Today there was a moment when I
found myself sitting on top of a mountain in Colorado thinking about Tukano, a
12 year old boy who I met in Ethiopia just over a week ago.
Tukano
has moderate cerebral palsy. He can walk, but unsteadily, and needs assistance
coping with steps and uneven ground. He also has considerable associated
learning difficulties, but is always smiling and keen to be involved in
everything going on.
Tukano’s
mum was a prostitute and, through the Women At Risk programme, has now found a
new way of life and a new means of earning income by making jewellery beads
from rolled up paper.
Tukano’s
home consists of a tiny, single-room dwelling, with just enough room for a bed,
a couple of stools and a set of drawers. With no electricity the light comes
from a single candle, and the cooking is done on a charcoal stove; the toilet
is the local river.
They
still live in great poverty, but at least the mum doesn’t have the shame of
being a prostitute on top of everything else. She does have two disabled sons
however, as Tukano’s younger brother is Aob who is 1 ½ yrs old and has Down’s
Syndrome.
I
found Tukano’s story very challenging on many levels – the simple fact of
someone living in such appalling poverty was bad enough, but to have to manage
two disabled children in those conditions was an extra layer of pain. And then
there is the knowledge that in another society the boys could have so much
support and provision – items reasonably considered to be basic human rights
for those children, and yet largely denied them.
As
I sat atop the mountain today, it seemed slightly surreal that only a week ago
I was in Ethiopia, hearing stories of such pain and heart-ache, working with
such inspiring organisations as Women at Risk, and meeting incredible people
who are turning despair into hope, and bringing smiles and futures to those who
struggled to find anything like that before.
That
was a week ago, and now I’m in one of the richest countries in the world –
rubbing shoulders with a nation of people, many of whom have big houses, and
big cars, and drive to big shops. We are staying with wonderful friends here,
and I’m getting the chance to tell some of the stories, which is great, but I’m
also a little alarmed at how comfortable I feel here.
How
does that work, that I can span the massive divide between Ethiopia and USA so
relatively easily? Should I be feeling more uncomfortable here, more frustrated
with the materialism and big-ness of everything?
I
wrestled with these thoughts for quite a while today, and have concluded that
it’s OK to be able to span the divide like this. It’s the way I am made – to be
as comfortable here as in Ethiopia, and as a result I can tell the stories and
raise awareness here just as well as I can gather the stories in Ethiopia. My
role is one of spanning the divide, of helping people from one nation interact
with, and start to understand, people from another; of raising awareness of the
issues in one place, through being able to go to the heart of the issues in
another place.
And
I guess that is partly what CRED is about – spanning the divide. We engage with
schools, churches and other team members from the UK, and facilitate the trips
that allow them to discover more about the issues that our partners face in
other countries. And in so doing we help to span the divide between team
members and the overseas partners; which in turn gives a voice to a range of
global issues amongst our next generation of decision makers. I guess that
isn’t such a bad role!
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