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I was caught off guard by the stillness and quiet when
I walked into this day centre for old people in Addis Ababa.
In near silence, a dozen women moved around a table, filling
hundreds of cups with sweet tea for the old people who sat just
emerging from darkness in the large room behind. They were playing
cards, sifting stones from lentils or waiting for their meal
to be served. There were men wearing the same uniforms they’d
worn decades before, as soldiers under Haile Selassie’s
regime, old priests in their robes, a former tailor in his patched-up
suit. ...One man said to me, 'We're just a collection of old
people gathered together here.' |
