In a previous “Un-photographable” post, I wrote about our road trip to Assala, to meet Ben’s family.

This week I am going to write about something that happened once we arrived in Assala.

I wish I had a photograph of the man that gave Ben the crackers.

As we pulled into Assala, we turned onto what must have been the “main road”. It was a dirt road, littered with boulders, rocks and pot holes. Chickens, donkeys, small half-starved horses and people of all ages and sizes walked up and down the middle of the road and covered the sides.

And yet in the middle of the confusion, Ben recognized where we were, and gave excited instructions to the taxi driver as we neared the home in which he had been born and raised until the death of his parents.

When the cab pulled up to the home where several members of Ben’s family still lived, we were swarmed with people. Ben’s grandmother, who had made the trip with us, introduced us to several important family members, but other than that, we were left to make awkward smiles and hello’s to people that could have been relatives, friends, neighbors or curious onlookers.

It was the middle of the day during the week…a time in which a visit to a residential street in the US would be quiet, but there were people everywhere, and as the minutes ticked by, more and more people crowded around the small white taxi and the tiny, mud-walled home.

Ben ran back and forth between us, his grandmother, other relatives and friends. People cried out, “Bekalu!!” and with obvious that they not only remembered him, but that he had been loved and cherished here. We took pictures of the home, the family, the street, even of the only existing photographs of Ben’s first parents…trying to capture as much of it as possible for Ben.

Ben came running back to us with a small package of crackers in his hand. He pointed across the street to a “store”, which was really nothing more than the size and design of a typical horse stall, with a smiling man inside and all sorts of various goods hanging around for sale. An Ethiopian 7-11. Ben told us that the man was his friend and had given him the crackers. I gave a quick smile and wave to the man, but we were being swarmed with people and our time to go was nearing.

After an emotional good-bye, Ben laid in Josh’s arms, crying quietly, clutching his crackers…his last physical possession from his first home. Back at the hotel he dared to open them and ate one, and then split one for me and Josh to share. He kept the rest in his backpack for the rest of our trip, a prized possession.

As we got home, there was so much to do, so much to see, so many new brothers and sisters to play with. A few weeks after being home, I finally got to cleaning out Ben’s backpack from our long trip. Crumpled up in the bottom of the bag, underneath crayons, books, stickers and a pair of socks, I found a pile of crumbs and the wrapper to his precious crackers. I cleaned out the bag, and carefully smoothed out the wrapper, and put it in my memory box, to return to him someday.

Yes, I wish I had a picture of the man that had the small store in Assala, and gave a package of crackers to say goodbye to my son.