When Pat Bradley, President of International Crisis Aid, asked Juliann Troi to write an article about their humanitarian work in Ethiopia, she knew it would be a tough assignment - one that couldn’t be effectively accomplished from the safety and comfort of her office. What she didn’t know, however, was that what started as a simple research trip would become so much more.
Where There Is No Comfort is the compelling first hand account of a fateful odyssey and an extraordinary people that would forever changed her life and how she saw the world.
Excerpt
HOME?
I rise slowly to wakefulness, sensing darkness, feeling confused. The bed beneath me feels different, fuller, and more luxuriant. My mind tells me I should be comfortable but I’m not. The downy thickness of the comforter that covers me can’t completely ward off a chill. Why is it so cold? Ethiopia is not so cold. Yet I am no longer in Ethiopia. Am I?
I strain my ears, listening for the hyenas yipping bark but hear only a cold March rain against the skylight in the bathroom. I think of the rain, of how the rains have not come this year as they were supposed to. No rain promises drought, and with drought comes famine—certain death for millions in a country in which the livelihood of 90 percent of the population is subsistence farming.
Still fresh is the memory of how, on the last day of the clinic, we ran dangerously low on bottled water, and I knew the creeping prickle of the fear the Ethiopian people constantly live with. Without clean water we would perish quickly, the vast extent of our American wealth and privilege of no use to us. Never will it be “just water” to me again.
I lie perfectly still struggling to make sense of things. Am I not in my narrow bed at the Heme, Hossana’s idea of a five-star stay, the crowning achievement of an ambitious family that, here in the States, wouldn’t likely pass code or a health department inspection?
Any minute now, bright light from the hall will come flooding through the pane of glass above the door as Maki, the hotel’s very able manager, turns on the hall light. Soon the now-familiar Islamic morning chants will be cast over Hossana by loud speaker from the town's mosque.
I wait in eager anticipation for what has become a daily routine to begin. I feel a trill of excitement as I contemplate the coming day. My excitement evaporates. For me, it is back to being wife and mother in my comfortable suburban home but for them . . .
For them the day holds hard work with little return save subsistence, a life of toil for life's sake.
I have come to appreciate as never before what a precious gift is life. Yet life, the continuance of it, is so tenuous and fragile in much of Ethiopia. Today is more than enough to bear, tomorrow a burden too heavy to shoulder. Yet every night they are relieved of the load of yesterday and weighed down afresh as tomorrow becomes today, over and over until all their todays are used up. Amazingly, the Ethiopian people seem satisfied with the exchange.
And for me? What is there now for me? For me there is only the darkness and the rain.
Professional Reviews
Kate the Book Buff
I was a little nervous to read this book because I thought that if I didn't like it it, it would be difficult to write anything negative about a book that chronicles a relief worker's trip to Ethiopia, it would be cruel! Thankfully, I didn't have to deal with that problem. The book was engaging, interesting and haunting. The reader is easily transported into the author's shoes, feeling the same feelings of nervousness and compassion. The book has several pages of pictures, which were absolutely heart rending. I wanted to jump right on a plane, get over there and give each of the people featured in the book a big hug and a full meal! This is the sort of book that really makes you appreciate what you have, because even the poorest people in America live better than most of the people the author encountered. The journey the author went on is well chronicled in the book, and you truly feel for the people she went to Ethiopia to help. I really think this book can inspire people to get out and help others, and I personally was very inspired by this book. Now, my financial situation would not allow me to do something drastic, such as fly across the world, but I have been more inclined to help people on a daily basis. Where There is No Comfort is a very important book, and if it looks like something you may be interested in, I recommend 1, Pay Full
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