Water

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).

The CCC Garden Project

One of our primary goals for our time here at the Children’s Home is to develop ways to help the children transition to independent adulthood when they reach that point in their lives.  Obviously, one aspect of the transition to independent adulthood has to do with making a livelihood.

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.

Unfortunately, It’s the Irregular Days that Create Blog Posts

It’s been a while since we’ve sat down to write and contribute anything to the blog.  It’s not really been that we’re busy, though we keep ourselves sufficiently occupied.  Really the reason is that most days are pretty much the same around here and nothing much prompts us to sit down and write.

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.

A Land of Beauty… but with Some Difficult Poverty

This week, one of my former students, one who is Ethiopian-American, asked me on facebook how our time here in Ethiopia was going.  We love Ethiopia and believe it is a beautiful country and we have learned that Ethiopians, especially those in the diaspora, love to hear how we love their country.  So, as I usually do, I started my reply to him by telling him how we were enjoying our time here because it’s a land of beauty, etc.… But I couldn’t finish the message I intended to write because that morning we’d been confronted with some not-so-beautiful things, caused in large part by some of the difficult poverty of Ethiopia.

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.

Why Can’t the U.S. Have Better Labor Laws?

Last week I was doing some fun reading… 57 pages of the Ethiopian Labour Proclamation of 2003 (I’m a nerd, true, but actually when I say “fun” reading, I am being sarcastic).  I was struck with how generous the laws are towards workers.  Here are a few examples of laws that apply to all permanent employees regardless of field, industry, etc.:

• 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.

The Science of Rainy Season and the Problem of Drought in Ethiopia

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.

The Beautiful Landscape Out Our Backdoor

 

 

Though we love Chicago and very much came to consider it our home, probably the single greatest thing that we missed while living in Chicago was any kind of landscape beauty.  True Chicago has some beautiful parks, some great architecture and the fabulous lakefront, but Chicago is built on boring marshland and prairie.  It’s pretty sorry when “Cricket Hill” off of Wilson Ave. is considered “elevation” (my old cross-country team used to hate that little piece of Chicago “elevation”).  So on those days when I’ve missed things about Chicago, one thing that sustains me here in Wolaita-Soddo is the beautiful landscape just out our backdoor.

The CCC Children’s Home where we live and work is situated on the side of a steep hill that descends southwestly coming out of the Soddo town.  Because the home is built out of the side hill, the front of the home (facing the road) is one story, while the rear of the home is two stories.  When we step out our door at the back of the building, we’re standing on a second floor balcony facing out over a fairly steep embankment.  Looking slightly to the left, which is south, this embankment descends to a rainy-season stream and then up a hill on the other side, on the top of which is an Ethiopian Orthodox Church, with its typical round design and its 6am loud-speaker prayers.  Looking slightly to the right, which is southwest, the embankment descends several hundred meters to a large valley, which spreads out to the southwest and the west until it hits a rise of mountains in the distance.  According to an old missionary book that I found left in our room, these mountains to the west across the valley are called the Kwoibo Mountains (these Kwoibo Mountains are actually a southwestern extension of an escarpment rising from the Rift Valley a little further north of Soddo).  Though we can’t see it, just on the other side of these mountains is the Omo River gorge.  At clear moments (which are a little rare right now during krempt, or rainy season) more mountains can be seen even further to the west beyond the Omo River and to the southwest, towards to the Gofa and Gamo regions.

Soddo town itself sits at about 2,100 meters atop part of the escarpment that rises on the west side of the Great Rift Valley.  Just behind the town (to the north… on the opposite side of town as the CCC home) rises a beautiful mountain called Mt. Otona.  Though we haven’t attempted it yet, the Bradt guide book says that there are some good views of Lake Abaya from atop Mt. Otona.  Lake Abaya is the largest of the Ethiopian Rift Valley lakes (by surface area) and lies about 30km south-southeast of Soddo.

The Great Rift Valley runs through Ethiopia in a southwesterly direction from the Eritrean border in the northeast to the Kenyan border in the southwest.  The Great Rift Valley has been created by the drifting apart of two tectonic plates, the African Plate on the west side of the Rift Valley and the Somali Plate on the east side.  In the U.S., most discussion of tectonic activity has to do with California and the Pacific Ring of Fire.  The reason for high earthquake activity in California and earthquake / volcanic activity along the Pacific Rim has do to with the pressure of tectonic plates moving and pushing against each other.  The Rift Valley is quite different in that its existence has to do with tectonic plates pulling apart from each other.

At its northeast end, the Rift Valley appears like a large funnel or triangle and when looking at satellite views of the landscape, one can see how the African Plate, the Somali Plate and the Arabian Plate all once joined at this point.  This northeast end of the Rift Valley is considered one of the most inhospitable places on earth.  It maintains average temperatures that are considered the highest on the planet and at one place in the Danakil Depression, the landscape dips to 116 meters below sea level.  This part of the Rift Valley is also spotted with a number of active volcanoes.

As it runs through southern Ethiopia, however, the Rift Valley is much narrower across (only about 30km from western to eastern escarpments at Lake Abaya) and even within the valley, the elevation is still about 1000 meters above sea level (except for at Lake Shala, about 75km northeast of Soddo, which is made from a sunken volcanic caldera; Lake Shala is the deepest of the Ethiopian Rift Valley lakes with an impressive depth of 266 meters).

So while Chicago has skyscrapers, busy streets, Lake Michigan, sidewalk restaurant seating, Saturday morning brunch, diverse neighborhoods, burritos, summer music festivals, mojitos, and lots of other things that I miss, Wolaita-Soddo has the Rift Valley and the rugged highlands that rise on either side from it.  True, “Cricket Hill” offered a pretty good view of the Loop, but it’s got nothing on the beautiful landscape out our backdoor.

P.S.  I’ve always suspected that Cricket Hill is really just a large landfill that was seeded over at some point in the past.  Does anyone know anything about this?

Homemaking

Today we were struck with a tremendous irony (I think it’s irony.  I don’t actually know how to use the word irony properly.  For awhile in Chicago, Richelle and I were really into the TV series Castle.  The lead character, playing a crime author / murder mystery solver / NYPD homicide detective sidekick, was always complaining about how people overuse and don’t really understand irony.  Probably he was referring to me).  Anyway, today we were struck with something that seems to me to be ironic.  Richelle and I have been married for nearly eight years and yet we have never purchased a major household appliance until today.  We have always lived in rented apartments where the fridge / stove / microwave / etc. were already furnished and we always went to the laundry-mat to wash clothes.

Today, here in Wolaita Soddo, we just purchased our very own college dorm room-style refrigerator and, strangely, we feel really grown up about it.  Why does this seem ironic?  I guess because buying household appliances seems like one of those really home-making sort of things that people do, but after eight years of living together, Richelle and I are now living in our least “homey” place; we’re living in the place that seems least our own.  We are now living in a three-room space (concrete walls and floors, no real kitchen, running water only two days a week, draining water only in the bathroom, hot water only after boiling it, and beds made of plywood propped up on wooden blocks) in the middle of a dorm-style row of children’s rooms.  Children are always running and screaming just outside our door (sometimes they just open the door and walk in). Kids are often peering in our windows as we work on the computer, wash dishes or make coffee.  And I can’t work in the garden without fifteen little “helpers.”  Yet, somehow, this place feels a little more like “ours” because, together, we just invested in a refrigerator.

 

P.S.  We have created a sort of kitchen… plywood countertops propped up on wooden blocks, 3-electric burner hotplates for a stove, and a plastic basin and bucket with spout for a sink.  And now a fridge (though the fridge is in our bedroom because there’s not enough space for it in our kitchen – nor enough electricity).

 

Why three pots of buna?

Okay… as you can tell, we clearly stole a little inspiration for our title from the book, Three Cups of Tea.  Let me assure you that in our blog we will attempt to refrain from the exaggerations, self-aggrandizement, and alleged outright lies of Greg Mortenson (see 60 Minutes expose of a few months ago).  Despite the valiant efforts of friends (thanks, Henry and Kim), we were for the longest time stuck for a blog title.  We wanted something that would reflect Ethiopia, catch people’s attention, and yet wouldn’t seem horribly trite within six months.  It was Richelle’s brilliance that finally came through with this title.

So why “Three Pots of Buna”?  Buna is Amharic for coffee, Amharic is the national language of Ethiopia, and Ethiopia is the land of coffee.  As with many ancient lands in the world, much of ancient Ethiopian history merges on legend, and legend has it that Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee as a consumable beverage.  The story goes that a young boy named Kaldi in the Kaffa region of southwest Ethiopia was tending to his family goats in the field one day when he saw the goats dancing.  After observation of the goats for a few days, he found that the source of the goats dancing energy was some red berries on some nearby bushes.  He too consumed the berries, discovered the caffeine-energy that they produced, shared them with his village and… thus… coffee cultivation, consumption, and export throughout Ethiopia, then to the Middle East and eventually around the world (yes, the coffee “bean” is actually the seed in the center of a berry that grows on a bush… when you buy the non-export-qualify unroasted coffee beans here in the local market, you may have to extract some of the beans from their dried-up berries).

Ethiopia is not only the birthplace of coffee, but coffee is woven into the culture and into everyday life.  Coffee is brewed traditionally in a black earthen pot called a Jebuna.  During a traditional coffee ceremony, coffee beans are roasted over charcoal, then ground.  A handful or so of ground coffee is then poured into the top of the Jebuna and hot water is added.  The coffee is allowed to sit for a few minutes, and then coffee is poured into small cups and served (often some grass is placed at the top of the Jebuna to act as a filter to keep the grounds in as it’s poured… sometimes there is no filter and you simply enjoy some of the grounds with your coffee…).  While consuming the coffee, the people sit around, talk and often snack on popcorn that’s been sweetened with a little sugar.  While most Ethiopians take their coffee black with sugar, here in the Wolaita region of Ethiopia, the “old-timers” take their coffee black with salt and spiced butter added.  As an aside, also here in Wolaita region, we’ve learned a new way of understanding the Ethiopian phrase, shai-buna.  Shai is Amharic for tea, so when Ethiopians ask you if you want to sit down for either tea or coffee, they’ll sometimes ask, “Shall we go for shai-buna?” Apparently in Wolaita, shai-buna can literally mean one cup, half coffee, half tea. 

So why “Three pots…”? In a traditional coffee ceremony, the Jebuna is filled with hot water three times, using the same original grounds.  This usually means that those enjoying the coffee are served three rounds.  The first round is wefram (literally means fat); it’s very strong, as the grounds are fresh.  The second round is a little weaker, and the final round is k’ech’in (literally means thin).  When you visit someone’s home and you see them spread the grass on the ground, pull out the charcoal burner and start roasting coffee, you know you’re in for a long visit, because you’ll be leaving only after three pots of buna.  The coffee ceremony represents a lot about Ethiopia.  It’s a long, slow, social, traditional process steeped (or should I say, “brewed”) in centuries of history, in which Ethiopians take great pride.

I hope you’ll enjoy our blog as we write about our observations and experiences with Ethiopia, its culture, its landscape, and its people, as well as our life here at the CCC Children’s Home in Wolaita, Soddo.

One month of madness

I’m just not sure the past month could have been any crazier! Y ended school at the beginning of June, followed by R finishing her job as a birth parent counselor for an adoption agency. This was followed by R taking and passing the Licensed Clinical Social Worker exam (!!) and beginning to pack the house.N wrapped up his work as a high school teacher in late June, which was really just the beginning of the true insanity of 2011: a family wedding, packing our house/life/stuff for our big move to Ethiopia on 7/17/11 and visiting with lots of friends and family and putting TONS of miles on the car. Everyone keeps asking us how Y is doing during the transition: so far, so good! We are incredibly amazed at her energy and excitement to try new things and be up for all of the things we have been doing!