For the vast majority of Americans, our childhood memories are filled with bicycle rides past neatly trimmed lawns, backyard barbecues, playing games inside on a rainy day ... It doesn't matter whether you were raised in the city or the country, East or West Coast, far north or Deep South, it doesn't even matter what decade you were born in ... there is a commonality to American life that we tend to take for granted. After visiting Ethiopia, I doubt I'll ever be able to look back on my own childhood the same way again.
Nikki took these pictures on the day we visited Bogale's house. I'd like to share them with you.
Above, the "henhouses." In the upper right-hand corner, the stack of rags is actually someone's house, built under a tree.
At right, the bridge across the culvert.
Below, the path to Bogale and Fakahdu's front door.
This is the journey that Bogale makes every day, the path and bridge that Fakahdu must now learn to traverse with his new crutches, the route that Arakash makes several times a day carrying food and items she has scavenged from Addis' meager trash piles. This is the only life they know.
We visited Bogale's house the day after we visited Workay and Bazawit. When Muday told us that Bogale's house was much more "typical" of the way the students live, we realized that Workay's little one-room apartment was "upscale." The revelation sobered all of us.
When we left, several of us were crying. We realized that, among the street people of Addis, even Bogale's house was something to aspire to.
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