10-5-10 Apartment, Bole Ave, Addis. One of the people I work with during the day comes from Harar, and he says the hyena issue is greatly over-rated. Like people from Chicago stuck with the stockyard-hog butcher metaphor, I guess. But he does confirm that Harar is very old.
Reading about it suggests that it's one of the nicest places to visit in Ethiopia. But I doubt I get there this time. It's a couple of days by car..days I dont seem to have, cars I dont seem to have. Aside from the hyenas, it seems an arms dealer with a poetic bent named Rimbaud lived and perhaps taught there. And Burton passed through there on his way to look for the Nile origins, apparently not put off by the historical imperative to kill any non moslems who entered the city. Well, perhaps someday.
Khat. Yeah, it is. Yeah, I have. Yeah, it does.
from the internet (http://www.mainliners.org.uk/pages/methedrone-cathinones.html )"Cathinone is a naturally occurring stimulant found in the khat plant and cathinones are a group of drugs related to amphetamine compounds like ecstasy. Cathinone derivatives are currently being sold online and in headshops as ‘legal highs'." (There is also a methylated relative, bearing the same relationship to cathinone that methamphetamine does to amphetamine) "A stimulant drug with effects similar to MDMA producing euphoria, alertness, talkativeness and feelings of empathy. It can also cause anxiety and paranoid states and risk overstimulating the heart and nervous system to cause fits. Severe nosebleeds have been reported after snorting. Mephedrone has been linked to the death of a young woman in Sweden in 2008. A white or off-white powder usually sold on the internet as a legal high and described as a plant food or a research chemical not for human consumption. Sometimes mixed with other cathinones and caffeine. "
Well, la-de-dah, and so much for my stuffy contenion that amphetamine is a totally foreign substance. As if there were some 'natural law' that makes it intrinsically more evil, more dangerous. Nope, once again, as with so many, you have to choose. The only saving grace is that it takes some work to chew khat (pronounced chat here). I still find amphetamine the scariest human development since sliced bread. But khat....
I bought mine with the help of our driver at a little shack by the side of the road. 50 birr for a half bundle (16 birr to the dollar). No question its in use by a lot of the people of the markets, perhaps for the usual reasons; you can work harder and carry more and tolerate more pain and fatigue with the drug. In my (purely for the sake of science, you understand) experiment, the effect as a tea is a very mild exhilaration and probably more talk. The effect of chewing is a definite buzz and..well, here I am writing away....and often finding myself drifting into what the German fairy tale anti-hero Till Eulenspiegel calls 'Cloud Cucucu Land'.
Khat is legal here...in fact, the third largest export. Perhaps one of the reasons the railway to Dubhai was developed. Doesnt travel well..the active ingredient degrades into a much less active ingredient, something that my grower friends in the Emerald Triangle assure me happens to cannabis as well. Features in at least the early part of 'Cutting for Stone', that book that many peope want to be sure I am reading ( I am). Doesn't taste great, but nothing on the order of peyote or mescal. So, as a friend of mine once said, perhaps a kind of 'good drug'. Unfortunately, see above, continued use is very very prolematic.
It was another day in the conference room yesterday, thrashing through specific issues and concerns of a possible curriculum. I think its a good sign that our colleague/hosts spontaneously got into sponatenously animated conversations in amharic today, the substance of communication becoming more important than the courtesy towards visitors. We are talking about things that if implemented anywhere would really improve medical care, really move this nation into a lead positon. But they really have priorities that are so different from those in the USA. For example, there are so few specialists here, particularly rurally, that when doctors graduate from medical school, GP's are expected to be able to do c sections, appies, and the like, and also advanced trauma procedures, such as tracheotomies and cutdowns. They have recently completed a survey of capability, and its clear that considerable upgrade is needed. But then, if one is 50 km away from a major hospital, any major trauma is just fatal, barak.
So, there is no Mission aka 'Missing' Hospital in Addis, but in my internet search for a possible inspiration for the hospital of that name in "Cutting for Stone", I ran across Fistula Hospital. Not to go into unwelcome deail for those who dont want to know, suffice it to say that this project was founded in 1974 "by Australian obstetrician-gynecologist, Drs. Catherine Hamlin, and her New Zealand born ob-gyn husband, Reginald. The Hospital has restored the lives and hopes of more than 32,000 women who would have otherwise perished or suffered lifelong complications brought on by childbirth injuries, specifically obstetric fistula. Today, the hospital provides free fistula repair surgery to approximately 2,220 women every year and cares for 35 long-term patients." ( http://www.fistulafoundation.org/hospital/) Of course that got me wondering if a major reason for these terribly debilitating traumatic holes between parts of the female anatomy that shouldn't have holes connecting them might be infundibulation, or FGM...female genital mutilation. But from both direct questioning and the literature, this is a relatively rare cause. The major one is just plain old unattended births..and of course sexual abuse in times of war. ( Yes, Yeshi, I will try to find out more about the TBA upgrading projects ). Still, as if unintended trauma and rape wasnt bad enough, there are an estimated 130 million women and girls subjected to FGM. Folk practices are often really beneficial, but sometimes truly frightening. And it's often girls who encounter what Suzanne Vega called 'the steel side of the knife' in one of her songs. So consider supporting one of the NGO's that work in this area, or Fistula hospital itself through its Foundation.
So on the walk today I became more acquainted with two of the charismatic megafauna of the 2000 meter level . Corvus crassirostris, the Thick Billed Raven, and Corvus albus, the Pied Crow. Albus is the one with the white vest..about the size of an American raven, typical cawing call. Crassirostris has a truly impressive Roman nose, a small white headcrest, and is big enough to give one pause. Both of them were hopping around the garbage cans this morning, as the incredibly brilliant sun broke through the clouds and lit up the green green green hills that surround this city at this time of year. And the song sparrows sound so different. And no rats...where are the rats? Must be a balanced predation, but by whom?
OK, time to pull it together and head off for work...or soon, at least. Kevin and Bob have only 4 days more, and although I have a few more than that, we need a 4 day plan.
aloha
Alan
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