First Gazette Article: Children on the Streets of Hawassa
Marty Nathan: Interviews reveal struggles of destitute in growing Ethiopian city By MARTY NATHAN MARTY NATHAN A child in a beggars’ village area in Hawassa, Ethiopia. This is the first of a two-part series on street people in Hawassa, Ethiopia. The second article examines the plight of street women and explores local efforts to help the town confront the needs of beggars and homeless people. Early one morning I was riding my bike to work at the Referral Hospital in Hawassa, Ethiopia. My husband, Elliot Fratkin, and I had lived in the city for six months, sent on federal Fulbright grants to teach students at the University of Hawassa. He taught undergraduates at the main campus and I lectured and oversaw medical students and interns in the internal medicine department at the hospital. As I pedaled down a broad boulevard in this, the fastest-growing city in Ethiopia and a tourist center due to its location on a beautiful Rift Valley lake, I noticed two gaunt 6- o