Saving a child’s heart– and hearing

When Lori and Doron Bacher went in search of a young Ethiopian woman they hosted 15 years ago while she was undergoing life-saving treatment, they found they were able to help her with further surgery...

By BARBARA BAMBERGER
Daniel Afoaha and Lori Bacher (photo credit: Doron Bacher)
Daniel Afoaha and Lori Bacher
(photo credit: Doron Bacher)
Back in 1997, Ra’anana residents Lori and Doron Bacher were asked to open their home to children brought to Israel to undergo heart surgery.
With four young children of their own, the Bachers already had their hands full and might easily have refused – but that isn’t their style. “If we can help improve someone else’s life, then why not?” is something the two are fond of saying, and they are willing to put that saying into practice.
Through an organization called Save a Child’s Heart, which provides life-saving cardiac care to children from countries where adequate treatment is unavailable, the Bachers took in six children altogether. Recently, they reconnected with one of those children and found they were able to help her yet again.
Save a Child’s Heart was established in 1995 at Wolfson Medical Center in Holon by the late Dr. Amram (Ami) Cohen. According to the organization’s website, SACH has treated approximately 3,000 children from 44 countries.
Today, children waiting for or recovering from surgery, along with their parents or chaperones, are housed in the Children’s House, located near the hospital, but in the early days of the program, area residents willingly provided a home-away-from-home for these children.
“They were pretty quiet,” says Doron Bacher, 58, of the children his family hosted. He now works as director of volunteer activities for the city of Ra’anana, but for many years he was a photographer for Beit Hatfutsot – The Museum of the Jewish People. One of his projects was to document Ethiopian immigration to Israel, and he traveled to Ethiopia in 1984 and 1991.
“Those kids are different than Israeli kids – tougher. They don’t really complain.
Maybe it’s because of the environment they grow up in. After surgery they were pretty weak. We were given a phone number to call if something was wrong, but they didn’t really require much except to rest and to eat.”
Originally from Michigan, Lori Bacher, 57, now runs a busy afterschool English enrichment program.
She remembers that one of the children they took in was from Jordan, but all of the others, including Erkibe Daniel, were from Ethiopia. Erkibe, who arrived unaccompanied for open heart surgery to fix a hole in her heart, was just seven years old. She stayed with the Bachers for a few days before her operation and for about one week after. The fact that there was no real way to communicate with her didn’t seem to bother the Bachers’ then 10-year-old daughter.
“Stav kind of took Erkibe on as a project.
She talked to her and played games with her,” Lori says. “Doron and I really didn’t have to do much for her.”
Out of the children they took in, Erkibe is the most memorable for a simple reason: Her family stayed in touch. Every year, the Bachers received a Christmas card from her grateful father, Daniel Afoaha. (As is common in Ethiopia, Erkibe’s last name is her father’s first name.) Once, he included a photo of little Erkibe, posing for the camera in a white shirt, blue shorts and red knee socks. At some point, however, they stopped corresponding.
FLASH forward 15 years to the summer of 2012, when Lori and Doron decided to visit Uganda and Ethiopia for a vacation. It occurred to them they could try to find Erkibe. Lori found the photo and the cards she had saved. She wrote a letter to Daniel, telling him of their impending visit, and mailed it to the return address he’d written on the envelopes, a post office box in a town called Hosaena. They never received a response, but that didn’t deter the Bachers.
After their first few days in Ethiopia, spent sightseeing in Addis Ababa and the surrounding area, the Bachers decided to take a day trip to Hosaena. Early one morning they boarded a public bus. “The bus ride was an experience – just like you see in the movies. It was crowded and there were chickens,” Lori says, smiling.
Because of the poor road conditions, the three-hour journey south took about five.
Hosaena has a population of approximately 90,000. “The town is a bit chaotic; a few houses, a lot of tin shacks. There are people walking everywhere,” Doron says. “The roads aren’t paved; they’re just packed dirt.”
“We saw very few cars,” Lori agrees.
“People get around on tuk-tuks and bicycles, but mostly they just walk. The buildings are one or two stories and some of them are painted with big advertisements. They’re colorful.”
Their first stop in Hosaena was the hospital, where the Bachers hoped they might find someone who had been involved in the effort to send Erkibe to Israel. One Dr. Assay, a GP, was very helpful. He asked around the hospital, but none of his colleagues remembered the event. The Bachers’ next option was to try at the post office.
Hosaena’s post office is housed in a small wooden building. “I saw Box 205 in the cubbies behind the counter. The postal workers were busy so I went around, looked in and found the letter we’d mailed over a month earlier,” says Lori. “I guess the Daniels don’t get much mail, because they obviously hadn’t been to the post office recently.
When we asked for help, the assistant said she might know Erkibe’s sister. She told us to wait while she went to find out.”
About two hours had passed between the time they got off the bus in Hosaena until the Bachers saw Erkibe’s father hurrying toward them, anxious to see the two white people who were for looking for him. Lori remembers that he looked worried. She showed Daniel the photograph, but before she could finish explaining who she was he began to cry and gave her a big hug. Lori cried too.
Doron, positioned behind his camera, captured the meeting on film.
Daniel took the Bachers to see Erkibe, now 22 years old. She lives with her older sister in a small house that lacks running water and electricity. “Erkibe doesn’t speak English,” Lori explains, “and Daniel speaks very little, but we understood each other.” The Bachers learned that she was studying to be a hairdresser. They also learned that her heart surgery had been a success, but Erkibe now suffered from a severe hearing impairment. They saw that her hearing aid was antiquated – and they understood that her deafness, which had interrupted her formal schooling, would also interfere with her prospects of finding employment. Still, it was a happy reunion.
As news of their arrival spread, the house filled with relatives and neighbors who wanted to see the visitors. It got too late to head back to Addis Ababa so the Bachers stayed overnight in Hosaena, in a rented room. That night they decided they would find a way to help Erkibe.
EVEN THOUGH many homes in Hosaena don’t have electricity, most businesses do. Back in Ra’anana, the Bachers bought an electric blow-dryer, combs, brushes and other beauty supplies, and sent them to Erkibe via a friend who was traveling to Ethiopia.
They also began the search for donated hearing aids.
When they were told that in order to make progress they would need to supply a current medical evaluation, they contacted Daniel, who took Erkibe to be checked by a doctor and then faxed the report to Israel. After reviewing the evaluation, one charity organization told the Bachers it appeared that Erkibe’s problem might be solved with minor surgery. The Bachers were very excited at the news.
Lori thought that maybe Dr. Assay at the hospital could help. She got in touch with Daniel to give him Assay’s phone number and then tried to reach the doctor herself. When she managed to talk to Assay a few days later, he told Lori that he had already been in touch with Daniel, and that he had already performed the surgery.
“Dr. Assay told me that Erkibe’s hearing problem was caused by scar tissue from untreated ear infections. He wasn’t able to completely clean out both ears, but there’s a huge improvement,” Lori says, smiling. “She now has 50 percent hearing in one ear and 100% in the other! It’s not perfect, but it’s a good result. It means she can function.”
Lori placed a call to Ethiopia recently, to catch up on news about Erkibe.
“Daniel told me Erkibe has finished the beauty course and, just the day before, she’d traveled to Addis Ababa to take an exam to qualify for her license.
Erkibe doesn’t have the results yet, but she is already working at a salon in Hosaena, using the supplies we sent.
He also told me she doesn’t use a hearing aid anymore!” The Bachers are now working on their next project: While in Ethiopia, they met a teenage boy who desperately needs both knee and hip replacements.
They would like to bring him to Israel for surgery. While they figure out how to accomplish this, they are already planning for his recovery. They are hoping to make their home in Ra’anana his home-away-from-home.


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