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!)