Losing my mind...

Can a 27-year-old have Alzheimer's? This weekend I was meeting a friend for lunch. As I drove down the street, I realized I forgot said friend's name. Seriously? I kid you not. Had no clue what her name was. Even after I saw her, still didn't know. Thank goodness someone else eventually said her name.

Seriously.

Losing. My. Mind.

I love my job...

So, I love my job. I love the stories I get to write, I love learning about children who have been resuced from poverty, I love feeling like my job matters.

Because of that, I'd like to begin posting periodic stories that I've written about Compassion. At the end of each post will be a link to the story on www.compassion.com, and I would encourage you to explore the site, and maybe even sponsor a child.

Is this kind of lazy (repurposing stories for my blog)? Sure. But I think you'll like it.

And here's one to start you off with :)

Jesus Is Passing This Way
Elizabeth Karanja in Kenya, with Brandy Campbell
February 12, 2007

ONGATA RONGAI, Kenya — Sixteen-year-old Josephat remembers what it was like before drought and famine enveloped his village in Ongata Rongai, but the memories are distant and fuzzy. He more clearly recalls lying in bed, his body bloated with hunger while his mother, Eunice, sat by his side and sang a familiar song: "Jesus is passing this way, this way today. Jesus is passing this way, is passing this way today." Her smooth voice brought comfort, and for a moment, he would forget the hunger.

A Pursuit for Survival
But even a mother's love does not fill an empty stomach. Millions of families in Kenya have been affected by drought, and though the government provides some rations for the people, lines are long and the supplies quickly run out.

"I would go around the village and send my four children to see where the government was going to distribute supplies next," says Eunice, her voice cracking with emotion. "I was affected by polio as a child, so I cannot walk as fast as the others. There were many times we didn't have any food to eat."

A Lifesaving Announcement
Just when Eunice had come to the end of her resources, Jesus truly did pass her way. One Sunday as Eunice and her children sat at the morning service at the Deliverance Church, the pastor announced that famine relief food would be distributed to the Compassion-assisted families.

Josephat's eyes widened as he stared at his beaming mother — that meant them! Josephat had been a member of the Deliverance Church Ongata Rongai Child Development Center for 10 years. He had always known the project would help him with school and vocational skills, but now it could literally save his family's life!

In the following weeks, nearly 1,000 families were aided by Compassion's relief efforts. Josephat and his family walked just a few miles from their home to collect their portion of rice and beans

— more food than they had known in months.

While all Compassion-assisted centers offer hot meals and nutritious snacks to registered children, droughts like the one in Kenya call for increased provisions. Compassion's Disaster Relief Fund provides food staples, including rice and beans, for affected children and their families.

"I am happy that Compassion helped us by giving us food," says Josephat. "Many times I did my homework on an empty stomach. Now, I can eat a meal and have energy to finish my work."

Releasing Children From Hunger
The drought in Kenya has devastated the region, and efforts made to meet the needs of even the Compassion-assisted children have been monumental. According to Benedict Omollo, Kenya's Country Director, Compassion has put together a strategy to train caregivers on food security and storage, as well as farming drought-resistant crops and effective livestock rearing.
Instead of leaving a trail of hungry children and hopeless parents, Compassion's famine relief efforts have released many children from the jaws of hunger in Kenya.

http://www.compassion.com/sponsordonor/countrynews/ke/Stories/jesusispassingthisway.htm

I'm going to brag for a minute...

I have lots of things I need to blog about. Recent visits with friends. Emotional thoughts about the VT tragedy.

But those both take thought. And my brain hurts this week. So instead, check out this powerpoint I created for Compassion Sunday. I really like the way it turned out :)

Just go here: http://www.compassion.com/share/compassionsunday/downloadableresources/default.htm
and click on the Compassion Sunday Presentation (#2).

Hopefully I'll be back to posting regularly soon!

So much stuff...

Last week, I almost had a panic attack in Target.

My cupboards were COMPLETELY bare, and eating stale potato chips for breakfast was getting old, so I decided to run to Target to pick up some groceries. As I pulled into the parking lot, I realized it was the first time I had gone shopping since I returned from Ethiopia. As I stood in the crowded aisles, I felt compeltely overwhelmed by all of the stuff. Sodas stacked ten rows deep. Wracks of sparkling jewelry. Enough food to feed entire villages in Africa. As I held a pack of Easter candy in my hand, contemplating that the cost equalled an Ethiopian farmer's pay for a week, I just wanted to run away. How do I find that balance between poverty and gluttony? How can people starve there while we gorge ourselves here? How do I reconcile those differences? How?

I pushed my squeaky cart down the shiny-tiled aisles, my head aching. I signed my credit card slip without looking at it. I willed the hot, angry tears not to fall from my eyes. Because I don't understand it. I don't know the answer. Children are starving, but that doesn't mean I should starve. Because they have no money for medical care doesn't mean I should not go to the doctor. Where is the inbetween?

God has blessed me so I can bless others. When I break that cycle, the truth about my heart is revealed. When I break that cycle, the scales tip crazily. When I break that cycle, I find myself crying at Target.

I mustn't break the cycle.

My Summary of Ethiopia :)

Below are my journal entries from Ethiopia. They are backwards, so I numbered them so you can read them in order (1-9). I've also posted my photos on my Flickr website, in addition to the ones you can find below. That address is http://www.flickr.com/photos/bncampbell.

Things I Learned in Ethiopia
-When you visit a country where the meanings of names are important, and your name essentially means a type of alcohol, you will be picked on.
-A simple breakfast of barley bread and hibiscus tea with my new Ethiopian friends is the perfect way to start a day.
-Even an Ethiopian personal trainer at the gym can spot me as a “beginner”—especially when I’m sitting backwards at the machine.
-Dehydration means not peeing for 12 hours.
-The only things granted right-of-way on the streets of Addis Ababa are cows and goats.
-Highway lanes are merely suggestions.
-When fruit is marinated, always ask what it’s marinated in. Or suffer the consequences.
-Sticking your head in an Ethiopian toilet is both humbling and disgusting.

Ethiopia Trip #9

March 31, 2007
Today I vomited in three countries. Today I realized that you haven’t truly lived until you’ve had stuck your head in the toilet at the Addis Ababa International airport. Today I christened Ethiopia, Egypt and London in a most unusual way.

I woke up at 2 a.m., a mere three hours before we were to leave for the airport. Before I was even fully awake I was leaning over the toilet. “This cannot be happening,” I thought. But my body insisted otherwise.

I won’t go into the details. I’ll just summarize the experience with the fact that I thought I would die. Or I wished I would die. The details are fuzzy. I insisted that we go to the airport at our appointed time. Our airline only made this flight once a day, and I just wanted to be home.

Seven trips to the bathroom later, I lay curled up on the plane, wondering if my body could somehow survive the nearly 17-hours it would have to spend in the air. My body answered with a definitive “NO!”

But it did survive. And by the time we landed in New York I felt like I just might live. Maybe.

Ethiopia Trip #8

March 30, 2007
Today I left Ethiopia. The streets were once again dark, and the city was quiet. No blaring horns. No children begging at my window. A few hours later I sat on a plane and bumped down the runway, my face pressed against the window. The same streetlights flickered, and cars had begun to fill the streets below. I left Ethiopia in a cloud of dust as our plane lifted into the air.

Now, a long day of travel is finally behind me. A little while ago, our plane descended on New York, and we were herded through customs. I was surprised at the reverse culture shock. I had taken for granted the kindness of the people of Ethiopia. The humble spirits. The kindness to strangers. In New York, I felt none of that. My thank you’s were met with glares instead of quiet nods and whispered you’re welcome’s.

I already miss the musical sound of Amharic voices. The English tongue sounds too loud to me, almost crude. I miss holding the warm hand of a child who has been rescued from poverty. I miss sipping hot bitter coffee as a display of friendship. I miss glass bottles of coke drank together in a cool office. I miss awakening to the sound of birds chirping and dogs barking and the morning prayers of the Orthodox church down the street. I miss the people of Ethiopia. How do you miss something you barely knew?

In a few minutes, I will shower and the last bit of Ethiopian dust will swirl down the drain. When I wash my face, the last Ethiopian kiss will disappear from my cheeks. It saddens me to know that the hibiscus tea that I spilled on my jacket will only be a faint stain after I do my laundry. That when I clean off my shoes, the dried Ethiopian mud will be swept away. I will only be left with a few framed photos, my stories, and a different heart. May it never be the same again.

Ethiopia Trip #7

March 29, 2007
Tonight I sat by the pool, bugs nibbling my ankles, and talked with a brilliant doctor about the reality of AIDS in Ethiopia. Dr. A is passionate and articulate, and his knowledge about this terrible epidemic was more than I could have researched on the web or read in a textbook. Because to Dr. A, AIDS is not just a topic, it is a reality.

Our conversation began the day before as we rode back from Walliso. Dr. A was visibly agitated by some things he learned on the trip, specifically the two mothers at one of the projects who had recently given birth to their babies without telling anybody that they had AIDS.

“It’s like they killed them,” he said sadly, shaking his head. By keeping their secret, they had more than tripled the chances that their infant children would contract this deadly disease. If they had breastfed, the chances tripled again.

“They still believe in this stigma, but it shouldn’t be. Every home has been touched by AIDS,” says Dr. A, his voice tinged with bitterness. “Everyone knows someone with AIDS. Everyone has attended a funeral of a family member or neighbor who died of AIDS. A stigma means it is something rare. I’m sorry to say, AIDS is not rare in Ethiopia anymore.”

We continued our conversation in the moonlight tonight, and Dr. A’s passion had not waned. AIDS is magnified by the poverty of Ethiopia. Malnutrition kills more quickly when a body is already weakened by AIDS. What’s the point of purchasing medicine when there is no money for food? Will a mother choose medical care for one of her children while letting the others starve? Should she?

Dr. A also shared with me that poverty means that the very people who try to stop AIDS are often put in danger. When he was doing his pediatric residency, he was assisting with the labor of a woman whose child would need immediate intervention after he was born. Dr. A asked for gloves, and was told there were none. The mother was HIV-positive. The child would die without his help. What choice did he have? So a few moments later, he held that bloody child in his bare hands and focused on bringing life—while trying to ignore the possibility of his own death.

He told us of a catholic nurse who cut the umbilical cord of a birthing mother with AIDS. A blood vessel ruptured, sending blood spraying, and hitting the nurse in the eye. When Dr. A met her, she was in the very same hospital where she once saved lives, fighting for her own. A simple pair of plastic glasses would have saved her life.

Ethiopia Trip #6

March 28, 2007
Today, I was able to visit a project where we work with school-age children. (As a side note, this was my second visit to this project—the first time my camera refused to work.) The ride to the project was over bone-rattling roads with deep ruts and narrow passageways.

It seemed that some of the children recognized me (I mean seriously, how often do they see a white person with big hair twice in one week!) The older children came up to me boldly, shaking my hand, asking my name.

God, they were beautiful! I don’t even know how to explain it. Such smiles! Such bright eyes! My heart hurt with all of it.

The kindergartners made me laugh. Since most of their eyes were at waist level or below, it took them a moment to get to my face. I could tell the instant the color of my skin dawned on them. Eyes grew wide. Mouths fell open. Some ran away. Others giggled. Three brave ones became my shadow. Each time I turned to look behind me, one would run away, one would cover her eyes and the other froze in his tracks. When I held out my hand to the paralyzed one, he took it shyly and walked with me a few steps. Soon he ran off, probably to tell his friends he had touched the white person!

As we left, a tiny girl approached me. Her face was freshly scrubbed, and as I knelt down to say hello, she kissed my cheek. I returned the gesture on her still damp one. How I wish time would have stopped. Even now, only a few hours later, the memory is already fading. To write it down is to hold it for a few moments longer.

Ethiopia Trip #5

March 27, 2007
Today I met four of the most strong, resilient women I’ve ever had the privilege of talking to.* Four women who raise the standards of mothers. I can only hope their children will one day understand how amazing their mothers are.

After two hours, we arrived in Walliso, a rural community 110 kms from Addis. As soon as we arrived in town, children ran alongside the truck, pointing at the white people inside. They giggled when we waved, even more when we spoke to them in English.

The first mother I would meet was Elech, and her daughter, Sig. While I waited for my questions and her answers to be translated, I made faces at Sig, who rewarded me with wide, toothless grins. She waved her arms in the air and made thwacking sounds on the smooth wooden desk in front of her. When Elech caught as at our game, she smiled shyly.

Elech summed up her need for help simply: “I am poor.” She rarely looked at me when she spoke, but rather she kept her eyes on Sig, who wriggled in a stained sling wrapped around her mother’s body. But despite her shyness, Elech looked regal. Her strong face displayed her will to survive. She was not giving up. She was humbly plowing forward, inspired by the grins and laughs of her child.

Nesh was the second mother I met. Her daughter, Bec, was a blur of activity, exploring the small office where we sat. When she discovered no toys or food, she climbed back in her mother’s lap, tugging impatiently at her blouse.

Nesh seemed tired. More than just raising an active 18-month-old tired, but something deeper, harder. I soon learned that she has a heart defect that drained her energy and left her weak. But still, even through her exhaustion, her love for her child broke through. As she waited for the translations to finish, she looked tenderly at her feeding daughter, gently smoothing her hair and kissing her forehead.

As I took the pictures of Elech and Nesh, I knew those flat images couldn’t capture what I saw. The fierce determination. The humble power. The weary love. The beauty. But I took them anyway, a memory burned to photo paper, saved to a hard-drive, emailed and posted and printed. Their stories must be told.

After a brief lunch, we went on to the next project. I was excited that this time I would be visiting two mothers in their homes.

Kesh greeted us at the fence that surrounded her home. A latrine leaned to the side near a water pump. By her community’s standards, life was not too bad. Len, her 17-mongh-old son stood in the front yard, naked from the waist down. He waved to us, then ran around, chattering in either Amharic or his own invented language. I couldn’t tell the difference.

As we began talking, rain fell outside, thunderous on the metal roof. I leaned so close that I could brush away the large flies that lit on the scab that covered Len's knee.

I quickly learned that Kesh has AIDS. Like Nesh, she has little energy to care for her active, headstrong son. Even wrestling an item out of his hand visibly tires her. But Kesh has retained her sense of humor. When I asked her what her hopes for her son’s future were, her answer inspired laughter to fill the room—“I hope he will go abroad.”

It saddens me that Kesh takes a 3-hour bus ride to the city each week to receive medical treatment. It saddens me because a hospital is a close walk away, but the stigma of her disease is too great to risk being seen by her neighbors.

The stigma she’s afraid of shouldn’t exist anymore. It is her own silence that holds her prisoner. The likelihood is each person in her community has teen touched by AIDS. Perhaps her next-door neighbor suffers from AIDS. Perhaps the woman she boys vegetables from in the market. Her best friend. Surely someone she loves has AIDS. Why hasn’t she learned yet that AIDS is not a punishment? When will her neighbors understand that they can’t catch this disease by shaking her hand or giving her a kiss on the cheek?

The last home we visited was tiny, surrounded by narrow strips of muddy ground. Here, Mara shared the 2-room home with her mother, two sisters, and her 11-month-old daughter, Helena.

Mara left home when she was in the 8th grade. She worked at a bar, and her days were filled with leering men who quickly stole her innocence. When she was 21, one of those men left her pregnant and alone. With no money, no husband and no way of supporting her child, Mara returned home.

When Helena was born, Mara was poised to flee again. Raising a child was hard. The newspapered walls of her home seemed to close in on her. Most days, Helena lay on a stained pillow until her grandmother would comfort the crying child.

But when Mara joined our program, she began to learn how to enjoy Helena. She felt less restless as she spent her days learning about nutrition and hygiene. She began to have coffee with other mothers, and together they brag about their growing children. And when Helena smiles with her chubby cheeks, Mara feels her heart tug. She’s still young. She’s still inexperienced. But finally, she‘s a mother.

As we left Mara’s home she stood shyly, her young face serious. When I took her photo, I had to convince her to smile. I wonder what keeps away her smile. The tiny, dark house? The responsibilities of motherhood? The hunger in her stomach?

But finally, the smile comes. Maybe it is from the warm, wriggling body of Helena. Maybe our conversation had served as a reminder of the hope she’s found. Perhaps she is recalling her answer to my last question that I asked a moment ago, when I inquired about her daughter’s future—“I want her to be a doctor,” she said with a wide smile.

As we pulled away onto the freshly muddy streets, we are surrounded by children. I hang my arm out the window, and they eagerly reach for it, shaking my hand, touching my skin. I can still feel their fingers, even as we pull onto the paved road miles away. Still hear their shouts. Still see their eyes.

Ethiopia is inside me.

(*The names of the people in this story have been changed.)

Ethiopia Trip #4

March 26, 2007
Today softened my view of Ethiopia. In the center of this busy city, I found beauty. Beauty in the faces of dozens of students who piled out of their classroom to smile for my camera. Beauty in the young boy who tugged at my shirt. As I bent low he asked me “How are you today?” then grinned widely at my words of praise. Beauty in the parade of children who followed me around the playground, shouting to all of their friends “Look, she’s white!” Beauty in the squeals and giggles that erupted each time I touched the top of one of the small heads at my waist. Beauty in the sweet little girls who swung on the gate as I walked back to the van, blowing me kisses each time I turned to wave.

What a blessing those precious little ones were. They couldn’t possibly understand that just one hour with them was enough to get me through the trip back to the hotel. Because for each child who knocked at my window, I knew there were a dozen more who had been provided an escape.

Ethiopia Trip #3

March 25, 2007
I’ve never been this close to poverty. I’ve read about it, I’ve written about it, I’ve seen it on television and in glossy pictures in magazines.

But today, it stood inches from me, separated only by a smudged window in the van I rode in. I didn’t know what to do when a child’s eyes peered into mine, her dirt-caked fingernails scratching at the window. I looked in my lap, at my own clean fingernails, listening to her beg in words that I couldn’t understand. But the message was all too clear.

It appeared again as we waited at a red light on a crowded street This time, as a mother. Her wrinkled brown breast hung out of her blouse, and the baby in her arms reached for it hungrily, his pink tongue bright against her skin. She held out her hands while I stared at the floor.

Over and over, at every stop, one or two would leave their spot in the shade to investigate the rich American. “Begging is bad—you should work for your money,” our Ethiopian friends say as the light turns green and we roll away in a cloud of gray exhaust.

I don’t even know how to close this entry. For the past ten minutes, I have stared out of my window at the darkening sky, waiting for rain. It hasn’t come yet, but when it does, I wonder what all of those people I saw today will do. Will the child play in puddles, allowing the rain to turn the dust on her body to mud?

Will the mother run for cover, shielding her child from the fat raindrops? Will the shade protect the others from the rain the same way it protects them from the sun?

What will I do? Will I stand in the rain, if only for a moment, my hands cupped, catching the rain in them, then letting it trickle to the ground? Or will I hide from the thunder and wind, averting my eyes again?

Ethiopia Trip #2

March 24, 2007
Ethiopia snuck up on me. As our plane landed at two this morning, all I could see were straight lines of streetlights. It didn’t look like Africa. It looked like any number of cities I’ve flown into in the United States.

The drive to the hotel was quick, and the dark streets were empty. My sleep-deprived mind processed little. Dark buildings. Road signs. Flickering orange lights lined the sidewalks.

But this morning, Ethiopia woke up, long before I opened my gauzy hotel curtains. A slum spread out below me. It must have been asleep last night—sleeping off the day of hunger, disease and poverty.

On the drive to lunch, I said little, my eyes trained on the streets teeming with people. I tried not to stare. I averted my eyes as people peered into our van—ashamed at my comfortable clothes, wallet full of wrinkled cash, even the color of my skin. But the sights kept drawing me back. The old men, their bodies twisted, dragging themselves along the sidewalks. The women, regal in their colorful dresses, heads held high. The children—so many children! They darted in front of cars, their dusty bodies gray in the bright sunshine.

I couldn’t shake the images. As I sat with my two new Ethiopian friends, the sound of their foreign words bouncing off my still tired brain, the city spread out below us, my mind continued to feebly process.

“You’re too quiet,” my friends teased. I just smiled at their observation. I couldn’t process it all.

Gradually, the initial—not shock, but lack of understanding—begin to clear. “Pace yourself,” I told myself as I sipped thick papaya juice. “It’s just your first day.”

So here I sit, at the pool at my hotel. Naked children scream and splash. My white skin stands out less here. But I know that just on the other side of the dense green trees and shrubs that shield me, there is another world. One rife with poverty.

A country of people whose story I am to tell.

A country of people who have already crept into my heart.