The plan for today was to visit 4 churches, Petris, Paulo, Mikael Melehayzenghi and Medhane Alem Adi Kasho all located to the east of the Wukro - Sinkata road. Delphine coulnt make it due to stomach bug, so Yanis and I walked thogh the town to the office to see where the MVP driver was who would be taking us. At the office was Day 3 of training for Community Health Workers on Child Count.
W attended for a few minutes the session and were introduced by Dr Aregawe. The attendees were about 40 women , some with babies breastfeeding during the class.
Brook came in and we headed off to the churches in the Sinkat area. Along the way we saw a couple of MVP projects - a water hole and reservoir.
Arriving at the first church Petros we had to walk up a hill and then climb about 30 m up a rickety old wooden ladder arrangement attached to the vertical cliff. reaching the top we had to wait for the priest to come and unlock the door. Once we paid our fee, he unlocked the door and we entered. The church was about 1400 y but I have my doubts about Ethiopian measurement of time. The rock walls were covered in paintings that looked not more than a few hundred years compared to Maryam Korkor, that we visited the day before.. We then descended and visited the nearby Paulos church which had similar paintings.
We then drove about 2 km to the Mikael Melehayzenghi church where again after a short hike up a hill we found a rock hewn church opened by another priest. Inside we found some very clear rock wall paintings of saints and biblical scenes. The priest took out a bible written in the ancient language of Geez and which also had some very clear paintings of saints on the inside cover.
Driving onto th next church, Medhane Alem Adi Kasho, a further 3 km, I was stunned by the rural setting and people, especially the kids. The kids and older people were in dirty shredded rags and up close looked like they rarely washed themselves. With such poor infrastructure, so many people, and a challenging environment the contrast to our industrial society is marked.
In the afternoon we headed back to Hawzen negotiating some flooded roads and a causeway from the heavy rains over the Hawzen area, about an hour earlier, We had been invited to Brooks house for lunch and coffee (buna). We picked up Delpine from the lodge. Brook lives not too far from the office. His wife Tua and girls Belin and Mahalit were there. Lunch was lentils and salad with injera and bread, followed by coffee. Brook's english is limited so it was challenging to talk but we managed.
Brooks house is within a set of 3 houses in a long concrete building each with 1-2 rooms. Brooks house has 2 rooms, a combination lounge/dining room and kitchen/bedroom.
I was impressed with what he had done with his home. he had moved his family from Addis Ababa to take thsi job with MVP for the next few years.
No comments:
Post a Comment