First Visit to the North Gondar Diocese

Monday was a day of meetings—sounds boring and not so unlike home but, actually, everything was quite interesting.

Nancy and I met with SCOPE’s two current fellows in the morning. Zerai  is an RN who works on the Organ Transplant floor at Swedish and is working for his MPH from University of Washington; he is back in Ethiopia for the first time in six years. Kefyalew is from Gondar and received his MPH from the University of Gondar a year ago. Kefyalew is working on SCOPE’s Priest Training pilot project--a six day education and discussion program for twenty-five selected local priests to be conducted on the North Gondar Diocese compound. Zerai will be working on the first research and feasibility study re: SCOPE’s new Prevention of Maternal to Child Transmission (PMTCT) project.

 After hashing out the details of the budget for the Priest Training, which will begin next Monday, we brainstormed a bit about the PMTCT project and some of the people Zerai will be talking to learn about a local PMTCT project already in operation. Then we headed up into the hills to the headquarters compound of the North Gondar Diocese. We had intended to meet only with Kesis Dawit, the monk who is heading up the Diocese HIV/AIDS involvement. It turned out that Kesis Dawit was in the Archbishop’s home, and so we ended up meeting there with Abune Elsa (the Archbishop himself) as well as with three other priests and the director of the North Gondar Diocese. 

The meeting was very fruitful—we got Abune Elsa (His Grace) to agree to open the Priest Training on Monday by telling of his own experience being tested for HIV (during SCOPE’s Voluntary Counseling and Testing drive 2 years ago) and how important it is that the priests, too, get tested as an example to their parishioners. We ironed out the details for the curriculum and the visit to the VCT clinic at the University of Gondar Hospital. We also had a chance to talk a bit about the SCOPE partnership with the diocese and our commitment to it and to serving God’s people. (We received a lot of blessing bonks on the forehead with His Grace’s wooden cross and by the time all of us finished kissing the cross I felt sure I should have taken a Cipro chaser!)

After, we visited old Abba Mulu in his monk’s quarters. Abba Mulu is the monk who guarded the church treasures (sacred icons and crosses) for more than 60 years by living with them in his quarters. Two years ago, as part of SCOPE’s VCT campaign, SCOPE renovated his bedroom into a full-fledged museum for the treasures and Abba Mulu moved to the room next door. Unfortunately, Abba Mulu broke his hip last year and is now nearly bed-ridden. He was very happy to have visitors.

We had a late lunch back in Gondar and I swear I was served the most humongous piece of njera on the planet . . .