Next Generation of Babies Start at Abugida

Last week the forty-two new babies (‘bombones’) started and thirty older babies graduated to infants (‘melones’).  The crying and the shouting returned to Abugida.  It’s the first time that these babies have been separated from their mothers so it’s natural that everything is strange to them and that forty-two pairs of lungs should be exercised. 

This meant some intense work for all, the carers and our volunteers Ale and Carolina who have been going to bed exhausted.  Everyone takes great care to give a warm welcome and lots of affection to all these Abugida new entrants, in this way, as time passes a calm is settling on the kindergarten and our new babies are able to enjoy some siestas and this allows our volunteers to take some photos.

Also the babies had, what in many cases, was the first bath of their lives and now they all look very clean and beautiful. The twenty children that had been receiving food since April are eating much better than the others. This lack of food means that some of the others are anorexic but very quickly they will recover and will be eating like lions.

PS The date setting on the camera continues to be wrong.

Stories of Addis: The Mother of 'B'

We met the mother of B about two years ago. We went to visit her in her shack, a room built out of waste on the piece of land belonging to her family.

B’s mother had been raped by a man when she was living at home with her family. He left her pregnant and infected her with HIV. Her family threw her out of the house and one day she was hit by a car and one of her legs was damaged.  By way of compensation this man built her the shack she lives in.

When we met her, B’s mother made a big impact on us. She was so thin, so unhappy and desperate. Her family would pass by the door and look at her in disgust without speaking to her, something which hurt her profoundly. The mother of B wanted to give up her son for adoption and go away to die in a monastery.  She had no more strength to carry on fighting.

B was entered in the sponsorship programme and we provided B’s mother with a lady to help her with household duties and take B to school.  B’s mother started to have hope. There was an improvement in her health and state of mind and she became stronger in all respects because prior to the sponsorship she deprived herself of food so that her son could eat and she was stuck in a deep depression. Her leg even improved.

At a school meeting for the parents, B’s mother was seated in the front row. She was wearing nice clothes that had been sent to her by her son’s sponsors and some lovely shoes that they had also sent her which helped with her leg problem. She had had braids put in her hair and looked really pretty. My colleague – who knew nothing about her or her past – asked me "Who is that posh looking mother?"

From time to time B’s mother would show me her shoes from underneath her skirt which amused me very much.  When the meeting finished she came over to greet me. She is always very affectionate with me, as I am with her and she is one of those Abugida mothers that I find irresistible.  I asked her how she was and she told me she was very well. She also said that her family was still not speaking to her but that it didn’t bother her anymore as she was happy with her son and didn’t take any notice of them.  B’s mother was recently chosen as the best mother at the school by joint vote of the teachers.

Just think that this is the same woman who wanted to die two years ago.

The Stumbling Poor Need Our Old Glasses

Hello Followers of Med


Our steady flow of used glasses has become a trickle.  If you, your family or friends have any prescription or sun glasses that are no longer used please remember that there's a big demand out there amongst 'the stumbling poor' of our world.


Since Christmas supporters of Mediterranea have delivered glasses to:  Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, India, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Guinea and Bukina Faso.  We have many other areas and people that we can help but our stock is now very low.


Perhaps you could even speak to your local optician...they may be happy to support us by donating old or returned glasses.  They would of course receive our warm thanks and be recognised as Mediterranea collaborators on our webpages.

Please help us to transform the lives of those less fortunate than us.  Glasses can be dropped off at the surgery in Portals Nous or at our storage areas in Santa Ponsa and Palma.  Please write mediterranea.ong @ gmail.com if you need more details.

Thank you

The Door to Happiness: The Messi Room

This is the name they have given to the room where Virginia and Debora have started the games workshop at Sebeta, the school for the blind where there are blind children, children with very poor eyesight and children that see perfectly and don’t know why they are there.

This room is now looking quite small with all the toys that have been brought over.  It contrasts enormously with the conditions in which these boys and girls have to live.  This is the only space in the school where they can be children and where they can be happy.

We have contracted two monitors – the present music teacher and a recently graduated teacher specializing in the teaching of the blind.

A new director of the school will start in September and we hope that she will be different to the present director who cares little for the children and with whom it is not possible to make agreements.

Despite this we are trying to address things we have seen in the small houses where the children live

Chaveli and Conchy who are Med volunteers and special needs teachers arrived at Sebeta on Monday and will continue the work of Virginia and Debora, bringing happiness and stimulation to these children who need it so badly.

Images of Abugida

Hello Followers of Med

Recently returned from Ethiopia and still very emotional we share with you here a selection of images that cover various aspects of life at Abugida.

Images of happiness, of mischievousness, of the dreams of the youngest in the kindergarten.

Images of trust and affection of Bethlehem, the daughter of Birtukan who has experienced so many bad things in her short life, the newest student at Abugida who has arrived from outside the area and already feels at home.

While we continue to achieve these images and such special smiles, not only from the children but also from their parents, no obstacle that we find in our way will turn us back.

Hopefully we’ll be able to achieve such images and smiles in many other places.

Stories of Addis: Birtukan, Farenji or Ethiopian?

Today a mother appeared at Abugida with her 5-year-old daughter.  The woman, according to some is an albino and according to others is ‘farenji’ a white foreigner who was stolen from her parents when they were on holiday in Fiche a town some 110km from Addis Ababa.  This woman, who is called Birtukan, has two albino brothers like her.  Her grandparents brought her up in Fiche because her parents didn’t want these albinos living with them.  The two brothers are Sintayeu who is 13 and works as a servant in a house in Sebeta and Fikadu who lives with his grandparents in Fiche and works looking after animals.  Birtukan has 3 other brothers who are not albino and have the normal Ethiopia colour and live with their mother.

Birtukan’s grandparents treated her badly, regularly beating her.  Finally, when she was 13 years old she ran away to Akaki to her uncle’s home.  Her uncle was unable to support her so she started to work in construction.  While working there she met, feel in love with and married her husband.  She became pregnant and gave birth to her daughter, Bethlehem.  After the birth her relationship with her husband deteriorated and he started beating her, then more and more.  So as not to break up the marriage she put up with the indescribable.  However, after many months of abuse she couldn’t bear it any longer and fled back to the house of her grandparents in Fiche.  When she arrived with her daughter in her arms they wouldn’t let her enter the house.  She went to the house of her parents and they also wouldn’t let her in.  Birtukan returned to Akaki and asked the forgiveness of her husband.  Her husband accepted her back and they started to live together again. 

After some time the beatings started again, this time because of her ‘condition’ as a farenji.  Her husband asked her why she had hidden her story from him for such a long time and why she had pretended to be an Ethiopian.  She replied that all she knew was that she was Ethiopian and that she had three Ethiopian brothers.  She asked why he had decided to bring this up after all this time.  He said that while at church he had overheard people saying that he was the husband of the farenji.  Birtukan replied to her husband that she knew nothing of this story and had only once heard something mentioned at her school. She had asked her mother about the story and had been told never to speak of or ask about this again, so she never did.

Her husband eventually threw Birtukan out of the home.  She then tried to work in a home in Akaki as a servant but they didn’t want her together with her child.  She only found one house where she could work but after a while they too threw her out.

So without anywhere to go she appeared at Abugida, crying and with her daughter in her arms.  The director of the school brought her to our representative and Birtukan told him her story.

Birtukan and her daughter have been welcomed to Abugida and to our dormitory of refuge that we want to establish for abused women.  They arrived with absolutely nothing but the clothes on their backs.  Birtukan will take the available position of cleaner at Abugida (the previous cleaner had to stop work for health reasons and has become a surrogate mother in our child sponsorship programme) and Bethlehem will go to school at Abugida and starts today.  We lent Birtukan some money so that she can rent or buy some essentials, she will pay back the money in small amounts every month when she starts her job.

We welcome the two newcomers to the independent republic of Abugida.