them it was acceptable in their culture, where men walk together holding hands or with arms wrapped around one another.

Traveling to the bush

On two occasions, I traveled into the bush to help at a clinic run by an American doctor who lives in Soddo. In the rural areas, where families survive on subsistence farming, the poverty was even more apparent.

Along the way, our arrival was heralded by swarms of children who ran to the road to yell, ask for money and wave at the faranjis. The children in the bush often wear half an outfit; many of the boys under the age of 10 are clad only in a tattered, stained T-shirt – one that Americans wouldn’t even use for a household rag.

On washday, children play outside naked while their mothers clean their one set of clothes.

When we arrived at the bush clinic, we went to work organizing the dozens of patients, setting up our makeshift pharmacy and handing out food to the malnourished.

Some of the patients suffered from malaria or tuberculosis. Others needed help with infertility, which often resulted from poor nutrition.

Many would not have traveled to a doctor – or survived – without the clinic.

Going home

Zach and I bid farewell to Ethiopia early last month. Leaving was bittersweet.

On one hand, we looked forward to the comforts of home: straight, smooth roads uncluttered by carts and donkeys. Brushing our teeth with tap water. Going out in public in anonymity.

But we also have grown to love Ethiopia, with its impoverished – yet loving – people.

During our last days, friends asked over and over if we would return or could stay another month or two. They struggled to grasp that we have a job and responsibilities at home.

They told us, “God willing, you will come back.”

Now that we’re home in Coeur d’Alene, the differences are striking. It almost feels like we emerged from C.S. Lewis’ fictional wardrobe, and Ethiopia is as far away as Narnia.

But the experience of those five weeks – and the images of poverty – will be in our hearts for a lifetime.

And, God willing, we will return someday.