Life

Yesterday I saw something that I had never seen before….and hope to never see again.  I had originally planned to write about my first week in Ethiopia today, but I thought I would blog about what happened on our way home yesterday from a day trip. About 8 of us rented a van and went to Wenchi Crater Lake (I’ll try to post pictures soon – but here’s a link so you can get an idea of where we were- http://www.wenchi-crater-lake.com/about.php). The lake was absolutely beautiful and it was a treat to get out of the city and away from traffic and smog (my lungs thanked me!).

I haven’t written about traffic yet, but traffic in Addis (and larger towns) not only consists of cars in the road, but goats, cows, and people crossing at any given time. Crosswalks are non-existent here, and even if they were, no one would use them. In our first week, there have been COUNTLESS times where someone has walked in front of our vehicle and our driver has had to slam on his brakes to keep from hitting the person.

We were about 1.5 hours away from home, and as we came down a hill, the traffic was at a complete standstill and people were all over the road. I initially thought that a fight going on, but as we got closer, we realized what happened. There was a body in the road. The accident had just happened, and someone was bringing a sheet to lay over the body. Everyone from the village as coming out to see and the older women and men were crying and raising their hands to the heavens and saying things in Amharic.

We were stuck. There was nothing for us to do. And there was nowhere we could go. We were on a two lane road and people were surrounding the body and our van. Our driver turned the car off and we just sat and watched. There were no police. No ambulance. The body was lying on the street and residents of the village were paying their last respects.  

Finally an unmarked van was able to maneuver its way through the crowd (almost hitting several other people) and the side door opened. From the path that the vehicle made our driver was able to drive through the crowds and get back on the road to Addis.  As we passed the van, I looked out the window and saw the owner of the van and other men picking up the body and putting it in the van.

As we drove away, I couldn’t help think about life and how quickly it can be taken away.  We may have passed this person on our way to the lake, and he had no idea that his life would end later that day. My great-grandma turned 100 yesterday. Life can be short. Life can also be long. But I think it’s important to do the things you want to do today, because we aren’t promised tomorrow.  As Mark Twain said, “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Also, please let me know if you’re not getting updates from my blog. Posting is sporadic due to internet outage, etc. I’ll try to update this afternoon and post a few pictures from yesterday.