Yesterday evening we arrived back at our home (and the Children’s Home) here in Soddo, Wolaita, after a few days break away in Addis.  This morning I got up to assess the water situation on the compound.  It’s now been two weeks since the town electrical sub-station blew up.  For the past week, Soddo has had some inconsistent and low-voltage electrical power by re-routing some lines and connecting Soddo to a sub-station further north.  Unfortunately, the electrical power has not been sufficient to run the town water dept. water pumps and thus the town water system has remained inoperable for the past two weeks.  This has left the whole town relying on donkey water or small hand-pump wells (many of which are dry this time of year, including ours).  Because of increased demand for donkey water, prices have doubled and it has become difficult to arrange delivery from a donkey water carrier.

Last week before we left for Addis, because of some special donations to Aerie Africa, we were able to contract with one donkey water carrier to supply the Children’s Home exclusively on a daily basis.  We arranged for him to bring 12 – 14 donkeys worth of water to the Children’s Home daily.  This is what is required daily to cook, clean, wash clothes, bathe children and for drinking.  This morning I learned that our contract was working out reasonably well.  The carrier has been able to deliver between 10 – 14 donkeys worth of water to the Children’s Home per day for the last week.  The inconsistency is based on how busy the spring is and how long he has to wait in line to fill up his jerry cans.  This particular carrier has two donkeys, therefore he has to make between 6 – 7 trips / day just to supply the Children’s Home with water.  As I discovered this morning, the walk from the Children’s Home to the spring and back is about one hour round trip, not including wait time at the spring.  So, though this has been an additional expense, getting consistent, daily donkey water has allowed the home to function and the children to remain clean (at 15 ETB / donkey, this costs the home about 1,260 ETB or $75 / week).

As the first donkeys were arriving this morning with water, I decided to go for a little hike to find the source of the donkey water these days.  Prior to the sub-station problem, most donkey water simply came from a town tap in a part of town that had running water that day.  Without the town taps, the donkey carriers have been forced to travel outside of town to springs and small streams.  So this morning, I grabbed my camera, took along a few friends who are visiting us, and went in search of the nearest spring.

Our hike took us out our compound main gate, down the road heading away from town a few hundred meters, then to the left down a small path that ran along outside the south fence of the Children’s Home compound.  This path descended down hill, then to the right and basically continued for about 30 minutes in a westerly direction downhill into the valley west of the town.  After about 30 minutes, the path crossed the dirt road that runs towards Jenka in Gamo-Gofa southwest of Soddo.  Shortly after crossing this road, the path turned right and opened up into a large flat field area, in which there are lots of people, donkeys and cattle.  There were three springs at three edges of this field and some small ditches of water running across the field from the three springs (and apparently a fourth spring a little further beyond the field that we did not go to).

One of springs was really more of a well.  It had been hand-dug, cased in cement and capped off.  There was a small square opening in the cement cap where people lined up to dip their buckets and jerry cans to fill up with water.  Because this well required dipping buckets down into the water, the water was pretty dirty, but there was little to no line to fill up.  One donkey water carrier who was filling up as this well told me that he often uses this well because he doesn’t like waiting in the long lines at the other springs for cleaner water.  He said he was recently charging 20 ETB / donkey in town for the water from this well, but if customers wanted the cleaner water, he charged more.

Across the field there was a second spring.  At this spring we found a crowd of people trying to fill up their jugs and jerry cans.  As we approached, there was a small scrap that broke out between several people as they struggled to get their buckets under the pipe.  This spring has been capped with a concrete structure with three pipes running from it.  The water running from the pipes seemed pretty clean and the people standing around waiting for water told us that it was good and clean for drinking.  The third spring as further across the field again.  This spring involved one large pipe flowing out of the side of a concrete structure.  At this spring, a few boys seemed to have imposed some organization.  People were lining their jerry cans up in one straight line and waiting while the boys filled the jerry cans one at a time in order.  When we asked if there was lots of water, everyone said ‘yes’ and that they’d never seen the spring dry.  Some of the people were from just nearby and said that they’d always come to this spring for water (they’re far enough out of town that there are no town taps any way).  Others in line were from further away or were donkey carriers and said that though there was always lots of decent water at these springs, it was far from town and involved a lot of walking and waiting since the town water system stopped working and more people were coming to these springs for water.

We’ve had a lot of emails from people trying to better understand our water situation here at the Children’s Home.  Sometimes it’s difficult to explain exactly the issue that we have here.  While currently, because of our reliance on donkey water, water cleanliness is somewhat of a concern, our primary concern is water access.  There is plenty of good quality water underground here in Soddo, but because Soddo is on highland terrain, this water is deep underground, somewhere in the range of 150+ meters down.  On the outskirts of town, particularly where the terrain slopes down into valleys, there are springs and good wells much closer to the surface.  Cleanliness of our water currently is an issue mainly because of the way in which the water is transported – in old, dirty jerry cans on the backs of donkeys – and because we can’t guarantee that our donkey water carrier is always waiting to fill up at the clean springs.  There are, however, fairly economical ways to purify water for drinking here.  There are these Indian-made “candle” water filters (“Welofil”) that work well (we use one in our house and we’ve just bought another so that the Children’s Home kitchen now has two).  There are also fairly cheap purification tablets available at any pharmacy in town that can purify a bucket of water per tablet.

The primary issue that we have here at the Children’s Home has to do with water access.  It is very difficult to manage a home of 60 kids without a consistent water source.  We have a shallow hand-pump well on the compound, but for several months each year, it is essentially useless (it’s dry during dry season).  We have water storage tanks hooked up to the town water pipes, but the town system can only supply a few hours of water to us per week during the best of times, and it’s completely dependent on electricity, which is also inconsistent and unreliable (as we’ve recently discovered).  We can purchase donkey water, but the cost adds up (even at normal prices, it would cost about $3,000 USD / year to keep the Children’s Home supplied with a sufficient amount of donkey water), its availability fluctuates, and it makes the function of the rest of the home completely reliant on when the donkey arrives with water (because it’s about 1 ½ hours between donkey loads, there are points in the day when our cleaner has to just wait for water to finish the laundry, our kitchen has to just wait for water to finish the cooking, or our nanny nurses just have to wait for water to bathe kids).

It is for all of these reasons that we’ve concluded that a deep well here on the Children’s Home compound is the best long-term solution for our water access issues.  Yes, a deep well is a significant financial investment up-front, but we believe it is the only means to ensure the long-term function of the home and health of the children.  Aerie Africa (www.aerieafrica.org) has officially decided to launch a fund-raising campaign for this deep well project.  We will soon update with specific information about this campaign and how you can help.

The longer version…

Still no one really seems able to predict how long it will be. Our director thinks we could be back up and running with electricity within two weeks, so we’ve decided to share in his optimism and take it two weeks at a time.

We’ve put together a little analysis of the extra costs that will be accrued to run the children’s home over the next two weeks without any electrical power. Here’s the breakdown:

Gasoline for the office generator

Four liters of gas / day will run the little office generator enough to keep computers charged and the office running. Because none of the fuel stations in town are operating (fuel pumps require electricity), fuel is being brought in by jerry can from out of town by middlemen. This has resulted in increased fuel costs to 26 ETB / liter ($1.51 USD / liter). Thus we will need an extra $85 USD to cover fuel costs for the next two weeks.

Firewood

Without the electric oven in the kitchen, which is typically used to baking bread daily, the kitchen will require extra firewood. We expect to buy an extra 300 ETB worth of firewood over the next two weeks ($18 USD).

Donkey Water

Because of increased water scarcity and donkey water demand, the cost of donkey water has doubled this weeks from 8 ETB / donkey to 15 ETB. Because we’re now completely reliant on donkey water for all cleaning, cooking, washing and drinking, we’ll need about 14 donkeys worth of water / day. That’s 2,940 ETB for 2 weeks ($171 USD).

A couple of one-time extra expenses

Because its difficult to stagger the arrival of donkey water throughout the day, we’ll need to purchase a couple more large water barrels to hold the water when the donkeys arrive… 500 ETB ($29 USD).

Because the donkey water is now all coming from small streams and surface springs, we’re extra concerned about water quality for drinking. We need to buy a couple more water filters to ensure that the kids are drinking filtered water… 500 ETB ($29 USD).

So the children’s home will need about $330 (USD) extra to cover these unexpected costs for the next 2 weeks. If this problem persists beyond the next 2 weeks, we’ll be updating the blog regarding our on-going needs. If you’re interested in helping with these costs, you can send a check to Aerie Africa at the address below or you can go online and donate at www.aerieafrica.org. Either way, if you include the note “Power” with your donation, Aerie will ensure that it gets used to help cover these extra costs. If you have further questions, please feel free to email us (nfhaines@gmail.com or richelle.haines@gmail.com).

On a related note, this week has further enforced our need for a long-term water solution for the children’s home. We’re still awaiting the hydrologist report before we can create a more accurate estimate of total costs, but if you’re interested in donating or helping us to raise funds for this project, please let us know. It is going to require a significant fund-raising effort and we’ll need all the help we can get.

Aerie Africa, Inc.

c/o Robin Browning

2234 South Abbey Loop

New Braunfels, TX 78130

Yesterday morning at 8am, the electrical power sub-station in Soddo blew up and burned for about two hours.  Apparently, the sub-station involved some old equipment.  The power step-down / distributor unit (which is what initially blew up) was installed some 30-plus years ago.  The fire was eventually put out by towns-people with shovels throwing dirt on the step-down unit at the sub-station.  Because the electrical power-grid for much of the region directly surrounding us and south of us all passes through Soddo, the entire area (up to 150 km or so south of us) is now without electrical power.

There are a wide variety of opinions about just how long it may take to get Soddo and the surrounding area back up on the power grid.  We’ve heard everything from a couple of weeks to several months (one gentleman last night even predicted it could be up to a year… surely he’s crazy, right?).  From what we’ve heard, it all depends on whether or not the proper equipment can be found in country.  If a new power step-down / distributor unit must be imported from abroad, it could be awhile.  There will also be the problem of updating the rest of the sub-station equipment to function with a new step-down / distributor unit.

Now, living off the power grid for a while is not exactly the apocalypse.  After all, there are chunks of this country that exist without electrical power at all, Soddo pretty much shuts down after dark anyway, and even when we are on the grid, there are often hours at a time without power (especially during dry season… Ethiopia’s electric power is all hydro-generated).  We personally have lots of candles and a couple of gas stove-burners, the children’s home does most of its cooking on a wood or charcoal fire already, the office has a small gasoline generator to run computers, and, even with power, we never have hot-water.  It’s not the end of the world, but there will be problems that arise without power over the long-term.  Here are a few examples: there will likely be shortages of fuel because of the extra reliance on generators around town (the town already often runs out of fuel on the weekends before Monday fuel trucks arrive at the fuel stations).  The town will probably run out of candles at some point.  Charcoal and firewood prices will go up.  Flour may become scarce and expensive because all the grinding machines in town run on electric power (special 3-phase power that is hard to generate by gasoline generators).  There will also be some obvious personal inconveniences.  Cooking, heating water, reading in the evenings, charging computers and mobile phones… all of these things become more difficult without electricity.

The real issue goes back to our water situation here in Soddo.  As we’ve mentioned before, the children’s home is desperate these days for water.  It’s dry season, so our hand-pump well is dry (we sometimes squeeze a few buckets out of it each morning) and the town water department system only supplies water for a few hours per week.  We’ve been relying mostly on “donkey-water,” water carried in by yellow jerry cans on the backs of donkeys.  The absence of electric power in Soddo has just further compounded our water problems.  The sources of water for the town system are all deep wells scattered around the outskirts of the town.  These are not artesian wells, so water must be pumped out of these deep wells and pumped through the water lines to distribute the water around down.  All of the pumps are electric.  No electricity, no water pumps… no water.

I know what you’re thinking… is that really such a big deal if the children’s home was only getting a few hours of town water per week anyway?  The answer is yes, for two reasons.  First, though we have only been getting water from the town a few hours per week, during those few hours, the compound goes crazy filling every bucket, barrel and tank we can find so that we have stored water to last us up to a day after the water is turned off.  No town water means we have no water to store up, and thus even greater reliance on donkey water.  Second, even the donkey water usually comes from town taps.  There are public water taps throughout the town connected to the water department system.  When one part of town doesn’t have water, donkey water carriers fill up their jerry cans at a tap in another part of town and transport it to areas that need it.  With the water department out of commission, there will be no water running at these town taps, thus the donkey water carriers will now all have to rely on streams and natural springs.  Because it’s dry season, most of the streams are pretty dried up, and even the natural springs are very low.  The price of donkey water is bound to go up considerably because of scarcity, higher demand and the greater distances the donkey water carriers have to travel.  The quality of the donkey water will be further reduced because of relying on surface springs and low-water streams.

A number of people have asked how they can help in some way.  We greatly appreciate that people are thinking about us and asking to help.  We will definitely need to tap into some above-the-budget funds to cover the unexpected costs of paying more for donkey water, buying bottled water for drinking, buying fuel for the generator, and paying higher costs for charcoal, firewood and flour.  We’ll be spending today trying to get a better sense of what this is all going to look like and we’ll be discussing the situation of funds further with Aerie Africa.  We’ll post an update by tomorrow morning regarding specific ways people can help out.

In the meantime, together with a few friends around town, we’ve started a little betting pool.  Each of us has submitted 50 birr to the pot with our best guess of when Soddo will be back up and running with electricity.  The winner, he or she who guesses the closest, will take the pot.  So far the most optimistic submission has been Feb. 29^th, while the most pessimistic has been May 15^th.  Feel free to join in the fun and let us know your prediction.

Below is a cost breakdown of what will be needed to make the project fully happen.  At this point, the project has simply involved labor to prepare all the garden terraces.  We did set up one irrigation system as a test case.  We were able to set that one up primarily with spare materials (pipe, etc.) around the compound.  Going forward, however, we’ll need to purchase some materials.  The below cost breakdown is bare minimum.  With additional funds we could buy more water barrels for rain collection, more pipe for more ditches, more garden tools for the kids and more seed.  So really this project needs between $600 and $1000 USD.

Below is an outline of our schedule to launch this project by March (which is when we expect to start getting a little rain, which, together with our irrigation system, should be enough water to start and sustain the gardens.

1. Jan. 16 – 27 – finish digging and leveling terraces (4 down, 2-3 more to go)
2. Jan. 19 – 23 – price needed supplies and blog an update with price breakdown
3. Jan. 30 – Feb. 3 – dig out remaining irrigation ditches
4. Feb. 3 – hold first meeting with kids to prepare them for planting
5. Feb. 6 – 8 – set up irrigation pipes and barrels
6. Feb. 9 – 13 – make trip to Addis; purchase irrigation tubing
7. Feb. 14 – 17 – spread compost and till up gardens
8. Feb. 17 – meeting with kids
9. Feb. 20 – 24 – perforate and set up irrigation tubing
10. Feb. 24 – meeting with kids
11. Feb. 27 – Mar. 2 – purchase seed and set up some extra rain collection barrels
12. Mar. 2 – meeting with kids
13. March – plant after a couple of good rains

Below are a few updated pictures of our progress.

Looking down on our first 2 completed terraces... now all leveled and ready for irrigation set-up. You can see our 3rd terrace in the background, below it is another that we're working on, and beyond the 3rd one is another completed one and space for at least one more to be made.

Looking up from below on the first 1 completed terraces.

A third completed terrace ready for irrigation set-up... we've intentionally left a slight slope with all the terraces to help with gravity irrigation.

Looking up from below... directly in front is a 5th terrace that we're currently working on... above it, you can see the 3rd terrace from the previous picture.

This is our 4th terrace... there will be at least one more below this one.

This is the point at which our compound is connected to the town water line, a line that only brings us water 1-2 days / week at the very best of times.

It’s Sunday afternoon and just now, as I sat down to write about our water problem here at the Children’s Home, there was a knock at our door.  Richelle, Titay and I live in a small apartment arranged in the middle of the children’s home.  On one side of our apartment are 4 girls’ dormitory-style rooms, on the other side, 4 boys’ dormitory-style rooms.  The knock was from Dawit, a 12-year old boy who lives here at the home.  He was holding a small plastic bottle and asking for a little water to drink.

In the past month, these knocks have come often. Today we happened to still have a few gallons of water in our personal water storage barrel.  I took Dawit’s plastic bottle and filled it.  Many times in the last month, however, when we have gotten this knock on the door, we’ve had to respond that, just like the rest of the compound, we are out of water.  Even today when I gave Dawit the filled bottle of water, I motioned with my finger to my lips that he should keep quiet and not spread the news.  We simply don’t have enough water in our apartment today to give some to each child who wants it.  The family has all had some GI issues lately because of water, so we’ve been forced to protect the small amount of clean-drinking water we have.  Today, like many days lately, the children living here at the home will have to await the arrival of the “donkey water,” water carried by donkey in yellow jerry-cans, which we pay for on days when there is no other water.  One can never be sure of the quality of the “donkey water” and we’ve had a higher rate of children with stomach sickness lately as a result.

One of 2 water storage tanks connected to the town water line. When both are full, we have enough stored water to sustain us for a day beyond the day we get water from the town line. Often, though, there neither enough pressure, nor enough hours, from the town line to actually fill these tanks.

There are 60 children, ages 4 – 18, who live at the Children’s Home.  Richelle, Titay and I have lived here for just over 6 months.  Ever since we’ve been here (and for over a year before we got here), water has been a daily struggle for life on our compound.  The home compound has one hand-pump shallow well (18 meters deep) and two water storage tanks connected to the town water line.  When the Children’s Home was first opened, these water sources were sufficient.  However, in the past five years, not only has the number of children at the home increased, but the population of the town has grown significantly and the town water system just cannot keep up with the water demand.  As a result, the home is scheduled to only receive water from the town line on Mondays and Thursdays.  In the past couple of months, because of the dry season and low water levels, there have been many weeks when we have not received any water from the town at all, or when we do, it’s only for a few hours and with such low pressure that we can’t fill our storage tanks.  Because of low water levels, many of the water department well pumps have broken down from sucking silt at the bottom of the well.  This has further compounded the water scarcity in Soddo.

In the past 6 months, the Children’s Home has had running water (either from the town line, or from water stored in our tanks) 2 days per week at best.  For the remaining 5 days per week, we have been reliant on the hand-pump well.  Our hand-pump well is a hand-dug, 18 meter deep well.  It does not come anywhere near hitting an actual aquifer.  It relies on replenishment from water just below the surface. The quality of the water from the well has always been a concern.  Because it is a shallow well, because Soddo has no proper sewage system, and because our compound is downhill from a garbage-dumping site, we’ve always had concerns about the water quality in our hand-pump well.  Despite quality concerns, up until November, the hand-pump well served us reasonably by at least supplying water.  It was a pain to pump and carry every gallon of water needed for cooking, drinking, bathing, washing clothes, cleaning, and flushing toilets, but at least water was available. Then, as we headed into the driest times in December, the hand-pump well began to fail us.  At first, we could get water from the well in the mornings, before it would run dry by noon, but by the first of January, it was nearly dry all the time, and breaking weekly because of the wear-and-tear of trying to pump water out of a dry well.

The hand-washing station outside the cafeteria. Most days there is no water here for hand-washing. Often you can see a child leaning over the sink with his or her mouth on the tap drying to suck some final drops of water from the pipe for drinking.

So for the past month or so, for at least 5 days per week, the entire function of the CCC Children’s Home has relied on water carried in by donkey.  Because of the difficulty and the cost of paying for “donkey water,” there are many water needs that must be greatly rationed: drinking water is rationed, kids go days without full, proper bathing, toilets can’t be flushed, and clothes and bedding are washed less frequently.  The results have been as one might expect: filthy clothes, dirty kids, stinking bathrooms, more lice, more fungus, and more illness.

If you were to ask the town water department about this issue, they would reply that they’re aware of the struggle and they’re currently working on improving the town water system (and that their tired of hearing from me).  This is true.  We’ve been to the water department dozens of times to petition for more water.  The reality is that more water just doesn’t currently exist in Soddo.  The water department does have a company currently surveying for water on the outside of town, but even the department says that it could be a couple of years before any more water is drilled, piped and pumped into town (which probably means more like 3- 5 years).

The compound clothes-washing rock; it’s connected directly to the town line. Most of the time, we have to keep the water here turned off because there isn’t enough pressure from the town to provide water here and fill our tanks at the same time.

There is a potential solution.  Soddo is sitting on lots of good, consistent water.  There is a mission hospital in town (Soddo Christian Hospital), for example, that runs its entire hospital compound on one well.  Unfortunately, because Soddo is on highland terrain, that good, consistent water is 150 meters or more below the surface.  The cost to drill and case that one well for the hospital was in the range of $20 thousand (USD).  When the whole thing was said and done (surveying, drilling, casing, installing pump, piping), the price tag on one well was in the range of $35 thousand.  That’s nearly half the entire annual budget for the Children’s Home, which is already on stretched resources because of the challenges to raise funds in the U.S. during tough economic times.

Two members of the Aerie Africa Board of Directors, the U.S. non-profit that funds and oversees the Children’s Home (see www.aerieafrica.org), recently spent a couple of weeks here at the Children’s Home.  After seeing first-hand the problems caused by the complete lack of water, they decided we need to try to pursue a deep-well solution.  Of course, that is easier said then done; $35-40 thousand is a significant amount of money to raise over and above the regular fund-raising just to keep this home functioning. At this point, we just recently brought a hydrologist down from Addis Ababa to complete an on-site survey and write up a

This is our hand-pump well, which is currently both broken and dry.

hydrologist report.  We are expecting the completed report within the next 2 – 3 weeks.   Once we have this report, we can begin collecting bids from drilling companies on the drilling and casing stage (which could run in the range of $20 thousand, depending on how deep we have to go to secure good, consistent water).  After drilling and casing the well, we’d need to buy and install a pump, set up the “3-phase” power source, and do all the necessary piping.  All of this is, of course, dependent on raising the necessary funds.

Once we have the hydrologist report and can make some more educated estimates on total costs, we’ll be starting a concerted effort to raise funds for this project.  We’ll be sure to update on the blog with some more details at that point.  For now, if you want more information about our water needs, if you know any organizations interested in funding clean-water projects, or if you have a desire to help with this project, please feel free to email us (nfhaines@gmail.com or richelle.haines@gmail.com).

Like many developing countries, the unemployment rate in Ethiopia is ridiculous; it’s probably in the range of 60% of the population.  That statistic is rather deceiving, however, because unlike people in the US, a huge percentage of the population here exists off of small sustenance farming or some form of home-based small business.  These sources of income are usually not captured in official employment statistics.  Also, many Ethiopians supplement their livelihood with support of some extended family member who happens to have employment; it is shocking how many people can scrape out an existence off of support from one employed extended family member.

Because the kids living here at the Children’s Home have neither family financial support, nor a family plot of land to fall back on if they can’t find a job of their own, making a livelihood in the future is a significant obstacle for our children.  Richelle and I are looking hard at how to help our kids develop a set of skills that will equip them to make a living and survive independently in the future.  As an organization, we’re focusing significant resources into education, hoping that will position some of our children with good jobs in the future, but the reality is that there just aren’t enough jobs available in this country.

One project that we’ve been working on we’re simply calling the “The Garden Project.”  The concept is incredibly simple:  give each of the older kids their own garden plot.  They will each be given a plot of land, some seed, and some support.  They will plant and grow some produce, which they can then sell.  They get to keep whatever money they make.  Kids will get to learn some basic gardening skills, as well as some very simple business and money-management skills.  While the concept is simple, the implementation is a little more complex.

Here on the Children’s Home compound, there is a decent amount of land and the soil is pretty good for growing.  There are a few obstacles, however.  First, the whole compound is on a side-hill sloping on at a 45-degree angle.  Second, during the rainy season (July through early Sept.), the rains are often so strong that the surface water run-off can cause some very bad erosion, thus further complicating planting and growing on a 45-degree slope.  Third, outside of the rainy season there is only sporadic precipitation at all, thus making it difficult to grow much of anything from about Oct. through May without some sort of irrigation.  Irrigation is difficult, however, because the water system from the town only provides piped water two days per week.

So we’ve been working hard.  With the help of some of the guys here at the Children’s Home, we have pulled up the sod and leveled a number of large terraced-garden areas.  We have then set up one example irrigation ditch, through which we can run grey-water and rain run-off from the main children’s house down to the garden area.  At the end of the irrigation ditch, we’ve connected a barrel and then some 1-inch plastic tubing coming out of the barrel.  After perforating the tubing, we can run the tubing throughout the garden and distribute the irrigation water more evenly throughout the garden area.  We’ve also been composting like crazy for the past 6 months.

The plan is to dig out and level several more terraced-garden areas, dig out several more irrigation ditches from the houses, and set up the irrigation tubing so that the gardens are ready for planting by March, which is when we hope to start receiving a little rain.  During February, we’ll be assigning plots to the children and getting them set up for planting.

Most of the investment in getting this project up and running has been in labor.  There will be some expenses, however, to purchase the pipe, the tubing and the barrels for the irrigation system, as well as the seed and some extra tools for the actual gardening.  If you have an interest in helping out with this project, please respond to this post or email me at nfhaines@gmail.com.  We’re always looking for people with expert advice.  In this case, if you have expert advice or experience with terraced-gardening, irrigation systems, or using grey-water for irrigation, please reach out.  We’d love to tap your expertise.  Also, if you have some interest in donating some funds directly to this project, we can give you specifics on how much is needed and how you can donate.  A little money (especially USD) could make this project happen and benefit our kids in a big way.

This is an example of the rainwater gutters that run around the Children’s Home and the Kitchen / Cafeteria building.  Because the Children’s Home is built on a slope, all water runs downhill towards the gardens.

We’ve connected pipe at the end of one rainwater gutter, through which water runs down to the gardens.  In this way, we can transport rainwater run-off that collects in the gutters after running off the house.  We can also transport grey-water (water used for cleaning, doing dishes, taking bucket-bathes, etc.) by simply emptying the buckets into the gutters.  The plan is to dig a ditch and run pipe from the end of each of the rain gutters.  We will also run pipe from the hand-pump well to capture spill-water from the well.

When the water comes down the pipe, it empties into a bucket and then flows out through the perforated plastic tubing.  At this point we’ve discovered the bucket in this picture to create a choke point.  The plan is to use a better barrel and move the barrel-point further up the hill.  There would then be greater gravity force through the tube to more effectively distribute the water through the tubing.

This is a view of two terraces with irrigation tubing set up in one part as an example and test site.

This is the view of one of our completed terraces.

This is our hand-pump well.  The plan is to build a catch basin with cement, and run pipe from here so that we can capture spill-water from the pump and run it to the gardens.

Here’s a quick little summary of a regular day around here:

• up around 6:30 or 7
• coffee, breakfast and get Titay ready for school
• walk Titay up the hill for school for an 8:30 start
• deal with email
• some compound clean-up
• check in with management staff here at the home
• various meetings, planning sessions, computer work until about noon
• lunch
• “Baba School” with Titay for an hour or so after lunch
• work on various projects around compound
• spend some time with the kids when they come back from school
• begin preparing dinner
• dinner and clean-up
• Titay off to bed
• some time to relax before we’re in bed, often by 9pm

Mix in some studying of Amharic, our Amharic classes and a little variety on the weekend, and that’s our life.

Unfortunately, today was not a regular day.

In the last blog post, we wrote about a couple of cases that we were dealing with here at the home.   One involved a girl who we have been unable to accept because she is HIV positive. Not long after we wrote about that story, the little girl’s grandmother passed away.  Richelle has been periodically visiting with that family to check that the girl is receiving ARVs.

The second story we wrote about involved a large family in the countryside living with their mother at their grandfather’s home because they had run away from an abusive husband / father.  Shortly after we wrote about that story, we accepted two of the children from that family to the orphanage at the request of the mother, grandfather and local government.  The grandfather, a small sustenance farmer, was unable to feed all the people under his roof.  Two other children from the family are living with a relative here in town, leaving five children living at the grandfather’s house.

We don’t know the details.  We’re not sure if she returned to him, or if he came and found her at her father’s house.  Either way, this morning we learned the news that the mother of these children was murdered by her husband last night.  Ethiopian culture involves a very indirect way of communicating tragic news like the death of a loved one.  The news was not broken to the children here this morning.  Instead, they were washed and dressed by the Nanny Nurse, and then taken with a staff member, together with the older siblings who live here in town, to the grandfather’s house to be together with the family in mourning.  They will return here this evening.

Unfortunately, it’s the irregular days that create blog posts.

One of the hardest processes that we have been faced with here so far has been that of considering new children to accept into the home.  The home here is an orphanage; it is designed to provide a home and family, to the best degree possible, to those who don’t otherwise have either.  We believe that institutionalized care of children should be a last resort.  An institution simply can’t provide all that a family can when raising children.  Unfortunately, many children here in Ethiopia don’t have the option to live with and grow up in a family and even many who do, have families who are primarily concerned with finding enough food for the day.  The home here regularly gets letters requesting that the organization help.  The letters usually come from local government officials at the kebele level (maybe similar to the city ward level in Chicago). We’re quickly learning that these requests are not simple and they always involve some painful decisions and considerations.  This week, we were involved in investigating two such cases.

One case involved a young girl around seven or eight years old.  She was brought to the home this week by a neighbor.  She currently lives with a teenage sister and her grandparents.  Her mother passed away, her father is unknown, and both of her grandparents are very ill.  The neighbor brought her to us at the request of the grandfather who is very concerned for her care.  Because the home is not equipped to care for children who are HIV positive, blood work is the first step taken with any new case.  This little girl came back positive, which tragically means we can’t accept her.

On Friday morning, Richelle travelled with our Head Nurse to this girl’s home to meet with the grandfather and inform him of the blood work results.  The grandfather was not aware that the little girl was positive, but did not seem surprised when told.  As Richelle and the Head Nurse spoke with him, they learned that the little girl’s mother died of HIV/AIDS, the grandmother is HIV positive and is currently dying of cancer, which is probably a secondary disease of AIDS, and the grandfather is positive, has only recently accepted that he must be taking ARVs, has the beginnings of paralysis in his legs, and probably doesn’t have many years left.  The older sister has never been tested.

So what’s going to happen to this little girl?  Her grandfather is currently able to financially support her with his government employee pension, she is currently going to school, and ARVs are freely distributed, but who’s able to care for her and ensure that she takes the ARVs, what’s it going to be like for her to watch both her grandparents die of the disease that she too has, and who’s going to care for her when her grandparents are gone?  There are children’s homes in Ethiopia set up to care for children who are HIV positive (like the Missionaries of Charity where Titay spent her first three years), but none right here in Wolaita.  And is that the only option for this little girl… to send her off to Addis, or maybe Awasa, to grow up in an orphanage?

While Richelle was travelling with our Head Nurse to visit this home, I travelled with our Director to visit another family about whom we’d received a letter requesting help.  This is a case where the children are not actually orphaned at all.  There are eight children living with their mother in the small house of their maternal grandfather where, in addition to their mother and grandfather, there are also six others living.  That’s sixteen total mouths to feed for a small, sustenance farmer who himself is getting quite elderly.  The mother and eight children are living at the grandfather’s house because the children’s father has a mental disability and has grown violently abusive.  When we visited, the mother had bad bruises on her face.

But here’s the problem.  The home here is an orphanage and our priority is to care for orphans when no other family is available to care for them.  These children aren’t orphans.  Back in Illinois, this family would be a clear DCFS intervention case, but there is no such thing here.  Here they have the kebele officials who are intervening by reaching out to us to take some of the children to make it easier for the grandfather to feed the rest.  We don’t have space for all eight of these children; probably based on gender and age, we can only consider two.  In order to help this family survive, we’re being asked to accept two of the eight children, thus separating them from siblings and mother.  But there doesn’t seem to be any other form of assistance available for this family and two fewer kids to feed may just make it possible for the grandfather to sustain the others.

So in response to my former student on facebook, I had to stop mid-sentence and reconsider what to write.  Yes it’s beautiful here, there is some remarkable history, breath-taking landscapes, friendly people, and unique culture, but there is also some very ugly stuff, much of it partly the result of poverty… food insecurity, lack of clean water, insufficient healthcare and illness prevention, poor education, inadequate institutions, no social safety-net programs, etc.  So instead of what I intended to write, I said: “We’re enjoying our time here, but there’s some tough stuff here; it’s a land of beauty, but one that suffers from some difficult poverty.”

P.S.  There are also ugly bedbugs, fleas, lice and mites here, all of which exist in an ugly parasitical way on the human body.  In some combination of two or more (though we’re not yet exactly sure which), we’re also contending with some of these “uglies” this week.

• New employees should be considered permanent employees after a maximum of a 45-day probationary period.
• All permanent employees should receive 14 paid vacation days after their first year of employment and should accumulate one more paid vacation day for every year of employment.
• Family Leave:  An employee should receive 3 paid leave days when he / she gets married or for a death in the family (including extended family).
• Sick Leave:  An employee is permitted up to 6 months sick leave (with medical documentation) within a calendar year; the first month at full pay; the next two months at half pay; the final three months without pay.
• Maternity Leave:  Female employees are permitted 30 days paid leave prior to expected date of birth and 60 days of paid leave after birth.

Rain rolling in from the southwest on the Guinea monsoon winds

The months of June to August in Ethiopia are rainy season, known locally as krempt.  It is during these three months that most of the country receives at least 90% of its total annual rainfall.  Rain is the distinguishing element of Ethiopia’s seasons.  Ethiopia’s two extreme seasons are rainy season between June and August and dry season between December and February.  Since I’ve spent the last 13 years in the American mid-west where annual precipitation is fairly evenly distributed across the seasons and temperature characterizes the extremes from summer to winter, I’ve been very curious about this rainy and dry season phenomenon in Ethiopia.  This issue of rain and the lack thereof is not just what characterizes Ethiopia’s seasons.  The lack of rain, or drought, and the shortages of food that go with drought, have become almost synonymous with Ethiopia in the minds of many people around the world.  This year has been no different with significant media attention on the drought and food crisis of the Horn of Africa, including parts of southeastern and southern Ethiopia.  So in an effort to better understand the science of Ethiopia’s rains and the problem of drought, I recently opened up an Ethiopian grade 10 geography book and turned to the chapter on weather and climate.

In the U.S., because the country is located north of the tropics, the prominent trade winds blow from west to east.  Thus when you turn on the weather channel in Chicago you’ll notice that most weather patterns move across the country in a roughly eastward direction.  Seasonal weather patterns in the mid-west of the U.S. are based mostly on latitude and the amount of direct sunlight received.  In Chicago, it is hot in the summer because the northern hemisphere is tilted sunward and Chicago receives more direct sunlight, while it is cold in the winter because the Earth has tilted in such a way that Chicago receives only indirect sunlight and far fewer hours of it.

Here in Ethiopia, because the country is located close to the Equator, there is only a small change between seasons when it comes to the amount or directness of sunlight.  Seasonal temperatures change relatively little and the change that does occur has more to do with cloud cover than directness of sunlight.  In fact, the coolest temperatures are during the time of year – June to August – when Ethiopia receives the most direct sunlight.  Because Ethiopia is located in the region between the tropics, the dominant trade winds move in a generally westward direction.  They are called easterlies, because they come out of the east. These easterlies play an important role in the seasonal patterns of Ethiopia.  There are also seasonal-only winds, called monsoon winds, the most prominent of which are the Guinea monsoon winds that blow over the central part of the African continent during June through August.  The Guinea monsoon winds actually blow against the dominant tropical trade winds, but blow strong enough that they account for most of the precipitation of Ethiopia during rainy season.

Ethiopia has four seasons.  The two extremes, like in North American, are summer – June through August – and winter – December through February.  Rather than temperature extremes, though, in Ethiopia the extremes are marked by amounts of rain.  The months of June through August are Ethiopia’s rainy season. The months of December through February are the dry season.  During dry season, it is extremely rare for most regions of Ethiopia to receive any precipitation at all.

During the months of June through August, because the direct sunlight hits near the Tropic of Cancer (north of Ethiopia), a large low-pressure air region develops and stays over North Africa (warmer air equals lower pressure air), while high-pressure air regions develop across and off the coasts of South Africa.  They develop both to the east of the continent in the Indian Ocean, and to the west of the continent in the Atlantic Ocean.  As a result of the high-pressure air region off the west coast of southern Africa and the low-pressure air region on land across the north of the continent, monsoon winds blow from the Gulf of Guinea, blowing in a northeastward direction, across the central part of the continent and the Sahel (atmospheric movement from high-pressure air to low-pressure air causes wind).  These Guinea monsoon winds, as defined by their name, are seasonal only and blow opposite to the dominant trade winds of the tropical region.  However, because of the large low-pressure air region over the northern part of the continent, these monsoon winds are strong enough to carry moisture from the Atlantic across the continent all the way east to Ethiopia and dump that moisture as rain across the Ethiopian highlands.  Meanwhile, the dominant trade winds – the easterlies – carry moisture from the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden onto the African continent and shower Ethiopia as well.  Despite its closer proximity to the Indian Ocean, it is actually the strong monsoon winds from the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic that provide most of the rain to Ethiopia during rainy season.  Because of the cloud cover that these moisture-filled winds bring to Ethiopia, temperatures during rainy season are cooler than other times of the year.

During the months of December through February, because the southern hemisphere tilts sunward, direct sunlight hits considerably south of Ethiopia around the Tropic of Capricorn.  As a result of this direct sunlight and higher temperatures, low-pressure air regions develop over South Africa and in the Indian and Atlantic Oceans off the costs of the continent’s southern region.  The high-pressure air regions develop across North Africa and the Middle East.  As a result of these air pressure regions together with the dominant easterlies, a dry wind blows over Ethiopia from South Asia, the Middle East and the Arabian Peninsula.  These winds bring no precipitation at all, thus December through February is Ethiopia’s dry season.  The clear skies of this season account for the warmer days and cool nights received from December to February.

Between these two extreme seasons, some regions of Ethiopia can receive small amounts of rain.  The southern and southeastern regions sometimes receive small amounts of rain during September to November.  While the central and northern parts of Ethiopia usually receive small amounts of rain during March through May, which they call the “small rains.”  These autumn and spring rains are mostly as a result of easterlies bringing moisture off the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden over the Horn of Africa.

Because Ethiopia’s seasons and rain amounts are so guided by air pressure regions and wind directions, there is great concern over the effects that climate change could bring to the country.  Because Ethiopia relies on basically one season for almost all of its annual rainfall, it is very prone to drought, crop failure, and food crisis.  If the rainy season doesn’t bring enough rain, or if the rains are too strong so that the soil can’t absorb the water and it simply runs off the hills, Ethiopia ends up in trouble because it can’t produce enough food to sustain the country through an entire calendar year.  Historically, Ethiopia has relied on small second crops during the “small rains” of March through May to get the population through the year, but if the “small rains” don’t come or don’t amount to enough to produce crop (as has been the case during a number of the recent years), the country’s food supply runs out before it can be replenished from the new crops that come at the end of the rainy season.  The cyclical rain problem is especially challenging for pastoralist regions.  If the smaller rains of the fall and/or spring don’t come at all, many animals can be lost when the land becomes too dry from December through May.  For communities who rely on those animals for their food and livelihood, the situation can become very touch and go.

In Ethiopia, one sometimes hears people refer to a “green drought.”  It’s a strange phenomenon, but people are often the hungriest during the greenest time of year, the rainy season, between June and August.  Just while everything is starting to grow anew, the country runs short of food from the previous harvest season.  So while people watch the new crops grow and await the harvest at the end of the rainy season, they often watch in fear as their personal food stores diminish, as the international agencies talk about regional food shortages, and as the government debates whether or not the national food reserves are sufficient (or whether the government sold off too much of the reserves as export to raise revenue).  As Ethiopians harvest in September, they hope that the crop will be plentiful enough to sustain the ever-growing Ethiopian population through another entire year.

This year there has been much international attention on the drought and food crisis of the Horn of Africa, including Somalia, parts of eastern Kenya and parts of the southeastern and southern regions of Ethiopia.  The regions hit hardest in Ethiopia have been the Somali federal state of the southeast and parts of the Oromo federal state in the south and southeast.  These regions include large numbers of pastoralist communities who have lost whole herds of animals because of drought and have therefore lost both their food and cash sources.  These are also regions that typically receive less rain even during good rain years, so they are regions more susceptible to drought and changing weather / climate patterns.  Since the heavy rains of Ethiopia’s rainy season come from the monsoon winds blowing in from the Gulf of Guinea in the west, the western highlands of Ethiopia tend to get the most rain.  By the time these rain-heavy monsoon winds get over the mountains to the lowland regions of Ethiopia’s east, their moisture is mostly spent.  The eastern and southeastern regions of the country, therefore, must rely on the less rain-heavy easterlies that come from the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.  In recent years, rain from these easterlies has been very unreliable.

These seasonal rain patterns in Ethiopia are an ancient phenomenon, as is the problem of drought.  The specter of climate change, however, stands to exacerbate the already persistent problem of drought in Ethiopia.  Furthermore, climate change stands to hurt some climates and countries much worse than others.  Countries like Ethiopia, which are economically underdeveloped and which rely from season to season on fragile weather and climate patterns, stand to suffer the most because of damage done to the planet and its reaction to that damage.  Regardless of what one thinks of the current government in Ethiopia, it’s been good to see the prime minister at the forefront as an outspoken representative for the African continent regarding this issue of climate change.

I would be wrong to not also point out that drought in Ethiopia is very region-by-region.  Many Ethiopians resent the image the world has of the country as a dry, famine stricken land.  While I don’t wish to diminish the horrible problem of drought in certain regions of the country (and it’s not always the same regions), most visitors to Ethiopia, especially during the summer and fall, would not see a famine stricken landscape.  Instead, in most parts of Ethiopia, including here in the Wolaita region, they would see gardens that can grow just about anything you want, green mountains rolling in all directions, streams rushing with water, and fruit trees everywhere; it’s a very lush, green and beautiful landscape.  This is one of the many ironies of Ethiopia.  It’s been called the “Water Tower of East Africa,” yet millions don’t have access to clean drinking water.  It’s been called the “Region’s Hydroelectric Generator,” yet the electric power flickers on and off constantly.  It’s a land of ancient Semitic languages and scripts, as old as Arabic and Hebrew, yet vast numbers of people are illiterate.  It was an ancient economic powerhouse, a key trading empire in the ancient Indian Ocean trading circuit, yet it’s now one of the poorest countries on the globe.  And it’s a land of “green drought,” where it can appear so lush and green, while people are suffering from shortages of food.