Mr. & Mrs. Vandebilt + kids

Ethiopia is one of the few places that we’ve traveled where we have had the opportunity to get to know some of the locals. Usually when we are traveling around we don’t have enough time in a place to meet anyone outside of our rickshaw drivers or tour guides. Since we are spending so much time here, we’ve been lucky to make some friends and meet some different people.

Tigist works at the guesthouse where we have been staying in Addis. She comes in each morning (except Sunday) to clean the guesthouse, make breakfast and do the laundry. She comes with her 18 month old Sallihome whom she usually carries around on her back for a good part of the day. It takes her at least 8 to 9 hours to finish her workload, sometimes longer if there is no running water and she has to carry it from outside.

I’ve really come to love having Tigist around, and it has nothing to do with it being a treat to have my laundry done. She has become a good friend of mine so, we’ve tried to help Tigist out as much as we could while we were here. She is a single parent, Sallihome’s father ran off to America before the baby was born. She earns only about $30 a month and her rent takes up almost half of that. I had some spare clothes and shoes that luckily fit her and we make an effort to have lunch with her so we can make sure she gets at least one solid meal in a day.

During lunch the other day we asked how far away she lived. She lit right up and asked if we would like to come visit her house. We arranged a time and went for a visit on one of our last nights in Ethiopia. She lives in a mud house that would be no bigger than 200 square feet with two rooms. Strong Hearts gave her a bed, table and chairs for Christmas and that makes up pretty much her whole house.

She prepared a coffee ceremony for us and we spent a couple of hours with her. It was really special to be able to sit in her house with her, as she doesn’t often have visitors. We were worried at first that she would out do herself but then realized that it wasn’t our place to stop her. We consider her as a friend that’s why we have been helping her out and she wanted to do the same for us. The evening we spent at Tigist’s house was one of my favourite nights as we got to glimpse into real life in Ethiopia.