"I Need Africa More than Africa Needs Me"

I will go back to Africa again. I will visit Addis Ababa again.

I will go because I have to.

I have to go because I love it.

I love it because I adore the people.

I adore the people because they are real.

They are real because they have no pretense.

They have no pretense, which leads me to have no pretense.

Therefore:

Going to Africa = Me being myself

Or(to put all of that in a nutshell)...

"I Need Africa More than Africa Needs Me"

What a concept, huh?

This "concept" was presented to my team while we were in Ethiopia this past summer by the Mocha Club Director. This past week this concept was presented to me again and I was asked to blog about why I need Africa more than Africa needs me. I am still struck at how simple and, yet, complex this statement is.

There I was in Ethiopia being served by these people to their fullest capacity and I felt that I had nothing to give them in return. I was served in more ways than one; from the smallest of gestures of a girls' kiss on my cheek and whispering konjo in my ear (konjo means beautiful) to a street kid in Ambo cleaning the mudd off my shoe with a stick when he was barefoot himself. I was moved to tears by their kindness and also by the purity of our moment-in-time relationship.

This wasn't the Africa that was painted on those late-night commercials. I had seen "those" commercials. You know the ones I'm talking about. The commercials that always seem to wake you up after you have fallen asleep on the couch and you look up through sleepy eyes at a child with a pot belly and flies in their eyes staring back at you. It's depressing, to say the least. These images always seemed to make me feel helpless, hopeless, and ultimately pitiless because there are only so many times you can see those images and not become numb to them.

After returning from Africa, I wondered where the commercials were of the moments I lived while I was in Ethiopia. Why don't they show them laughing? Why don't they show them smiling? Why don't they show them even eating?!

I can't make a commercial, but I can write these blogs for you to a be witness to the change that has occurred in me. I can paint a picture in your mind of an Africa that you may have not seen before.

I yearn to be back in Ethiopia. I would love to be back in the bright orange tent at the Kachini Center dancing with the kids who never seemed to get enough of me doing the "robot" in the center of the bright orange tent.

I yearn to be back at Hannah's Orphange so I could visit with Kalkidan, a young woman who always greeted me by slipping her hand into mine from behind my back and only letting go when she had to give me a hug to say goodbye.

These are now the "commercials" that play in my mind. These are the "commercials" that wake me up in the middle of the night. They have changed me more than my blogs will ever be able to convey. This is the Ethiopia - the Africa - that I want you to know. This is the Ethiopia that I want you to see.

And, ultimately, I hope you see that I need Africa more than Africa needs me.


***If you have enjoyed following my blogs, then follow the Mocha Club because it is the real reason I went to Africa. For real, check it out! www.MochaClub.org It is a community based website where you can invite your friends to join you by giving $7 a month - the cost of two mochas- to a project of your choice.
It is a great organization made up of great people and I am so thankful to be a part of this group and I want you to be a part of it as well. If you would like to join my project of orphan care by donating $7 a month then please visit my link 'https://www.mochaclub.org/mochaclub/invitation/14159809008939d3adfc9dbc0cc73fe4'

Last, but not least:

****Share your thoughts in my comments, and even blog about it yourself. Join in the worthwhile cause of recasting the damaging images that force pity over partnership. Come back Dec 1st to see what Mocha Club is doing about reforming that image****

I look forward to what you all have to say...check in with you soon (December 1st)!

Much love,
Jen