Why

The first time I went to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, I spent some time in the city by myself exploring or traveling to visit new friends.  I always took the informal public transportation- the minibuses-or sometimes the city bus.  The system isn't marked. You're just supposed to know that if you want to end up in one part of town you go to, say, the corner by the old gas station, or a third of the way down the street after the alley near the post office, or whatever, and wait to hear a driver call it out.  Of course I was brand new in town, didn't speak the language, and have a sense of direction so awful it's comical.  So sometimes I got lost.
You might think that being lost and alone in a foreign country where I didn't speak the language, couldn't even recognize the characters of the alphabet, and stuck out like I had a neon sign on my head flashing "FOREIGNER" would be pretty frightening.  Especially when it started getting dark.
But it wasn't.  Now.  I'm not saying there was no danger around, there may have been.  But I never came across it if there was, and I remember being struck by feeling so much safer than I would have felt if I were lost and alone in some parts of my own city back home. 
What happened to me every time in Addis, was that people saw me.  They saw that I looked lost, and they came over to help.  With broken English, with charades-like gestures, with the hailing of a crowd of strangers until someone could borrow a cell phone to call their uncle who knew English, they found a way to learn what I needed.  And then they went out of their way to find me the guy who sells the best mangoes, or the mini-bus to Arat Kilo.  Once a person dropped whatever it was he had been on the way to do, and walked me 9 blocks to the right bus, rode it with me to make sure it ended up in the right place, shook my hand, and rode that bus back.  It took nearly an hour.  Once a woman my mother's age literally took me under her wing, tucking me into her elbow and escorting me to the shop. She paid my fare and haggled with the shop keeper for me, then invited me to a tea the next day.
One time a driver tried to overcharge me.  But when he did the rest of the passengers were actually on their feet scolding and shaming him, and apologizing to me on his behalf.  Lest I think that Ethiopians were 'like that'.  They collectively paid for my trip, to make it up to me. That incident of almost being cheated out of 20 cents was the worst thing an Ethiopian did to me, that trip or ever.  I always ended up where I'd meant to go, and often arrived there having made a new friend or two.
Six months after my second trip to Addis, I was working as a nanny in DC.  It was a Saturday date night for the child's parents, and so I was taking the late metro home.  It was sometime after eleven.  In the station, I saw a man by the exit.  What do you know?  He was Ethiopian.   He must have been very newly in the United States; he spoke almost no English at all.  Like I said, it was very late.  I have no idea how long he had been there.  But he was alone.  And he looked terrified. 
In DC, if your metro card doesn't have enough money on it, the turnstiles won't let you through.  You can't get out of the subway tunnel until you go to the fare machine and add money to your card.  But this man didn't know that.  He didn't know that he had miscalculated the amount of USD needed for his trip, he couldn't communicate with the metro guard, he couldn't read the signs.  He was bewildered, and he was stuck.  He stood near the exit with his metro card in outstretched hands repeating "Please? Please? Please?"  I saw him from a distance; I was coming up the escalator.
Guys.  I tell you.  I watched dozens of people walk right. by. him.  They didn't even look at him.  He looked so horrified; he may have wondered if he'd gone invisible, or mad.  I do believe he thought he might never be able to get out of that tunnel.  "Please? Please?"  People walked within inches of him.  And no one even looked.
I remember watching this and feeling such a deep, splitting shame.  A shame that was bigger than me, big enough for my whole country.  The shame of knowing that when I was in his country, people with far less than these designer-suited commuters had fallen all over themselves to help me, to make me feel comfortable, to tell me "welcome" to their country, to pay my fare.  Yet when he was in my home and needed the same help...no one would even acknowledge that he was there.  What. It would take too much time? They were afraid he'd beg for change they would never have missed? They might get mugged by a skinny frightened man in front of an armed guard?  Please.  America please.
When I walked up to him smiling, he began to actually cry he was so relieved.  Do you know what he needed?  This huge favor he was asking of the strangers who couldn't be put upon?  Fourteen cents.  Fourteen cents for his freedom and to know that he was not in a place where human beings allow each other to beg for help unheard.  In Amharic, that man thanked me a dozen times and blessed me over and over.  He fairly danced out the door, taking the escalator steps two at a time. 
Maybe I was naive. Maybe he could have sucker-punched me and snatched my purse.  Or maybe, he was just a person. Who could use a little help from another person. Maybe I did something risky... or maybe it was just right.  Like all those Ethiopian strangers had done for me, before.
I won't say I'm not worried about the trip I'm about to take.  I know that the social climate in parts of East Africa has changed since I was last there, I know that there are crazy people everywhere, and I know that people there drive like lunatics.  I know that all dangers are infinitely scarier when my children are along.  I know that I will have to be as careful and cautious as I can be, in the case I ever find us in the wrong place at the wrong time.
But I can't forget what my experience has shown me about the relative safety of Addis Ababa streets versus American metro stations.  And even though I may be able to do very very little to help anyone who needs it in Ethiopia, I've heard that there are people who do need help, and I've been given the opportunity to do something.  Even from across an ocean, I can't let myself be a person who hears "please? please?"  and just walks on by.  I can't raise my kids to be that person.
I am nervous and worried. Because I'm a mom and if I could worry the danger out of the world, we would all be holding hands and singing some kumbaya right now.  But I will be careful, and I will hope.  Maybe taking my children and going to Ethiopia is a risk.  But maybe it's right.