Wukro: Day 1, trip and first impressions

Hey everyone! We finally have Internet access and we can upload our experiences on our blogs. It will be impossible to upload videos; the connection is very, very slow. We hope to be able to connect next time in order to upload pictures. But, for now we will only be able to do so from the cyber and only texts.

We arrived in Wukro rather tired both physically and mentally after 26 hours of travel. We even asked the flight attendants for ‘kitchen’ instead of ‘Chicken’ and ended up doing choreography of Grease whilst seated in the plane. With that all’s been said.

The trip in ‘taxi’ (an old van) from Mekele to Wukro already has strong impact. The highway is asphalted but full of potholes, so it seems as if you are riding on a merry-go-round. The road is used by trucks, cars, bicycles, people, and loaded donkeys or pulling carts, cows… it is a bit chaotic but you get used to it. The same way you get used to not having running water. As we are in the rainy season, they take advantage of the storms (more or less always at the same time) to gather water from the gutters with buckets. That is the water we will use to shower and for flushing. The water that we will drink and that we use to brush our teeth we purchased in town. Also power cuts are usual, so we are provided with candles and lanterns.

In the evening we took a stroll down the main street of the city, the only street that is asphalted. It is populated with small shops and girls and women selling prickly pears, maize and plantains, right on the shoulders of the road.

After supper the missionary Angel Olaran (Abba Melaku, for the Ethiopians), from Hernani, invited us to visit two of the houses in which some of the approximately 600 orphans, of which he is in charge, reside. It has been an incredible experience. This people make a 12 square meter house where 6 people live really cosy. They made us feel as part of their family, we spoke, played, laughed and even sang together.

We have ended the day reflecting in our room, on the phrase that we saw on a mural of the school in the city: ‘If you know how to smile, you can live anywhere’