Cracks in My Foundation

by Marian Keyes

  Back in the Concern house I suddenly remembered that today was my birthday. Himself 's present for me was in the AWOL suitcase. However he gave me a celebratory chocolate bar that he 'd nicked from the Aer Lingus lounge in Dublin. I was very happy.

  Wednesday, September 11

  New Year's Day. And 1995, no less. Something to do with a dispute over the date of the birth of Christ. Great hilarity (at least on my part) as Himself dons his Ethiopian knickers—very little and snug, Bruce Lee circa '77. Great hilarity (at least on his part) as I don mine—baggy and mad, like a granny's.

  11 A.M. Visit a Concern-funded project which aims to educate and train girls. This is a very macho society and I'd been told that Ethiopian women would have a better life if they'd been born a donkey. They have much less chance of receiving an education than a man, yet often end up being the main breadwinner as well as doing the "invisible" work like child care, taking care of sick relatives, cooking, carrying water and tending the animals.

  This project nails its colors firmly to the mast with the sign on the office wall—"God created man before woman. The reason why? Every artist does a rough draft before creating a masterpiece." Right on, sisters!

  We visit a girls' school they're building; it will provide education for two hundred pupils when it opens in late September. Dozens of amber-eyed children appear from nowhere, to shake hands (even the toddlers do it) and have their photo taken.

  3:30 P.M. On to a vocational skills training project for street children. There are an estimated sixty thousand children and

  young mothers living permanently on Addis Ababa's streets, where they're at the mercy of anyone and everyone, including the police. This project aims to train them in all kinds of disciplines— from driving to metalwork to office skills—and make them employable.

  I was introduced to a twenty-year-old girl, a graduate of the program. She looked like Lauryn Hill—like, exquisite, and asked me not to use her name. Her story is that both her parents died when she was sixteen and she had to take care of her three sisters and two brothers by washing clothes and gathering and selling firewood. Her income was so low that prostitution was the next step, either for herself or her younger sisters. But instead she managed to get a place in a training course. Now she earns 340 birr a month as a cook (good money, honestly), is able to rent a house for herself and her siblings and is going for lessons in computers and paying for herself.

  When I asked her what her parents had died of, she bowed her head, began to cry and didn't answer. Later the director of the program told me that she has never said, but he suspects they died of AIDS. Despite at least one in ten and maybe as many as one in six adult Ethiopians being infected with HIV, there 's such a stigma that few will admit to being affected by it.

  Among the many other success stories of the project is that two ex-street children are working for Ethiopia's previous president as a cook and a housekeeper.

  It was an uplifting and energizing day. Back at the ranch, we watched The Young and the Restless, a spectacularly awful American daytime soap, and spent a happy hour trying to figure out which ones were the young and which ones were the restless. It was strangely compelling.

  Thursday, September 14

  5:30 A.M. Several of us left in a packed four-wheel drive for Damot Weyde, a six-hour drive to the south. This area was the scene of a famine in 2000 and this year the rains didn't come, so the maize harvest has failed and once again the people are facing a famine.

  On the drive down we passed field after field of burnt dead maize. But other than that, the countryside was spectacularly beautiful: ranges of huge mountains layered against the blue sky, and apart from the dead maize, it was surprisingly green; lots of trees. When I asked why they didn't cut the trees down to use the land for food, I was told that the trees were necessary to prevent soil erosion, already a huge problem, which further exacerbates drought.

  Also contributing to the look of lush vegetation is a plant called insett or "false banana." It's a slow-growing but drought-resistant plant which has the huge wax leaves of the banana plant, but only the roots are edible (after being pounded for three hours). So although the area is facing a famine, it 's called a "green famine."

  Always the roadsides were swarming with people; even though it 's rural it 's extremely densely populated—250 people per square kilometer. Twice we passed people carrying a stretcher, making their way with a sick friend or relative to the nearest clinic.

  9:30 A.M. Stopped for breakfast in Shashemene, a town which has a large Rastafarian community. I had to restrain Himself. He 's always nursed a desire to run away and become a Rasta.

  Midday. Arrive at Concern's compound. It's twenty kilometers off a tarmaced road and has no phone line. But there is electricity and as everyone kept telling me, their faces aglow—there 's a shower, a hot shower. And a toilet, I asked anxiously. Yes, I was told. Well, an outside latrine, which is the same thing really. I'm not really an outside-latrine kind of girl. Well, I was about to become one.

  1:30 P.M. After a quick lunch we head off to visit a spring that Concern had built. However, it had been raining and the fourwheel drive got stuck in the mud. We all had to get out and as I clambered down I landed on a donkey, who gave me a patient, Iwon't-hold-it-against-you look and carried on up the hill.

  We turned back and instead went to visit an animatrice (I think that 's how it 's spelled), a local woman who'd been trained by Concern to teach her community about nutrition, hygiene but most importantly to take care of malnourished children. Previously if a child was malnourished, the mother would take them to a Concern feeding center where mother and child would stay until they were both healthy. This could take up to three weeks. Meanwhile, no one was home to take care of the woman's other children and more importantly the mother had no opportunity of earning money during that time. This scheme is a way of avoiding that and handing control and responsibility to the community. All of Concern's work is about "sustainability"—that they are enabling the community to do things for themselves, so that when they leave (all nongovernmental organizations have to move on after three years) the locals will be well able to look after themselves.

  But the animatrice was nowhere in sight—they'd all gone to "the weeping"—a lyrical way of describing a funeral. Right so, we said, girding our loins. We 'll visit the Kerchech health clinic.

  Back into the four-by-four and after another bumpy hour on muddy roads we arrived at the three-room clinic. At the same time a young woman called Erberke showed with her husband, Bassa, and their sick baby girl, Jelsalem. They'd walked for forty minutes in their bare feet to reach us because Jelsalem was passing blood; she was fifteen months old, but she was so sticklike and shrunken that she looked a good year younger. Bassa was wearing what might have been Farrah slacks once upon a time but was now a collection of rags held together with yellow twine. I'd seen so many sad things but for whatever reason this was the one that did it for me. I couldn't stop crying.

  Dr. Degu Tinna, who runs the clinic and visits patients on the motor bike that Concern purchased, examined Jelsalem and found she was 75 percent of the weight she should be, but she wasn't showing signs of edema (protein deficiency.) He gave antibiotics— the local method for dealing with a baby with diarrhea is to burn the baby's stomach. (Likewise eye infections are "treated" by branding the temples.) I went into the horrors at the thought that if the clinic hadn't been there, Jelsalem would have died.

  8P.M. Dinner that night was the famous injera bread. It was gray and looked like a rolled-up sponge but tasted nice. Had to get up twice in the night to use the outside latrine. Didn't get eaten by leopards.

  Friday, September 13

  7A.M. Set off to visit another spring but once again got bogged down in the mire. This time we pressed on and arrived at 9 A.M. Yay!

  The spring was a godsend—clean water for washing, cooking and most importantly drinking. Before the spring was built the only option was the dirty water from the nearby river�
�so filthy that a glass of it looked like drinking chocolate.

  It was all go at the spring. Ofusi, a thirteen-year-old stunner, was washing her family's clothes—scrubbing like billyoh with a bar of soap. Salem, a ten-year-old girl, was filling a five-liter container of water for her home an hour's walk away.

  But what I noticed most was that a lot of the children clustering around me looked sick. Their teeth were brown and most of them seemed to have an eye infection. Flies were landing in babies' mouths and some of the children's skin was patchy and piebaldlooking. I thought I remembered reading that this was an indication of edema—severe lack of protein. I was looking firsthand at the effects of chronic food deprivation. They pressed closer and closer to me, but remained silent, and for the first time since I'd arrived in Ethiopia I felt slightly freaked out.

  On the way back we passed several women working in the fields, including one called Tefari who was seven months' pregnant. Then we got to meet Itanish the animatrice; the work she was doing with the women in her area would make sure that the malnourished children would get better. This cheered me up.

  11 A.M. Drive back to Addis.

  5P.M. Our suitcase had arrived! Because I'd had a week living with just the basics I'd suspected that I'd have no interest in it, but I'm sorry to say how wrong I was. I fell on it like it was a long-lost friend and marveled at my lovely things. My face cream! My sunglasses! My antimalaria tablets!

  6:30 P.M. An open-air concert to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS

  among the young and homeless in the Merkato area (a huge market that has a lot of prostitution). I thought it would be a bit worthy and crap but I swear to God I've never seen anything so gorgeous. On stage three slender elegant boys and three lush colleens were in traditional dress and dancing like Irish people wouldn't be able to dance if they practiced for a million years. Imagine people receiving electric shocks but gracefully and you get some idea of how wonderful they were. And they were having such fun, it was a delight to behold. The concert (a monthly event) is the brainchild of a very energetic, intelligent man called Anania Admassu who runs a Concern-funded project, which helps AIDS orphans. There are a huge number in Addis—one thousand in the Merkato area alone.

  Saturday, September 14

  9:30 A.M. Visited Concern's Street Vendors Program, which gives basic business skills and low-interest, collateral-free loans to the poorest street traders (nearly always women). Hundreds of women have had their lives changed by this program and most of them have even managed to start saving.

  Part of the program has involved the construction of several latrines and I was invited to visit a couple. Well, I don't know about you, but one latrine is much the same as another as far as I'm concerned and though they tried to talk me out of it I stood my ground. They were disappointed, but I think they got over it.

  2P.M. Last gig. A visit to Mekdim, an association run and staffed by HIV-positive people, who provide education, medical help, counseling, home nursing, funeral expenses for those with the virus.

  HIV/AIDS is a huge, huge problem in Ethiopia. Because of extreme poverty many women have no choice but to become prostitutes—it 's either that or let them and their children starve. Nor is the situation helped by the attitude of the government who until recently were in denial. Now, rather late in the day, they've admitted that the problem has reached epidemic proportions.

  Mekdim is run by Tenagne Alemu, a charismatic man who has lived with the virus for thirteen years—"drug-free" everyone kept telling me before I met him. Like an eejit I thought he was "drugfree" to make some kind of point. But not at all. He is drug-free because he can't afford the drugs. The miracle anti-retroviral drugs that are saving the lives of the thousands and thousands of HIVpositive people in the developed world are way beyond the reach of Ethiopians.

  I met one of the home caregivers. She was a beautiful and articulate twenty-nine-year-old who discovered she was HIV-positive when her three-year-old daughter became sick and died. No one could tell her what her daughter had died from, but she 'd heard about "the sickness" and suspected the worst. Her husband had been her first sexual partner, so she 'd caught it from him. As you can imagine, her life fell apart. She divorced him and was going to kill herself when she heard that Mekdim were looking for people to train as home caregivers.

  She is constantly coming down with infections. She 's ostracized by her peers. (She wouldn't let me take her photo because she got harassed enough, she said.) There are anti-retroviral drugs which can help her but aren't available in Ethiopia because they're so expensive. And the number of those infected with the virus—particularly women—continues to escalate.

  "I'm angry," she said with vehemence. "I'm always so angry. Will you tell the people in Ireland we need their help," she asked. I said I would.

  See www.concernusa.org for more information

  First published in The Sunday Independent, November 2002

  Rebuilding Children

  In the summer of 2003, I became patron of To Russia With Love. This is the story of how the charity started and a trip I made to Russia in January 2004. All royalties from the Irish sales of the hardcover of Further Under the Duvet are going to this charity.

  "When we first arrived there were no mirrors, so none of the children knew what they looked like. Before we left we hung up a group photo of them, but the next time we came, the photo was full of holes: all the children had cut out their own face. It was the only image they had of themselves and we kept finding them under their pillows, in their pockets, all over the place . . ."

  These are the words of Debbie Deegan, an ordinary Dublin housewife, who, on a whim seven years ago, decided to take two Russian orphans into her home for a short Irish holiday, with no idea that it would change her life. But within days she 'd fallen in love: no way could she send these little girls back. As "luck" would have it, one of the seven-year-olds, Zina, caught meningitis, was too sick to travel home and had to stay in Ireland. But the other girl wasn't so "lucky," no meningitis for her; when the two weeks were up she had to return to the orphanage. And that, Debbie thought, would be that. Fat chance—she was tormented that she 'd sent her back and eventually over a year later, she buckled and decided she had to go to Russia to track her down.

  Not knowing a word of Russian, she flew to Minsk, and managed to make her way to Bryansk, a city eight hours southwest of Moscow, and finally she found the orphanage, Hortolova. As she admits herself, she was clueless, in no way prepared for what awaited her. "It was crumbling, filthy, the stench was indescribable, the toilets were broken and the bathrooms were just one big toilet." Almost worse than the physical privations was that the children had no sense of self or identity: they literally didn't know what they looked like. She was carried out of there, "a basket case."

  Which was no use to anyone, she admitted. She arrived back in Ireland determined to rebuild the orphanage. Her friends and family—like most sensible people—tried to talk her out of it and waited for the rush of blood to the head to pass. She 'd no connections, they pointed out to her, no money, no understanding of the Russian system. But sometimes ordinary people pull off extraordinary things. She started with a coffee morning and raised an astronomical nine grand. (Mind you, you'd want to meet Debbie—her energy, her compassion and her vision would persuade anyone of anything. She 's a force of nature.)

  Two months later she returned to Hortolova with a team of surveyors and builders to see how best they could rebuild the orphanage. There were 150 children, aged six to eighteen, and Debbie was determined to make everything shiny and new for them. However, she 'd planned on a quick in and out, and once everything was fixed, to withdraw and return to her old life.

  But it was already too late because she 'd become involved with the children and her focus had shifted: it was no longer about rebuilding the crumbling bedrooms, it had become, much more importantly, about rebuilding the children.

  And God knows they needed rebuilding. Their backgrounds are often so horrifi
c it 's hard to believe we 're talking about real people—like Lena whose mother tried to sell her in the marketplace, like she was an animal. And Vika, who witnessed her father killing her mother's lover. Or Sergei, who is almost blind, has TB and was a heavy smoker from the age of five. Many of these children hadn't had any affection in years, if ever, and Debbie 's instinct as a mammy was that often what they needed more urgently than anything else was a hug.

  That was the start of To Russia With Love. Six years on, they've rebuilt the boys' block, the kitchen, the laundry, they've added a little medical block and a life skills center—and completely transformed the lives of all the children.

  Last summer Debbie invited me to visit Hortolova, along with thirty other Irish people—mostly fund-raisers and sponsors. The plan was to go in early January, in time for the Russian Christmas, bringing sackfuls of presents, "Santy," the full nine yards.

  I agreed to the visit so long in advance that at the time I'd never really believed it would ever happen (you know how it is). But as it drew nearer the dread kicked in. Himself was coming with me, and having no children of our own I was afraid we 'd start filling our suitcase with orphans to bring home. A week before the off I got the flu and I tried mind over matter to work it up into something really debilitating like pleurisy, so that I couldn't travel, but nothing doing.