Day 4 in Ethiopia

Today was definitely the most eye opening day of the trip. School went well. So well, in fact that I ended up teaching all my second grade students at a fourth grade level, and I gave two of them an essay question on nutrients for the human body, in English. One of them was so excited by the challenge that he kissed me. (Let me restate this: In Ethiopia, you can act very gay, and still be straight). The other one asked "If I do this right? May I get sticker?" I said "I have no stickers, but I will draw you a smiley face." He jumped up and said "YES!" This felt very good, but this wasn't the eye opening part... that is on its way. I left school right after classes. My early departure meant no learning Amharic from Benjamin as we take three hours working on lesson plans that take me five minutes. We took a bus back to Tor Harloche and then walked straight to a hospital.Here is the eye opening part. The hospital was a fistula hospital for pregnant women, which is funded by various charitable donators, including Oprah Winfrey. The women at this hospital, which was very well equipped by Ethiopian standards, all had suffered damage to their vaginas from ignorance to the methods of proper childbirth, female circumcision, or rape. They needed to be stitched together because their reproductive organs were torn, often all the way to the rectum. It was heartwrenching to see the stoic women limping forward in blatant but concealed pain. The younger kids were obviously more traumatized because they seemed to be in a constant daze. The nurses told us that some kids had been raped as young as the age of two. Seeing the five year olds sitting and knitting, nervous and detached, brought about feelings that I have never felt. There just seemed to be a void of meaning in the room that I could only fill with sympathy, which is just such a useless emotion. I really can't explain how I feel about all of this... I just have no idea. I feel like I have misunderstood the entire world for my whole life. I thought I would be going to the hospital to cheer people up and wish them well; however, all I could do was pretend to smile, so that I couldn't cry. I mean, these are people... people who have been treated like slaves and animals, some of whom, after being inpregnated before their first period, have been given no reason to think they are different. My conceptualization of pain has been absolutely outlandish. The pain I had thought I had experienced in my life has actually only been a slight irritation, like an itch on my head compared to being scalped. I can't articulate what I feel from these people, but here is my most sensible attempt. I now have a desire to touch the physical deformities of all the beggars I see. Whether it be feet that are backwards, a burnt off face, or hands that are flat like pancakes, I want to rub my hands and face into them as if they were the most beautiful and wise things in the world because nothing seems more wise or beautiful to me.