Sabbath Dinner at Dr. Rick's

On the plane from Amsterdam, we ran into Dr. Rick Hodes, a Jewish internist from Johns Hopkins who has lived for the past 20 years in Addis, treating children, principally children with severe medical conditions. A few days after we arrived, he called and asked me to see a consult at the Mother Teresa Mission, which is a compound where many severely handicapped and disfigured live, as they could not live or be accepted in the outside world because of their functional limitations or appearance. I saw the child, who had severe fibrous dysplasia of the hip. Many other of his patients have unimaginable deformities.
     Rick invited us to his house for dinner Friday night, the Sabbath was a time of fellowship. He said others would be there.
     Mulagetta II came to pick us up and off we went. His Lata runs with a wind-up rubber band and is held together with baling wire. The inside door handles have long since fallen off, so he has to jump out and run around the vehicle to let you out. The headlights emitted light equivalent to a votive candle, and of course, we had to go to two filling stations before he could purchase petrol. There are no street names in Addis and numerical identifications are superfluous. I had previously recorded the directions from Rick: “Go down Pele road towards the city center, make a left on the street that goes away from Desalegan Hotel (sometimes called the Atlas Hotel) and at the Jupiter Bar make a left and it’s the third house on the left with the green awnings.” Mulagetta’s English vocabulary is the same as my Amharic: zero! We did make it after a lot of sign language and a telephone call to Rick.
     We entered a room filled with some 20 to 30 people lounging on furniture that had seen these occasions many times. They all greeted us, and then Rick gathered us in a circle after all the men had their heads covered in Jewish tradition and sang, read and prayed. He led in the singing of “I’ve Got a Hammer,” and then he went around and broke off pieces of bread and tossed it to each person there, first to his adopted children with a touch of the head. A cup of chowder was offered, followed by an Ethiopian buffet.
     There were patients of various ages and deformities, from dwarfs to amputees (chondrosarcoma), severe scoliosis, and other Ethiopian folks, some of whom share his home.
     There were Jewish volunteer students from the states and Christian US and South African students passing through: Charlie, an American professor at the University of Addis, teacher of demography for 20 years, had to leave early for Morocco for an international demographers convention; Jessa, from New Orleans (originally from Oregon), wandering through Africa by herself, an attractive young lady trying to find a meaningful job; Paul, a South African smiley young man living in London, doing volunteer work; Roger, a Mother Teresa Mission volunteer from Massachusetts, gregarious, enthusiastic, recent college graduate preparing to apply to medical school; Andrew, a recent graduate of U. of California, Berkley doing volunteer work for a Jewish benevolent organization in Uganda; and another young woman from Washington D.C., visiting relatives in Addis.
     There was no lack of conversation. Each person’s story was interesting and their experiences fascinating! Rick captured the attention of everyone with his computer full of patients and their stories. It was remarkable to see the before and after documentations of their journeys with severe disabilities.
     It was also easy to detect in this filled room the love for this man and his commitment to the less fortunate in Ethiopia. He is a quintessential “giver.” (See the Links section in the sidebar.)
     At the end of the evening, an entourage of colorful figures, some still wearing the “menorah-shaped” hats, walked us to the end of the block (the landmark Jupiter Bar corner) to get a Blue Donkey (taxi) home.
     We will fondly remember this unique Friday night Sabbath experience. (See slideshow in sidebar.)
-- Don