How about in Gondar. Oh wait, back up. We thought it was really funny that when we had time to kill in Addis on our first day, we asked our driver to show us around the town, and he took us to the Sheraton. Ethiopians are quite proud of the sheraton...we just thought it was kind of funny to go straight to such an american place.
THEN, the next day, we went to Gonder. It was...hard. beautiful. Something I'll never forget. I can't locate my journal from our trip (UGH. REALLY want to find that!) so for now, pics will have to do. Many of these first ones are the view from our hotel, The Quara. It was "the nicest hotel in town" told to us by locals. It was relatively new, i think, and it cost us about $29 for the night we were there.
We spent the day visiting some places that were mentioned to us in Lucy's referral paperwork. We knew that she was born at the Gondar University Hospital. It was...honestly, horrible. I'm so glad we went to see it, but it broke my heart to picture Lucy's birthmother laboring there. It was built in 1955 and has never been updated. We really just wanted to see the outside and expected to find a waiting room or something inside. Not so...family (sisters and husbands, etc) waited outside the building, and the laboring women were all in one "room" laboring on these old beat up gurneys. There appeared to be one staff woman (possibly a Dr?) in the room, with 4 women in active labor. We really didn't even want to see that, but they insisted on showing us right into the birth room! It was incredibly awkward, and these poor women looked at us like "who are the crazy white people??" We were to stunned to take any photos inside, and it felt incredibly disrespectul and intrusive to do so.
We spent the day visiting some places that were mentioned to us in Lucy's referral paperwork. We knew that she was born at the Gondar University Hospital. It was...honestly, horrible. I'm so glad we went to see it, but it broke my heart to picture Lucy's birthmother laboring there. It was built in 1955 and has never been updated. We really just wanted to see the outside and expected to find a waiting room or something inside. Not so...family (sisters and husbands, etc) waited outside the building, and the laboring women were all in one "room" laboring on these old beat up gurneys. There appeared to be one staff woman (possibly a Dr?) in the room, with 4 women in active labor. We really didn't even want to see that, but they insisted on showing us right into the birth room! It was incredibly awkward, and these poor women looked at us like "who are the crazy white people??" We were to stunned to take any photos inside, and it felt incredibly disrespectul and intrusive to do so.
1 comment:
I can't see any of your photos. They are just showing up with an 'x' instead. I REALLY want to see them! I tried on my phone and computer.
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