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By Brian Gillis FEBRUARY 2012 – ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA:  “Ok, now you are in Africa.”  After a longer than anticipated stay in Egypt waiting unsuccessfully for Sudanese visas, we had at last arrived by plane in Ethiopia and were, we were told, finally in Africa—at least according to two of my friends, one of whose […]

By Dave Silvestri [Names changed to conceal identity] [DATE] – ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA: Triza was not just a hotel receptionist, though I first met her in that role. As I would learn, she was also a primary school teacher of Amharic language, and a student attending a distance learning program at Addis Ababa University. Her […]

By Dave Silvestri [A continuation from Solomon’s story (Part 1); Names changed to conceal identity.] FEBRUARY – ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA – When Solomon’s mother finally left home for the last time to return to her after-hours vocation at Gondar’s bars in Northwestern Ethiopia, she left her son to the care of her step-mother—the boy’s step-grandmother, his grandfather’s […]

By Dave Silvestri [Names changed to conceal identity] FEBRUARY – ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA: As night falls in Addis Ababa, they take their places in the shadows at the sidewalk’s edge. Not dozens—hundreds. Most in their teens or early twenties. Like statues, they wait. Hands buried in their pockets, hooded sweatshirts and jackets hinting at the […]

By Dave Silvestri JANUARY 24, 2012 – ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA: My research was nearing completion at Addis Ababa University Faculty of Medicine, and having just spent nearly three weeks planning, administering, and collecting questionnaires in the classrooms and administrative offices of the school’s affiliated Black Lion Hospital (the largest public hospital and major referral center […]