Thursday and Friday

Well I realize I fell behind once again... but this time it was for a very strange reason. The Ethiopian government blocked all blogspot.com's so that no one in the country could access them. I am not sure why, or when exactly it happened, but now I am in Germany and can write about my last few days. Also, one more note about Wednesday - they had large crates staked in the kitchen that were full of teaching supplies. WAY more than I thought they had! We went through most of them and they are wonderful. There was a large sensory box, and smaller math, geography, history, etc. They have enough to really get started! I can't wait to hear how they start off next week.

Thursday was supposed to be "goodbye" and my touristy day. When they picked me up in the morning from the hospital, I was told we had a meeting they wanted me to attend. We pulled up to FH Ethiopia (food for the hungry) and had an appointment with the country director. Amazing! I was so happy to be a part of this meeting and make this international connection. The director talked a bit about what it is that they do, and then the women from the school made a brief proposal asking him to help the needy families that would be attending the school. Unfortunately, there were no funds that could be used in this way at this time. However, he wanted them to stay in contact and he was going to send their proposal to a few other people. 

We then went out for coffee and cake and I had a wonderful rest of the day. A woman who had come to training a few days asked if I would spend the day with her, and we went shopping, out to lunch, visited her home (and her week old German shephard puppies!), and then went out to dinner with her husband and sister. Everyone was so wonderful, and I couldn't have had a better final day with the women from the school.

Friday was spent packing up and saying some more goodbyes to people at the hospital. The women from the school dropped by again to drop off some gifts and then I went out to dinner with Dr. Koning, Linda, and some others from the medical group. It was a great goodbye, and I honestly wasn't ready to leave. Ethiopia is such a wonderful country, and I can't wait to return one day with Eric. The people are what makes the country, and I couldn't have had a better experience. I was welcomed into homes, met beautiful families, and feel very blessed to have been able to go on this journey. Thank you again for everyone's prayers and words of encouragement. They made a world of a difference.

Tuesday and Wednesday

Sorry to have gotten so far behind on my journals! The past couple days were very long, and I didn’t get home in time to type out my thoughts. Hopefully I can give you a good recap of everything that happened.

The plan for Tuesday was to set up the classrooms and go over the teaching materials that I brought. However, more children kept coming in for assessment, so we continued the assessments. The women at the school said that they hear about what is happening, and they show up without any notice hoping to have their children assessed. The morning was spent with 3 children and their families, and then the afternoon was spent going out to 2 homes to do assessments. These two families were very poor, and could not afford to travel into the city while we were doing assessments at the school. I think it is wonderful of the women at the school to take the time to come to the families and hopefully give them some answers.

The first home we went to was not accessible by car, so I got a very unique look at how some people live. We parked as far up an alley as we could, but it became very narrow and broken up. We started to walk around the alleys and eventually found our way into a narrow pathway that led to about 5 homes which were back to back. The home we entered was at the end of the pathway. It was very small (just one tight room) and beautifully decorated. They had painted the walls green and had put a lot of effort into making their little house a home. I was part of a team of 4 (the two women, a camera man, and myself), so we all crowded into the room and started the assessment. It continues to amaze me how much these children are loved. I am not saying that children in the U.S. are not loved as much, because I believe that they most definitely are. But here it just seems to be so much more visible and public.

The second home we visited was very similar, just one small room where a mother and her two children lived. This boy was 14, and spent all day locked in this room while his mother and sister worked. They have no other options to keep him safe, and they can’t afford to take any time off. When I asked about his interest in toys, or how he plays with objects in the house, she said she is not sure. He does not have anything to play with – he has never had a toy, because they can not afford anything other than the food they eat. Again, this child was so loved. You could see in his eyes how much he loved his mother, and how much she reciprocated that love. I can’t imagine having to leave your child with autism locked in the house all day while you work, but that is the only way she can guarantee his safety.

I think that having a social setting like the school for these children would be wonderful. They would be able to blossom so much… but there is one huge issue that worries me. When I asked the first family about their son’s interactions with people, they could not comment because he has never met someone his own age, and he has only been in contact with his immediate family members. How then will he react when you take him out of his home and into a school he has never seen with people he has never met? And the other child, who has never had a toy… what will he think when he arrives at a school full of busy children and colorful toys? I worry that they will be overwhelmed and scared – that the environment might be too much for them because of their limited exposure thus far. The school and I talked about this, and they share my same concerns. Ideally the school would be a wonderful place for them to learn new skills, socialize, and give their families time to work knowing their children are safe. Realistically I think it will take a long time and a lot of slow encouragement for them to get used to the new environment.

On Wednesday we finally talked about classroom set up and the supplies that I brought. We went through each of the teaching materials and I described how I would use them in my own classroom and how I would use them at Nehemiah. They are having special tables made for the children, so we also talked about how to design them – it was a great discussion! They have had many people give them input on what the tables should look like, so we compiled all of the information (plus some of my own ideas) and came up with a design to be made. We also wrapped up the training by going over a summary of everything we had talked about. I had been taking notes all week about the discussions we were having, and I gave them my notes along with answering any remaining questions they had. Today was my last day of official training – but I have given them my contact information in case they have any remaining questions and also so that they can keep me updated on the school. The children are supposed to arrive next week, so I am looking forward to their first email!

The afternoon was spent going to an orphanage with the medical group I came with. We were able to tour the compound and it is amazing what all they do here. They provide all services for free at the clinic – including prescriptions! If your child is sick, you can bring them for no charge, and keep coming back for medications as needed. They supply many medications for AIDs, and there is no age limit for these drugs. If you need them, they will be provided. What a wonderful and uplifting place this was!

I am running out of time to tell you more, so I will post this for now and hopefully continue tonight. Thank you again for all your prayers and support!

Everyone has said what is wrong, and no one is willing to help.

I had a very interesting day today. I was supposed to start helping the staff at Nehemiah set up their classrooms (right now all they have is chairs) but children kept coming in the gate for assessments. So, we assessed. I decided it would be a good time for the main administrator of the school to start practicing giving the assessments so that when I leave, she can continue them. She has been my translator for all the assessments so she had a good idea of what I asked, but she had not experienced the scoring section so we worked on that as well. She would ask the questions, find the answers, and we would discuss what the various scores should be. By the end of the session we were coming up with the same scores and I believe she will do a great job with these assessments in the future.

However, there was one child who came in and created quite a stir. When she arrived, her mother escorted her in and you could immediately see that the girl had a vision problem. She was told to have a seat, and had to feel for the location of the chair. When given an object, she explored it with her hands while looking up blankly at the ceiling. When asked to take an object from the table, her depth perception was very off and she had to feel around for where the object was. She was extremely talkative, but I learned later that her conversation was not applicable to the situation - she was talking about things that were not present in the room. As they always do when I first meet a student they asked, "is she autistic?" This question comes every time, and I always answer the same. I do not know yet! There are some children who you can meet for 5 minutes and see that they most likely have autism... however, there are some who you must spend more time with to understand their behaviors. There are many different developmental disabilities that exist, and autism is just one of them... I would rather not label someone before I really get to know what behaviors they exhibit and what makes them who they are.

Back to my story... I answered as I usually do, saying I wasn't sure but that we could find out more if we started the assessment because it talked about many different aspects that we weren't necessarily going to see in the school at that moment. As the administrator began to speak in Ahmeric, the woman grew very upset. Within minutes they were arguing back and forth, and before I knew what was going on the woman grabbed her child and walked out of the school. Everyone was looking at me, and yet I hadn't said a word! The women followed her outside, arguing back and forth the whole way. Finally the woman and her daughter left, and everyone else came back inside. "Okay, that is all for today," is what I was told... wait, thats it? What happened? I had so many questions about what had just occurred. I was finally able to ask someone what had just happened, and the answer is what has been bothering me the whole time.

When the administrator began talking, she started by saying something along the lines of "it is obvious that she has a vision problem, have you looked into this?" Apparently this woman was hanging from her last thread, and here is where it snapped. Of course she had looked into it, of course she knows theres a problem... everyone feels the need to tell her that her daughter has a problem, but no one will tell her what to do about it. The woman went on to say she had even had her daughter assessed for autism in a hospital, and after much money and 3 weeks of observations they said she did not have autism. The administrator told her this was a school for autism, and that they could not help her at this school. This is when the woman got up and left abruptly... and you know, I can't blame her. I can not imagine the stress of being a mother of a child who has a disability, and having everyone tell you that something is wrong with your child, something isn't right, asking if you have done anything about it.... and not one of these questioning people asking if they can help or showing you what you can do. This mother had already been questioned, had taken her daughter to the hospital, had taken her to the eye doctor (which had no result because she could not concentrate on the eye tests), and had still received no answers on what she could do for her daughter.

Everyone has told her what was wrong, and no one was willing to help. I know that the women at this school are more than willing to help when they can, and they meant NO harm when they were talking to his mother. However, we must also remain very aware of how the families feel. They are criticized for having children with disabilities because they must have done something wrong when they were raising their children (not true). They keep their children inside all day because they are not welcome in the community. People constantly criticize their children and their family... and right now in Ethiopia, there is no place for them to turn for answers.

The Nehemiah Center is named after Nehemiah in the Bible. A very short version of his story is that with prayer and hard work you can accomplish great things, and he rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem. The administrators told me they hope, with God's help, to build up walls of knowledge and education around autism. I hope that Nehemiah will be a light in this city for children with autism, and that they can use this school to educate the community and bring more awareness to developmental disabilities. This is just the start and it is going to be a long road, but at least they have started the journey.

Photos

I thought I would use my luck with the internet right now to post some long overdue photos. Here they are!

A Poster for the School 

Nehemiah Autism Center

The three classrooms at the school

 Injeera... the local food. They eat this for all three meals!

A beautiful local church we stumbled upon. 

Some children that were part of a wedding.

 Another beautiful orthodox church

The MCM hospital that I am staying at:

One of the cutest little girls I've gotten to know.

The biggest heartbreak of my trip. A few posts ago I told of mothers who came in with their children and they had no where else to go. This is one of those mothers with the ADORABLE Joseph.

The hillside of Lalibella

A young woman in Lalibella carrying sticks up the mountainside.

A house in Lalibella

Friday (again), Saturday and Sunday

On Friday night we went to a special Jewish ceremony at someone’s house. This man is an American, and he adopts children with specific medical issues so that they can be on his health insurance and receive medical services in the US. Although he was out of town, there were still many people at his house this night for the ceremony and to gather as friends. One of the people there was a professor from George Washington University who had spent the past 20 years or so living in Addis and teaching at the local university. He was a very interesting man – opinionated, conceited, but honest – and he said something very interesting that caught my attention. As I was telling him why I was there and about the state of despair the mental health field was in he said something along these lines: Yes, this is true, there is much work that needs to be done in this field. However, it is so far behind because up until this point we have simply been trying to keep people alive. Now that we have that a little more under control, the mental health field can follow.

I had never thought of it that way before. We are so spoiled with resources in the US that I take for granted all the labor and progressive steps that people before me had to take. Now that disease, AIDs, malaria, and other health issues are being controlled, the mental health field can finally take center stage. Any takers? Ethiopia could sure use some help, and I know they would welcome anyone.

I decided that I would take advantage of my time here in Ethiopia and spend the weekend exploring. My roommate, two med students from Florida, and I hoped on a plane to Lalibella, Ethiopia for the night. It was spectacular! I wish that I could post photos, and I will try after this JUST IN CASE the internet decides to be friendly. We were picked up at the airport by our tour guide and quickly driven up a steep winding mountain side… and I mean QUICKLY! I tried to take photos out the window, but many of them look like a blur. This area was so beautiful, and it was truly old Ethiopia. The people lived in small huts made of sticks, rocks, and branches. There were children herding cows and goats, and adults walking donkeys down the road with sacks tied to their backs. There were also many men and women with large bunches on their backs – carrying them up and down the mountainside.

The main attraction, however, was not the fascinating lifestyle that we were so lucky to observe. Instead, it is a series of 11 churches built out of the rock. (If all goes right, there should be a photo in this post!) The story is that the angels came down to help the king create these churches, and they were carved out of a single piece of stone. Believe what you will… but there must have been some sort of divine intervention to create these magnificent churches! They truly are cut out of the rock, and the insides are beautiful. I can’t imagine all of the work that went into carving these churches from the ground down… hopefully you will be able to see what I mean when the pictures post (they are of the same church).

The scientists have of course come to examine these churches, and have verified that they are indeed one piece of rock that has been carved down. How they did it? Well, besides the angels, there are chisel marks on the walls signifying that a hammer and chisel was used for this great task. – unbelievable.

Tomorrow I will be back at the school teaching them how to use the supplies that I brought and helping them set up their classrooms. They have no tables at this point, only chairs… so we have quite a bit to round up. Thank you to everyone for your continued prayers!

Thursday and Friday

The past two days were spent wrapping up training and starting assessments on the children. As I mentioned earlier, there is no one here who can help these parents assess whether or not their child has autism. If they believe their child has it, then they must! They also struggle to comprehend the scope of autism, and everyone seems to think their child is severely affected by it – even when they are not. I explained to the parents and teachers that when I receive a new student in my class, I am also given their assessments and ability levels… I am not the one who assesses the children at home. However, they are so thirsty for understanding and have no assessments at all. I went online and attempted to download a copy of CARS (childhood autism rating scale) but was unsuccessful. I did find a similar scale (as was mentioned on Wednesdays post), and decided it was better than knowing nothing at all.

My heart breaks for these families… numerous parents have been bringing their children in to see if they have autism and if they will qualify for Nehemiah. Some of these families have had to leave the school knowing they will not come back – and it kills me. What more could we be doing? Can we open another center? How about a center for all children with special needs? Does this school HAVE to focus on autism? Back in AZ, if a child is not the right fit for a program you can probably give them a list of 10 other options that they should explore. Here in Ethiopia, you have nothing to give them. One boy who came in for an assessment clearly had down syndrome. His mother insisted that he had autism – because she wanted him to be able to attend the school. If he can’t come to Nehemiah, there is nowhere else for him to go.

Another mother came in with a seven year old child who was about the size of a three or four year old. He could not walk, could not feed himself, could not chew, and could not talk. His mother said he is never apart from her, and because of this she can not work. She has no money, her husband left her when their son was born, and she is able to live with family for the time being. This little boy was so happy… he just sat in his mother’s lap shrieking with joy and smiling. He did not respond to his name, but smiled when his mother sang to him. After going through the assessment with his mother it was obvious that he had a severe intellectual disability – but it was not autism. Now what? Where can this mother go? She has not a dollar to her name and is unable to work because of the supervision that her child demands… It broke my heart watching her walk away, carrying her son on her back, with a smile on her face the entire time. You could see how much she loved that little boy, and she was willing to do whatever it took to make sure he was taken care of.

There is a serious cry for help coming from this country. They have no resources for children/adults with disabilities and have no education on what they can do to help them. They need respite care, centers for adults, work programs, SCHOOLS, and the country as a whole needs more awareness about disabilities. These children are looked down on, hidden away in homes, families are embarrassed to take their children out in public… I wish there was more that I could do in my short time here.

On a more uplifting note, I am headed to Lalibela, Ethiopia this weekend for some tourist enjoyment. You should google image it – entire churches have been carved out of the rocks. I will take photos, and hopefully be able to share them when I get home.

Wednesday

Today was a wonderful day – very productive and I had put enough information together to last the entire day without worrying about coming up too short like yesterday. Also, there were twice as many people in the class today, and some had brought their children. Finally – I get to do what I love and see the kids. All of the talking, translating, and questions has left me very tired over the past few days, and the kids reminded me what it was all for.

We started the day off by talking about replacement behavior, and they asked a lot of questions about this topic. The first part of the week they kept asking me “how do I get him to stop doing…” They wanted a quick fix answer that will get their child to stop biting, hitting, screaming, etc. I explained to them you have to replace the behavior with a positive behavior, you can’t just get rid of something and not fill the void. Many typically developing students can be told no and then find something else to do. The child with autism finds this very difficult, so you must present them with a positive and appropriate behavior. They soaked this up like sponges. They had never heard anything like this before.

There were many things today that they had never heard and I was surprised… They asked me for a list of symptoms of autism, because they were not sure what it really was. Are any of us sure what it REALLY is? – questionable… but the people here have no resources to go to, no one to educate them on what autism looks like. So, today we walked through an assessment similar to CARS (childhood autism rating scale) and I explained each category that it was looking at, and why. They thoroughly enjoyed going through this assessment. Everyone was taking notes, and writing down what the translator was repeating. They are so thirsty for knowledge, I wish I could give them more. I come home every night looking for more to give them… what resources can I find that they will be able to use?

On that note, I want to say THANK YOU very much to Cathy from ARC. Cathy has listened to my stories, encouraged me along the way, and given me priceless resources to share with Nehemiah. Thank you very much Cathy, Nehemiah is benefiting so much from your support and encouragement.

Today we also went over some things that my school places a lot of emphasis on… consistency, clarity, competency, and also physical management. The physical management section was interesting to go over, but they wanted to learn how to safely restrain a student if he or she became very aggressive.  As for the C’s – I thought these three (yes DHA, I know I left some out – maybe tomorrow haha) would be very important for them to incorporate into their own program.

Tomorrow they want me to discuss staff behavior and what is/isn’t appropriate. This will be interesting because of our cultural differences, so I will simply share what we do at home. I recommended they draw up some sort of staff conduct contract so that they make sure everyone agrees to the rules. They are very concerned here with how people talk to the students, what they wear around the students, and how they react to their behaviors, so I think it will be good to get their ideas down on paper and help them create a contract for all their staff.

Thank you to everyone for following my story and for all your prayers. They are definitely being answered here in Addis Ababa.