Thoughts from Ryan, Part II

-Water and Electricity: I came home today thinking I would take a shower and write a blog, well when I got home I could do neither. The electricity was off and the water pressure was so weak that I could not even get enough water to boil on the gas stove. Then the electricity came on for about 15 minutes and slowly I saw the lightbulb above me fade until there was no electricity again. Eventually the electricity came back, but we are still waiting on good water pressure so we can use the water heater. We will use the water pressure we do have to fill some buckets of water that we can later boil for our shower.

-Soccer: A transforming force. I saw soccer ministry as a less meaningful ministry compared to providing health care, but I have learned that soccer in particular can have a substantial impact on the psyche of the people and in turn bring a community together to discuss new ideas and share information which can lead to increased health and commerce. In America sports seem like such a luxury, but I am coming to see that sport in the 3rd world is very much a unifying force. It allows young men to take aggression out in a controlled environment instead of roaming the streets looking for trouble. It teaches lessons of fair play and good sportsmanship. It can change a culture.

-Before the soccer ministry started (about 4 yrs ago) children would throw rocks at the church building and spit on kids who went to the protestant church.
-The soccer ministry at KHC has changed the communities’ perception of what a protestant church is and children from the community no matter their beliefs can play on the churches soccer teams.
-The coach told me he selects players based on these 4 criteria: 1)They must do well in school 2) They must not smoke, drink, steal, o rhave a consistently bad character (He gives allowances for some wrongs but not a pattern of wrongs) 3) They need to have some soccer skill/athletic ability 4) Honor their family

-The Orthodox Church: 90% of the community around Bahir Dar is Orthodox and most are not accepting of the protestant church. I have heard numerous stories of orthodox families disowning their children if they go to the protestant church. The Orthodox Church from what I have heard is very ritualistic and is led by the priests. The people may read the Bible, but most likely they blindly follow the priest’s words. There is very little if any critical thinking about what and why the people believe.

-Governmental Policies: A government bill/law (not sure if it has passed) is setting out to curb the pay to NGO workers (Non-governmental organizations). This bill will effectively shut down human rights efforts in Ethiopia. There will still be funding for things like AIDS work and health care, but any work that puts Ethiopia in a bad light around the world (such as statistics describing the poor living conditions) will probably be shut down.

-Land for building a hospital is easily leased by the government of Ethiopia, however the catch is that after 40 years the building goes back to the government. (Conversely, I heard that if the building is still being used after those 40 years the government will not take it over).

-The government appears to try to take any hospital that is earning a profit, but of course as soon as the government takes it over the hospital falls apart and the quality of care suffers.

-Advertising: New movies at the movie theater or new music in stores in Bahir Dar is commonly made known to the community by strapping a sound system of 4 crackling speakers to the roof of a van and driving around the city with the volume turned up as high as it can go and playing music or speaking through the microphone inside the van to inform people of the newest thing in media.

-Bahir Dar a city of about 200,000 has a total of 2 stop lights. Very few people have cars, most ride bicycles or ride the local taxi vans (made for 9 but typically rides 15) or three wheeled bajaj’s.

-40% of the population are children (<14 yrs)

-Weddings: In Bahir Dar, weddings are broadcast to the whole community. This is because a wedding caravan drives the bride and groom around the whole town blaring their car horns. This is also caught on film by a cameraman who rides at the front of the caravan and stands in the bed of a pickup to film the proceedings.

-Competent Doctors: The quality of training and education of the doctors appears to provide qualified doctors capable of providing quality care in Ethiopia, but the government does not provide the quality of facilities, equipment, and reimbursement that a doctor needs to feel any sense of honor in the care they provide. This causes doctors to leave the country or become subsistence doctors who are depressed and/or numb to the pain and death they experience so regularly. They find themselves doing just enough to get by because that’s all they have the resources to do and often that’s all they are expected to do.

-White Doctors: The doctors trained in Ethiopia are qualified and competent; however, it seems that the people of Ethiopia believe that only foreign doctors are competent. This leads to people not trusting Ethiopian doctors. Consequently, the people do not come to the hospitals to receive care when they need it.

-Computers and Viruses: I have had the chance to work on a number of computer problems while in Ethiopia. There is a lot of technology in the country, but there is not enough understanding about how to properly maintain and use the technology. Over the past few weeks, I have fixed a pink shaded monitor, taught the hospital admissions department how to merge two access databases so they can use more than one computer to enter patient data, worked on a CDMA internet access device, networked two computers so they can both use the CDMA device, and run, rerun, uninstalled, and installed antivirus software to fight off viruses on a number of different computers. I am still waiting to hear back from the hospital administration about getting an interpreter to help me take an inventory of the computers at the hospital and update and scan the computers they have. (Shannon's note: Dr Andrew at the fistula hospital said this morning, "Your husband did a marvelous work on our computers.")

-Antivirus: The antivirus problem here seems astronomical especially since I do not have a quality program and the computers never have updated antivirus software. I have used freeware which incidentally takes at times an hour to download 20 MB. The installation and scan then takes another couple of hours by which time half the working day is gone. USB flash drives only make the problem worse by spreading viruses, something I found out first hand when the USB drive I was using to install antivirus software on computers without internet connections became infected. I am not sure why, but no one ever updates their antiviruses here. So any new virus not in the old database, easily finds its way onto the computer.

-Education: The past two days I have taught English to about 35-40 5th and 6th graders and 8-12 7th and 8th grade students. I assume that many of the students drop out of school after 6th grade, but I am not sure. The thought of me teaching English (probably my most disliked subject in school) is slightly amusing to me. I think God has quite a sense of humor sometimes. My classroom has one blackboard, a few windows to let light in, and a number of benches with desks that seat 3 students each. The students do not have any textbooks, only some beat up notebooks and pens, so as their teacher, I provide the text/lesson by writing everything up on the chalkboard. No fancy projector or even the old overhead projectors, just good old fashion chalk. It is hard to know where to begin because the ability of the leadership to clearly communicate with me what needs to be taught is nonexistent. I have been working on teaching them the differences between nouns and verbs and some other grammar while trying to teach vocabulary and pronunciation. Fortunately, I have a translator who helps me with my classes, otherwise I do not think the students would understand me and I certainly would not understand their Amharic. I had hopes of teaching them math, physics, chemistry, and biology, but the students would not understand the English I used to teach them these things, so until they learn English they cannot learn the other subjects. Apparently, in high school all the textbooks are in English which often causes many students to drop out because they did not learn enough English to understand the texts. (Shannon's note: Ryan is planning to tutor some of the local high school students individually in math and physics. Apparently these are the highly motivated and also more English-fluent students.)