July 14, 2011 – and July 7th
Ok so this is getting confusing now. Today July 14th 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 7th. 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.
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