Allen turned out to be a bit of a surprise. When I met him he was unshaven and wore a pair of jeans and a dirty t-shirt. From that (despite the lack of the signature knapsack over the shoulder) I assumed he was a backpacker. But he was coming from the direction of the Sheraton, which made me suspect he was a well-heeled tourist, a tourist slumming it for a day. But when I visited him at his home the next day I learned that he was neither of these. He was the founder and sole employee of a private shelter for street children in Addis. And he was completely delusional.

Allen suffered from schizophrenia and had been in and out of mental institutions his whole life. He spoke of angels, aliens, sorcerers, magic, the devil, raising himself from the dead and all of this in connection with the Biblical book of Revelations and the Koran. He believed himself to be the most powerful of 40 men placed on this earth to fight evil and kill demons. All of this was told to me in a straightforward and factual manner (even when he described his battles in Egypt with the devil himself and his demons disguised as Muslim fundamentalists). The only times he got agitated were when he demonstrated how he summoned his tiger spirit and magical powers. Then he leapt to his feet with fists clenched and eyes blazing. At those times I remembered his claim to several martial arts belts and wondered if it wouldn’t be wiser to pack up and go. But he also had what appeared to be a totally grounded side and was fully in control. He often smiled and said, “I don’t really expect you to believe this story.”

And he really did have an apartment filled with 6 street kids who he was feeding and sending to school. He gathered up these kids in the way you might expect – he just got them from the street. Any ferenji playing pied piper could gather them by the hundreds and take them home. On the one hand it seemed completely crazy for a schizophrenic man with a tendency to violence, depression and suicide attempts to be caring for 6 young children (including girls) with no controls, supervision or structure of any kind. But on the other hand his humanitarian impulses were very deep and strong. Perhaps it takes someone a bit crazy to do something like this. He had no definite plans for the future besides a hope that some rich Egyptians would donate enough money for him to construct a large and functioning shelter. He had little patience for the UN, Red Cross and other big NGO’s who, in his opinion, spent all their money on shiny new trucks, houses and salaries for themselves while spending all their time at conferences and meetings. Here was a man with practically no fear who didn’t get sidetracked by the niceties of a situation.

Walking down the street to his house we were approached by a large group of beggars. He refused to give them money and they told him about a nearby place where he could purchase meal coupons for them. Barely breaking his meteoric stride he plunged across the street and went into the place the children pointed out. Moments later he emerged with a handful of coupon booklets, passed them out and marched on.

For my part I’m a lot more cynical and my cynicism increased when by some miracle later in the day I encountered one of these same kids clear across town in front of my hotel where he first asked where my bicycle was (an object of much admiration and envy) and then offered to get me marijuana at a good price.

Still, you had to admire the purity of Allen’s gesture. How many ‘sane’ people do I know who have flown to Africa totally on their own to care for street children? He believed that the Egyptian head of Goldstar was going to give him a personal introduction to Almoudin, the richest and most powerful man in Ethiopia and then his shelter would be all set. Crazy? Who can say? Allen would argue that paying a foreign food monitor $4,000 US a month to distribute food aid is crazy. “Why not pay him $500 a month and use the $3,500 to buy more food?”

I really did have to hand it to Allen. He told how once during the fighting in Rwanda in 1994 between the Hutus and the Tutsis he marched right up to a big UNHCR conference. Outside was a parking lot of brand new four wheel drive vehicles being washed and polished by their drivers. Inside they were having dinner and Allen marched right in and asked how he could help. They sent him packing as did the Red Cross. Disgusted, he distributed a hundred dollars worth of supplies on his own and disappeared into the jungle to live with the pygmies. That was Allen all over.

Tags: Egypt, Ethiopia Bike Trip, Red Cross, Rwanda, UNHCR