Second article in Gazette: Women on the Streets
By MARTY NATHAN Marta Elamura and her children. • Related story: Marty Nathan: Interviews reveal struggles EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the second of a two-part series on street people in Hawassa, Ethiopia. The first article examined the plight of children. We learned of Qirchu, the Beggars' Village, from a woman I'll call Miriam, whom we met in front of St. Gabriel's Church on the square in downtown Hawassa, Ethiopia. My assistant Dagim and I had begun to interview children and women who begged on the streets of Hawassa, prompted by the stark image of homeless children sleeping in the gutters of the city's broad boulevards. Beggars have traditionally gathered on the premises of Ethiopia's Orthodox churches, where they are given food and clothes, particularly at holiday times, and are able to appeal to the parishioners on their way to services. The church reaches back to the fourth century and has a unique, Ethiopian-centered doctrine and ritual that