Kibebe Tsehai
Today we got to visit Kibebe Tsehai, the government orphanage that all of the children in Bring Love In came from before they were put into forever families with a mom and brothers and sisters. Kibebe Tsehai means sun.
When we pulled up to the front gate, we saw the walls all around the compound with razor wire on top. Then we saw two men that were dressed in military-like uniforms who let us in.
We parked and got out and went straight to the infants room, made up of infants to 2 years of age. Each room held 20-25 babies often 3-4 infants to a crib, and only one worker to care for 20-25 of them, only having time to feed them and change their diapers, rarely holding them, we didn’t see any workers holding any babies).
There was a room with the newest babies who had arrived, only a few weeks old. Many of them were malnourished or sick and coughing. It was explained to us that those 25+ sick babies will stay in that room till their health improves.
Kids arrive at the orphanage from four different ways. Many are left by their mothers on the door step of a church, or have been left by a river (two of the newest girls at Bring Love In, Betty and Yodi, had been abandoned by their grandmother at a river), or they are war orphans whose parents were killed in the recent conflict in the north.
After seeing 80 babies we proceeded to another building with 50 two year olds who all wanted us to pick them up and hold them but we couldn’t because of their infections and sicknesses such as ringworm. The two year olds were all wearing the same type of outfit. One two year old had something like polio, her legs were malformed and she couldn’t stand. This hit me and I couldn’t cry or do anything because the orphanage might get offended. We want to be very careful in how we behave around the government orphanage so we don’t do anything that could prevent Bring Love In from adopting more children out of there.
While I was in another room filled with disabled children I saw Thomas go up to one girl who was very disabled. He told her that she would be getting a wheelchair the next week from Bozeman, and she got super excited.
I was shocked how happy these kids were in such a sad place. I mean their parents left them either to die or to be taken care by someone else. After that we went to our driver Ishy’s car and drove to another our next stop.
We went to the poorest part of town (near Koshe dump) to visit Tariku, the older brother of Ybeltal, Akele, and. Buzye, three siblings in Bring Love In.
Tariku’s house was 10 foot by 12 foot hut made of mud and grass or hay, with a dirt floor and a sheet metal roof. It had flooded earlier that day. Tariku had worked in the Nile dam project but hadn’t found work since then. He didn’t have enough money to pay for enough food for his family and his 8 month old daughter had some kind of ear infection that was oozing, but he couldn’t afford to take her to the doctor to get it checked.
Their house was smaller than some of our living rooms and he had to house 8 people. (Tariku and his 3 children plus, his wife, and her two brothers and a sister in law). And they all shared one bed, no kitchen.
We found out later that Tariku was going to be evicted the next day. I’m really thankful we were able to visit them.
– Jack
When we pulled up to the front gate, we saw the walls all around the compound with razor wire on top. Then we saw two men that were dressed in military-like uniforms who let us in.
We parked and got out and went straight to the infants room, made up of infants to 2 years of age. Each room held 20-25 babies often 3-4 infants to a crib, and only one worker to care for 20-25 of them, only having time to feed them and change their diapers, rarely holding them, we didn’t see any workers holding any babies).
There was a room with the newest babies who had arrived, only a few weeks old. Many of them were malnourished or sick and coughing. It was explained to us that those 25+ sick babies will stay in that room till their health improves.
Kids arrive at the orphanage from four different ways. Many are left by their mothers on the door step of a church, or have been left by a river (two of the newest girls at Bring Love In, Betty and Yodi, had been abandoned by their grandmother at a river), or they are war orphans whose parents were killed in the recent conflict in the north.
After seeing 80 babies we proceeded to another building with 50 two year olds who all wanted us to pick them up and hold them but we couldn’t because of their infections and sicknesses such as ringworm. The two year olds were all wearing the same type of outfit. One two year old had something like polio, her legs were malformed and she couldn’t stand. This hit me and I couldn’t cry or do anything because the orphanage might get offended. We want to be very careful in how we behave around the government orphanage so we don’t do anything that could prevent Bring Love In from adopting more children out of there.
While I was in another room filled with disabled children I saw Thomas go up to one girl who was very disabled. He told her that she would be getting a wheelchair the next week from Bozeman, and she got super excited.
I was shocked how happy these kids were in such a sad place. I mean their parents left them either to die or to be taken care by someone else. After that we went to our driver Ishy’s car and drove to another our next stop.
We went to the poorest part of town (near Koshe dump) to visit Tariku, the older brother of Ybeltal, Akele, and. Buzye, three siblings in Bring Love In.
Tariku’s house was 10 foot by 12 foot hut made of mud and grass or hay, with a dirt floor and a sheet metal roof. It had flooded earlier that day. Tariku had worked in the Nile dam project but hadn’t found work since then. He didn’t have enough money to pay for enough food for his family and his 8 month old daughter had some kind of ear infection that was oozing, but he couldn’t afford to take her to the doctor to get it checked.
Their house was smaller than some of our living rooms and he had to house 8 people. (Tariku and his 3 children plus, his wife, and her two brothers and a sister in law). And they all shared one bed, no kitchen.
We found out later that Tariku was going to be evicted the next day. I’m really thankful we were able to visit them.
– Jack
