Scavenger Hunts, The Trip that Never Ends, and The Million Dollar Question

Scavenger Hunts in Addis

Our flight from Bahir Dar to Addis on Wednesday night was uneventful other than being delayed over an hour (pretty much uneventful as all the flights seem to be delayed regularly!). We took a taxi to the SIM Guesthouse which we had stayed at during our previous trip to Addis for our visas. I had emailed to reserve rooms, but apparently their internet was down so they did not receive my message. We took keys for spare rooms when we arrived after midnight and let ourselves into open rooms. Ryan and I got twin beds in our room as that was the only one available. This ended up working out because Ryan had coughing fits each night which caused him to cough repeatedly, so hard that I thought he may throw up at times. Austin stated that he was going to take as many showers as he could, and he proved that by taking one each morning and night. I had to admit that it was quite a treat to have a hot shower after nearly 6 weeks of bucket baths. We met up with some long-term missionaries which Ryan had contacted via email before we arrived. They graciously and generously drove us around both days we were there so that we could do some shopping.

Our scavenger hunts began. We were looking for a handmade area rug, but all we could find at souvenir shops were the small ones. We had admired the huge carpets in the churches at Lalibela and were eager to have this lovely reminder of Ethiopia adorning our house in the US. It proved harder than we thought. Our previous excursion to Addis had resulted in us coming back empty-handed, but we were determined. The missionaries drove us to a rug shop where they employed between 75 and 100 women to make rugs by hand. Some sorted the wool into colors. Next, they combed the wool repeatedly to make it soft. Then the wool was spun into long threads. In the final room, there were a myriad of looms with women rapidly weaving or tying knots and cutting them with razor blades to the correct length. It was amazing! We bought one of our rugs there, but Austin and Melissa wanted one similar to it, so our hunt was not finished. We had lunch at an orphanage which taught vocational skills, one of which was to be restaurant cooks servers, etc.. They had coconut macaroons which apparently (since I detest coconut- its texture makes it inedible for me) were amazing! They were amazing enough that after the umpteenth store and finally finding a second rug late that evening, the second scavenger hunt became finding more of those coconut macaroons. We walked around the Piazza area on Friday looking for the macaroons in two teams: Austin and Melissa vs. Ryan and me. The typical conversation went like this:

“Do you have coconut macaroons?”

“Yes. Like spaghetti?”

“No no, not macaroni. MacaROONS, like a cookie? Coconut cookie? Coconut macaroon? Coco… nevermind.” NEXT!

We never did find any more coconut macaroons, and the orphanage was too far to travel to just for cookies. The scavenger hunt did entertain 4 adults for the bulk of an afternoon.



This is the Trip that Never Ends

It just goes on and on my friends. Some people started travelling on Ethiopian. And they continued travelling forever just because this is the trip that never ends, it just goes on and on and on. Some people tried to board the plane not knowing what it was, and they continued travelling forever just because of Ethiopia, engines, eagles, and El Nino… forever just because this is the trip that never ends…

We headed to the airport in Addis Ababa to begin our long series of flights home around 6pm. Since Ryan and I were leaving on expired visas (they expired one day before we left due to the mix up in counting 10 day extension from date of issue rather than previous visa’s date of expiration) and the potential problem with that. We held our breath as the guy at the ticket counter examined our passport. “Your visa is expired,” he said. We explained that we had been told it would be okay since it was only one day. He replied, “I hope so. I don’t care but you’ll probably have to pay $20 to leave when you get to the immigration counter.” That’s what we were afraid of. At least we made it past one person. Ryan and I looked at each other as we approached immigration. We just had to get on the other side of the glass windows and we would be home free. Literally. Going home free of a penalty. Going home at all! The man behind the glass window held the stamp next to the counter, looking down his nose at our visas. “Your visa has expired. You’ll need to…” Ryan interrupted him, “We went to the immigration office and talked to them about this situation. They told us it would be fine.” I added, “We have the name of the guy who told us that.” He looked up at us, stamp poised in his hand. Please, I thought, please just give us the stamp. (Come to think of it, it reminded me a lot of the movie “Terminal” where Tom Hanks is stuck in the airport because he cannot get a stamp on his passport.) The immigration officer looked at us, smirked, and he stamped the passports! Home free!! We stopped just beyond the glass and prayed in gratitude for the resolution of a difficult situation.

We knew our flight connection in DC would be tight, but both flights which went to San Antonio were relatively early Saturday morning, so we had no choice but to try to make them. As the time to board our plane came and went without so much as a hint of movement to start the process by the Ethiopian Airlines employees, we became antsy. No announcement was made. No one seemed to be in a hurry. Finally, when the time our plane was to actually leave had passed, mass chaos reigned as they finally started the boarding process. We sighed. Our connection time was slipping away, and there was no explanation for it. An hour later, we were on our way. We thought, well, there goes the earlier flight. Maybe we can catch the last flight to San Antonio.

After a 7 hour flight, we landed in Rome for refueling. No one was allowed to get off the plane. Just as we were hoping to take off again, they announced that there had been an engine failure and there would be a “short” delay while they fixed the engine. THREE hours later, hot and tired of the uncertainty, knowing that we would miss all of our connections in DC, we left Rome. 10 hours later, we landed in the United States and headed to the ticket counter at Southwest Airlines to see what could be salvaged of our flights. If we wanted to fly with no additional fees to upgrade our tickets, the only course of action was to get a hotel and try to fly stand-by the next day.

Getting stuck in the airport wasn’t all bad. We paid a very low rate for a nice room at the Sheraton, relishing the super-soft beds, the hot showers with consistent water pressure, and good friends to share it with. The beds were so tempting after all the travelling and trying to sleep upright, but how many times are you in Washington DC? We took a shuttle, bus, and a subway to the Mall area by the capital and took in the sites! Ethiopia struck Austin again who was having some GI issues. A guy directed him into “the building with the green roof.” Ryan and I waited on the Mall, taking pictures of sunset on the Capitol and Washington Monument. Austin came out a short time later, his eyes wide with excitement. “That’s not just any old building with a green roof. That’s the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History! And it’s free! Come check it out!” We took a quick tour, seeing life-sized replicas of a whale, a bunch of dinosaurs, an elephant, sea creatures, lions, polar bear, walrus, moose, etc. etc. I definitely could spend at least a day there looking at everything. Darkness fell on Washington DC while we were in the museum. We hurried to see as much as we could as we became colder throughout the night. I had brought clothes for Ethiopia, not for the coolness of America in winter. We saw the Capitol and the Supreme Court Building. Ryan commented that day, “I will not look at the American flag the same way again.” In Ethiopia, our presence in the country was noted, we knew our emails may be monitored, and we knew that if we said anything specifically negative about the government, considering the nearness of the upcoming elections in May, they could and would rapidly kick us out of the country. Blogging was blocked completely (which is why I sent emails to family to upload. Thanks guys!) We marveled as we stood on the Capitol steps that we could say anything about our government right on its front steps. We might even get press coverage! Freedom of Speech is huge!

We walked and walked that night. We saw the Washington Monument (which looks much bigger up close!), the White House, and we were walking to the Lincoln Memorial when Ethiopia struck Austin yet again. It was very dark, and we had not seen a bathroom since several hours earlier at the Museum. Nothing was likely to be open at this hour. Ryan and I guarded the path near the lake, and Austin, grateful for darkness, a clump of trees, and loud ducks in the small pond next to us, dropped the kids off. He made our previously agreed upon verbal signal that he was finished, and we nonchalantly continued on our way. I’m not exaggerating when I say that only 100 yards away we found the public restrooms. “Don’t tell that I just risked being put in prison for defecating in public on government property, on the Mall no less, when the bathroom is right here!! Aww man!” Good times. We quickly saw the Lincoln Memorial and the WWII Memorial before making the 1.5 hour trek via public transport home. That bed felt sooo good!

Sunday was another comedy of errors. We flew stand-by, and the first plane looked very full. Although we were first on the list for stand-by, we couldn’t insist on going in front of a couple with a newly-adopted Ethiopian 1 yr old child. We knew what they had been through the previous day with us on that same flight, and as first time parents, I’m sure they were a bit traumatized by the experience of trying to calm a screaming baby for 20 hours. We deferred to them. Finally, we made it on the last flight of the day which would get us home. It was a full flight as well, but we made it on and it was only a half hour delayed! We had just sat down when the captain came on the loudspeaker. “We were doing our routine inspections and found that we hit a bird on the left wing on our previous flight. It will take an hour to get someone to come look at it. We apologize.” A few minutes later, they instructed us to deplane because we would be getting on a different airplane. Apparently either the light had broken or there was a hole in the wing. I like to tell the extreme story because it seems more entertaining, but it was probably just a broken beacon light. In my fatigue, I found it almost amusing how upset people were about an hour delay. I was thinking, “You have no idea!” We boarded the second plane and finally made it to Chicago. We raced to get on the stand-by list in Chicago, practically running the full length of the airport just to find out that we had miss-read the flight board and our gate was actually RIGHT NEXT TO the gate we had gotten off at. Ahh. Such is a jet-lagged mind. We ran back to the gate and found out we had made the flight. It was delayed. Why not?? First it was delayed 10 minutes, then 25, then 40, then 50 minutes. I had ceased caring. Delay me all you want, just get me to San Antonio tonight!

They did. We arrived in San Antonio at 11pm. Ryan had missed his flight to go speak at a conference for biomechanics in New Orleans. I was so sad for him. His boss at work filled in for him, which was no problem, but I hurt for Ryan that he did not get the opportunity to present his work. I started class at 9am Monday morning and Ryan returned to work on Tuesday. It is only one week from today when we will find out on Match Day where we will be going for the next 4 years of our life. Thursday, March 18, between 11am and noon, I will open up an envelope which has the name of the residency program. This is an exciting time in our lives and for my medical school class, this one is for all the marbles, for everything we’ve worked for.

The Million Dollar Question

And the million dollar question: What do we think now of our potential to work in Africa in the future?? We discussed how to answer this at length. I believe Ryan still leans slightly towards pursuing his career here in America where things are efficient and he feels most effective, but we both agreed that we now know what it could potentially feel like to live and work overseas. We know the good and the bad, the tremendous needs, the masses of issues and basic problems which he would be very good at addressing. I think it would be better if you spoke to him in person as he is not nearly as keen on writing as I am. Speaking for myself, I am conflicted about my desire to work in Ethiopia in particular. Dr. Browning talked to me about Fistula work and where he sees the future of it. He said, “We are training a lot of surgeons in fistula repair here in Ethiopia. Outside of Ethiopia, there are only 4 full-time fistula surgeons in the whole of Africa.” We talked about raising a family overseas, about working in an area with good support, good schools for children, good opportunities for both spouses, etc. Dr. Browning suggested I check out MercyShips which is a well-established, well-run floating hospital that docks at various western African nations which are, for the most part, war-torn and extremely needy. “They are always looking for fistula surgeons.” Dr. Browning himself had volunteered for MercyShips at one time in his career and spoke highly of the school for children on the ship and suggested that Ryan would likely have an easy time finding something meaningful to do. Dr. Browning’s last words to me were, “Finish your training, come back and I’ll train you up in fistulas and you can go anywhere.”

We also realize that the career and world landscape may look radically different in 4 years. There may be other areas after my training which would utilize both of our specific skill sets, such as Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone has a major prosthetics project as well as a fistula center. But for now, we will cherish the conversation we had with Dr. Alan, an older, wiser surgeon from Ireland who regularly travels to Ghana. He spoke to us while we were on a boat on the lake one weekend. “You can plan your life, but it rarely goes that way. The main objective should be to glorify God in whatever you do. If you read the Bible, God’s word, and are praying daily, you just can’t go wrong. You aren’t somehow going to miss God’s will for your life if you do that. It’s good to have a general goal in mind, but don’t be surprised at the twists and turns you will take.”