"While wearying or even overbearing at times, the seriousness with which Bono regards his responsibilities as a rock star is an important part of why U2 has won such a huge, devoted following. His enthusiasm was perhaps nowhere more evident than in September of 1985, shortly after Live Aid, when he felt he had to follow through on the meaning of that event by visiting Ethiopia for a month with his wife, Alison, to assist in famine-relief efforts.
The couple was determined not to let the trip turn into just another superstar's philanthropic junket. It was undertaken with no publicity -- though their presence in the country was eventually discovered -- and to this day Bono refuses to say much about it for fear of offending the less celebrated people who perform such work every day outside the congratulatory shine of the media's spotlight. "I don't deserve any prizes, because I could afford to go," Bono says bluntly one afternoon in a Dublin restaurant. "A lot of people would give their right arms to go to Ethiopia and help out. I could afford to."
Initially during their stay in Ethiopia, Bono and Ali helped with the hands-on physical labor and basic health care of a refugee camp. It soon became apparent, however, that communicating information about nutrition and hygiene was a crucial problem in the relief effort. Determined to assist in the best way they could, the couple came up with a month-long program that addressed one key health topic (for example, safe methods of childbearing) per week. Working at an orphanage of 300 children in the mountains of northern Ethiopia, Bono and Ali composed four songs and four playlets to familiarize the children with the European fruits and vegetables that were becoming available to them, as well as healthy first-aid techniques and proper methods of planting and reaping. The sing-along songs and plays -- written with the help of African relief workers in the people's native language -- were meant to encourage the children to retain their messages and pass them along.
His time in Africa with Ali left Bono flying. "I got more than I gave to Ethiopia," he says. "My head was in the clouds, and my feet were not on the ground." But Bono hit the ground hard when he returned home. "Spending time in Africa and seeing people in the pits of poverty," he says, "I still saw a very strong sprit in the people, a richness of spirit I didn't see when I came home. I had no culture shock going, but I had culture shock coming back. I saw the spoiled child of the Western world. I started thinking, 'They may have a physical desert, but we've got other kinds of deserts.' And that's what attracted me to the desert as a symbol of some sort."
