Marilyn Berger - This Is a Soul: The Mission of Rick Hodes

H E WAS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL CHILD I had ever seenand certainly the dirtiest. I came upon him in the middle of a crowded sidewalk, crouched in front of the Florida Pastry, a small bakery on Arat Kilo, one of the main avenues of Addis Ababa. Hundreds of pedestrians, from his vantage point probably a forest of legs and sandaled feet, were gliding by in that distinctive and elegant walk typical of Ethiopians. A row of shoeshine boys waited for customers; a few peddlers hawked toothbrushes and shoes and jeans and shirts.

The small boy looked to me to be about four years old, his tiny right hand cupped skyward to catch the occasional coin that came his way, his eyes staring up at me through impossibly long and dusty eyelashes. His arms were no bigger around than a garden hose, and his filthy green T-shirt outlined a back that was humped out in a perfect pyramid. Id been in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa for just a few days, but I had already learned that this was a sure sign of tuberculosis of the spine.

I happened to be walking on this particular day instead of taking my customary $1.50 taxi ride, enjoying a moment to relax because Id completed all my reporting and was satisfied Id gotten the story I came for. I was returning to my hotel from the clinic where Rick Hodes, an American doctor, treats impoverished children who have any number of diseases, the worst being TB of the spine, scoliosis, heart disease, and cancer. He takes on the most intractable cases, particularly when there is a chance of a cure. I had come here to write about Dr. Hodes, not only because he has devoted his life to ministering to some of the poorest people on the planet, curing what he can, ameliorating what he cannot. That is rare enough for this product of Americas suburbs. What had particularly grasped my imagination was the way he lives in this impoverished country. He has taken some twenty poor and sick children into his own house and officially adopted five of them. He cares for them, feeds them, and sends every one of them to private school.

When I started to reach for some money to put into the outstretched hand of the small boy in the street, I remembered that Id been told its wrong to give money to beggars, that the right thing to do is to support organizations that help them.

There are hundreds, even thousands of children begging in the streets of Addis, or so I thought. I was wrong by a long shot. UNICEF reported in 2007 that there are five million orphans in Ethiopia, one of the largest populations of orphans in the world, and the number has been steadily increasing as more and more children are orphaned by AIDS. With no other means of support, these children end up looking for handouts on the street.

Still, of all the beggars in Addis, I was haunted by the one little fellow with the deformed back. I kept replaying in my mind the way he looked directly at me with his gorgeous pleading eyes, and I couldnt wait to tell Rick about the boy who had the precise disease that he could cure.

An hour later, I was in Ricks clinic, which sits outside the chapel of the Mother Teresa home for the destitute in Addis, where the Missionaries of Charity carry on the work of their renowned founder. The sisters, all identically dressed in their blue-trimmed white linen saris, cheerfully minister to some six hundred sick and dying men, women, and children. They oversee an enclave of neat dormitories nestled behind a blue metal gate guarded by a genial but firm man who has to have the fortitude to turn away even more of the sick and dying. As desperate as the condition of the people inside the gate may be, those clustered outside are the street people with no shelter or care at all.

A neat border garden greets those who make it inside, and off to the left is the chapel and a small room set aside for Ricks clinic, furnished only by a table and a few chairs and totally devoid of any medical equipment. Patients hoping to see him line up outside where they can sit on a low stone wall. Kids from the mission hang around on the days Rick is there, some hoping to be invited out for a glass of juice when he takes a break.

About a dozen years ago, Rick started volunteering at the mission in what he liked to call his free time. But that soon became virtually a full-time job, and now he is supported in his work there by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), which was founded in 1914 as a relief agency to help Jews in trouble all over the world but from its inception rendered help to those in need regardless of religious affiliation.

Rick was still at Mother Teresas when I found him that day, seeing patients and doing his daily walk-through, his way of appearing in each dormitory in case somebody wants to bring a problem to his attention. When I told him about the little boy Id found and described his deformed back, Rick hesitated for no more than a nanosecond before he said, Lets go find himas if he didnt already have enough work to do with the hundreds who wait in line to see him. He takes on new cases with gusto, so much so that even on the odd Sunday when hes out hiking and sees a fellow with a bad back, he actually stops the man and tells him to come to the clinic.

His patientssome are among those living at Mother Teresas; others make their way from the barren countryside or the dusty villages that make up Addis Ababawait and wait for hours on end, without complaint, for a chance to have a consultation with the doctor, which in some cases will save their lives, in others, relieve them from constant pain. Some of the sickest kids who are housed at the mission roll themselves around in wheelchairs, while others stand about hoping for nothing more than a high five from the doctor. One teenager in a wheelchair crochets and sells colorful caps and carries an x-ray that he keeps showing to Rick, hoping for a newand more favorablediagnosis for the ailment that is crippling him.

As soon as Rick finished with his last patient, he and I and Berhanu, Ricks Ethiopian man Friday, who is himself something of a miracle worker, piled into Ricks beat-up Suzuki and drove to the place, in front of Florida Pastry, where I had seen the boy. It was a beautiful day, and the air in the eight-thousand-foot altitude of the city was sparklingly clear. Hundreds of pedestrians were still making their way down the street (the Ethiopians describe this as going by leg), but when we got to Arat Kilo, the boy was gone.

We asked some of the shoeshine boys nearby if they knew where we could find the child. They directed us to his neighborhood around the corner, but there was no sign of him there either. While my heart sank, Berhanu found a young man named Yeshetillawhich means the great protectorwhose brother had been treated by Rick. Berhanu asked him to call if he saw the boy. We didnt have to explain whom we were talking abouteveryone in the neighborhood seemed to know him.

We drove back to the clinic down broad avenues divided by medians full of sturdy weeds and passed flocks of goats being herded to the slaughter and donkeys with their burden of fresh-cut firewood. Addis is a fascinating city, but I was now too edgy to focus on the scenery; I was worried that wed lost my boyfor thats how Id started to think of him. As we were pulling up to the clinic, Berhanus cell phone rang.

Thats him, I said, practically jumping up and down like an excited kid.

As Berhanu listened to the caller, a gentle smile spread across his face.