Robin Keenan

Robin Keenan from Australia is the only other volunteer
here and she's been here since April 1. We ran into
Magadee from Mercy Ministries on our way to town.

“Helllllllllo??!!” I heard a woman’s shrill voice call from the hallway outside my bedroom on my first morning in Ethiopia. I detected an Australian accent.

            “Come in!” I responded eagerly. I knew that another volunteer, Robin Keenan, had been at the Mercy Ministry Happy Children Home since April 1; Global Volunteer Network had put us in touch but I had only heard from her a couple times during the month of April, the first time almost a week into her stint: “I can't wait to have some company,” she wrote. I didn’t know the woman but I sensed a bit of desperation. “I have been in the house on my own each night, with power failures 5 out of 7 nights. I am staying in a hotel in Addis for the weekend. It has free Internet, running water, hot showers, and toilet.”

            Ummm … gulp.

            Robin and I met at my bedroom door and I gave her a hug. She seemed as happy to have a stranger in the house as I was to meet a stranger at the end of my journey.

            “Just a minute,” I said, shooting one finger in the air; I ran back into my room, jostled around inside my suitcase, and retrieved a giant Hershey bar. I could feel through the foil wrapper that it was broken to pieces from the trip but handed it to her with a sympathetic grin: “Here you go. Sounded like you could use this.”

            Robin’s 54 years old, tireless, industrious, motherly in just the right amount. She laughs easily at herself and most any situation. Her personal life situations have somehow culminated to her providing the same answer as I to friends who ask: “So … why do you want to go to Ethiopia?”

 “I don’t know, exactly,” is her response, same as mine.

And here we are, the both of us.

Robin arrived at Mercy Ministry Happy Children’s Home after a 2-week tour on her own in Egypt. After Ethiopia, she’s scheduled to “holiday” for another 16 days in Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda.

Clearly she’s nuts.

Perfect.