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First experience of Ethiopian healthcare
The rains have still not come; we are continuing to pray here for that. The power cuts continue as usual, though the days that the power is out is never usual. Fortunately, so far the water has not been turned off. It’s possible to survive without power, but once the water stops coming out of the tap, it gets frustrating.
This week, my football team played their last game, which unfortunately they lost. It was a very important game too; we needed to win it to get through. This meant we ended up placed 5th where only the top 4 teams go through. I was very frustrated at one of the games that we should have won, but only managed a draw due to some horrific refereeing decisions. Unfortunately, it’s a common fact that the referees here favour the Ethiopian schools over the Forengi schools. This guy wasn’t trying too hard to hide his favouritism; ignoring two obvious handballs in the penalty box, blowing for a foul on the other team’s goalkeeper by one of their players leaving our open net opportunity to go to waste and, perhaps the worst decision, blowing for full time when one of our strikers was one on one with their goalkeeper. However, we are now out of the competition, and so don’t have any more practices to do so I was having a bit of a kick around with a couple of the players in place of practice on Monday. One of the guys hit a shot which took a weird turn at the last minute, hit one of my fingers and dislocated it. It wasn’t very sore, but it definitely needed fixed, which the doctors at the SIM clinic weren’t wanting to do. So I took a trip to one of the Ethiopian clinics here, not really knowing what to expect, but I was well taken care of. Fortunately, they froze my finger before pulling it back into place. The finger isn’t sore at all, but I’ve had to have a splint put on it with a bandage that will stay on for 3 weeks, which is fairly frustrating.
This weekend, we had the Horizon project boys over, and they played the soccer team. The Horizon boys beat the Bingham guys, which was great for them; they really are a talented bunch of guys when it comes to soccer. After the match, they played some games and then had some fun on a slippery slide that Brian had set up. I’ve included some pics below.
Bingham have set up a room at a local school where the boys can go to study, and have hired a guy to supervise them all. It’s great to see them all working diligently there after school, rather than hanging around the street corners. Their attitude to learning is so different to that in the west, they just need an opportunity and they thrive.
More pics as usual, here.
Niall
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