Scintilla Publishers

When I reached Ethiopia in my African journey I saw  more intense human suffering here than anywhere else we had travelled thus far. The images in the story of The Miracle of St. George are real (see short stories.) I did not know that leprosy, an easily treatable disease, still existed in the world. People died in the streets of Addis Ababa every day and the poverty and misery I saw everywhere in this green, verdant, beautiful country seemed inexplicable. The worst was seeing the homeless children, some as young as two, dressed in rags, holding hands as they walked in and out of the traffic of Addis. I remember reaching a village near Gondor where food aid was being handed out, where the sight of such extreme poverty finally grew too much for us to bear. It was like a film set with great crowds of extras, dressed in biblical dress, waiting in the hot sun for some food. They sat patiently all holding black umbrellas above their heads – it was quite surreal. The cattle and goats were stick thin with protruding ribs and hip bones The people were lethargic and glazed-eyed with sticky flies crawling over their skin. It was at this scene of utter human misery that we stopped our Landrover and unanimously decided to turn around and leave Ethiopia and and head towards Sudan.