Lee & Maya in Ethiopia

Maya & Lee departing from Tel Aviv

My son Lee Samuel, 21, and his friend Maya Selber are spending the two weeks of their Spring (Passover) Break from their Israeli university in Ethiopia.  It's Maya's first trip and Lee's sixth.  I'm starting to upload their photos to a new gallery here.  They visited "Big Atetegeb" (now under the leadership of Haregewoin's daughter Sosina Worku); they visited WWO Academy (www.wwo.org) where the 42 positive children formerly living at "Little Atetegeb" are living with their teachers and caregivers. And they visited AHOPE, a home for HIV-positive children. They also had great adventures involving waterfalls, cows, and an Ethiopian Passover seder. 

Lee w/Atetegeb kids

In a turnabout (since Lee often asks me when I'll post a new blog), I'll copy here parts of his emails from Addis: 

He writes:

"Today, we spent the whole day at the three different orphanages... At the WWO primary school where the 42 HIV-positive kids that used to be under Haregewoin's care now live, we got there just as they were finishing up with lunch so we joined them for their post-lunch nap time which consisted of playing the always exciting game of "Let's see how many kids we can fit on TOP of the white people."  Maya's team won... We went from the WWO school to AHOPE where we engaged in a two-hour knock-down, drag-out dodge ball game.  The variation of dodge ball that we play in Ethiopia is every man for himself and necessitates kids flinging, with surprising velocity, a soccer ball at each others' heads.  I've always felt that dodge ball is the perfect thing for these kids who are otherwise competely passive aggressive, as are most Ethiopians.  The older kids don't hold back as they launch the tiny ball at 5-year-olds who spread themselves out on the floor in an ill-fated attempt for mercy.  I wouldn't say that Maya held her own, but she was certainly not the worst kid in the game."

Maya at Atetegeb

Maya writes: 

"After we had the crazy intense 2-hour long dodged ball game, we went to our last orphanage of the day, Atetegeb.  I spent the whole time being attacked and fought over by my favorite little kids (Kuliche- age 4, Radiat-2, Aster-7, Biniyam-5, Betty-2, Mekdes-9)  while we watched Lee and the bigger kids play soccer and cheered them on from the sidelines by singing the ABCs and counting to 100 in both English and Amharic.  After the soccer game Lee and some of the older kids joined us on the porch for a broken record type sing-a-long of "If you're happy and you know it clap your hands". they really enjoyed that. (I might have enjoyed it a little more though). Oh and then Radiat peed on me which was hilarious because she couldn't stop crying afteward, i think from guilt, and she just looked soooooo cute and sad. then she changed into the most adorable little red dress and i forgave her. Later we were watching TV and the song "I like to move it move it, I like to move it move it" came on, and Kuliche spent the remainder of the night singing "I like to Leeeee Leeee, I like to Leeee Leee!!" which made us laugh very hard." All that was only one day, sorry we're too lazy to write about yesterday and the day before that and the day before that, but I'm sure you can all use your imaginations and figure out that we went orphanage-hopping and played with amazingly adorable, beautiful, fun little kids!!
 
Bye!  Lee & Maya" 

With Atetegeb (Haregewoin's) children


Maya in love