Off to Ufita

The sun was still low on the horizon as our three Ethiopian outreach staff packed up the land cruiser with a backpack full of syringes,a cooler containing vaccinations, three pots of injera, lentils, and water. The four of us, along with Tadele our translator, climbed into the car. Alias popped a tape with Ethiopian dance music into the tape player… and we were off… off to Ufita.

Ufita is definitely not the closest or the easiest place we travel to for outreach. This region is extremely isolated from other public health services, government health workers, and health clinics. We are often the only health workers that Ufita residents will see all year. Unfortunately, due to road conditions, we can only visit in the dry season when the roads are passable. September is the tail end of the wet season here so our trip last week to Ufita was our first visit in over 6 months. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate and the night before our trip, a heavy rain fell into the early morning. The road to Ufita is only dirt (no rock) so on a wet day the hard road turns into a slippery mud pit. Rather than canceling our trip, we decided to go anyway--taking the car as far as was passable and walking the remaining distance on foot.
Unfortunately, this adjustment about doubled the walking time to Ufita from 2 hours to 4. It also meant that we were slogging through wet sticky mud for a good portion of the hike…or make that “I was slogging through wet sticky mud.” For some reason, the Ethiopians are able to gracefully navigate all kinds of treacherous slippery mud holes as I slide hands, or head, or butt first right into them. The Ethiopians will call out “I zo!” which literally translates to “be strong” but really means “be careful” as they bite their tongues and try not to laugh at this goofy mud covered ferenji (foreigner) slides down the trail.

Let me also pause to clarify here--by American standards this would not be a four hour hike. I’m convinced that to Ethiopians the word “hike” actually translates to “brisk speed walking (aka a jog) with spurts of all-out sprinting at periodic unexplained intervals.” So there I was huffing and puffing trying to keep up with these power-walking Ethiopians when I hear them say “from here on… it will be UP.” As they gesture up in a completely vertical line straight into the sky. There it was… straight ahead of me… what the past outreach staff lovingly refer to as The Mother Hill. By the time I made it to the top, I was sucking wind like an 80-year-old smoker with emphysema. At the top sat the outreach staff happily offering some much needed injera, lentils, and water. Yum.

20 minutes later we were in Ufita. Ufita is special for another reason—it is populated with an ethnic group called the Menit. Menit people are culturally and linguistically distinct from the rest of the population in our region. The Menit are also nomadic, and they do not use a calendar or clock. It was quite an interesting cultural experience to visit this group… The Menit dress with just a cloth tied around their waste or chest. The men carried long sticks which sometimes had a metal spear at the end. They had short hair that was shaved into shapes—spirals, circles, or lines. Lines were also shaved in their eyebrows. Some of the women had beautiful intricate designs on their backs—apparently carved at some point with a sharp object and encouraged to scar. Narrow teeth are considered beautiful, and many of the women filed sharp narrow points into their teeth so that each tooth resembled a pronounced canine. Some of the children had dark red mud rubbed into their faces and hair to give them a rusty complexion. When the Menit greet each other it is customary to peck three consecutive times on the lips…a greeting that would likely make many uncomfortable in the states. This was a fascinating (and exhausting) outreach trip… one that I will remember for a long time. Unfortunately, due to their isolation, the Menit are also a particularly challenging population to serve with public health programs. But that story will have to wait for another day, and another blog post. Good night.