The last trip and final thoughts

The last trip to the field was the most difficult. There are a lot of things to say about my latest trip to Ethiopia. I have delayed saying them because of the political situation. The government controls the Internet and listens in on all correspondence, emails, blogs, reporting, etc. People have been kicked out for simply complaining about the food, something as truthful and silly as "I can't take eating any more of this injeera."  This is statement all Ethiopians understand, and all ferengis live.  The injeera is wonderful, yet fermented. It is the cause of much gas in those not accustomed to eating it regularly. Therefore critical thought and an expose of life in Ethiopia and how it maybe is being handled are always considered a political threat by the government.

My last trip was to Seraro. We got up at our usual 6 am drive time and headed out on to the busy truck traffic filled smoked road. Now to understand this smog is difficult unless you experience it. It is all car exhaust. It is thick, it burns, and it lasts for 2 hours until one is far enough from Addis that the trucks have diverged towards their destinations.

Last year I didn't get sick. This time of the nearly six weeks I was here, about three of them I was sick. Monday morning was getting to be the worst. Cramps, nothing staying in me etc, coupled with smog and a long drive.  I was in a bad mood and putting up a good front, but my friends knew something was wrong. Challa, the sanitation head for CRS took me to a pharmacy and got me a protozoa and giardia killing drug. He is the equivalent of an RN with surgical experience.

We made a stop at Meki and spoke to the people of MCS. We told them our plans of visiting Seraro, grabbed a few names and numbers and headed back onto the road. It was now 11a.m. with 4 more hours of driving, south.

By now the conditions of drought had rung the bell of the world. At CRS headquarters there had been daily emergency meetings. Because the system of Ethiopia is such that the government controls everything, an emergency, or a drought doesn’t exist unless the government says so. Thus, until about 3 weeks into my trip, while it was the topic most people were speaking about, nothing officially could be done until the government acknowledged the drought and requested help. An NGO cannot simply go to an area and provide food or water without permission. My trip into the desert had been a first foray into the assessment of life with no water. The past trips had helped CRS leadership confirm that this was not a normal year. Going to Seraro besides continuing the work on the business model, was also an initial assessment of the drought.

The path to Seraro takes one through Sheshamene, a town adopted by Ras Tafarians. This is weird to the Ethiopians, and it was weird to me. In the middle of a bit of a topographical rise, more green dark trees, almost forest, suddenly hotels appear advertising themselves as Rasta getaways and restaurants. We spent the night there.

Seraro is perhaps 60 kilometers away, 27 of which are down a pot-holed, dirt road. Remember my stomach and need to put on a good face? I thought we would never get there. Because of the conditions of the road this took us a long time. At one point the driver and Challa got out to decide the best route around a crater-sized pothole, mud, and rocks.

We arrived. Because of the late time we only made an appointment for the following morning. We then drove back. I have never been so thrilled to get into a hotel room. My visa is good for another year and a half. I mention this because as a ferengi unless you have a resident card or a visa that allows you to work, you get charged double. Well at check-in they wanted to charge me the double price - but I had the fancy visa. After much talking, checking with a manger in another office, thoughts of me saying, “well how much for the bathroom?” it all got settled.

The hotel was a tropical paradise, replete with a dance floor and club in the central courtyard. It wasn't the season so it wasn't really full. But the music was loud, maybe Jamaican.  Bars with rattan and bamboo furniture surrounded the dance floor. Challa and I sat under a bamboo cabana and had tea and fries. I wondered if even that was too much.

I went to bed early. I don't remember what was on TV but I do remember that I was oddly enthralled by it. I think it was a French movie that made me get nearly to tears. I blame my stomach.

The drugs worked by morning and I began to eat again.  I bought 72 balloons for our return to Seraro. It had been obvious that kids were going to play a large role in the visit. This area was the definition of rural poor, and there always seems to be a lot of children. Along the way to Seraro, there are tiny, or tinier villages, all subsistence farm land. There were many young kids helping this process - more than adults.

This was harvest time. The weather is and was misleading. It had rained the day before. The green of the land was in full force. However, the rain was sporadic, the ground rich, but not able to produce enough without out the regular rains. The corn was half the height it should have been, without about only 20% close to flowering. This means that they had a few weeks at best before harvest, and that would be much less than expected. Even if the rains were to suddenly come, there was no guarantee that the production, late, would be enough.

We arrived. The village was transfixed by me. The village elders greeted me. I thanked them and introduced myself, Challa proud to explain who and why about me. The people brought chairs for us. We were placed on the grass in front of several huts. The village, 60 adults? sat in front of us, the children sprawled on their parents, or just on the cow dunged grass.

Open defecation had been a huge problem here. However, because of the work CRS and MCS has been doing, the government had presented an award to Seraro for it's community effort. (more on the irony later). Cows roamed freely, in and out of huts even.

The Seraro town meeting was filled with laughter and respect. However, the subject was not. We, I, because I was very much the honored guest, each of the two elders on either side of me, and Challa to the right of one, were told about the progress they felt they had made because of the ArborLoos they had built. They claimed there was less diarrhea and the things they had planted had been doing well, but... No water, no rain.

The rain we knew about; about the water, we were not clear. There were wells around, one that was supposed to have been finished. The way things work in Ethiopia, is that as the projects come to completion the government takes over. Well that's not exactly it. The government is very much a partner from the beginning, sometimes more silent then others. Everything must be approved prior to starting, for example, no well can be drilled or dug if the government says there is no need for water in a certain area. This is politics. Politics that says "nothing is wrong here" and politics that say "why help people who oppose me."

So, while the wells had been dug, some completed and now broken, others not, the people of Seraro either walked 10 hours a day to get clean water, and they make the trip a lot, or they use containers to gather the water from stagnate malarial puddles in fields or along the side of the road. The parasites are obviously not wanting for food. The stomachs and faces attested to this. And here is the irony of the award the government bestowed upon the people.

They told us what they ate, and here is where my sunglasses came in handy. They had been living on cabbage and this parasite water. They had been hit by cases of TB and chronic diarrhea. A family had died recently from starvation leaving a young baby that a member of the community had taken in. Starvation was now a reality to them. They laughed. They were enthusiastic in the face of things we just don’t understand.

After thanking and shaking hands and pictures, I gave out balloons. They nearly took my hands. The children and the parents swarmed me. When they were all gone they clutched them and took guarded positions and then tried to blow them up. We were saluted with waving semi-inflated balloons as we left.

So that was my last visit to the field. I have not said enough, but am at a loss for how to describe the people justly and without prejudice. It is a wonderful place Ethiopia. And a tragedy like I could and still cannot grasp. In many ways it is centuries behind the rest of the world. The big cities have much of the modernity one would expect but it is slammed into this old world poverty with out translation. I had many discussions with people about this. I knew and confirmed that in many ways I am naïve, which although not shocking is shocking. One tries to read and prepare ones self for this, but cannot.

Driving through the desert it is clear that existence is ridiculous by western standards. The heat and lack of any real resources would seemingly dissuade anyone from living there. Yet it is tradition. Why. The pastoral people only recently had to face the effects of de-forestation, so until a generation ago this really wasn’t a concern, there was always a place to move with better resources.

However what is not clear and not easy to understand is how the poor, how the country, has been stuck in another era. There is money that comes into Ethiopia. There is pride. The people are the most generous and gentle people I have met. One man pointed to how Ethiopian’s stand out in Africa for their ambition and drive, and are much more successful at getting international positions with NGOs than others.

This trip I found myself getting very frustrated and annoyed. Anger came later. I was sick, and therefore tired much of the time, so I initially attributed it to that. But, as time went on, I began to discover something I hadn’t put my thoughts on before. The complexities of the systemic tentacles of life in Ethiopia have created a culture that is at once passive, ambitious, generous, reliant, and Kafkaesque.

The men and women of the government at the local level are some of the most dedicated people on earth. They are a part of the community. They are working for the community, often with little pay or reward. This changes as one goes higher, not universally, but that’s where it starts. There are myriad examples of bureaucratic non-sense. A rig for drilling water wells was stuck in customs for more than a year because the wrong stamp, by an official, was put on it. Every one agreed that this was the case, but that agreement didn’t get it out of customs. Taxes, heavy taxes are put on items that come into the country, often through donation, to assist the country. People do their jobs so as not to lose them, not to be noticed.

This is not new.  However, the country is filled with NGOs and aid agencies, internationals, all trying to assist in a transition into a modern world without disease and starvation. The policy is such that NGO’s must have their work force comprised of a majority of nationals. This means that the communities of internationals and Ethiopians are integrated in the work. This is not a place where it is ‘us and them.’ The people I worked with, for, are empowered and passionate about their country and the work they are doing and must do for it. So there is a culture clash within the culture. The drive for improvement and this pervasive systemic collapse of forward movement caused by, not a doomsday attitude, but a reality in which at every turn there is a block to progress. If it is not a regulation it is the drought or flood, etc.

And yet, I spent much of the last two weeks angry. Angry that this exists. That it is not unique to Ethiopia. Angry that while I was speaking with people about how they would make it another few months my country was embroiled in debt ceiling death match. I was angry that for as much promise my project held it was years from producing any sort of dramatic result, and dramatic results is what is needed in this country. According to the official figures, 4.2 million people were suffering in the drought. How many of those were starving, a lot, but this is not counted officially. 4.2 million is a low number.

As one can probably tell, this trip had a profound effect. But what that is … Why are we struggling with money issues today? All these Ipads, smartphones, movie budgets, and people are living on cabbage or less.

As I was driving up a winding cliff side road into the desert, I kept saying to myself why do people live here? Why have they not moved? But the answer is, of-course more complicated, that there isn’t any opportunity or even awareness of something better to be had. Why? I got, and get angry thinking of the reasons. The incredible illogic by decision makers, the roadblocks of bureaucracy, and the culture of passive acceptance – yet this is wrong, the people of Ethiopia have ambition, and are driven to succeed, and one sees examples of this everyday. Why though is aid still needed in seemingly the same regions, for seemingly the same issues? I wanted to scream during these moments of thought. Scream in frustration at not being able to find the answer. Scream in realization that the willingness to latch on to quick answers will get me and everyone else nowhere, or right where we are. It is not as simple as saying Ethiopia is addicted to aid, or that the NGO/Western/Eastern agencies are to quick to end involvement in projects or not good at empowering and creating sustainability. It’s something horrific in its complexities. Lakes and aquifers are drying up? Why? Forests are gone which ruins soil, which begins the cycle of water depletion, crop destruction and lack of production, which and on and on. Foreign companies are buying land and hiring people to operate flower farms, gravel mines, and other such things at low wage and less than perfect safety conditions. Disease continues to strike, continuing the spiral of poor hygiene and poverty, as health care is less than available to all, which means the spread of infection is prevalent, which burdens families, which limits work which, and on and on……. And so one ends up incredibly frustrated and angry and wonders how to break the cycle and push forward a path out of this incredible challenge that people face in this land, which is only a small part of a larger continent that suffers many of the same intricacies of the fabric of poverty.

I, with the help of my new friends, friends I will never forget for their perseverance and dedication, have produced a small business model, which will help a few people, perhaps someday many. It will be tested and put into practice over the next year. Of this I am proud, and immediately ashamed of the pride. I wish it were the magic wand that would change this beautiful suffering country into a beautiful healthy country. It is not. The world needs that magic wand, not just Ethiopia. Unfortunately the countries like Ethiopia are like the poor of west in this world system. They are the ‘unfortunate’ sacrifice the wealthiest push aside along their way to success. Until this need to be on top of the mountain of success is transformed into a more humanistic ideal, where people are able to live in some manifestation of harmony, poverty and disease will continue to wreak Darwinian havoc on those not able to compete for the top, and that population will grow.

I smile with shame at my happiness for my experiences in Ethiopia. I left defeated, challenged, and alive knowing that I may never return, and wishing I could go when the whim struck me again. The whim. I made the most incredible friends, and met people who have inspired me in all my naïveté. My brain has been scrambled.

Ethiopia is now for me a torrid affair one has in their early 20’s, powerful, grasping, full of love, lingering, and in many ways lost. My feelings will evolve, they will be blown away in winds by personal challenges of life. I will always be thankful that I was let in to their lives, and hopeful that I was a positive force in their lives.

Dire Dawa and the Desert

July 14, 2011

I had to look up the date for this. We came back that Saturday and had an uneventful nice late lunch with Bekele’s family. Then I went to the house and died. Not really. Slept. I had three days in the office writing, editing, and planning. Then I went by plane to Dire Dawa and the surrounding areas. Early morning Thursday, flight to heat.

Dire Dawa is a desert town in the east on the way to Djibuti. A town influenced by the French. It has a very colonial feel. The architecture is much more developed. There are camels in the streets. There is an outdoor café atmosphere to almost everything. And it is hot.

Our flight, boring except for the landing which was turbulent. We were hit by the wave of heat. There was some funny stuff as we entered, as  I was pulled aside 3 times to make sure I was legal. I was the only white man. We gathered our bags and went to the hotel, checked in, and then on to the Catholic Secretariat to gather the others in our adventure.

Mussie from CRS had gone to Dire Dawa on Monday. He was waiting for us with Alamayo, an engineer whom I met last year and liked very much. It was nice to see him again. He chews chat. This gets him labeled as something less than perfect. Hard to understand exactly as he is definitely considered one of the best at setting up water schemes and projects.

We gathered in our Land Cruiser and headed south. This takes you up into low lying mountains on one of the crazier roads. Last year there was a truck over turned and on the side of the road for the week I was in the area. To no  one’s surprise there was another one in almost the same place. Each time the truck was on the side of the road going up, the alternative, a very large drop. Passing on curves and fast moving min-vans are the cause.

At the top of the first leg of this there is a fork, one leads to Harar which we went to later, the other, I am not sure. Along the second way was our destination, Goro Gutu. We went there last year to look at the ArborLoo in a specific area. This year we went to two neighboring villages. They sit ont op of either side of a valley. Village A (never understood what the name was) has the bore whole that supplies the entire valley with water, Village B needs the water and has pipes, points, and tanks for this. When the bore whole was dug an agreement was made with the two villages, the community leaders, and Woreda (regional government). This happened about a year ago. Now Village A had cut off the water to Village B.

After investigation it turns out that the Sheik in Village A has a plantation and was worried that he would lose water. So Bekele and a woman lawyer from the “Food for Peace” department went to speak with him. Alamayo and I went to look at Village B and assess their status.

Village B was very proud of the amount of ArborLoo’s they had. It seemed that all had one. However because of the lack of water they were drinking out of a catchment basin covered in algae. This disturbing scene gets repeated over and over throughout this country. In any case we continued up the side of this mountain village to view what turned out to be one of the most well constructed schools I have seen. Yet no water. Reading this you can probably sense that is getting harder for me to contain my frustration and anger.

Kids chased me during the entire walk. Every time I turned to look at them or take a picture they scattered in hilarity. That was fun. Some of the people had planted quite a lot on their ArborLoo sites, mangos and bananas were most popular.

While I haven’t written much, this took a few hours of hiking. We then stopped at one more village on the side of the road to discuss the business idea and see their use of the ArborLoo. This was very fruitful. The skies opened up for a moment while we were walking. We were invited inside a woman’s house where a large discussion ensued.

The people crowded in and around the doorway. We asked about what it was they bought from bigger towns. We spoke on what they sold and how they thought the ArborLoo was and or affected their lives. Suddenly I had a clearer idea of what a business model would look like. A caravan of sorts, like those of the wild west movies, a traveling general store.

We finished and returned to the hotel, showered, and walked to dinner. It was a hot night. There were many people out in the streets of Dire Dawa. This is not to imply a bustling vibrant place, but rather a quiet and calm almost whispering place. Very peaceful. Very sandy.

The next morning we woke and gathered ourselves for a long drive north east along the dirt highway that leads to Djibouti. We were headed into the real desert. It was hotter than the day before and 115 or more in the desert. I became a human damp rag. My clothes sticking to me, water running off my head.

When we arrived at the village, this is a funny word to describe the hut like tents and ramshackle housing. The Somalis that live here, it was not Somalia, were nomadic until water was established. They used to move their herds to different areas every season. They would rotate like this over four maybe more areas. This allowed for grass to grow. Now after the deforestation and the full take over of desert, there is very little grass or… Water therefore becomes an anchor.

The heat was intense to understate it. The idea of living there absurd. Yet there was water. CRS and its partners have provided these people with water. They have also taught them how to build latrines and practice sanitation. This is amazing. The people are very enthusiastic and thankful. They are all Muslim. No animosity towards Catholics or Christians, just thanks.

When we left the village we made one more stop on the return to visit a flood irrigation and catchment project. It was quite large. Although I have no idea how the full tank would last until the next flood, if and when it ever came.

Our final site visit came Saturday morning. We went only about 7 kilometers from Dire Dawa to a dry riverbed. Here they have created a sand damn. They dug 3 meters down to bedrock and poured cement. This catches all the ground water flowing in the riverbed. It then channels the water into an irrigation system. This is a significant amount of water. The irrigation runs through its channels to a large concrete structured fishpond. Although I was not able to see the fish I was told they were plentiful. The water then overflowed into a channel that irrigated the fruit plantation below. 

It was really something – the water seemingly coming from nowhere to supply multiple food sources. I was introduced to mandarin oranges, except these were green. Very sweet and good. They grew eggplants, mangos, bananas, and another unidentified in English fruit.

I have more to say, but I am still formulating what has left a huge abstract burn in my brain. We left and caught our plane, and then I slept all day Sunday.

July 8, 2011

 Kid looking in at Tej house

 The village children

 irrigation

 Hassan and Berita

 Berita

 Berita

 Water

 There is a cow at the top

July 8, 2011

The morning came early. We met at breakfast. The same multi bread and eggs thing. Coffee. Water. And back to the car and to Water Action’s office by 7:30. We conversed for a few and then we were out to the next place.

This drive took us higher. It was about a 30 minute drive up a fairly normal road then something akin to a fire road into a village nestled fairly high up. We got out met someone who was not introduced, until later, Hassan. He led us up a steep incline that rose 500 meters. By the time we got to our destination the air was thin.

There is a spring up there that through Bekele’s help Tom and Ayulumn turned into a water point. It is complete with trough for animals and a separate point for drinking water. I am not sure of the elevation but it was somewhere near 10,000 feet. However, people came from higher to gather water and take it up higher.  Unbelievable.  There were huts scattered up and around. What I couldn’t figure was what they ate. Not much was growing, there were some cows, very skinny, and goats of course. Very hard and very difficult to understand. The water was a huge benefit for them. Clean and plentiful, but wow.

We then went down stopped half way to watch as some young men, boys really, built a holding tank. Beautiful views.

Back at the village we were taken in and given coffee by one of the locals. Wonderful. Just amazing stuff the coffee. The house was set up above the road. Not small, fairly large. Almost no furniture other than what we sat on. A back room that went somewhere. They burned incense for us. Roasted the coffee right there and then crushed it and poured boiling water on it.

We then split up. Bekele, Hassan, and Tom went to another high spring. Ayulumn and I went to speak with the health clinic. They had left for a meeting in Kolmbucha, so we sat and watched kids, and sat and then they returned.

It was now very hot. If you haven’t figured it out, Addis is not hot, so every time I leave I go through a shock. We drove to a school and decided where the women’s’ toilet would be located. From there we drove quite a distance through more of the same  mountains along a fairly dry river until we came to a bluff overlooking another irrigation scheme.  We walked down. The terrain was rolling smoothed and crumbling sandstone, alien like from the sudden rains.

Below they had again created an irrigation area with cement and the labor of those who inhabited the nearby region. Currently the people were drinking the water from the stream. The water was stagnate in some areas, full of nitrogen from human waste, and even had pools of mosquitoes. We measured the speed of the flow. And discussed how to build a sand filtration system. I discovered some small fish and suggested building up one area to create a pond that could over flow but would allow the fish to grow. They are going to do this.

The strangeness of all of this is there is so much work to be done, so much behavior that has to be modified, like teaching people not to use the stream for their toilet, and then not to drink from the stream. Yet, when you look around, without outside help, what would they do. Its been generations of living in the area, Time and weather patterns have taken away what was formally plentiful water sources. They have over forested and now have huge expanses of desert like terrain. And the past governments were happy to let people remain isolated, so outside influence was very minimal.

We returned from this area back to the first village. The plan was to speak to the local farming organization and see how we could work together. In the mean time we went into the local tej house. I instantly made every one happy. Ferengi’s don’t drink in their village, and they sure don’t drink tej. I have a few words of thanks mainly which I spoke. This, I was told would be day they talked about for a long time. The village kids spontaneously serenaded me with some sort of kid nonsense song. I asked what they were singing. Everyone agreed they were making up words.

We finished and spoke a few words to the farmers, who were grateful that we even approached them. They said they were committed to making life better so any idea was welcome, they would work.

Again it was late in the day without food and now tej, altitude changes and such were wearing me down. We had a non descript lunch and then we parted to our rooms to take an afternoon nap. Which I gladly did.

We met for a final beer with Water Action at the brewery and then retired to a relatively early night.

July 7, 2011

July 14, 2011 – and July 7^th

Ok so this is getting confusing now. Today July 14^th I am sitting at the Bole airport on my way to Dire Dawa, a beautiful desert town near Djibouti. I am filling in the gaps in my last trip as I start the adventure of my next one. The most important thing beside waking up at 5 am to my nokia phone alarmand a broken toilet is the Ethiopian security were very conserned with my toothpaste. Lets be clear on this, crest ultra protection with whitening is a suspicious package no doubt. It was in my checked bag. Oh to even enter the airport one goes through a screening. I am now waiting for Bekele to appear. I am sitting andhaving a coffee of course. Once he is here we go through another security, belt off, shoes off, laptop displayed, plastic bag of liquids, etc. My toothpaste made it through. Ahh here is Bekele.

Last night was a full on here we go walking into playing after work or work can not be fun Bekele time. I am exhausted. We sat with people we didn’t know which was highly amusing to all around us. A darkly lit café style outdoor bar. Bekele 100 decibels louder than any one. Muse the other of us is a small very nice, kind of hidden devilish nerd. He is bug eyed with glasses an almost Earkle type. He has multiple degrees very, smart. Sharp wit but you have to pay attention to catch it. Dire Dawans are a very quiet people. Hard to hear them at all. Out and about, but like they whisper there nightlife joy. Dark Harar beer, pretty good. Then walking back we stopped for food, I just got fries, my stomach was not happy with what we had for lunch so fries seemed good. Bekele and Muse had different types of burgers. Bekele insisted I try one half of his. I took a taste and nearly spit it out. It is the first time I have been so honest. I handed it back and said, I am sorry I cannot eat this. Awful horrible, can still taste it this morning.

Back to July 7^th. We woke up, had coffee and drove to Kolmbucha. We stopped for a moment at the hotel to reserve our rooms and then went to the Water Action office. Water Action is a local NGO who partners with CRS on the ground. The “chief’ as he was called is a young man by the name of Tomeskge, or Tom. Ok so yes, same as the driver. His partner Ayulumn (SP?) a young woman head of the sanitation department.

We went through greetings, Bekele got everyone laughing, I checked my email and then we head out to where, I didn’t know, however I was told it would be very interesting. We drove probably 25 kilometers. Not far except that the last 18 was carved out of hill/mountain sides by the village. This was down in exchange for the immense concrete irrigation system that was put in by water action. The labor was performed for free. This meant that for 18 kilometers we drove over softball size rocks, on a road that was precariously hung on the sides of these ridges, hills, and mountainsides. The last 18 kilometers took nearly an hour to drive. I have never seen such arduous work. It was all done by hand and shovel. It just wouldn’t be done in the United States. Proposed people would laugh. That road is now imprinted in my head. I didn’t get any pictures because it just wasn’t possible to show the true nature of it.

We were in the mountains, during rainy season, and it was hot. I made everyone happy by putting my hat on. Now I was truly visiting from the west. We stopped above a gorge and took a long winding path down to the beginning of the irrigation system. Again the labor was performed for free in exchange for the system, concrete, etc. The people had to cut down through rock about 18 feet to create a path for the water to flow and reach the farm land. Because of this irrigation, they now have the ability to grow food throughout the year, meaning 2 to 3 harvests instead of the 1 rain dependent harvest.

That was only the site visit for the day. We spoke with the farmers, looked at their crops, and hiked, about 3 hours. It was time for our meeting with the government officials. Thank fully I had bought some cookies/crackers just for this moment. We were going to postpone lunch until afterwards. The administrator was a devout Muslim woman named Aisha. She was fully covered except the oval of her face. She was soft spoken and obviously very intelligent. The other members of the meeting were the directors of agriculture, water, natural resources, and a delegate from health.

The room was better than most, it had some wood paneling which was interesting. The table was a big solid wood table, not fake Chinese ikea which is the norm. But it was hot. The window was open, which allowed the noise of construction to penetrate our discussions. We were told there was only a limited amount of time, so Bekele rushed through the presentation so that Aisha could comment and then move on to here other engagement.

The atmosphere in the room was very difficult to read. Aisha seemed a bit impatient. The others seemed uncomfortable, but attentive. At the end of Bekele’s speech Aisha spoek about the current projects the government was involved in. She emphasized that collaboration was a key point in any success and welcomed our ideas. She also emphasized her appreciation for Water Action and the work. Finally she said she would like to work with us and our eco-sanitation ideas.

Then it got weird. The delegate from health asked to speak. He was very formal. He said many things, all in Amharic. I asked Bekele, and he said wait. The Administrator was calm but I could tell something was wrong. Finally, Bekele, translated that the Health delegate said “how can you make this decision? This is my decision?”  And then he had launched into a history of latrines, and explained his knowledge, and that there was no real research on eco-sanitation. The last bit got me perplexed, and I said as much. The delegate spoke English and he sort of ignored my statement. The Admnistrator said a few words which amounted to  “I want to end this meeting. Besides I must go.” Bekele plead with them to let us stay in her absence to see if we could formulate a way to go forward in a partnership. Aisha said fine, not angry but… at this point I couldn’t figure out what was happening.

The discussion started after we said our formal thanks and good byes to Aisha. I forget who at this point started to speak, only to be interrupted by the health delegate. Apparently he had not finished. Nor had he nearly two hours later. By the end of his two hours, short interruptions and requests for explanation of him, I was not the only one in the room who wanted to kill him. I was sitting in-between him and Bekele. I had begun daydreaming images of me standing up and throttling him, walking out, screaming, etc. It was about 100 degrees and by the end distinctly b.o. smelling. Ayulumn was even quietly waving her hand in front of her nose. The delegate that Aisha had sent in her stead was barely keeping his annoyance together.

There was a pause. Now to understand what was going on I had gathered that the delegate just didn’t have any faith in the idea of eco-sanitation. But when pressed by Bekele he never answered why. There has been a lot of research on eco-sanitation by all the leading agencies, and myself. It was strange. Bekele was a master at handling him, at one point calling him a “Scientist of Resistance,” which made the delegate very happy (I am sure all he heard was scientist).

So finally he paused, he took a breath and I said “excuse me.” He looked at me and I turned to Bekele. I asked him if anything was different other than he not being very enthusiastic about it. Bekele said no. I said ok ask him this. I had my head turned towards Bekele, knowing that the delegates English was very good. I said “ask him if he likes the status quo. Does he think things could get better? Is he happy with the traditional latrines and the way they are being adopted?”

Bekele repeated this in Amharic. The health delgate launched into another long winded explanation. Now I interrupted. I said “Excuse me.” I turned to Bekele and said “ask him yes or no.” Bekele laughed and said it in Amharic.

The delegate said “No its not good now.” And he started to go on. I interrupted again. I said “I’m sorry. I would like to talk now.” There was some snickers. “So if it is not good now. Lets try something new. If it doesn’t work, don’t use it. It is time to move forward. Correct.” There was a lot of agreement. The delegate nodded. Bekele said some things in Amharic. The delegate started up again, and the Director of Agriculture interrupted and said (translated later to me) “they are asking you to work on new ideas to solve the problem or would you rather stay where we are?” This did not end the meeting. It went for another 15 or so minutes. I was confused.

In the car, now 4 something. People were upset, but happy because we had managed to win the discussion and get him to agree to work with us. We went and got tibs. Each person took a turn voicing their disgust for the exercise we had just gone through.  From tibs, we went to the brewery.

Peter the driver joined us halfway into the night. At which point everyone had drank more than usual. The pent up energy from the meeting earlier had spilled into our beer. Stories flew of past incidents. Jokes and general release. Finally we all agreed that having another was bad idea.

When we got to the hotel, they had lost our reservation. Bekele started to get upset. Peter ushered him aside. I sat on a couch laughing. It was straightened out. We were lead by a very concerned bell boy to our rooms. Bekele was confused aobut his key, I said hey should we get something to eat. Pete said, “Bekele go in your room. No F.L. its time for sleep.” It wasn’t late, but he was right. I laughed and went in. I had a full 2 liters of water, which I drank.

July 6, 2011 - Kelelela

 Mountain Village (above)

 Tej

 women getting water

 the water

 the mountain village from below

The Sheraton. Ahh the Kelelela Sheraton. A place I won’t easily forget. The atmosphere, the mud outside. The ground in the mountain areas is often a red clay. With the sudden hard rains it became a sticky messy thick crumbling paste. Small room with bed and rickety table. The sleep was pretty good, actually. The bed was not too bad at all, with only a slight right-angled slope. I had one adventure seeking out the urinal, rather the top of my head did as it hit a low hanging beam. The next day the cut on the top of my head was the source of much concern though ok. Silly tall ferengi.

We were to meet at 7 as usual but the three of us were all up at 6 because though the beds weren’t horrible they were not fantastic. So we helped the coffee shop, tibs place, get her lights on. Bekele was full of appropriate insults and conjoling which had the young woman proprietor laughing. Conjo with a hard j is ‘beautiful,’ not the Spanish swear word. They sound very similar. Bekele explained that if you say it rudely, sort of gruffly with a smile, it gets a laugh and good service. We do get good service, but I think it has more to do with Bekele’s charm, not a universal thing.

One of the boys from the day before was also up early. He enjoyed watching us. I had eggs, scrambled, on injeera. Not tibs. That was nice. The coffee was wonderful. The light in the place was dim, and since it was so early, it felt very mystical, with the crisp air and the sun pushing its way over the mountain.

We met TT&T and were off for a whirl-wind tour of sites. We stopped along a road to  look at a hill side where TT&T had planted trees. The soil is so degraded because of deforestation that this fairly large amount of acreage was only a drop in the bucket. At once I felt awe at their work and at the amount still to be done.

We then went to a small village where they had been working for the last two years. This was a walk down from the road into a small valley that overlooked an immense drop and a larger valley. Impossible to describe how this nestled bunch of huts evoked the images of fantastical mountain villages, my pictures just don’t capture it.

And although the beauty remained, the spell was quickly broken as we stepped from grass onto a muddy path that vined its way through the huts and trees. They had been busy. The area was like an oasis sitting smack at the low point between two steep hills, almost triangular, with the huts going up either side. In the center was the water point, a cattle trough, and a community garden. They had also planted many trees to provide shelter from wind and to stop erosion. It was stunningly beautiful, simple, muddy, and an example of the arduous life. Its all relative. What they had done was again a huge accomplishment, but their existence is from a time more than 200 years ago, minus the water point, and the odd cell phone, and us time travelers.

The community garden was fertilized by two ArborLoos (eco sanitation latrines that convert the human waste into fertile soil by combining ash and topsoil over its relatively short life span). They had moved the ArborLoos a few times and were so proud of the results. We went to other houses to see their progress. In the couple of years that TT&T had been working with the village they had managed to get the entire village to adopt the ArborLoo as a latrine, prior to this they had no toilets, just the fields.

From this village we went to two more and saw similar examples of the hard work and the simultaneously huge and small steps forward they had made.

We then visited future project sites, or only just begun projects. These were more difficult to view for a couple of reasons. The terrain was rough, so much of the time we had to walk. The challenges to the people were immense. And, just viewing the situation itself fell in the arena of I could have lived fine without seeing this.

We watched as women who had been walking for quite some time arrived at a spring, a stagnate malarial parasite filled hole, and filled their jerry cans. We saw the signs of severe trachoma – blinding and eventually fatal disease if not treated, distended stomachs and such.  And so the need for the work was hammered home. TT&T with the help of CRS would build proper spring driven wells at the sights that would also be pumped to local schools. Eco-sanitation toilets would be built at the schools, separate housing for boys and girls.

We stood at each of the several new project sites discussing how to best locate structures, Bekele making rough sketches. Nor Hussien and Shalise taking notes, me pictures, and adding my two cents or questions.  We became aware at the last spring of the rain headed our way. We were in the middle of a great flat plain. Lightening became the subject. So we hurried.  There was promise in the springs and the wells to be established. Promise for the kids and the schools in water and toilets. Simple things. There was promise of us making the Land Cruisers before the lightening. We even picked up an older man along our fast walk run to the vehicles. We made it, and boy did it come down. Its been a long time since I have seen rain and hail hit the air with such force. We couldn’t see more than two feet in front of the car. It was 1p.m. and night suddenly.

We said our hurried good byes and then we drove to Dessie. The first part was back tracking the way we had come on the gravel highway, accept now down. I spent most of my time sleeping, or trying to as the Land Cruiser hurled down the road slowing just in time for curves, livestock, or people. With my eyes open I was sure we were destined for a long fall, besides I had seen it all on the way up.

Dessie is a town of the Kings. A mountain city known for its beautiful girls, in reality, and for the former services it provided. The mountain women are a bit taller than elsewhere, and they are striking. And the mythology about them is pervasive. Everyone talks about them, similar to the California girls idea. In any case this was a place they were proud to take me as sort of an alternative place to stay. It was only 30 minutes from Kolmbucha where we would stay the next few nights. In any case it was a city. I am not sure what I was supposed to take in. It was in the side of the mountain rolling up part and rolling down another, strip mall type buildings, some fancier than others, nothing that special. Glory days of past I guess.

It was at one time famous for Tej the honey wine of Ethiopia. Bekele and Tom had gotten he name of the best Tej house, so we sought it out. This became a process of going down one winding road only to back up and take a different one, get directions and return back to a prior street, back up, etc. Eventually we found ourselves, not exactly out of town, but on one of these road one finds in Ethiopian cities that is suddenly dirt, and rural in feel. There was a large on developed hill on our right and rural styled houses below in a ravine of sorts on our left. Tom started laughing. Bekele was laughing too. The last directions had been very specific and we were stopped right outside of a derlict looking house and courtyard. A child stuck her head out of the building below. Bekele asked her if this was the place. She said yes of course. That got us laughing.

We decided to go in. We sat on a bench outside, and you could see that at one point it probably was a very fun place, but it had been forgotten for sure. The young girl poured us 1 ½ Tejs. They are served in a sort of vase like jar. 1 ½ is all they had left today she explained. We looked at each other in disbelief and wonder at the scene. The courtyard worked its way up the ravine toward the hill. It had a clothesline, but some plastic café chairs and tables, not used for  a long time. The house/establishment was really quite cool although falling apart. Ranch style almost. Again multi colored but all fading. An indoor seating area. No sign of life other than the maybe 10 year old girl.

We finished and decided it was time for dinner anyway. We ended up in an out of the way almost Greek looking place. I am continually flummoxed by the ability of my companions to know the most non-descript out of the way places for  food or drinks no matter where the hell we are – not to mention the drivers being able to always take the correct turn in the middle of nowhere. Dinner was fine, nothing special.

We then went in search of an outdoor place to sit and have a beer. That didn’t turn out so good. It’s a very Muslim area so all the outside stuff was non-alcoholic, which would have been fine but Bekele wanted a beer. “After work we must misbehave” Thank fully that is more words than action. We found a place that was not bad, had a beer, and returned to the hotel to read or whatever. I was exhausted.