Understanding Real Need in Ethiopia
Trip Start
Sep 29, 2007
1
5
12
Trip End
Oct 29, 2007
Debre Markos,
Ethiopia
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Our goal is to see, feel, talk, at sites where wells, bridges, HIV relief are needed.
We can read from books, but that does not build a story that sells.
For intensity to the need, flesh to the story, we are off to rural Ethiopia,
To upland fields hit by malaria as global warming moves mosquitoes up.
First we must get there, in Ethiopia do not think mileage / time as in West.
The sites needing help are less than Buffalo to Utica, two plus hours on Thruway.
For almost 200 km on Japanese funded road, we are treated to rural, green, panorama.
Farmers tilling with iron tipped branches, pulled by horse, pushed by man.
After those miles of idealistic roadside comes a shock, our concept of road ends.
Vast gorge, 1000 meters deep, kilometers wide, Blue Nile at the bottom: brown not blue.
Switchbacks, gravel, washouts, ruts, hordes of workers carrying a few stones each.
Amazing vistas of volcanic rock atop sandstone, tiny pasture and goats on level steps.
Over two hours to creep down, then up.
Fearful of crushing under overloaded trucks creeping the same path.
No photos of bridge, that is a security zone, is their paranoia like ours?
Nature cloaked some green, so it is not stark Grand Canyon appearing, but grand in scale.
Out of the gorge, herds of goat, sheep, cattle on road and fields, tended by youth.
Homes of mud daubed on sticks, thatched roofs, primitive, but so suitable here.
Fields of tif grain, an ancient wheat, hand harvested to make staple injere, huge pancakes.
Four of five years, good rains come, harvest is bountiful, people eat, bellies are full.
Filled bellies do not make prosperous communities, health and trade must come also.
A hand dug well, with hand pump and chlorinator, stops parasites, improves fitness.
But why should women trudge 100 yards extra to well, when dirty stream is closer?
With well must come education, village leaders must learn and teach all.
Easing the HIV scourge, especially the orphans produced, has the same challenge.
Feeding, housing, some orphans seems most immediate need, but what of future?
Without education of HIV cause, its way of spreading, the scourge will not stop.
Even the Anti-Malaria Association finds itself needing to emphasize safe sex.
We hear of bridge need, but not a huge, four lane, chasm spanner.
A foot bridge, single cow at a time, gives isolated community market or medical access.
Even small streams are killers, especially in flood, as she carries child for treatment.
When child is well, he leads goat for sale, she carries wood to market, village prospers.
And so we have their ideas, their needs, their stories.
We are impressed, the local community knows its needs.
Even rural Ethiopia has a sense of communal organization and self help.
We will come home with plans that make sense and can be sold.
