Something to ponder on

I was going through an article at AAMI regarding a flying eye hospital. Went into their website and came upon something that might highlight a tale I am about to tell. The article is about an Ethiopian woman who undergoes a cataract surgery aboard the flying eye hospital. The article quoted:

"The available eye care personnel in Ethiopia are: 76 ophthalmologists, four cataract surgeons, 93 ophthalmic nurses and ophthalmic medical assistants and 258 eye care workers."

Four cataract surgeons?????????? This is not just a situation in Ethiopia alone. It is likely many other African countries are facing a similar sort of difficulty.

I chose Ethiopia because it is the only African country I have lived in and I can somehow relate to common things there, like in a rural environment. This particular article is a prelude to what I am going to write here - another reality bite.

The university at Jimma employs many part-time students who work in the university at different departments in the mornings and attend evening college. We met a boy who was doing some course to become an electrician, and so he was working under the electrical maintenance department to gain more experience. We once had him to do some repair at home - to fix a socket. He had difficulty in screwing the socket to the wall; he was peering so close to the wall to look at the spot where he had to screw in the nail. Mom asked him if he had a bad sight. He said his sight was failing, that he did not have enough money to get a check-up done and get some spectacles, that he would continue to work because he needed the money for his daily bread, that he would only stop when he is completely blind, and when the time comes and he turns blind, he would go back to the place of his family, and live there as a blind person, doing nothing. Mom was puzzled. The boy was intelligent, he was only about 18-19 years old. The way his sight was suggested he may go completely blind in two to three years. And then what? His life had no hope. He was stranded. He couldn't do anything and neither could his family, because they were living in more worse conditions than he was. That is how they live their life - they give it up easily to fate and await what is to come upon them. When it does, they surrender to it and live in starvation and misery till their death. The boy was eager to study, didn't have the means to do so. His only concern had become his daily bread, his injera. If ever he had a better chance of living and some money in his pocket, I bet he would have become a somebody in this world, not just rotting away to dust. Is this life?

Chat and the ceremony

When we say 'chat', we generally mean an internet chat [chat as in talking], or having a chat [again, as in talking] with people regarding anything that bothers the world. Watch out, for in Ethiopia, it means something else. In Ethiopia, chat is something that is eaten. Pronounced as khat, qat or chat, it originated in Ethiopia and spread to all of Eastern Africa and the Middle East and to many more countries. It is banned in some places, it is legal in some. In Ethiopia, it is banned in Addis Ababa but freely available elsewhere in the country. Wonder why....

Well, chat as is known in Ethiopia, is a leafy shrub of a plant, whose tender leaves are chewed by almost all the population of the country. It is a natural stimulant, and is considered an illegal drug in the civilised part of the world. Let me narrate the scenario that happens everyday in almost every nook and corner of Ethiopia, maybe not in the jungles.

Chat is sold in small plastic bundles which cost more than a bottle of beer. The people who live in nearby villages and forests bring in abundant supply of this stimulant. By the time they arrive into a town or village, it will be past noon time because the people have to walk from where they cultivate the plant. The time they usually show up is 2pm. People who take chat on a regular basis disappear after 2pm. They buy chat as soon as it arrives. Its a 'sight' to see people crowding at every point where chat is sold, which is at the bus station and small shops. They pick their bundle and go home and start chewing. They chew and chew and chew, and then their day is over and they go to sleep. It seems chewing chat keeps them awake, but not necessarily active. They go into this state of blissful eternity from which they are likely to come back only the next day. It is a common sight to see shop keepers chewing chat after 2pm in the afternoon. If we go to buy anything and ask them the price, they give you this look that says it all - eyes out of focus, the body limp and idle, and the mouth green from chewing; imagine a goat.

It seems chewing chat is a traditional ceremony too. One of the professors working at the university was invited to one and he later told me what it was like. People gather at the venue at about 5pm in the evening. The venue is more like a circular room with grass spread around the floor (an Ethiopian traditional thing - spreading grass on the floor for any ceremony). The host serves you chat, along with tea. People always have an accompaniment when chewing chat. It has a bitter taste, a little bit like how a neem leaf will taste, tasted yucky to me anyway. Bet people have an acquired liking to it. They either use sugar or a soft drink or tea to go with it. Once people start chewing, they get the high within minutes and after that everything is handed to oblivion.

I first thought only the men chew chat because I saw only them buying that thing. Thought the women would have had a hard time with their husbands turning into a log of wood after noon. But I was wrong. Women also chew chat in Ethiopia. It seems Somalia also produces and exports chat in large quantities. Yemen is also one country which harps on chat as an export product. The scene in all those countries is likely to be the same as in Ethiopia.

I remember the first time I landed in Ethiopia, and we made the biggest mistake of taking a bus from Addis Ababa to Jimma. At the border of Addis, there was a police check to see if people had chat or not. The bus stopped at the only place that had restaurants on the way, about four hours from Addis. People in the bus hurried off to get the leaves. Ofcourse I didn't know what it was at that time, and Mom shooed away vendors trying to sell this to us. We got into the bus and were on our way. Something happened during the next four-hour travel to Jimma. There was a man who was sitting in the seat opposite and infront of us. He had a plastic bag of chat hung from the seat infront of him and something with some sugar in it. He dug into the bag, took a few leaves, chewed it, and used some sugar as well, and he kept on doing this all the time we travelled till we reached Jimma. It was non-stop - he dug into the bag, got some leaves to chew, and used a pinch of sugar. I was amazed at how he could go on and on and not worry about anything else. That is what they mean when people told me it makes them happy, it would coz they get to have no idea of what is happening to them, none whatsoever.