Anatomy of a Decision

 

Rebecca enjoying a closure walk with
Bible study friend Eskedar at Entoto Park

We have big news and it deserves its own blogpost. So we will let you in on what has been happening under the surface in the past 3 months.

As you might know, Oren visited us for his winter break in December and January. During that time, we traveled to Kenya and Tanzania to reconnect with old friends and revisit places important to our family. We talked and wondered and heard Oren reflect on his own experience of spending his last two years of high school in Ethiopia. His conclusion was that it was tough on him. Although he made some good friends, he never felt like he was really graduating with his own class. He didn’t bond to this place. Two years was too short.

During our Christmas holiday, we also got a lot of questions. People were constantly asking us, so what’s your plan? Are you staying in Addis? How long? We wondered about it a lot ourselves. Upon our return to Addis, we spent some serious time talking through our options as a family. And we came to some unexpected conclusions.

David trying pottery on the
Eid holiday from school

About 9 months ago, we decided to extend our MCC term in Ethiopia, from June 2024 until June 2025. That would take David to the end of 10^th grade, a natural break in the Cambridge system. But this fall we had been watching with alarm as David’s high school became less and less satisfactory. This year, the school is so under-resourced that almost all 11^th and 12^th grade classes are being taught as online courses, not by direct instruction. There are far fewer qualified teachers for the high school level at all, including grades 9 and 10. The teachers who are present are stretched thin, trying to cover administrative duties as well as just a very few non-academic activities. The only real options for extracurricular activities is one sport team a season. Music, drama and leadership development opportunities are non-existent through the school; we forced David to join the community choir (which we love!) to have another musical expereice. We don’t want to blame the school – Addis Ababa is a hard place to live, and it's not a very attractive option for teachers who have to raise their own support to come and teach here. Recruitment has been tough. But we have also noted that even when David has been befriended by some amazing kids here, he also has never bonded with this place. He hates school and is unenthusiastic about learning. He has drawn increasingly inward, losing his curiosity about natural science (there’s no scope to explore), with little opportunity to grow in pursuits he tried and enjoyed in Tanzania: swimming, drama, arts and crafts, golf, fishing, etc.

We laid out our options as a family, and thought through each one carefully:

David with friends at Mama's Pottery,
a new option at Gulele Botanical Garden

1. We could complete our MCC Ethiopia assignment in 2025. But there were big problems with that plan.  The idea of pushing David through one more year of unenthusiastic school was hard for us and him. And then the idea of moving him to a new setting for grades 11 and 12? We heard from Oren how hard that was for him. We’d always assumed we would return to the US in 2025, and yet David said he would rather stay in Ethiopia than finish high school in the US. We realized that whenever we ended our term in Ethiopia, we were basically finished with international work with MCC. We had no desire to try to live and work in a totally new place; we have moved too much and are tired of building new communities and learning a new context. Yet, Paul is still very much at the top of his game in the international development field. It doesn’t make sense to consider retirement yet. And we have no illusions about how hard it would be for him to find professional work, returning to the US in his mid-60s. It also will put us in financial hardship. While we serve with MCC, we receive the rent from our US home as well as a college scholarship from MCC; paying for Oren’s college would be doubly hard if we left MCC.

2. We considered if we might extend our term in Ethiopia longer, to 2027. That would allow us to keep serving with MCC for 3 more years, solving the financial conundrum. But continuing longer here in Ethiopia, through David’s graduation, did not seem viable at all because of how hard it would be on David, stunting his learning and development at a key age. Staying here works well for some kids, but we don’t see it working well for the person that David is. Friends have cautioned us to make a decision to leave BEFORE we reach a crisis point.

Addis the process of beautification

3. We spent a fair bit of effort exploring a third option. We could plan to stay and work in Ethiopia until 2027 and send David to Rift Valley Academy, a boarding school in Kenya. To see if this could be a possibility, David and I took a special trip to Kenya to visit RVA. We were both really impressed by the beauty of the campus and the wide open spaces. David was blown away by the possibilities for art courses and sports, wood shop class, and science classes. He said that he really loved the school, but he would only go there if we moved there and be on staff so he could live with us. Clearly, that is not an option for us. We pressed the question, but David expressed clearly that he does not want to go to boarding school. We have enough experience with mission families and Paul’s own experience in boarding (which was fantastic for him) to know that there is nothing worse than forcing your child to go into boarding when he doesn’t want to, just so you can continue your mission work. And so that option was off the table for us.

 4.      The last option came up as a complete surprise to us late in Oren’s visit. At the end of December, our MCC colleagues serving as Representatives for the Kenya/Tanzania program announced that they were taking a new leadership role, and the position would be coming open in June. We had not even considered this opening as personally relevant until Oren pointed out that we should consider it. When we stopped to think about it, we recognized some compelling reasons:

 ·       we know the MCC Rep role very well and have managed an MCC program in Ethiopia on a similar scale; This is meaningful work we can both do together and seem to be gifted for. If we applied, we would be able to keep serving for another five years

·       the Kenya/Tanzania program is not totally new to us; we used to work in TZ and know the remaining partner organizations there well, and there are big food security programs that cross borders with Ethiopia; 

·       we have already spent time and energy learning Swahili, and Kenya feels familiar culturally; 

·       there is a thriving young adult volunteer exchange program in Kenya, something we have missed in Ethiopia; 

·       we could all live together and David could attend a good high school (Rosslyn Academy), with all the opportunities for personal growth that are missing for him here. In particular, we are excited to see David have the chance to return to swimming, to try out drama and musical theatre, to learn about pottery and woodworking, and more basically, to hopefully have the experience of enjoying a wider breadth of academic classes in science and humanities. 

·       David would have three years to adjust and build community in a new place, rather than just two, which can make a big difference in a young life.

Not a great effort at sushi, with
ingredients that came in 
our suitcases from other places

To make a long story short – we decided to apply for the Kenya/Tanzania Rep position in February. We knew it would be a competitive process. Praying friends counseled us to just apply and see what God would do. We were invited to interview. In the end, in the middle of our field visit to Tigray to understand the situation of hungry communities there, we received an offer to take this new job.  The same people who hired us are fully aware that they will need to work on hiring our replacements for the Ethiopia program. It was a devastating time to receive the offer, deep in the present moment of interacting with our team and project participants in Ethiopia. Yet in the middle of our 5 days of discernment, David also interviewed for Rosslyn and was accepted to the school, more or less settling the matter for us.

The major drawback to applying for this position was the sense that we would be breaking our deep commitments here in Addis Ababa too quickly. The MCC Ethiopia program is large and complicated, and we feel terrible about the idea of leaving our colleagues in the lurch. We are both extremely committed in our local international church: Paul is the main Sunday school teacher for older elementary kids, and I have served as an anchor on the small volunteer pastoral team for the past 2 years. We have made dear friends here, and it is painful to think about leaving them abruptly. Even at a deeper emotional level, it is not a good time in Ethiopia. We struggle daily with the feeling that we are walking away and abandoning a friend in need.

At the same time, we need to recognize that this Kenya/Tanzania position is the only international MCC position we would consider and we were given this offer. It is also painful to face the work of building a new community in a new place. And yet, we do know quite a few people based in Nairobi when we come to think of it. Work visits to Tanzania would give us the chance to also connect with old friends there. It is a hard and painful decision. But we need to find the energy to both grieve and rejoice at the same time. We were stuck and didn’t see a way out. This new job offer feels like another example of God rolling away a stone, sending an earthquake to unlock chains and open prison doors. It would be unfaithful not to also give thanks for this provision.

From the walk with Eskedar

So here is what lies ahead for us. We will travel to Kenya in the beginning of May for a week of Handover with the outgoing Reps. Ironically, they are the same couple that replaced us as Reps when we left the MCC Rwanda/Burundi program, and again when we released the Tanzania program to a joint Kenya/TZ program! Now we are following them into a position in return.

We will then come back to Ethiopia for about 6 weeks of closure here. We negotiated an arrangement in which we will continue to be responsible for the Ethiopia program administration until the beginning of August, to allow time for a good search process for our replacement(s). Physically we will leave the country on June 25 for a few days in Nairobi. We will then take a brief vacation in the US for July. School at Rosslyn Academy starts early for David so we will fly back to Nairobi to start a new season by August 5.

So now, we are abruptly entering a season of closure without the privilege of much time to prepare. We need to handle other changes and staff turnover on our team in the meantime, and many changes in our church and community. It will be an extremely busy time, and we will need prayer through it to arrive in Kenya as whole and functional people. So, thank you for praying for us.

The trinity of owls is still hovering in our compound

 

Eastertide and the search for healing and unity

Greyish Eagle Owl hovering in our yard

We had lots to report in our last blog about our work in Ethiopia and our sorrow at how hard life is for so many in this country. In contrast, this blog will be short.

After a deeply impactful monitoring visit to the North of Ethiopia, we returned to Addis to wrap up our fiscal year with a few crucial events, sitting right on top of the spiritual realities of Holy Week.

All Partner Meeting: Each year, we invite two or three staff members of our MCC implementing partners to gather together for a few days of capacity building and networking. We typically focus on topics relevant to best practices in development work: how to incorporate self-help groups in projects, safeguarding of children and vulnerable project participants, and how to easily collect monitoring data digitally to measure project impact. 

Ninja game

But this past year has been a hard one for the whole country of Ethiopia. On our team, we agreed that peacebuilding is essential for everything else we do. Moreover, there is a sense that the people of Ethiopia are collectively traumatized by the past three years of conflict and insecurity. Thus we decided that we would invite an outside group to facilitate two days of training on trauma awareness and how to plan for trauma-sensitive development programs.

Hana seriously engaging in play 

When I stopped to think about it in advance, I wondered if we were entering dangerous territory, raising questions of trauma with our gathering of partner staff. After all, we had participants coming from Afar and Tigray, Amhara and Oromia, Gambella and Addis and other parts of the country. I think at least half of our partners have been in situations of risking violent death at the hands of militants from one of the other ethnic groups represented. When the question of trauma comes up, blame can also rise to the surface. We prayed for mutual understanding and probably could and should have prayed even more.

how much can you balance?

Thankfully, The Child Development Training and Research Center (CDTRC) is one of the few organizations we have found with real expertise in engaging adults and children in discussions about trauma. They go beyond PowerPoint lectures to really engage their participants in self-reflection. And their method really works to build a safe space for listening to one another across differences. They interspersed times of energetic and hilarious games, allowing people the opportunity to release their tightly held stress. Even though the entire meeting was in Amharic, I could at least participate in playing a lot of the games.

Where is the pain?

 Other sessions were quite deep and serious. In one exercise, participants were given band-aids and told to put them on whatever part of their body was feeling the pain of trauma. Then, in small groups, they explained why they felt pain in those ways and what lay behind the pain. Our accountant later said that people were basically sharing the same pain, witnessing so much injustice and suffering around them.

Partner meeting group photo

Paul and I basically just observed the training from the back, wanting to be sure the facilitators were free to use Amharic as a common language better understood by most. Also, we were frantically trying to finish up the necessary data entry into Insight, our new digital Program Management system. All the old LogFrames for our past projects had to be entered by hand into the new system before the April 2 deadline of the new fiscal year. And at the same time, Paul needed to complete a massively long report on all our MCC work, to be submitted to the Agency governing charities. He spent an entire day preparing that 50-page report of narrative, tables, finances, etc. I was also responsible for several HR things related to the end of the fiscal year (salary memos, making sure we had all things well accounted for in our budget, etc).

Facilitator Lensa

The partner meeting was really too brief. Still, we were present and we could share meals and conversation with different people in the break times. I was so glad to see many of those dedicated development professionals. I connected well with many of them during past visits to their projects, but conflict has prevented us from meeting recently. In particular, I think of Meaza, a gender specialist working on the conservation agriculture project near Debre Markos. All of the project staff were basically on lockdown between May and November. She told me that she had revived her old passion for writing poetry and that it helps now to express what she and her country are going through. She has a young son, just 3 years old, and she takes care that he doesn’t watch the news or listen to bitter political talk. She said that her family tells her she should get out of her region, and find a job with an international NGO. But she loves being a social worker and connecting directly with the rural community. Meaza is a deeply beautiful person and I have so much admiration for her. It was a gift to sit across from her. I am not sure when or if I will see her again.

Illustrating Christian unity

On Thursday morning, I had to run off to a completely different gathering, this one facilitated by the Bible Society of Ethiopia. I struggled and labored to understand three academic talks (in Amharic) on the importance and value of maintaining Christian unity between the Orthodox, Catholic and Evangelical Churches. The Trinitarian Forum, developed by BSE, is a unique place where these different Christians can meet. And in the conference room, it is easy to agree that unity is the only way forward for good news for the country. I got a lovely shot of this staged expression of Christian unity. Let us keep praying that such unity is possible and supported by people and leaders out on the street.

And then we hit the end of Holy Week. Our congregation hosted a joint service for Good Friday, together with St. Matthew’s Anglican Church. They did most of the work and organization and we just provided the space. But still, this kind of joint effort raised a lot of appreciation from people – why should we always meet in our separate buildings with tiny groups for special services? And in fact, the church was full for a very somber service.

On Holy Saturday, we hosted youth group at our house. I arranged a Prayer Mosaic, taking youth around our yard, to different stations where they could ponder some of the events of Jesus’ last week, and what it would have been like to be there as a disciple. Just a few kids came – I think there was a big soccer tournament going on for some. But the kids who came seemed to engage well with this kind of imaginative prayer. After they were finished with the serious part of things, we allowed them to come in the house and color eggs – this was a new experience for some who come from families with very theologically correct understandings of Eastertide (and truly there is nothing very Christian about coloring eggs, but we like to do it because it is fun and creative and relaxing).

As a special surprise towards the end of our youth group time, I pointed out an owl that had come to roost in our yard. It was perched just above the guest container, the room that had served as our symbolic “tomb” during the prayer mosaic. I was so moved to see an owl come to visit us in this time and place. 

Juvenile eagle owl

There was a special and hard time in Arusha when we enjoyed a visitation of owls as a real consolation. And it feels the same way now. In fact, over the entire past week, they have remained with us, a trinity of owls, mother, father, and juvenile. We have identified them as “Greyish Eagle Owls.” Our guards are fascinated by how fascinated we are by them. In Ethiopian culture, owls give people a shudder, as a harbinger of death. But I have been firm in telling all our staff that they are a gift, a sign of the hovering of the Holy Spirit. I don’t want any rocks thrown at these gorgeous creatures to scare them off. For as long as they remain with us, they are a thrill to see, every time.

Easter Dawn

On Sunday morning, we rose before 5 am so that we could arrive at our church sunrise service before 6 am across the city. It was fully dark as we began the worship service, passing the light of candles among us, celebrating the renewed triumph of light over darkness. Our new pastor, Rebecka, preached a meaningful sermon on the stones of Easter. And I was impressed by the need to give even more praise and glory to God when he rolls away stones from our graves, from the places where we are stuck and out of options. Sometimes it’s easy to just remain in the habit of grief and despair and harder to break out into rejoicing when God actually answers and changes the situation.

Easter sermon

Easter at Redeemer is always followed by a wonderful potluck breakfast together. And the Norwegian Lutheran compound is perfect as a venue with a big dining hall where we can just barely all squeeze in. I sat at a table with 3 Ethiopians of different backgrounds and we spent a little too much time debating politics. But we also had a good chance to share other things that are more uplifting. And after a leisurely time, we headed back home, arriving by 9:30. It’s amazing what all you can fit into a morning when you start at 6 am! After a very nice nap, We shared a wonderful relaxed and delicious Easter lunch with the Kempen family. It’s so nice to have friends here that really feel like extended family and we give thanks for that.

Eyerus' birthday cake

The new week began without any Easter Monday holiday – because Western Easter falls at a totally different time than Orthodox Easter. We won’t get to celebrate Fasika until the beginning of May! Anyway, yes, the week began with lots of bad news about satisfying government requirements. The Charities Association rejected our report and asked for all the pieces to be sent as separate files. Then they rejected it again, asking for a much longer narrative report on all our work. Paul was tearing his hair out, but just had to sit and work it out.

On Tuesday, I left early to drive to Bishoftu for another occasion to celebrate Christian unity. The Meserete Kristos Church president, Desalegn Abebe, had initiated a gathering of Anabaptist Church leaders from 4 countries in the region: Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Ethiopia. MKC played the hosts, and then MCC supported a few bishops and leaders from each national church to fly in. I was delighted to meet up with Tanzanian church leaders again whom I had known quite well during our time in Arusha. 

Tanzanian Mennonite Church leaders
Jumanne Magiri, Emmanuel Hagai
and Bishop Kisare

The Ugandan pastors were new to me, and it was also helpful to meet them. Sadly the Kenyans’ flight was delayed. Pastor Desalegn had invited me to come and start out their meeting by sharing the word of God; I was honored to accept that request. My presence also meant that at least one woman was present for part of the gathering 😉. Other MKC department leaders attended the opening session, but then after lunch, we left the actual church heads to have some more intimate time to discuss how to be salt and light in their contexts.It's very good to see Anabaptist leaders developing their own network of relationships apart from being directed to do so by western missions.

There is more to share and the next blog will come soon with more personal news. But let this Eastertide blogpost stand in for now, with hope for healing and unity, in a situation that often feels very much like tomb closed off by a heavy stone. 

A few bonus photos:

Church leaders' exchange from the pulpit viewpoint

Standing by the MCC tree at MKC seminary

Paul and I took the dogs to Gulele right after our field visit

The beautiful acacia in our yard at dusk

What passes for a "Nature walk" in our neighborhood

Dahlias blooming again with all the rain

Economies of Desperation (A field visit to Tigray and Afar)

Gash Tareka Gebreyesus

 "Man tends to regard the order he lives in as natural. The houses he passes on his way to work seem more like rocks rising out of the earth than like products of human hands. " I have been listening to Chezlow Milov's book The Captive Mind about life in Poland under Stalinism. In it, he is answering the question of a friend about whether or not Americans are really 'stupid'. 

I am hearing this on the week that Rebecca and I have planned a field visit to emergency projects in Tigray and Afar. Milov's point is that people who have not lived through a time of civil violence and war in their communities, such as existed in Eastern Europe in WWII, have a false sense of a 'status quo' that is basically just, and that any disruption of this 'normalcy' is assumed to be a temporary state that eventually must be rectified--brought back into balance. To see a corpse on the road or a neighbor's house blown open, daily, as a matter of course, changes that perspective. One loses the sense that the world is just or good. One simply does one's best to survive and ceases to believe there is a 'normal' that is better than what they are living.

The sense of a truly 'unjust' world greeted Rebecca, David, and me on our trip to northern Ethiopia to the wartorn Tigray region where we spent two days, then continued back south to the neighboring Afar region--one of the most brutal environments on the planet, home to nomadic people who subsist on goat milk, where temperatures regularly exceed 40C (105f). Both regions have been experiencing near-famine conditions due to extreme drought, this following several years of war. There is little evidence of a 'just' status quo or any idea of a return to 'normalcy' in the haunted eyes of the people we met there.

The reason David was with us was because it was his spring break, and while it is nice to take a snorkeling vacation from time to time, this week, Rebecca and I needed to do some monitoring of our projects and felt like it would be a good idea for David to see some of the work we do. (We took Oren on a similar trip last year.)

Getting to Tigray and Afar is best accomplished by plane, as it has become increasingly risky to travel outside of Addis into Oromia where there have been multiple kidnappings. And Amhara zone is impassable as well. Nonetheless, two of our staff, Wonde and Solomon, took the Landcruiser 2 days in advance and drove a circuitous route to Me'kele, the capital of Tigray, to meet our family, and our food security programs manager Gulma, who arrived by plane. We flew early on a Sunday morning and they met us at the airport in time to pick us up and take us to church. 

The reason we wanted to arrive on a Sunday is because our partner in this region is the Meserete Kristos (Mennonite church) Development Commission (MKCDC), and we wanted a chance to greet the local congregation before going out to the woredas where our project is running. Our flight arrived on schedule and we met our colleagues on time to get to the service and were even given a certificate of appreciation during the service.

Afterward we had an amazing traditional habesha lunch--- the best lamb tibs I think I have ever eaten, along with delicious shiro, spinach, and other accompaniments. We made it a quick lunch because then we needed to head out of town to do our first monitoring visit.

Bizuayehu led our expedition. He is the project manager for the cash transfer project we are doing to help about 3000 people with about $33 per month (for 3 months)--enough to buy a month's worth of rations (50 kgs of cheap grain like maize or barley). While crops have failed, it is still possible to get food in the market imported from other regions as long as one has money. Because of the war, all social safety net programs have failed in this time of drought, so there is almost no hope for those without means or money. Our contribution covers less than 10% of the needs in the 3 Woredas where we are running this program, but it is better than nothing.

Fortunately, the local govt. officials in the woredas have a list of the most vulnerable people in each village which can be readily distributed to organizations able to provide humanitarian relief. On our first stop, a town about 2 hours from M'ekele on difficult roads, we talked to some local farmers about the cost of food and fertilizer. We then talked to 5 local govt. officials. They admitted that their job felt nearly hopeless as they were not able to meet the needs of the most vulnerable households in their community. But they were grateful for the support we offered. They did say the govt. offers about $8 per month to a scaled-down number of the most vulnerable households, for a limited timeframe for each recipient. That is all they can do.

We interviewed several recipients of cash transfers in the first village we visited. Here are some of the stories from Rebecca's trip report. 

Behihu Desalegn is 66 years old. Dressed in a matching aqua suit and blanket, he talked to us about his 5 children and how he was able to survive with them, thanks to the cash transfer he received. He bought barley with the money. He’s a farmer but there was no rain for the last two years and so now there has been no production. He came to town to buy fertilizer like many of the people we met and hopes to plant teff, barley and wheat. He affirmed that in the past, they experienced drought once every 10 years. But drought years have become more frequent recently, and now it’s moved from once every 8 years, to once every 5 years.

Hadesh Hailemariam, 32, is a woman head of household. Her husband left her with their 4 children, ages 12, 8, and twin 4-year-olds. She makes a living braiding hair and collecting firewood for sale. She received 5625 ETB ($100) over 3 months and used it to buy sorghum and barley. Normally, people prefer to eat teff, but right now it’s far too expensive, and so Hadesh, like most desperate people, is just buying the cheapest grain she can afford. She said that she has no words to express what the money meant to her. She was hopeless and then received aid. She hopes that somehow, she could get a loan to open her own beauty salon and braid hair full time as a job. She was born in Saharti and has lived here all her life; she has no desire to migrate to a city as many others have done. She’d like to try to make a living at home.

Bertawit Leul shared with us that she has 5 kids and is raising them on her own because she is divorced. When we asked her children’s ages, she said the oldest is 18. She used to earn a living by making local beer, T’alla, but due to poor health, she can’t do that work anymore. And then as she kept sharing, she confided that she had lost her 18-year-old son in the war. This is what happened: two Amhara soldiers came to her compound. One of them kicked her to the ground; the other said that he was going to rape her. She begged him not to, saying that she is HIV+ to try to dissuade him. But the soldier raped her anyway, and then they stole all her property. Her son witnessed this atrocity and was devastated with anger. He joined the TPLF army and was sent down on the offensive against Afar. He was killed at Chifra (Afar). 

We interviewed a half dozen people and most reported losing a child or loved one in the war, and the desperation of crop failure resulting from the drought. We heard reports that over 120 people had actually died of hunger in the woredas where we were working. 

The road to and from the first woreda we visited was long and very rough. We returned at about 6:30pm in the evening. We had a decent hotel room, had a light dinner, and went to bed. 

The next day we went to a second woreda (Gera Alta), equally far away to the north, an area particularly hard hit by drought. We drove into the central street of the small town of Tsigereda and found a crowd of people gathered around the bank. They had all been registered to receive their first cash transfers (2 months’ worth) and were going to pick up money at the Wagagen bank branch. We entered the bank to meet some of the people who were withdrawing their money.

I appreciated how systematically beneficiaries were selected in collaboration with officials in the woreda and the pains the bank takes to register each one and open a bank account for them. Each person has a bank book and the cash transfer is done right into their account. They can either withdraw it all or over time. This gave us a lot of confidence in this method of providing relief. 

We talked to Timnit Desta, a distinguished and solemn older lady sitting in line. She was holding her bank book proudly, and very thankful to be getting some money. She has 9 kids who are mostly older and live in other parts of the country, not able to support her. 

After visiting the bank, we headed to a nearby community to visit some of our beneficiaries at their homes and talk to them about the challenges they face and how (and if) the cash transfers are helping. We particularly wanted to be sure there was sufficient food in the market to be able to buy something if they had money. 

Here are a few stories Rebecca recorded during our visit:

We first stopped at the home of Atsede Tadesse, who is 46 years old. Her face is thin and drawn and her inner pain shows clearly on the outside. She has 5 children, 4 older boys and finally a girl. Handeya Getet, 7, hung close to her mother and observed us carefully as we talked together. We learned that her 18-year-old, Fetele Getet thankfully did not go to the war, so she still has her oldest son. But there is no husband in the picture. Atsede has some farmland, but she has never used it and it is not producing. She really was living hand to mouth for the past few years, depending on the safety net program and begging from neighbors. The money she received came at the right time. She got 2 months disbursement at once and was about to buy 100 kg of maize for 3800, leaving her enough money to take the grain to the grinding mill.  The one good thing in her life is that she has a solid Hidmo house, passed down from her mother. And she is fortunate to live close to a handpump.

We moved further into the countryside and next stopped to talk with Abrihet Kiros, 27. We learned right away that Abrihet does not even have a home of her own. She is currently living in a stone house that a neighbor is letting her use for free because she had nowhere to go. If the neighbor kicks her out, she has no money to pay rent, so she prays this will go on for a while. She came from a community farther away. During the war, Eritrean soldiers came to her home and stole everything from her. It’s possible that even worse things happened but she didn’t say. She was living on the street with her two children, Abel Guursh (6) and Yonas Kahasai (9 months), begging for dry injera from her neighbors. For a while, her younger son was very sick. We could see that Abrihet herself is impossibly thin, and yet she is still trying to breastfeed her baby. She was not getting any support from the government, so she had to take a loan from someone to try to buy food. When she got the cash transfer, she had to use half of it to start repaying the loan. So she could only buy a little bit of maize, and after that, she had no money left to take it for grinding. She has no choice but to simply roast the maize and try to eat it whole. With controlled anger and frustration, she picked up the few grains of maize she had in front of her, showed them to us and then flung them back into the bowl. It is hard to imagine a young woman in worse circumstances, and so greatly at risk of starvation herself. 

We returned to M'ekele in the afternoon and had an evening meal at the restaurant we loved so much with some elders from Meserete Kristos church. They were deeply appreciative of MCC's efforts to relieve some of the suffering from drought. 

The next morning Solomon, Wonde, Rebecca, David and I set off for our next stop, Semera-- the capital city of the Afar region. Honestly, it seemed strange that we were taking one of the roads that must have been the main assault route of the TPLF two years ago when they were trying to cut off the port of Djibouti from Addis Ababa. It is a decent highway, and fortunately is not difficult to travel since the signing of the peace treaty. It was hard not to think that many of the people we met probably lost brothers and sons on this route as many TPLF fighters were killed along the border between these regions. 

Afar, like Djibouti, looks like an otherworldly desert. Some areas feature tumbles of black volcanic rock, resembling piles of broken asphalt; in other places the soil dry and sandy. One thing which grows in abundance is 'Prosipis Juliflora' also known as mesquite. It is an invasive plant, introduced from Central America in the 1960s to increase soil stability. It has taken over almost all arable land in the Afar over the past 40 years as it has no enemies here and grows like kudzu in Alabama. It cuts out the niche required by grass for grazing land. 

It is hard to believe anything can grow in the dry heat in Afar. It is really hot and dry! We arrived in Semera in the afternoon without incident. We stayed at a place that is supposed to be a 'resort' but the only thing it had going for it was AC in the rooms. It is Ramadan right now and Afar is a Muslim region, so finding a place to get lunch during the day was not easy. The hotel also had a number of dignitaries staying there as well so we spent a lot of time around armed soldiers in all of the lounge areas. 

We did manage to get dinner and went to bed early. We were up very early the next morning to meet Muhammed, a program manager from APDA, our Afar partner. The project we were planning to see was a food distribution. APDA made us aware that there were many young pregnant women who were so weak from hunger that they would die in labor. There were also many malnourished children under 2. We had arranged to have enough FAMIX (a supplement for PLWs and children) to feed 1500 pregnant women for 2 months. 

The intervention site was about 5 hours south of Semera in a Woreda called Burimudaiyto, which has been badly affected by drought which has killed livestock and crops, although the Awash river runs through it. We went off-road for about an hour and came to one of 9 distribution points where APDA health extension officers were just beginning a distribution. There was a crowd of women and children around who had been selected by arm circumference for supplementary feeding. They received 15 Kgs of FAMIX and 5kgs of sugar per malnourished mother or baby. 

It was very clear that the children were malnourished, and we were told there had been a measles outbreak and many of the children were recovering but extremely frail. 

We talked to several women. Here is Rebecca's report:

Adeh Hamed has two children, Erbe Musa (4 years old) and Mohammed Musa (2 years old). Her younger child is no larger than most children 9 months old. He was just recovering from measles, like many children in the community. The measles outbreak in the community has been a major risk factor in increasing malnutrition among children under 5, as it weakens the immune systems of young children and decreases appetite. Last week 5 young children died; 2 died this week in the woreda.

We asked Adeh why it is so hard to get food right now. Her first concern is that there is no good way to get treatment for their sick children. MCC Partner APDA trains local people to be village health workers. They are able to give basic training on prevention, hygiene, and maternal and child health. They can treat simple health problems. But they are not doctors. And because of the difficult conditions in this area, government health workers are not excited to be out in the rural health stations. They stay in town and it is almost impossible to get health services near this settlement.

Hasooni Hamed doesn’t know her exact age -- perhaps she is 20? She has 7 children, 3 boys and 4 girls. She was holding her youngest child, Fatuma Dula (18 months). She explained that her family has no income now and can’t buy food when their livestock has no value at the local market. There has been no rain and no grass with which to fatten their animals. When a woman like Hasooni receives 30 kg of Famix for herself and her severely malnourished child, she will not be able to horde it for herself and her baby. Any mother would certainly have to share the food with her other hungry children because there is no other food in the house. But by sharing her food, Hasooni will not be able to recover from malnutrition. 

Asiyah Hamed (blue dress) also showed us her 2 year old daughter, Asaukah Manda. The child’s skin was still peeling as she was recovering from a measles infection she got last month. The APDA health workers will join a government team tomorrow to go house to house, on a vaccination campaign against measles. The government has the resources to organize a mobile cold chain, but APDA has the local health workers, recruited from their own communities and trained, who can lead the government staff to the households that need their help. 

When we finished our visit, we stayed the night in the town of Gewane, the closest place to the project site. The plan was for Wonde and Solomon to continue back to Addis Ababa by road, while Rebecca, David and I returned to Semera to fly back. We did so the next morning and had time to spend several hours in the APDA office in Semera and do several administrative tasks related to monitoring and partner updates. 

We had a leisurely lunch in a restaurant then were dropped off at the Semera airport and flew back to Addis, to arrive around supper time. 

It was good to be back and see the dogs and cat. Fortunately, Bereket had been off of school that week and spent time with them at the house. We are coming back to a lot of work as our fiscal year closes on March 31st. We will try for another update when we can get our heads above water again.