Helping where no road leads
Junior Mission Leader Tim H. Takes You Along
Moving, shocking, and distressing experiences await you during his emergency relief mission in Ethiopia...
Departure at Sunrise
Setting off from our accommodation in the largest town for miles around. Even here, I feel isolated and cut off from the world. The accommodation is basic, but there is electricity and running water. Today we are heading out to bring aid to around 1,000 families. These people have fled from conflicts over water and grazing land, as both are becoming increasingly scarce due to droughts. When I step onto the street before sunrise, the convoy of trucks and off-road vehicles is already waiting.
This is not my first mission of this kind, but the first one I am leading myself. I am eager to do something for people who seem to have been abandoned by all fortune. I gladly accept the hardships that await us. They are nothing compared to what the families we are helping endure. But what weighs heavy on my heart: We will see the suffering, hear the cries of the starving, emaciated children, smell the odors of a life in which every available drop of water is needed for drinking...
Into the Hostile Wilderness
I get into an old Land Cruiser with my driver Loah (I have changed his name for his protection). We drive ahead of the actual convoy. This ensures that all routes are passable for the two trucks carrying relief supplies and that there is no danger anywhere. After several hours, the last settlement is behind us. No more huts, no power lines, only dust. The landscape looks absolutely hostile to life. Each time, it is almost unimaginable that refugees are really fighting for survival here.
The temperatures climb dramatically, the cool of the night long forgotten. The vehicle's air conditioning makes the journey only barely tolerable. For hours we see nothing but desolate emptiness to the horizon, occasionally camels or donkeys in the distance.
At some point we turn west into rocky hills. The vehicles struggle through dust and rubble; there has long been no talk of a road. The route winds its way up between the slopes. For 25 kilometers we need a good 2 hours. We are thoroughly shaken. I have doubts about whether the trucks behind us can cope with these conditions. What if their tires are slashed by sharp rocks? Or a vehicle gets stuck in a ditch? In the powdery fine sand here, it could take hours to recover it. And that in merciless temperatures well over 30 degrees.
One last rise, then we see them: In a rocky valley, improvised shelters are scattered along a dried-up riverbed where people are digging for water. Because the huts are mainly made of branches and rubble, many are only visible at second glance, scattered into the hills. We park our off-road vehicles at the edge of the settlement. The trucks are not there yet.
We Arrive – But Where Are the Trucks?
The sun is already setting and my driver Loah sets up a camp bed with mosquito net for me. It is sprayed with an intensely scented spray meant to keep snakes away. In the next few hours it will cool down a bit, but dry heat still prevails. I moisten my face and neck with a cloth – a small relief after the long day on the rubble tracks.
In the absence of a toilet, I decide to have only a piece of naan bread for dinner, which Loah's wife baked for us. Loah has been part of our team for a long time and is proud to work with us for his countrymen. He is an invaluable asset to the team. As is his wife, of course, who does everything to keep us on our feet through all the hardships.
Now I look around for the trucks. Where are they? Then the relief when their headlights appear in the distance. When the trucks arrive, however, it turns out that my concerns were justified: Our team had to use all spare tires after several punctures caused by sharp rocks.
We need daylight to distribute the food relief packages, so I go to bed early, with only the moonless, endless starry sky above me. Tomorrow I will look into the faces of the people who have fled here and are fighting for survival. After they had received our relief supplies, my team and I would be able to leave again. These people cannot return to their homeland; there they would be displaced again – or worse.
Backbreaking Work for Us, But Nothing Compared to What the People Here Have Endured
We use the morning coolness to heave all the relief packages off the trucks and arrange them in long rows on the ground. The rice flour sacks each weigh 25 kilograms – and there are 1,000 of them.
In addition, there is a canister with five liters of cooking oil each. This hard work would be almost impossible in the daytime heat!
While we are still busy with this, people stream together from all sides, some even from outside the valley. Quickly there are more than we could bring relief packages for. The women do their best to cover themselves from the burning sun. Often their clothing is so worn and hangs in tatters that this is difficult. Many carry crying children on their arms. The little ones have often not eaten for a long time – and now this unfamiliar, confusing situation as well. Seeing how these children grow up – if they do – is a stab to the heart.
Until all packages are lined up, we keep the people away from the goods so that no chaos breaks out. Only then do we allocate rice flour sacks to them, on which they sit down. Many show relief when sitting down: Only now do they have their relief package safely. It will feed them for many weeks after they did not know for a long time where their next meal would come from.
Nevertheless, there is no jubilation, hardly a smile behind the cloths pulled over their faces. Some say thank you quietly, many do not even look at us out of shyness. This is understandable, because they have learned that people from outside mean danger – after all, displacement is the reason they ended up here. In addition, they have already endured weeks of struggle for survival – they need all their energy simply to stay alive. We therefore do not take it personally that it is not a particularly warm encounter.
We Drive Back – to Prepare the Next Mission
These people have had traumatic experiences with violence, loss, and deprivation. When they can feed their children again, when they go to sleep without fear of hunger the next day, hope and gratitude will emerge at the latest. The certainty that despite everything they are not abandoned by everyone, that their lives count for something. If you have already donated to Helfende Hände: Thank you! Without people like you, this mission would not have happened!
Many, but not all people received help. As our vehicles struggle out of the valley, we already know: We must come back! And we will – if we collect enough donations to rent trucks again and load them with life-saving relief supplies.
Tim H., Junior Mission Leader