The Elephant Cloud » Jay Wright

The Road to Mota

Jay Wright — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 06:06:01 +0000

The tire was flat when the car arrived. When I came out to greet him, Mulu was already under the car and surrounded by the neighborhood children, who were better behaved than I’d ever seen them.

There is an adage in Africa that with film and video, it’s best not to linger too long. The gear is expensive and a temptation and over the past few weeks, we’d had it out far too much. There are other, now amusing circumstances as well, better shared over a beer at a later date, but ultimately, it was decided that we needed to get the gear out of this small town and into Bahir Dar. Joni and I were leaving first thing the next morning.

It was my single biggest disappointment of the trip. I did not want to leave Darlene, I had just found a seemingly ideal translator and photo enthusiast in one of the hospitals midwifes, I had plans to watch futbol with an Ethiopian doctor who’d become an increasingly good friend, and, perhaps most important, I was invited to play on the hospital team’s volleyball tournament that Sunday.

We packed all the gear into the land cruiser and set out. About twenty minutes out of town the road starts winding down a breathtaking canyon to a water crossing thousands of feet below. It was market day, again, and the line of merchants streaming into town was also crushing in that I wanted stay in Mota. My heart sank as donkeys, goats, sheep and shepard were all on foot marching toward town. Men and women and children in their gabis and wares, many barefoot, the march of walking sticks and the donkey carts. We head down the canyon and I texted Darlene that we were beyond town, freely on our way.

Freely, that is, until we started to climb out of the canyon and the back tire blew. I’d never heard a tire blow like that. I’m more accustomed to the slow leak.

A local boy helped change our tire, which included he and I rocking the vehicle back and forth so Mulu could wedge the jack in under the body. We eventually gave him a birr for his troubles.

I inspected the remaining tires and found that though the spare was completely bald, it was not the worst one. The rear driver-side tire had no rubber at its center and we were two hours from Bahir Dar. The road is a never ending stretch of packed gravel with washboard grooves and sharp loose rocks. It wears a heavy coat of fine grain dust that gets everywhere and as I gazed out into the hot day ahead, I was preparing myself for the inevitable bus ride rescue.

But this is Africa, as they say, and somehow all the pieces more or less held together and after another hour we still had four tires full of air. We pulled into a little village where we patched one of the spares. Once again on our way and forty minutes later, we finally crested a small rise and saw Lake Tana and Bahir Dar spread out before us. It was beautiful. The lake expanse felt like the sea and the town of tree-lined avenues swayed in the breeze. By now the back seat and our gear was full of dirt from the dry countryside and we were looking forward to soothing our sunburned skin under cool, running water.

As we wound down toward town, we crossed a long flat stretch and slowly, the car decelerated. I pointed to a building under construction as the car rolled to a stop. “What are they building there?” It’s a new hospital, he said, pulling out his cell phone. He apologized, “it is my fault, I forgot when we were in the village, but I will call my friend and he will bring more petrol.” We were seven kilometers out of town and completely out of gas.

POSTSCRIPT: Though I left Mota four days before Darlene, she arrived here with me yesterday. On her return trip, the rear driver-side tire went flat and Mulu received four new tires that afternoon. Her four days remained challenging in terms of the medical condition of Mota Hospital and it’s patients, but rewarding in the nature of her stay.

Market Day

Jay Wright — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 05:00:21 +0000

It is market day and the streets are full of donkey carts and barefoot pilgrims wrapped in their white gabi’s, driving their wares to the square. We buy potatoes, cabbage, beets, kale, onions, garlic, eggs and a chicken. Darlene named her Doro Wat, which is the national dish of Ethiopia, a spicy chicken stew. Philippa declared him a rooster and Joni sat on our patio and entertained the hospital staff with her arsenal of barnyard animal calls, drawing not only the rooster, but the sheep grazing in our yard. Yamatan prepared the bird for us, after I crawled into a shrub to retrieve the hobbling fowl as he made his break for it. We added pasta and spices and stewed him up in a pot we also bought from the market for just such an occasion.

On the way home we took my favorite street, past the mosque and imams house, and like a child I peered thru the slotted wooden fence to the large golden wheat fields that makes up the eucalyptus lined yard. The men in the field across from ourhouse sift teff from hay and drive their cattle in circles to mix it up. Donkeys bray from somewhere out of sight and children run the dirt packed avenues with homemade pinwheels spinning in the wind. The hospital was quiet with two new births, the sun was present and ready as always.

Darlene spreads across the chairs in the yard, dark glasses on, reading a novel as the heat of the afternoon soaks her clothes with warmth. Our pails are full of water, as today is a water day. At the stadium, the hospital futbol team tied in a tough match and Manchester United, the town favorite, won on the tele. It seems the perfect day.

Hamlin Fistula Hospital

Jay Wright — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 03:00:54 +0000

Dr. Catherine Hamlin is eighty seven years old and still performing surgeries. Her work has been included in multiple award winning documentary films, including A Walk to Beautiful and Lighting the Candle. We hadn’t received confirmation on our request meet, so when an interview was granted, we had to race back to the hotel to grab our equipment.

Along the way I hooked the lavalier microphone to Philippa and tested the audio levels, an excellent sample given the bump and jolt of the old minivan and the chaos of horns and street commerce. Joni configured her cameras for video and together we honed our questions to respect Dr. Hamlin’s time.

Dr Hamlin’s presence is graceful and enchanting. She fills a tall, composed space in her hospital whites surrounded by a backdrop of large window panes framing the extensive flora on the hospital grounds. As we prepare to film, a group of tourists come in to greet her. They are at once speechless and giddy with respect before this humble, grandmotherly presence.

I hoped to ask five questions in about ten minutes, but the tape started rolling as she talked about her gardens, how there were only two trees on the property when they purchased it, and how she personally planted each and every plant and tree. She spoke in long, thorough narratives and my five questions became a dialogue on women’s health and access issues that lasted for almost of forty minutes.

After our interview she gave us a more personal tour of the plants and trees that document her tenure here. Amid the chaos of Addis Ababa she has cultivated a garden, a hospital, and a system of support where rural women can begin finding peace and building a new life after the horrific, isolating trauma of fistulas so common in rural Ethiopia.

Photos by Joni Kabana

NOTE: Two duffel bags of KEEN shoes were delivered to Dr. Catherine Hamlin, who couldn’t have been more sincerely appreciative. Darlene and Philippa delivered two additional duffels to their clinic in Mota. The shoes are a big success and we’re working with Dr. Hamlin to transport more to her clinic, but there are so many more to deliver and we continue to look for delivery options.

KEEN Donates Shoes to Podoconiosis in Ethiopia

Jay Wright — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 19:14:39 +0000

This spring we traveled to Gimbie, Ethiopia where I made a promotional video with Monica Barlow and Binyam Teferi to raise awareness for Podoconiosis, a debilitating disease just “rediscovered” in western Ethiopia. The video has since been widely viewed, including one very important viewing by the good people at KEEN Shoes.

Joni Kabana, a friend and professional photographer in Portland, has been working extensively to raise awareness of health conditions in Ethiopia. In the process, the video was included in her presentations and as a result, I’ve learned that 918 pairs of shoes have been donated to Gimbie for the patients suffering Podoconiosis, courtesy of KEEN. We are currently looking into avenues to get them there and I am extremely pleased that video played a role in helping the people who’ve touched me so deeply.

I’ve re-attached my video and a photogallery of Monica and Binyam delivering shoes to rural Ethiopia in April 2010.

Mosques

Jay Wright — Tue, 25 May 2010 19:00:54 +0000

There is always water. Mosques of the old medinas go hand in hand with the hammam. Courtyards are adorned with fountains and in some, large ablution rooms lay deep within the mosque. It is social, it is for cleansing ones self.

In Casablanca, the mosque is built over the sea. A bastion of faith on the old sea wall, the tides and waves curling into its foundation. Inside the fortress, a pocket of calm. From end to end a small channel carved into the marble floor, where water flows, cooling and soothing with its unique whisper.

I stand barefoot on carpet, my sandals at the entrance with two men silently abuzz in arabic murmur. I am at ease in the peaceful inner décor of mosques. I am afloat and untouchable. There is a coolness to the marbled protectorate and a calming in the patterned mosaics. Calligraphic inscriptions of the Qur’an ring the columns and trace the contours of the sanctuary. I cannot read the arabic verses and so, uninterpreted, I am alone to inhabit my own story and welcomed to do so. I look inward, but feel expansive, heeding every breath.

In Damascus busloads of Iranians descend the old city on this stop of their hajj. All in black, men in fine western suits and women draped head to toe. They are immaculately dressed, the women sharp in their embroidered burkas, fine slacks and leather shoes of the latest european fashion. Amongst themselves they hum with anticipation behind black sunglasses, but outwardly, they have all but removed themselves as anything more than a physical holder of the space they occupied. It is at once both eerie and oddly beautiful in its mystery and anonymity.

Darlene kneels on the soft divide between the muslim and christian halves of the mosque, a shrine for a prophet shared by both faiths. She is cloaked in a borrowed hood, yet her golden curls betray her. Families approach, smiling, and offer forth their children. Disinclined, but gracious, she accepts them and the families come to her and take photos, fathers and mothers with their children, collecting memories.

Walter and I enter a neighboring mosque early one morning. There is only a hint of the surge of pilgrims that will later fill the streets and halls. It is a persian mosque with a martyr’s tomb. A slain child, daughter of a caliph, bloodline of the prophet. The tomb is adorned in gold beneath a dome of glass mosaic. Women in black huddle and cry softly. Families lean tightly together, reciting the qur’an amongst themselves. Tears of faith and belief for the little girl, as one by one, men and women enter the hall and press themselves against the tomb.

We are on the floor by the marble columns of the entrance when an elderly gentlemen steps forward. After a moment, he turns and comes to us. I look up into his eyes. “I am Iranian,” he says and extends a welcome. In turn he shakes our hands, touches his heart, then turns and walks to the tomb, where he presses his head against its side and closes his eyes.

In occupied Palestine, we cross the square and stand at the open door of the mosque named for the second Caliph. Atop a flight of stairs a small, venerable gentlemen in a conservative, gray western suit and stocking feet, waves us up. He is the muezzin, the man who sings the call to prayer, and he invites us to join him.

The prayer hall is a large, humble space on the second floor where we are joined by several men who joke about the merits of sons and daughters and share with us the extent of their own families. When the time comes, we are invited downstairs into his station, a simple room with a microphone and stereo system wired to the minarets loud speakers. With us seated beside him, he smiles, stands, and turning to the microphone, he sings.

The adhān covers the entirety of Arabia. By design, this call to prayer penetrates every nook of the city. It is intentionally loud and often tinny. However, on that afternoon in Palestine, when the muezzin sang, we heard that call in its purest form. We shared the intimacy of his song, his heart, and his pride. The complicity of organized society confounds me the world over, but the gifts of an individual does not.

Travel with a Good Book

Jay Wright — Sat, 08 May 2010 03:07:24 +0000

There is a magnetic draw to the Middle East, where history is so powerful that people completely lose themselves. It is the home of three of the worlds largest monotheistic religions, all born of a single father, reading from a common book. And I love a good book. Immersing myself in the fiction and wrapping myself in the prose.

The Torah is comprised of the five books of Moses, the Old Testament contains these same chapters and Islam builds on these origins, referring to Christians and Jews as people of the book and telling of Moses in the Qur’an. The story is bigger than any one single book and the chapters I found myself wrapped up in are those of Moses.

I flipped pages up and down the Nile, thumbing thru the tombs, lingering in the temples. It is an adventure story of double identity along the banks of the desert river. An orphaned boy sent adrift in a peasant’s basket to be raised in a pharaoh’s court, from pauper to prince, then back again, as a young man re-identifying with his people, driven to murderer, and forced into exile a fugitive.

In the Sinai we drank beer and dove the reefs for two weeks along the Red Sea, a hundred kilometers from Mount Sinai, where in exile Moses found love by the well, purpose through a burning bush, and guidance in the ten commandments. Along the way we met Mary and Jesus, two Californians studying in France, with whom we climbed the mountain and drank beer. Sure, its a different story, but you can’t deny the profound irony of it.

Entering Jordan we traveled the last verses. His brother, Aaron, was laid to rest in Petra and he himself by Mount Nebo, from where he first saw his peoples Holy Land. Refreshed from a swim in the Dead Sea, we also looked out from atop Mount Nebo, over the valley of Jericho, the Jordan River, and on to Jerusalem and the Holy Land which Moses would never know, as it was divine will that he never set foot in the promised land.

These may have been Moses’s chapters, but the story is not so simply contained. It is just a footprint for a much larger mystery. Hidden away in the north of Ethiopia in a simple church’s dark interior, is said to rest the Ark of the Covenant, brought to Ethiopia by King Solomon’s lineage thru Ethiopia’s Queen of Sheba. It is guarded by one man, for life, seeing no other visitors but him on one day a year. Or perhaps it was the Knights Templar who found and moved it from David’s Temple in Jerusalem. It is these questions that are best left to scholars like Dan Brown and Indiana Jones. Or, just maybe the two brave Nastansky women who raid tombs professionally, if you know how to find them and are willing to pay the price.

The Street Boys

Jay Wright — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 07:23:24 +0000

Mark Twain delights us with the wonders of boyhood. Skinned knees and bare feet, wild with imagination and thirst for adventure. Jirata, Dameka, and Lalise would fit brilliantly into these pages. I can see these three scamps racing the red clay roads to the staduim on Saturday mornings to watch futbol, striking taekwondo poses, and nabbing mangoes along the way. Later, they’d hang out by the foosball tables on the side of the tarmac, a road that cuts thru Gimbie on it’s way to Addis Ababa or Sudan, depending on your direction. It was by these tables on my walks home that they adopted me, taking turns teaching and quizzing me on Amharic, or Oromifa. I could never tell which was which.

These boys are like all little boys and they’ll steal your heart and take your hand. Except they have no hands to guide them, they are on their own. These are the street boys, living together as a family, sleeping under trucks and in doorways, begging or charming their dinners from the townspeople and restaurants.

One little urchin with lazy eyes and a peaceful smile followed us into a restaurant for dinner. We were with our friend Mark and by the time we washed and sat down, David was sitting right beside us, beaming. I thought he was with you, oh, I thought he was with you. He sat patient, a perfect little gentleman and the clever little guy won us over. When the communal plate of injera came we bought him a soda and feasted. After the meal, clutching his prized soda, he rocked with lightness of laughter as Darlene mimicked an exploding belly.

I had already been working with the street boys for a couple weeks when we came upon Jirata, exhausted and sitting on the curb, in front of his favorite mango stand. I saw his tiny figure rise and turn to us with his signature stare, bloodshot eyes, and exhausted posture. Darlene, who’d never met him, recognized him instantly from my photos. His anticipation was overwhelming and his tiny hand found mine. I knelt to bump shoulders, as is the ethiopian greeting, and took the whole of his filth, from head to toe, into a warm embrace. I have never seen dirtier children.

Everyone had been looking for him, the boys told us he was sick and skipping school. Only nine years old, he’s HIV positive and both parents have been taken by the disease. He has no one looking after him aside from his best friends, who during previous hospital stays held vigil by his side.

No words were exchanged and his grip tightened and we walked to the hospital. This attracted attention. Ethiopians are not accustomed to foreigners embracing filthy street kids, let alone walking off with them. He could barely eat and he was so dehydrated his lips were sore. He managed half a banana and held a mango for later. He was admitted to the hospital.

The next morning, I set out to visit him. A little girl living on the hospital grounds knew where his bed was and brought me into the ward to see him. I had drawn a little cartoon on a makeshift card, but when we arrived, his bed was empty. The nurse said he woke, pulled out his IV, and left.

A few days earlier, I happened upon a crowd gathered on the curb not far from the hospital. Two of the boys were in the middle so I pushed my way in and found another boy lying on the ground. I’d never seen him before, but he was wearing one of the yellow t-shirts that were given to a handful of the boys six months earlier. One man spoke broken english so I grabbed Moti by the shoulder and pulled him over to relay the story. The man translated, but would never have considered asking Moti himself. The crowd dispersed but the boys remained together, I know they would not have left him alone. I picked him up and carried him to the hospital. Half way he insisted on walking, though he had to hold me with all his might, his strength all but gone. In the emergency room I found a nurse and they laid him down to rest. I learned later that he was epileptic and had had a seizure. He was discharged that afternoon and I never saw him again. The Children’s Medical Fund paid the bill.

Today, Jirata and four other boys are living in a small rented house in Gimbie. A program called the Street Boys pays for the accommodation. A sister project, The Ark, offers economic opportunity for unwed mothers and employed one of them to live in the house and watch the boys.

I created the following video about the Children’s Medical Fund, which provides health care for children in need under the age of eighteen, including the Street Boys.

Finding Jinsse

Jay Wright — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 05:56:56 +0000

In order to do anything in Africa, you have to take full control. Then, as you’re just about to take full control you are boldly reminded that this is Africa. You have no control.

I had an assignment from the States to follow up on two hospital patients and document their progress in photographs. Jinsse and Tarike, two women admitted in February and now home with their families. Binyam, a young Ethiopian working tirelessly with the hospitals community outreach programs instructed me to find their fathers names and the kebeles in which they lived.

I started with the hospital registers and quickly learned that in juggling english, amharic, and oromifa, no one spells a name the same way twice. Translating from amharic script, vowels are often doubled in an attempt to spell things phonetically for the ferengi. One name is spelled differently on each incarnation of the register, patient charts, lab cards, and prescriptions. Sometimes the name includes the fathers name, sometimes it doesn’t. No one keeps their cards, so a new one is made each time. If someone asks you to find someone by the name Jinsse, you might be looking for Jisse, Jinsse, or Jinsee and chances are the people wont know her name, only her fathers.

In the end, it was the nursing students who remembered the patients and I closed the useless register. Jinsse was too far, a three hours walk and no vehicles would make it. Finding Jinsse would be impossible. Tarike, on the other hand, was close, just one kebele over. You can practically see her house from here.

Africa lulls you into an acceptance of waiting. You actually believe things could be straight forward, that it will come together, as planned. Never, never, never fall for this. Let me assure you it is most certainly will not. Africa reveals itself slowly. Rushing one thing will inevitably complicate something else.

In the two weeks we spent living in the hospital compound we accomplished a lot. Darlene was exhausted at the end of each day seeing patients and I was accruing video for my projects. But those accomplishments came with the price of waiting. Time, patience, trust and a lot of faith are complicit with unwritten schedules, vague complications, cultural under-communication, and over ambitious goodwill. There is a refusal to admit defeat and you rely on motorcycles that almost work but might need a part. When you are in Africa and you’re on a tight schedule, you miss a lot, because Africa rewards the patient traveler. However, if you surrender to Africa, you suddenly find yourself as I did, on my last day and still waiting. It was Friday morning and our flight would leave on Saturday just after midnight. We were an eight hour drive from the airport.

In the end, it was cold hard cash that broke the wait. I hired a truck and invited Monica to join me and disperse shoes to the village children through one of her many outreach programs. We’d drive thru Tarike’s village, do a meet and greet, and then head over the hills and deliver shoes to children in the vicinity of Jinsse’s village and hope we might find someone that knows her family.

I may have bought off the wait, but Africa was firm in it’s resolve. Tarike was not on the way. We couldn’t see her house, the village officers were not available to help us, and the bribes we’d have to pay did not inspire confidence. We’d need to see the village officers, but not today. It would be impossible for her to live in the village and the officers not know about it, I was assured. Deflated, I was now forced into a decision. Would we stay another day? I would have to give up our seats in the land cruiser and instead take local transport to Addis, making the trip ten hours, instead of the eight.

The shoe project went much better. We bumped along weathered dirt tracks rising over farmland hills and thru the heart of village life. We parked by a lone tree and unloaded two duffels of shoes while children ran across fields as word spread. Binyam fitted shoes to young girls offering their toes, their dresses worn and dirty, their waists wrapped in ropes which bound them to a future of heavy loads they would carry to support their families. But it was a beautiful afternoon full of goodwill and cheer. In fact, the goodwill was so overwhelming that one man, whose daughters were fitted with free, brand new shoes, was so pleased he charged only a small fee to lead us to Jinsse.

After two weeks of hearing how far she was, how impossible to find, how remote, we actually found her standing on the side of the road in front of a relatives house. She practically had a sign over her head. I was so pleased with accomplishing the impossible that I decided we’d stay and find Tarike. I would give up our seats on the land cruiser and set out with Binyam, first thing in the morning.

By noon the next day the motorbike still wouldn’t start and I spent the morning waiting. I was getting nervous and hungry, and Binyam was feeling pressure, so I took him out for kitfo, grabbing a sparkplug en route. Kitfo, is raw meat with a hot green chili paste eaten on injera. Ethiopians are mad for it and it cheered him up considerably. I had my kitfo fried up to be on the safe side. I bought him a hen on the way home, a good egg-layer.

The spark plug didn’t solve the problem. He worked thru the afternoon, it was three o’clock and no one at Air Egypt or Ethiopia Airlines would answer the well-published phone numbers on the world wide web. Changing our flights was out of the question, the search would end at sundown and I began to believe if I waited one more day, our luck would change. But that was impossible. Not Africa impossible, but real impossible.

Unable to delay my departure, defeated, we decide to walk to her village. As we passed the Adventist Church, we notice an unused motorbike parked out front. With a little fast talking and the mandatory African waiting period, we procured the bike. Tarike was once again, right next door. I could almost see her smile.

The race was on and skidding into the kebele we greeted the village officers. Tarike? Never heard of her. What?! Maybe you should try the next village over. My heart sank but the bike bounced along and we called out the village name as villagers pointed us in one direction or another.

The road split several times and we took the wrong fork with each division. The day was coming to an end and we eventually ran into a group of Hararbe’s, muslims who had been airlifted from the Somali side of the country to the Sudanese side and set up in a makeshift village camp, like refugees. They only spoke arabic and so we could no longer communicate. We turned around, defeated and bumped our way back toward Gimbie in silence. And then, out in those hills in the earliest hours of dusk, Africa relented and we came across a group of women returning to their village on foot. Yes, said one, Tarike is my neighbor.

Tarike cannot walk. Whatever she suffers, the womans own daughter suffers the same. Two months ago, the village carried Tarike to the hospital for care, and she was admitted, but nothing could be done for her. She is now home, an hours walk from where our bike idled. The bike would not make it, a bridge was out. It was late in the day. I looked at all the faces around me. Hardened by the earth, each carried a heavy load wearing battered shoes and beautifully patterned, but stained and filthy dresses. The future of the girls I saw yesterday.

Tarike would have to stay where she was, they would not carry her again, unless they believed in the treatments she would receive. This was their story, but like the spelling of names, no two stories in Africa are the same.

Binyam looked at me. He would return tomorrow, he was also stung from being so close but not having found her. He would make the hike and get her picture. No, I shook my head. In the middle of that forest, surrounded by the villagers faces looking at me, what was I really going to do? I could almost read it in their faces. Why was I there for Tarike, was this ferengi on the back of a motorbike really going to help?

I had nothing to offer these women but I felt Africa wrap a brotherly arm around me as if proud for bringing me here. There was no doubt that I would be shown more if I stayed longer, but this is what I would see for now. Knowing I had a rocky ride home to survive, we turned the bike and headed out, white knuckles on the gear rack. Africa always surprises when you surrender to it and what you are seeking is not the reward you eventually find.

As for our return to Addis, I received a call late in the evening. Minivan seats were available for us. We just needed to meet a boy named Howie at 4:30 in the morning under a street lamp across from the bus station. This did not impress Darlene and our ten hour, twenty hour ride to Addis is a whole other story that will need to wait.

Inspired by the travels of Joni Kabana and Philippa Ribbink and their collaboration in travel photography and developing world medicine.

Podoconiosis

Jay Wright — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 14:30:25 +0000

In a land where water can be scarce or remote and is always heavy to carry, hygiene is not always the first consideration. In a land where the body is pushed to exhaustion simply to put food on the table, shoes aren’t necessarily in the budget. Education can be a luxury and even then teachers might not be available. This is a film about taking nothing for granted.

This is the first of two videos I was tasked with making and the imagery contains pictures of terribly disfigured feet due to an ailment called podoconiosis. If you do not like medical imagery, consider this before watching the video or viewing the gallery. The video was made to support the work of Gimbie Adventist Hospital in Ethiopia and I would especially like to thank Monica Barlow, who among many other things, is the compassionate narrator.

Winner, Best Morocco Travel Blog

Jay Wright — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 11:25:47 +0000

It’s official. The Elephant Cloud won Morocco Blogs competition for The Best Morocco Blog of 2010 in the category of Travel.

Thank you to everyone who voted and especially to Amy Haggstrom and Younes Mell, two of Moroccos finest.

The Elephant Cloud » Jay Wright

The Road to Mota

Market Day

Chili

Video

Darlene relaxes.

A mosque

Fuel - dung and wood

Weaving

Merchant

Chilis

Spices - hot berbere

Potatoes

Garlic and Onions

Mingling

Tailors

Potatoes

A quiet corner

Hospital Team shoots

A view back toward town and the hospital

The streets of Mota

Kai Wat with Yamatan

Our rooster chicken

Notice the yellow converse that the team wears

Kids play ball at halftime

The Imam's house...

Hamlin Fistula Hospital

Our first visit

The grounds

The interview

The connection

A book signing for Philippa

KEEN shoes

In her garden

See that tree...?

In her garden

In her garden

With these hands...

KEEN Donates Shoes to Podoconiosis in Ethiopia

showing up for their appointments

waiting for wash basins

bathing

proud

healthcare

soaking

the ailment

the ailment

also known as mossy foot

the patients

cleaning

washing

caring

together

on her way

a young woman

the look

awaiting good health

the patients

a patient

patient

beautiful

a nursing student donates his lunchtime

battered shoes

tattered shoes

the queue

shoes are abundant

more shoes

an impoverished land

Mosques

darlene in casablanca

darlene the dervish

umayyad mosque, damascus, syria

umayyad mosque, damascus, syria

Sayyida Ruqayya Mosque, damascus, syria

Sayyida Ruqayya Mosque, damascus, syria

Sayyida Ruqayya Mosque, damascus, syria

Sayyida Ruqayya Mosque, damascus, syria

al-Aqsa Mosque on the temple mount, jerusalem

the muezzin, bethlehem

mosque of omar, bethlehem