I went to Ethiopia. The first trip was in July, 2021. I went with a nonprofit called Hawassa Hope that partners with an Ethiopian nonprofit to support children without parents and families struggling to be able to care for their children. The purpose of the trips is to meet the people, see their lives, learn a little bit about who they are. There are no "service projects" since the first step in helping people in a culture so different from our own is to know those people, and their culture. And it is beautiful.
It's also hard to describe because, well, how do you explain eight days of interaction with people who live lives that could not be more different than my own? But it's not pitiful and it's (mostly) not upsetting. It's delightful and fun and great and eye opening and sobering.
And after that first trip, I went back again in October, 2022. It was such a delight to visit many of the same people, and see many of the same places, and feel a little less like a fish out of water. I recognized people, and places, and things. I knew a little bit better how things worked. And it was beautiful
So I've made two photo books, one for each trip. There is a little bit of text to help make sense of the pictures, but mostly they are books of images of the people I saw and hugged and took lots of selfies with.
You can see a .pdf of the book from the 2021 trip here.
You can see a .pdf of the book from the 2022 trip here.
I hope you like looking at them. Maybe we can talk about it sometimes!
