My horrible Ethiopian medical story

While in Ethiopia, I got sick. Nothing major, or out of the ordinary really, but it turned out to be a total nightmare.

It only turned out to be a simple case of traveler's diarrhea. Oh, I applied hand sanitizer liberally before every meal, didn't eat uncooked food, at least knowingly, but when you're in one of the most rural places on the planet without running water, or electricity, it's really bound to happen that you'll get it, so I wasn't shocked. When I was sliding into first, and I felt something burst, I took the Levaquin my American doctor gave me before coming to Ethiopia in preparation for just such an instance. I was covered...

Or so I thought. The prescription I was given cost me $125 for 10 pills of Levaquin. I took one, and immediately started having problems. My temperature rose, I started throwing up, and I felt like I was going to pass out and literally die. This wasn't supposed to happen! I came prepared like the true American brat that I am. I was supposed to take my expensive medicine and everything was supposed to be all right!

At the time, we were in Debre Markos looking for the blind school that we came to visit. As I felt no better than a piece of excrement just passed from the bowels of a bovine, I requested of our interpreter and driver to find a doctor. I felt bad inconveniencing everyone on our trip, but I really felt awful.

We found a doctor after driving around a bit, and asking a few people on the street where we might go to procure such a person for their skilled services. I was completely not expecting what happened next. I followed my trusty interpreter, Binyam in the door and I stumbled in. The receptionist made me fill out a form and had me pay 20 birr (the equivalent of less than $2). OK, I was expecting that, but what I was NOT expecting was that she didn't ask to see my insurance card. In my head, I was thinking "how much is this going to cost me when all is said and done?" I lurched at the thought. Then what does she have me do? Instead of telling me to quietly have a seat in that chair over there, where I would quietly sit for two hours waiting to die, she leads me out of the room and into an examination room. I thought, "is this how you treat people in your hospitals? Where is my two hour requisite emergency room wait?" I was slightly comforted when a voice told me to sit down in a chair in the examination room, wholly expecting to have to wait in there, when to my absolute shock and amazement, it was a doctor. He had followed me into the examination room? Really? What kind of shady operation is this anyway? This isn't how things happen in America! Why, in America, they make a patient wait in the examination room at LEAST 15 minutes before anyone comes into the room, where someone will take your temperature, scribble notes on a page, and then walk out, so I can quietly ponder about how plain the walls are before a doctor finally comes in 10-15 minutes after that. How absurd that I didn't get such world class treatment that we find in America!

Next the doctor begins asking me questions. Thank God some sense in this whole mess! Oh but wait... that's the thing. He actually made sense. He spoke perfect English to me. What the hell? AND THEN he had the nerve to prescribe me Cipro not 15 minutes after I got there! And furthermore, he had the audacity to prescribe me what my American doctor should have prescribed me in the first place. Who is this pretentious idiot?

Suddenly I had a primal urge to purge my bowel, and it was coming out whether I wanted it to or not. The doctor showed me the restroom, merely a hole in the ground. Wait, wait a minute... WTF?! No toilet paper? I guess this is one of those BYOTP parties. Breath... Count to ten... All right, I can deal with no TP. Fortunately I did bring some with me, and before I knew it, I was clean.

The doctor blabbered about going to get the prescription. Standard fare. But wait! What's this?! Come back after picking up the prescription? What for? To get my test results? That should take at least 24 hours to get back from the lab. Your lab is on site and the technician is on hand? How much is THIS going to cost me? What?! 20 birr! That's an outrage. Tests should at least cost $200 or some insane figure like that. All right, if you say so doctor.

The pharmacy was a few blocks away. They filled my two prescriptions and charged me 40 birr. By this time I was ready for this type of shock. Prescriptions really should cost more like they do in the US, but if they didn't want to charge me more, then I decided I was going to just go with it.

Back at the doctor's, the technician told me that I didn't have malaria or yellow fever, and ran a test on my stool, where he found the culprit: parasites. The doctor told me to just take the Cipro as directed and I should be fine in three days. And HOW MUCH did this whole charade cost me? 80 birr, or less than $8.

If I can get first rate medical care like this in one of the most economically disadvantaged countries on the world, why is it so difficult to get quality affordable care in the United States? You can't convince me that our health care system doesn't need reform. Needless to say, my all-knowing American doctors have lost a patient for prescribing the wrong medicine, just to get me to pay more for an over-priced drug.

Please write your representatives telling them to support health care reform and a public option.

Denver Post Follow Up Article

Colorado-to-Ethiopia journey completes circle for former child beggar

Denver Post runs a great follow up article on Esubalew.

You must read this book: A Princess Found: An American Family, an African Chiefdom, and the Daughter Who Connected Them All

Just finished reading A Princess Found: An American Family, an African Chiefdom, and the Daughter Who Connected Them All by Sarah Culberson.

I've been following Sarah for years now in her journey to reunite with her long lost father, and how she established a foundation to rebuild the school her father built that was destroyed in the Sierra Leone civil war that lasted until 2002. I particularly found this book interesting in light of my recent journey with Esubalew and the beautiful ladies of World of Good, Karla and Jacque, to Ethiopia. I could identify with so many of the struggles and joys that accompanied my journey. A portion of the sale of this book goes to benefit school children in Bumpe, Sierra Leone, so please lend your support, and read this inspirational tale of reunification and renewal.

Also, please stay tuned. I am still in the process of writing my travel log of our Ethiopia trip. It's taking so much longer than I anticipated, but I don't want to leave anything out.

Thanks for reading!

Trip Pictures

I uploaded the pictures from my trip for you to view. Click on the picture, or click here. If you would like to order prints or other photo gifts, I also have them up on Shutterfly.

My run in with the Ethiopian Ministry of Magic, and Marshall Law

There are two governments in Ethiopia that I experienced. The first I affectionately call "the Ministry of Magic." If you think the US government is filled with inefficient bureaucratic red tape, then you obviously haven't been to Ethiopia. Having said that, I should note that never have I dealt with people in government who work with so much friendliness and patience either, despite the excruciating inefficiency.

No sooner than we got off the plane did we land ourselves at the very end of a long line of people waiting to get visas into the country. What could be taking so long? We found out an and a half hour later. Two teams of two people each slogging through handwritten visas for a whole Boeing 767 planeful of people. Put a carbon sheet under this one, another under that one, fill out a form here, there, put a stamp there, and a sticker up here... wash, rinse, repeat... NEXT!

Just when I thought I was through, the real fun began. Customs. They confiscated my camera. Apparently HD cameras are not allowed into their country without prior authorization, even though most cameras sold nowadays in the States, both consumer and professional, are HD. Another American who was having something confiscated told me I'd be lucky to see the camera again. Oh great! Thanks for the consolation.

Before the trip began, Karla told me about registering with the Ethiopia Embassy since I would be taping there. I disregarded this, figuring since I wasn't taking professional equipment, it wouldn't be a problem, just my consumer Canon HF S100 camera. However, I think what tripped them up was that I had various attachments added onto it: lenses and an audio input device. Regardless, it was unfamiliar to them, and thus suspect.

All was not lost, thankfully. I had a backup plan. Stowed away in another bag was my second camera, so I could use that until I received my main camera back. All I needed to do was to get permission from the Ethiopian Ministry of Information, located downtown. Sounds easy enough, right?

Wrong! What ensued was a wild goose chase littered with bureaucratic red tape like I've NEVER seen in America, Canada, Europe, or even Korea before. We went to where they said the Ministry of Information was located, quickly renamed the Ministry of Magic, at the Ethiopian National Television Building. Nope, not there. If it weren't for a kind man and his son that we ran into who just happened to work there who showed us where to find it, our adventure would have been stymied right from the get go. When we got there, he even knew exactly who we needed to talk to. This was a good sign. We'd be out of here in no time now!

Not so fast. I look in the office, and I expected to find a computer at his desk, when what I found was a man hiding behind a desk with paperwork stacked on top. He told me, "type the answers to the questions listed on this form." Standard stuff: why are you here, what are you filming, where are you going, for how long, production company name, what's the budget of your production. Only, where are we gonna find a computer to type this stuff up on?

We left the Ministry of Magic in search of an internet cafe. None of this would have been possible without my trusty interpreter, Karla'a daughter Hanna, who was on board for the first part of our trip. She speaks perfect Amharic, on account of she was born in Ethiopia, and lived there a good part of her life before being adopted by Karla. After finding a computer a block away, we waited the requisite 10 minutes for their computer to boot up (thankfully this part of town had electricity today), quickly typed out the answers, making sure to only put $1000 as my budget for the film (cost of the camera), and waited another 15 minutes for them to take the file to another location to print it; no on site printer that worked apparently.

I took the form back to the Ministry of Magic. He crossed things out, reworded other things, told me to correct it and come back. This time, however, he led me down the hall to where a computer was located, and told me I could use it this time. Why couldn't I have used it the first time, too?

I took back the corrected form, and then he gave me another form to fill out by hand. It had the exact same questions to fill out that I filled out on the computer already, both times. I figured those were just practice for the real thing. I was in the big leagues now!

All through this, and man remained friendly, and explained to me he was only going to charge me the minimum fee, since I was independent and low budget. The fee was about 1500 birr, which amounts to about $140 US. I didn't enjoy paying it, but it could have been worse. He left, and returned 15 minutes later with my permission form stamped by his boss. I thought I was done, but then he told me I need to return with a photograph of me to include in "my file." Ugh!

Now to find a photographer. Luckily, there was one conveniently located two blocks away. They took me up to this professional studio to snap my photo. I looked like crap, but who cares. 25 minutes to process the photo, and I returned back to the Ministry of Magic to hand over my photo.

Armed with my permission slip, now it was finally time to go back to the airport to claim my camera. It went like this: pay them 3 birr to be able to enter the airport; enter, remove my shoes, belt, and any other "threatening" materiel, go through airport security. Enter customs. We had to show our passports; my interpreter didn't have hers, so I was on my own on this one. I went to the desk, showed them my form, thinking I was seconds away from the end of this ordeal. Nope. Go talk to somebody over there (that's all I understood). After finding him, he looked at the form, signed it. I went back to the desk. Go upstairs and make a copy. It took 15 mins to find the place and copy the sheet. Back to the desk. They slogged through pages and pages of handwritten data entries looking for my camera information, taking their time in the process. Eventually, they took my form (FINALLY!) and brought out my camera! Now I was getting somewhere! Oops... along with my camera the gave me ANOTHER form to take to someone over there. I took it over there. "Go upstairs and copy it, and leave your camera here until you get back." REALLY?! I stomped back upstairs, copied, paid, returned. FINALLY they gave me back my camera with all my forms, and I was free.

At each step of the way, I had to pay a little here, and a little there. I guess this is how they keep people employed in Ethiopia: give them a menial task, and wait until the next idiot comes along so you can charge them. When all was said and done, we had spent half of one day getting the permission forms, and then another couple hours the next day at the customs office at the airport.

This is only one example of many experiences with the Ethiopian government (Ministry of Magic) during my sojourn in their beautiful country...

Until we got into the countryside. Then it was a different ball game entirely. The Ethiopian countryside is almost like stepping back into the 1800's wild west where Marshall law ruled. There, the people who hold the guns hold the power. They won't shoot the guns unless they have to, as bullets are too expensive, but regardless, they give the bearer pull. As we neared Enessa, our guide was the Inspector General Morgus of the police force from Mertule Maryam. With his influence, doors were opened to us that would have been closed without. He was our passport through any and all obstacle out there. He took us to Esubalew's village, made sure everything went OK there, and he even invited us over to his house for the most delicious dorowat (chicken stew) that Ethiopia has to offer.

Before leaving Enessa, Esubalew wanted to set up a bank account for his mother because he wanted to give her money to purchase a house later. We needed photographs for her ID card, however, by the time we got to the photographer in Mertule Maryam, they had closed their doors for the night. Enter Inspector Morgus. He accompanied them back to the photographer, got them to take the photo, and we picked up the developed photo in the morning. Now that's what I'm talking about! The difference between how government worked in the country and the city could not be more extreme!

If only we had had Chief Inspector Morgus with us when dealing with customs...

Lesson learned

My last night in Ethiopia, in the capital city of Addis Ababa, I stayed at a fairly expensive hotel, but I was guaranteed electricity, warm water, and the internet, all things that were far from guaranteed everywhere else I had been. It was nice to just relax for a bit.

After a nice long hot shower, I decided to try and find something interesting to do. I walked out of the hotel to find someplace to have dinner. Not far from the hotel, a guy started chatting with me. He told me he worked at the hotel in the laundry department, and that he was on his way to a party. It was a holiday that day aparently, and college had just let out, so some friends were getting together. I decided to be adventurous. We got in a cab and drove to a house not far from there.

Inside, there was already lots of people there. They were all women. Beautiful women. All of them. I thought it a little strange that there were no other men there beside my friend, and me, a foreigner. They offered me a drink. The women were very friendly, saying things like "I like you," and "you're cute." My new friend told me I could have any of them that I wanted. Hmm... so this was a prostitution house I finally realized.

No matter. I said, "I have a girlfriend, and I don't cheat."

He replied, "what happens in Ethiopia stays in Ethiopia."

"Sorry. I'm not interested," I replied.

One of the girls asked if I would buy them drinks. Before I even had a chance to say "no," they brought out some expensive wine and bourbon, and the girls were downing it like there was no tomorrow. They asked me again, and I more forcefully declined this time.

At some point, another Ethiopia guy come in with another foreigner in tow. Looks like I'm not the only gullible one. Once they realized I wasn't interested in their services, they brought out a bill to me. What kind of "house party" charges their guests? None that I've ever been to. I don't think were in Kansas anymore, Toto. I had to fumble for my eyes after they popped out of my head when I saw the total. Over 2600 birr, which amounts to about $245! And that just for drinks? How much would their other services cost? I quickly told them I could not pay that much, and refused to pay. They went to get
their "manager." Ok. Now I was getting scared.

He took me out to the front of the house to discuss payment. I explained "I only have about 200 birr," which is about $20, and even showed it to him. He suggested that my friend pay half. I repeated, "I can't pay even that."

He pointed to my passport wallet underneath my shit saying, "but you have money in there!"

To which I lied, "no, I do not. This is all I have," holding out the 200 birr again. He called one of the girls out to explain that I had agreed to buy them drinks, which accusation I flatly denied. Clearly, this was going nowhere but down at an increasing speed. I began to fear more and more for my safety. Thoughts of them tackling me, tying me up, beating me within an inch of my life raced through my head.

I decided to make a run for it. If they intended to harm me, I wanted the upper hand in attempting to flee first. I felt bad for that other foreigner, but I was not about to go back to warn him this was about personal survival at this point. I walked out of the gate, and my right flip-flop fell off. Just what I needed! I had given my shoes away earlier that week, and needless to say, flip-flops don't make good get away shoes! They were trying to pursue me, so I went back for the
wayward flip-flop. I put it on, and continued walking. My "friend" tried to get me to come back, and I shoved him away and continued walking. I didn't look back, and he didn't pursue me more.

I was still scared to death, but I pushed forward, found a taxi to take me to my hotel, and reported this scam to the hotel concierge. As soon as I told her, her head fell. This was obviously not the first time she'd heard this story. I told her I was scared, and she reasured me that I would be safe.

What's funny about all of this? I read about just such scams in the travel book I read before coming to Ethiopia. Why didn't I pick up on it? My desire to do something interesting obscured my perspective. I shouldn't have even gotten into a cab with someone I just met. Sometimes the only way to learn is through personal experience, no matter how much textual theory you may take in beforehand.

I just feel incredibly grateful that I made it through this experience without damage to either my pocketbook, or more importantly, my life.

They're coming to America

Happy 4th of July!

I have several blogs to post in the upcoming weeks, but for now, I leave you with an experience that I had on the plane coming home from Ethiopia, and is particularly relevant to today's holiday.

I met a man sitting across the isle from me. He was going to be entering the US for the first time ever. It's very difficult to become a US citizen for people around the world. We only accept a few thousand people from Ethiopia every year, and it's determined by a lottery system; totally random. This particular gentleman put his papers in some 20 years ago to come here, and on this particular flight, this military air corpsman was going to enter the US as a citizen. I felt a little choked up thinking about Neil Diamond's famous song "America," which unfailingly plays every year during Independence Day celebrations across the nation, but it's words are no less true than they were when they were written years ago in 1980...

America -- Neil Diamond

Far
We've been traveling far
Without a home
But not without a star

Free
Only want to be free
We huddle close
Hang on to a dream

On the boats and on the planes
They're coming to America
Never looking back again
They're coming to America

Home, don't it seem so far away
Oh, we're traveling light today
In the eye of the storm
In the eye of the storm

Home, to a new and a shiny place
Make our bed, and we'll say our grace
Freedom's light burning warm
Freedom's light burning warm

Everywhere around the world
They're coming to America
Every time that flag's unfurled
They're coming to America

Got a dream to take them there
They're coming to America
Got a dream they've come to share
They're coming to America

They're coming to America
They're coming to America
They're coming to America
They're coming to America
Today, today, today, today, today

My country 'tis of thee
(Today)
Sweet land of liberty
(today)
Of thee I sing
(today)
Of thee I sing
(today)

(today)

(today)

(today)