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October 1, 2015 6
KES BE KES
An EGHI Global Field Scholar reflection
Contributed by Beryl Manning-Geist, Samantha Chao, Amelia Conrad, and Brett Murphy
“On the first day, God made the white
man,” our Ethiopian cab driver proclaimed, a
sparkle already in his eye. “He saw what he had
done and thought ‘this can’t be right.’ So, on the
second day he made Africans,” the driver
continued. “God was happy with his
improvements, but
still, he thought,
something was
missing. Then, on the
third day, he made
Ethiopians. ‘Ah,’ said
God. ‘Perfect.’”
Over our
team’s three months in
the dynamic and
idiosyncratic country
of Ethiopia, we
encountered this
strong and joyful
pride in every
interaction. As a part
of Emory’s Global Health Institute Field
Scholars program, our team of four travelled to
Hawassa and Adama, Ethiopia, to evaluate
specialized sexual assault treatment clinics.
These clinics were characterized by limited
resources, a paucity of providers, and incredible
hardship for patients trying to access services.
Despite these challenges, however, the
commitment displayed by many of our mentors
and colleagues to these patients was unparalleled.
The patients served at these clinics were
primarily young women and girls. A substantial
number of them had been kidnapped and sexually
assaulted, as bride kidnapping remains a not
uncommon practice
in parts of Ethiopia.
The material we
worked with was
heartbreaking.
Ethiopia has
received particular
attention in the
world press
regarding the extent
of violence against
women and girls,
but government
restrictions have
drastically reduced
the presence of
advocacy organizations and limited freedom of
the press. In this environment, working on
innovative solutions to thorny problems like
sexual assault can be particularly difficult.
We would like to say that our first day in
clinic ran smoothly: our endless preparation,
review of the literature, and thorough scientific
methodology carried us seamlessly through this
EMORY ETHIOPIA NETWORK NEWSLETTER FEATURE STORY
OCTOBER 2015
EGHI Multidisciplinary Team Field Scholars Samantha Chao (MPH,
2016), Beryl Manning-Geist (MD, 2016), Brett Murphy (PhD
Candidate, Clinical Psychology), and Amelia Conrad (MDP, 2016) in
Lalibela, Ethiopia

E M O R Y E T H I O P I A N E T W O R K N E W S L E T T E R F E A T U R E S T O R Y
O C T O B E R 2 0 1 5
introduction. “Seamless,” however, was a word
we seldom employed in Ethiopia. Phrases like
“relentless flexibility” more accurately described
our time there. We travelled to Ethiopia to study
follow-up care at clinics implementing a
comprehensive treatment model for survivors of
rape and sexual assault. Originally hoping to
isolate the medical, psychological, and legal
aspects of this treatment model to better analyze
their contribution to patient
outcomes, we quickly
changed our aims when we
encountered a lack of
documented follow-up care
at these centers and a scarcity
of information characterizing
Ethiopian survivors of rape
and sexual assault. In fact, we
discovered that our data set was one of the largest
cohorts of sexual assault survivors in Ethiopia,
sub-Saharan Africa, and even globally. Thus, we
revised our aims to better characterize the
population served, identify determinants of
patient outcomes, and deliver a best practices
evaluation to the Ethiopian Society of
Obstetricians and Gynecologists, a major
stakeholder in these clinics.
At these clinics, and in Ethiopia as a
whole, we grew in unexpected ways.
Idiosyncrasies permeate the country: while in
Addis Ababa, a rogue donkey caused two
Mercedes to crash in front of us, and in Lalibela
during an ancient religious ceremony, we caught
more than one pilgrim taking a selfie. Navigating
the intersection of modernity and history in this
unique culture helped illuminate our priorities,
push our flexibility, and question our
preconceptions. The team’s medical student
reaffirmed her dedication to working with
women and girls who face adversity beyond what
a research project could possibly capture. Next
year, she will enter her obstetrics and gynecology
residency to pursue global women’s health. Our
public health student departed Ethiopia with a
newfound ability to integrate into a foreign
culture, having had her first experience where she
felt like she stood out from the local population.
The masters of development practice student,
who soon embarks on a career working in global
gender-based violence, realized the need for
systematic preventative efforts to complement
treatment models. The clinical psychology
doctoral candidate departed
the country with a strong
understanding that violence
against women and girls is a
global human rights failing
that we are all impelled to
address.
Later in the summer,
we sat around a cooking fire
in the Simien Mountain range with villagers we
had met on our hike. Our fragmented Amharic
provided ample entertainment as we all waited
for the boiled lamb to cook. We spent our time
laughing and learning new phrases, both fun and
heartfelt, through a combination of our meager
Amharic and dismal miming. Our friends that
evening described us with one Ethiopian idiom,
something we all took to heart: “kes be kes
enkulal be'egru yihedal,” which translates
directly
to “little
by little,
the egg
begins
to
walk.”
Little by
little,
we
were being welcomed into the community that
was so precious to our friends, neighbors, and
colleagues. Little by little, we were finding our
purpose in Ethiopia, growing our skills, and
clarifying our priorities.
“Navigating the intersection of
modernity and history in this unique
culture helped illuminate our
priorities, push our flexibility, and
question our preconceptions.”
Team Members Manning-Geist, Conrad,
and Chao in the Simien Mountains

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