Zoe Dmitrovsky '09, along with friend Ben Beisswenger '09, received Tucker funding to spend this summer in Ethiopia volunteering at the Selamta Children's Home. A Middle Eastern studies major and education minor, Dmitrovsky's summer consisted of working with orphans, learning Amharic, and eating her fair share of mystery meat.
So, what did you guys do in Ethiopia?
We worked at an orphanage called Selamta Children's Home, which is in Betel, a small suburb near Addis, the capital of Ethiopia. We did administrative work in the office, taught at a local school during the day and just hung out with the kids all day.
How did you decide to go to Ethiopia?
Ben and I both grew up in Hanover, and the orphanage is sponsored by the Human Capital Foundation based in White River Junction.
Tell me more about the Children's Home.
With Selamta, kids are not adopted, but it's a sustainable system in which they foster an environment where they can be successful in Ethiopia. A lot of the children used to live in the streets, or their parents died of HIV or tuberculosis. They have an adjustment period at a separate compound, and after that, they are put in satellite homes run by mothers who are also homeless.
Each home has one mother and six to eight kids, and they are basically cultivating a new family. The children call the mother, "mother." These kids were robbed of their family, and this is a second chance. It seems unnatural, but it happens, and it really is beautiful to see a family grow. The children really think of each other as brothers and sisters, and they'll get into trouble at school because the teachers don't believe them when they say they have 30 brothers and 40 sisters.
I'd imagine there were some language barriers.
We taught English in the school, but the kids speak very little English, so we ended up learning a lot of Amharic. That's what I'm most proud of from my stay there; I've traveled a lot but never picked up this much of the local language.
Were there a lot of other foreigners?
Not in our neighborhood. We were the only two white people in our part of the city, and people did like to point at us.
Did you guys go out? What did you do in your downtime?
We had a caf in our neighborhood called The Lovely Internet Soccer Caf. It actually didn't have Internet, or soccer, but we drank macchiato. We watched the Olympics there, too.
So speaking of Ethiopian coffee, what is the real thing like?
It's delicious! Ethiopians have coffee ceremonies and we'd participate once or twice a day. They grind up coffee beans in a water vessel and roast beans over coal hot rocks. Every mother in Ethiopia has coffee-making materials, and if you visit somebody's house, they always offer coffee. Sometimes, we would end up drinking nine cups of coffee a day.
Wow, how did you even go to sleep?
We got used to it. The Ethiopians actually drink it right before bed, too.
And the food?
So good. Basically they have this huge, spongy, sourdough bread called injara, and they pour different wots over it -- a saucy stew kind of thing. You never really know what's in the wot, though. A lot of chickpeas, beans and rice, but also random animal parts. I'm vegetarian, and I had to make some compromises while I was there! I think I ate goat a few times.
Do you miss Ethiopia?
Yeah, I miss the kids. It is amazing how strong they are. You read their portfolios and they've gone through unimaginable hardships, but they're still so happy. The Ethiopian people we worked with were generally very warm and welcoming and never made me feel out of place. They were beyond generous.
Any thoughts on being a senior?
It's definitely a bittersweet feeling. I'm just trying to do things at Dartmouth that I haven't done yet.
What are your plans after graduation? Now I'm just passing on my own insecurities.
Oh god, I'm still working on that.
