Babagoya, Ziway, and Meskal

Just enough time to get another blog into the month of September. My latest excuse for delay is language study. We have, as Rebecca said in the last post, begun the study of Amharic which has been, frankly, a great relief. I cannot tell you how discomforting it is to not be able to communicate in even a simple transactional way with anyone you may meet on the street. Even our house guards do not speak any English. We have been at it for about a month now and it has made a significant difference in going to the store, walking around the neighborhood, and asking for help with some outdoor tasks. We are only focusing on conversation for the time being and have not begun to learn the Amharic alphabet and how to read.

Being in a routine since our return, with kids in school and able to get a shuttle ride both ways has meant that we have been able to establish some patterns that sustain life. Our day begins for me at 5;30 am when I get up make coffee, make the kids lunches, and breakfast. I iron a shirt for myself then. Rebecca is usually up and we have a cup of coffee. I let the dogs in who immediately jump into David's bed and wake him up. We wake Oren up and get the kids dressed, fed and out the door between 6:30 and 7:00. Rebecca and I do our brutal HIIT exercise routine and stretched between 7:00 and 8:00 while we listen to the Daily Audio Bible. Then we shower and change and are ready for the day of work by 8:30. (We don't eat breakfast usually.)

Three days per week, the first two hours are occupied by Amharic language study. The rest of the day is at the office. We enjoy the tea break which is usually prepared by our cook who also makes lunch for us and the team. This is a perk of having your office in the same compound as your house.

Kids arrive home at 3:30 and we finish work at 4:30. Notice what is missing?? No commute!! That is one of the best parts of working so close to home (20 meters away). We don't spend any hours traveling during a normal work week. 

That said, every week can have a different contour given the variety of tasks in our job. We have been spending many hours in the office working on getting emergency relief projects submitted by partners approved by headquarters. The Tigray crisis has morphed into an internal displacement crisis and hundreds of thousands have fled from their homes in northern Amhara and Afar. 

We currently have 3 new projects to support these IDPs. Oneis a WASH (water sanitation hygiene) project to provide clean water to 3 IDP camps that have exceeded their capacity to provide fresh water to their growing ranks. The second support Afari pastoralists with traditional woven shelter mats. This is in a very remote area of the country. The third is working with pregnant and lactating women and children under 2 to provide food supplements to prevent severe malnutrition in several camps in a town near one of our project sites that was overrun by the TPLF. We continue to pray that there could be a negotiated peace agreement at some point in the near future, but for the time being there is little interest in negotiation while there is active conflict.

Despite the work, we were able to take a weekend off and go to a retreat center near a  lake about 50 kms away from our house. It is by a small crater-made lake called Babagoya. It is quite charming in a rustic, unkempt kind of way. This was an old mission retreat center that has past its heyday in many wayts, but does have good food, reasonable lodging and a very nice clear lake where one can fish, boat, or swim. Fortunately we brought our fishing gear and inflatable standup paddleboard from the US so we were ready!

We were very fortunate to be joined by our next door neighbors Pete and Katy and their three sons. The oldest is between Oren and David's age and the second is David's age. Having a group of friends made the whole weekend more enjoyable, and besides outdoor activities, we played many board games. Pete and Katy liked Carcasonne. Oren and their oldest played Risk with the younger kids then got involved in an enormous game of Axis and Allies (a WWII scenario game) with another friend who came out for one afternoon. It is really nice to have a place that has a bit of a feeling of Charter Hall (on the Chesapeake Bay) here. Our house is small and in a very urban setting with a relatively small yard, so there is definitely a need for us to get out into nature. 

I should add that David and I had no trouble catching the abundant tilapia as long as we had worms. We did have trouble finding worms around here though. We are going to have to ask our gardener to help us before we leave next time.)

The day after we returned from this trip, I was off on a field visit for three days with our program officer Solomon to Ziway, a town about 2.5 hours South of Addis. I felt a bit bad about leaving Rebecca alone to deal with all the morning routine to get the kids out the door, but she has had to do this often enough. 

I drove to Ziway and fortunately the road is new and four lanes at this point. We made good time and checked into our hotel late in the afternoon on Monday. We had an early night then spent the next day visiting the project activities and some beneficiaries of a maternal and child health program we are running through the development office of Mennonite Church of Ethiopia (MKC-RDA). The project is relatively new but is built on some previous projects and has a good success record. There are a number of axes of intervention. a peer-based support group structure for providing training in infant and young child feeding to women through peer trainers. Women meet together at a health center or in neigborhoods and learn abou the importance of antenatal care, facility delivery, exclusive breastfeeding, and how to introduce supplemental foods after 6 months. 

They also work with other vulnerable comunity members with a big outreach to commercial sex workers in the town. (The town has a large commercial sex trade because young girls come to get jobs in the large flower industry in the town, but often cannot get work and fall into commercial sex as they fall into povery. The large tranistory labor force creates demand for commercial sex work as well.)

The MKC-RDA program provides girls and women with a way out through training in alternative careers like hair-dressing, making enjera, opening a small business, and helps set up support groups for recovered sex workers, many living with HIV, to meet, receive counselling and training and encouragement. 

We were able to meet several of these women. I have included their stories below for anyone interested. Collecting and sharing their stories is part of our work as Representatives to continue to let MCC constituents to know about the impact of this work in personal way. (beyond the statistics.)

Meseret Nebi—mother, Nafiyat Ts’egay--- oldest girl (16), Bahai Ts’egay—oldest boy (14), Ayantu Ts’egay—younger girl (6), Eyerson Ts’egay—youngest (3)

Meseret’s husband was killed in a car wreck when she was pregnant with Eyerson, the youngest girl. When her husband died they became destitute. One day her sone and daughter were sick and went and saw a doctor at a private clinic. She did not have enough money to even pay for an office visit (40birr). He treated her free of charge and connected her to the MKC-RDA MCH project, as he is a member of the Mennonite Church. The doctor (Getu Wake). The project provided her with a place to live and an injera maker (local bread). She is able to earn sufficient income to pay rent and feed her children.

They still face challenges with paying for school supplies and currently Nafiyat, the oldest girl and Ayantu the younger girl are not able to return to or start school. Nafiyat had dropped out of school to help feed the family. Fortunately she was able to avoid commerical sex work, the fate of many such girls because the MKC-RDA project has provided her with hair syling training and she is planning to work in a  salon when she is done. (Hair styling for women is a profession in high demand in Ethiopia as women often require elaborate hair styles to attend wedddings and other celebrations).

 Bahai is planning to return this term, but is several years behind at this time.

Semira Yada, Shilme Abune, and Yegle Hussien started a beauty salon a year ago and currently are able to earn 500birr (($ 12 per day) each minimum and up to $100 per day when they have a wedding group come in. They had come to Ziway to look for work at the flower company (a large industry here) but ended up as commercial sex workers as they were not able to get a job with the skills they had and rapidly fell into poverty. MCC-RDA works in collaboration with the office of Women and Children’s Affairs in Ziway to identify commercial sex workers and provide them with a way out by giving them training in various trades. Semira, Shilme, and Yegle graduated a year ago, and have been able to maintain a successful business that has permitted them to escape the commerical sex trade here in Ziway.

Genet Lemma and her Tsenet Sileshe,

Genet Lemma, like many women in Ziway who fall into poverty after being abandonned by their spouse, was forced into the commercial sex business to stay alive. Sadly she contracted HIV-AIDS and soon after gave birth to a son, Blaine who also contracted the virus from breast feeding as Genet was not able to get ARVs at the time of his birth.

She was living in poverty when she was introduced to the MKC-RDA project and was provided with housing as well as an injera maker. The ministry of health provides her with ARVs and her situation has improved greatly. She is now able to pay for rent on a small room where she lives with her daughter Tsenet who is virus free. Tsenet is ambivalent about whether she will be going to school, but MKC-RDA project will advocate for her mother to send her.

Volunteers for MKC-RDA project doing a cooking demonstration at the health center for MKC-RDA MCH project do a cooking demonstration for mothers to show them foods that can be used for supplemental feeding when their infants reach 6 months of age. The importance of providing a nutritious variety of local foods is not necessarily known to new mothers and the pracitical demonstration provides both information and self-efficacy to prepare foods for infants properly.

Yechalu Tilahun teaches hygiene to a support group for commercial sex workers. MKC-RDA provides sex workers with technical training and small business loans to help them establish their own businesses and escape the cycle of poverty that forces many women into commercial sex work in the town of Ziway. The weekly support group meets to learn as well as support each other as they work to transition into a better life.

Kedija Bushera and her 3-year old daughter Semira Worku attend a commercial sex worker support group where she learns about proper hygiene to prevent diarrhea and other water-borne illnesses. 

After a long first day, we spent the second day visiting a second project run by another partner. Not nearly as picturesque but equally important. We had sponsored BEZA another Church based NGO to provdie improved pit latrines at three schools. The need is shocking. 3000 students were sharing about 3 stalls in two of them. Open deffication on the campuses was rampant and a huge problem in terms of disease. The project also rehabilitated water sources in each of the schools. Solomon and I visited all three recently completed latrines and they appeared to be a great improvement. (Full disclosure, I did not actually try out the latrines). I did try out the sinks at each latrine all had running water, which was great. School is not in session in Sept. in Addis so students were not around. But we were still happy to see that the work was completed on time and within the specified budget. 

Solomon and I returned on Wednesday and we finished off the week in the office writing up reports on our trip. Rebecca has been deeply involved in helping to convene a conference of church leaders across all denominations to try to bring peace to the country. There is division across ethnic and religious lines to some extent in the current conflict, especially tension between Orthodox and Pente (protestant) believers. A unified vision from national religious leaders could have an impact in moving toward a peaceful resolution of the conflict.

On the weekend, it was good to be back in church. We are becoming more involved with Rebecca helping with music at least once per month and me with Sunday School. We have also offered to host a small group which we will begin this coming Sunday. 

We also continue to enjoy having next door neighbors who are friends. Pete and Katy came over during the weekend to our house and we set up the crossnet game Oren got for his birthday. It was a big hit at Charter Hall and the kids here enjoyed it as well. 

Monday of this week was a festival called Meskal. It is an important Orthodox Church holy day celebrating the discovery of a piece of the true cross of Christ in Ethiopia. (I do not know the whole story of how it was supposed to have conme here.) The ceremony begins with large outdoor events on the night before where people gather, pray, and burn enormous bonfires. When the fire begins to burn it reveals a cross hidden in the firewood. 

We walked down to a nearby field to see the ceremony. It was a combination of Christmas (with a giant tree shaped stack of wood and twigs) and July 4th (because they light it on fire!). We had Beriket, a friend of Oren's from the neighborhood (actually the son of one of our guards0 who took us to see the even and explain it to us. It was a nice change of pace, and we are told that the rainy season will end right after Meskal (here's hoping!)

Rain, COVID, Wildcats, and a New Language in a New Year

Ethiopian genet in our tree

Happy New Year 2014! This is a big holiday weekend here in Ethiopia, where they count the birth of Christ as taking place about 7 years later than we do in the West. Over the past few days, we have noticed preparations going on around us. All the small shops around our neighborhood began to sell little yellow sunflower decorations to wear in your hair or put up in the house – this seems to be the symbol of the new year, much as the poinsettia is a symbol of Western Christmas. Yesterday, the floor of our local mall was strewn with clean fresh grass and papyrus reeds, as decoration and to make the place feel beautiful and welcoming. Outside the churches, people were selling more grass, candles, and long pillars of some sort of dried brush (presumably for burning, but it wasn’t clear to us).

It’s a day of feasting and so people were getting ready to acquire fresh meat. On Thursday evening, I noticed a group of 10 hobbled roosters out for sale around the corner.  Apparently, older people really prefer to eat roosters on this holiday, rather than hens. One of our guards bought a whole sheep to celebrate his father’s visit from the village. The sheep found temporary lodging near our chicken coop until it could be slaughtered this morning. Sorry – but that is just the circle of life!

New Years decorations at the mall

We are very new here and so we don’t have any particular social obligations this weekend. I’m sure that will change by next year. We are just taking time to rest up and prepare ourselves for the week ahead. There is something about moving countries that puts one in an interesting place relationally. On the one hand, we are eager to make friendships and build a community. On the other hand, there are hidden ways that we feel our energy to be quite drained and so it actually feels essential to pull inwards and just have quiet family times more than we might in a year from now when we are more accustomed to this context. There is also a big increase in COVID, and so indoor socializing is not a great idea. We had one activity planned for today: to take the dogs back up to Gullele Botanical gardens for a walk. Unfortunately, the sunny morning turned stormy the moment we parked the car. We sat out the first round of heavy rain, started walking, sought shelter again, walked another 20 minutes and then concluded that that it was just too wet to keep persevering. Rainy season makes any fun outdoor activity very difficult! The dogs still had a blast running around, exploring, getting soaking wet.

David and Bella
waiting out the rain (in vain) 

We have now been in Ethiopia for about four weeks, and certain things are falling into a rhythm for us here. Our kids now have places on the school bus that leaves from a neighboring mission compound. We are grateful for continuing very strict COVID protocols on the bus (masks, open windows, no kids on the bus if there are covid cases in the family). The school also continues to take the rapid spread of the Delta variant here very seriously – every week, one or two classes have gone to online school for 12 days because someone in the class tested positive for covid. It’s just a matter of time before this happens in one of our kids’ classes. We remain extremely grateful that we have all been vaccinated, reducing the risk of life-threatening illness. The wife of one colleague became extremely ill about two weeks ago and in the end had to be hospitalized with their infant daughter. After receiving good treatment for five days, she was able to be discharged. Still, it was a near miss, we are pretty sure. A neighbor who runs a guesthouse Mennonites have used for years, a woman my age, died suddenly on Wednesdays, the day after a Mennonite pastor died (someone who refused masks and vaccines). This disease is real, deadly and deeply impacting society here in Addis. Anyway, back to routines and off of the sober subject that has caused not only death, but family division and long-term health consequences for so many.

David with Bella and Friday before school

The kids really wish we were still driving them, but as a compromise, I walk them down to the bus every morning at 7 am, for that last few minutes of conversation and togetherness. I have also found that it is really helpful and important to have conversations with the various other missionary moms dropping off their kids. I am now on a list to order tortillas and bagels weekly, have found out the best brand of local butter and learned more about the grocery stores which stock weird things like fish sauce. I’m usually back by 7:25, when Paul and I do our morning workout in the living room and listen to the daily audio bible. There is just enough time to break a sweat and then get a shower before our language teacher arrives at 8:30 am three days a week.

Poinsettia and the "tukul"
where we study Amharic 

We started Amharic lessons on September 1 and so far, it is very interesting and engaging. We sit under an outdoor shelter, rain or shine, so that our teacher can feel comfortable taking off her mask to pronounce Amharic words carefully for us – pronunciation of this language is incredibly intricate and subtle, and we need to see her mouth. The methodology involves listening and memorizing a lot of vocabulary, and then recognizing and pointing out the correct word when she says it. She has pages of pictures to show us, and we make recordings on our phones. Our homework is listening and memorizing. We probably won’t start learning the Amharic alphabet until 2022. According to the pure method, we shouldn’t even be speaking much yet, but it just makes more sense to try to use what we are learning. Our colleagues are very amused by our progress each day of lessons. And it’s true that there is so much we can’t say or can’t say properly. At the same time, I am already able to communicate more with our guards, and that is very practical and helpful.

New Years sheep in our yard

We finish lessons at 10:30 and then head over to the office for a quick cup of tea with our colleagues. And then there is always lots of email to catch up on, etc. We continue to share staff lunch together Monday through Thursday, sitting under our larger outdoor shelter. I am so grateful for the atmosphere of camaraderie on this team, a very healthy team dynamic that we have inherited. We share good serious conversation along with a lot of jokes each lunch time, talking about the political context, about cultural nuances and holiday traditions. It’s very easy to get along with our program staff, and we are confident that they will let us know if we are getting ready to do something inappropriate to the culture (personally or in work).

The kids are getting used to walking themselves back home from the bus, so that we normally work until about 4:30 pm. On the rare sunny afternoons, we try to go for a walk around the neighborhood with Oren – the best time to actually talk with our teenage son. Other days we have one or another of the neighbors over here hanging out with our kids, playing video games. We try to suggest playing basketball or badminton in the few breaks in the rain. By 6 pm or so we need to switch gears to homework and dinner. We need to make a fire in the fireplace on lots of evenings because it’s super damp and chilly. By nine we need to head to bed because it’s an early morning at 5:30 am!

Cobblestone streets in our neighborhood

In the last blog, Paul mentioned that we have needed to turn  a lot of attention to short-term humanitarian assistance efforts. We are grateful that people in North America have taken note of the human toll being taken by conflict in Ethiopia, and that we have some funds to put towards food and non-food assistance. In addition, we’ve found our colleagues at headquarters extremely responsive to getting short-term proposals approved quickly. It has been a real joy to find ourselves in a place where we do actually have some power to do good quickly. Let me cite just one example.

We partner with an organization called Afar Pastoralists Development Agency (APDA). They are a local NGO based in the Afar region, one of the hottest, driest and most desolate places in the world, tucked into a volcanic depression south and west of Somalia. In theory, the Afar region has nothing to do with the violence that has broken out around Tigray. However, there was an increase in conflict in August, spilling over the borders of Tigray and Amhara into Afar. Thousands of people had to flee their homes empty-handed to escape with their lives. People from APDA had to go on a three-day journey on foot to find these internally displaced people, hiding in a remote grazing valley, in order to make an assessment of their situation and their needs. Hunger is a big problem, but one that is easier to solve through traditional humanitarian organizations like the World Food Program. It turned out that many of these people had absolutely no shelter at all. Every evening and night it was raining heavily, and all they could do was to try to hide under little bits of scrub bush for protection. People were chilled and in danger of sickness, particularly children and the elderly who had fled their homes.

Camels bearing palm mats and sticks
for traditional shelters  in Afar
Photo credit to APDA

We got the report from this walking assessment on a Tuesday, and by the end of the week a concept paper was approved for MCC to support APDA to provide shelters for 630 households. Typically, UN agencies provide plastic sheeting for internally displaced people (IDPs), but we learned from APDA that plastic was totally inappropriate in that environment. Clear plastic provides no shade during the day, and is easily ripped and destroyed by the high winds of the region. APDA suggested that locally-produced palm mats (what people normally use for shelter in Afar) would be much more appropriate and durable – in fact, if we provided a woman with 6 palm mats, she would have a home she could use for the next 10-12 years, an important factor in her recovery from displacement. Local producers were ready to make the mats and they would be transported out to the remote areas by camel. I tell you, this is an amazing project because of the multitude of ways it is designed to be appropriate to the community, meet their actual needs, and use locally available materials and means of transport.

Traditional Afar houses
Photo credit to APDA

Anyway, through the next few days, we were able to help APDA write a full project proposal, in spite of high winds blowing off the roof of their office in the process, cutting electricity and causing delays. We just kept pushing through because the rains continue, and people continue to suffer without shelter. Every time I sat in our house, on a rainy night, I couldn’t stop thinking about them. Last week Friday, I was able to sit in my chair, get news of the final project approval to APDA, send them a Memorandum of Understanding to sign, enter the details of their project into our MCC database, and start the process of requesting funds to be sent over to us ASAP. It had been just 10 days! I know that sometimes our administrative job can seem a bit dull, but it was really amazing to feel the power that we do have to push through help for people who are really suffering if we sit and work at it faithfully.

We worked on a 1500 piece puzzle
for our first 3 three weeks

As far as other details of our after-hours life, I’ve been really happy to start getting involved in music at our international church. For now, I’m joining other people who are leading the music, figuring out how it works in this community. Paul is also now on the list of Sunday school teachers for this church and will probably start teaching in the next few weeks. I was able to join an evening ladies’ bible study here for the first time, and I trust that will also become a group of good friends. It’s great that I can also share a ride with our next-door neighbor Katy.

Last Saturday, we also had a really nice afternoon with another American family who has lived here for 7 years, the Kempens. He studied at Johns Hopkins University under Paul's dad, and they lived in BAltimore for while, so we have many, many mutual friends through that connection. Our oldest boys seem to share a real love for complex military-historical board games, and our younger boys also have a lot in common. I hope we will find ways to keep connecting with this family. 

Completed puzzle

When we got home that evening, our guard, Solomon, brought us down to the lower part of the yard. Here is how David described the scene for school:

At around 5pm on Saturday the guard randomly called us out, I knew something was up because the dogs were running around barking around the base of a jacaranda tree. The guard beckoned me over to a part of the tree where there were no leaves and in the tree I saw a wild cat. it had Weasley body with a long ringed tail, it had a leopard’s coat but was very small. Afterward, he was throwing rocks and sticks at it to keep it away from the chickens because it could potentially kill the chickens. A few days later I learned it was called an Ethiopian Genet.

We only had one visit of that exotic wild predator. The other exciting news is that we have rats that seem to know how to get into our house and night and wreak havoc. We are working on ways to catch or kill them. A little too much wildlife around here this week!

That’s the round up of things going on around here these days. More to come in another week or two.

Heavy rain and hail on the way back from school

New years preparations on the street