As they got closer to Korah, the driver began to get visibly nervous. Allan noticed Henok was sitting fully back in the seat now, mostly looking out the window. He wore a distant expression on his face, as though seeing different things than what everyone else saw.
“Is there another way in?” the driver asked Henok. “I don’t believe the guards will let us in the front gate with these Americans.”
“Yes,” Henok said. “Take a right up here, just past that cluster of bushes. It’s a narrow dirt road.”
“More narrow than this?” the driver asked.
“Yes. And you must drive slow, even slower than we’ve been driving on this road. With the rain we’ve had these past few days, there will be many ruts and mud puddles. Follow the road around the big mountains of garbage you see out the window. It will lead to the back way. We can sneak these men in there, no problem.”
“Why do we have to sneak in?” Ray asked. “All the people we’ve met in Addis Ababa have been very nice to us.”
“This is a place of shame,” the driver said. “The government would not want Americans to see this.”
“But every country has garbage dumps,” Ray said.
“Yes, but not like this,” Henok said. “You have never seen anything like this.”
After the driver made the right-hand turn, they saw many people walking on either side of the road, different ages, all dressed in rags. Many were women and children wearing blank stares; most were barefoot. Some carried dirty white bags and sticks with hooked ends. Allan began to see rows of the most pathetic little shacks as the road widened up ahead. He had seen impoverished areas in Africa before, even in Addis Ababa. Those places were like middle-class subdivisions compared to what he saw now.
The strong odor that had been coming in the windows was now almost unbearable.
“How long have these people been living here?” Ray asked.
“Many years,” Henok said. “Since before I was a child. And before we came, the lepers were here. Long ago, a king banished all the lepers to this place. Mainly to die, away from everyone else. They still come here to die. But then this became the place where all the trash was brought from the city. Trash means food for the hungry. So, the orphans and widows began to come in search of food.”
“This is what they eat every day?” Allan asked.
“It is all they have to eat,” Henok said. “Without it, they would starve. You’ll see as we get closer. The garbage and dump trucks bring the fresh trash, and the people swarm all over it, picking through the piles to find bits of food and little things they could sell in the market. That is why they carry these bags and sticks.” He was pointing to a cluster of young boys walking by. “They will sort through the garbage for hours, putting anything they find in those bags. When they are full, they will carry them back to their homes—these little shacks you see—to feed their families.” Tears filled his eyes. “That was me just a few years ago. I was like that boy there.” He pointed to one young man hurrying to catch up with the rest.
“You were responsible to feed your whole family?” Allan asked.
Henok nodded. “Me and my two brothers. There were seven of us living in one room. It’s not far from here.”
Allan hadn’t seen any strong, older men. “Henok, where are the fathers?”
“There are no fathers,” he said. “That is why the widows and children and the elderly come here. This is their only hope.”
They drove a few moments in silence. Out the side window, Allan saw a little boy maybe six years old sitting against a broken sign. Next to him, a dirty white bag, half full. He pulled something out of it, smiled at the sight, and held it up. It looked like a crunched-up yogurt container. He straightened it and, with his left index finger, began scooping out little bits left inside. His eyes closed as he swallowed the few remaining bites, then he licked his lips. When he opened them, he looked right at Allan and smiled even wider. You’d have thought he’d just eaten a chocolate sundae.
A little farther down, the road narrowed again. They drove past another row of shacks made of mud and sticks with rusty metal corrugated roofs. A woman squatted outside one, arranging bundles of rotten bananas in neat rows. A few still had small sections of yellow, but they were mostly bruised and blackened. Allan couldn’t imagine eating even one.
“Pull over here,” Henok said. “We must walk from this point.”
“I will stay here with the car,” the driver said.
As soon as they left the car, they were surrounded by children. All of them smiling, as if they hadn’t a care in the world.
“You are like celebrities,” Henok said. “They almost never see a white man.”
Instantly, Ray began touching them. Rubbing their heads, patting them on the shoulders. Allan began to do the same, but he didn’t want to. He had secretly hoped they would remain in the car the entire time. He felt a growing revulsion inside and a fear of catching something contagious. Lord, he prayed, help me be more like Ray.
Suddenly, Ray bent down and picked up one of the children, a little boy, and carried him in his arms. “And how are you today, young man?” he asked. The boy giggled and smiled.
Other children began lifting their arms toward Allan, wanting him to do the same. A part of him felt intense compassion for them, but another part raised a red flag. This isn’t safe. You’ll catch some serious disease. You don’t have immunities for this place, or these people. After these thoughts, a wave of nausea hit him. He took a deep breath, but the smell was overwhelming. Allan suppressed all this and picked up a little girl who had been staring at him the entire time. She hadn’t said a word.
She had the biggest, brightest eyes, and she was light as a feather. She couldn’t be more than three or four years old. “You have the prettiest eyes,” Allan said. He pulled three Hershey’s Kisses out of his pocket and showed them to her. She seemed puzzled, so he opened one partway. She smelled it, then opened it the rest of the way and popped it in her mouth.
The look on her face was priceless, and her smile melted his heart.