Arbe Mensch, Amharic, and some thoughts on Frankenstein

Two weeks can seem to fly by when one is busy all the time. Despite the attempt to define our life by a routine, in practice, most weeks can feel like the routine days are the exception rather than the rule. Case in point, Rebecca and I have tried to take Friday mornings off for a swim and to be able to have some time together for reflection as a couple. After school and evenings are impossible with close accompaniment of the kids on homework a necessity at this time. (They have been a bit unmotivated.)

I think the last time we could actually get free from some urgent task on Friday morning was several weeks ago. There often is no way to avoid losing a Friday morning. One week there was a COVID case in Oren's class, in that situation, the protocol is that all kids in his grade stay home for 10 days and do online courses. 

Last week was another exception as I was out on another field visit this month--this time to a town south of Addis about 8 hours by car or a short 50 minutes by plane. I chose the latter. Actually, flying locally in Ethiopia is quite easy and relatively cheap. Ethiopian Airlines has a fleet of turboprop Bombadiers that go to a number of cities in the country. Happily, I did not even need a COVID test to fly locally. 

The town I was going to is called Arbe Mensch (at least that is how I would spell it in English). This was the first time I was going. The plan was to meet up with the group on the morning of their first day. Mesfin, our program officer had gone ahead by several days. Arbe Mensch seems to be a kind of tourist town by all appearances. It is small, relatively clean and sits on a 500-foot escarpment above a canopied rain forest that runs around two of Ethiopia's biggest lakes. Coming in by plane is actually a great view of the landscape. The view from the hotel, when I arrived was equally impressive as all the rooms sat on the edge of the escarpment and overlooked a canopy of trees several hundred feet below with the lakes in the distance. The hotel offered safaris, although I don't know what animals one would see in the forest. The schedule of the training I was attending was not going to allow any such excursions. 

The occasion was a training attended by a number of our partners offered by a technical expert from CFGB (Canadian Foodgrains Bank-- one of MCC's back donors). The person giving the training, Neil Miller, is a good friend of Rebecca and me as he and his wife live in Arusha and went to our church there. We sang in choir with Neil sometimes, and Rebecca and he led music together as well.

Several of our food security partners have been instrumental in disseminating a low-tillage agriculture approach called conservation agriculture, which has been adopted into the Ministry of Agriculture agricultural extension system. As they try to scale up they are working on ways to mechanize the approach. Neil was training on ways to control pests, appropriate cover crops, and also brought a single furrow 'ripper' developed in Tanzania that can be pulled by oxen that makes a furrow and seeds at the same time in the proper depth and spacing for best CA results. It can be ripped through a mulched field without disturbing the soil that much.

The Tanzania business model is to have a farmer own the plow and rent out his services to a number of neighbors. Neil was making some modifications to the ripper and wanted to literally 'try it out in the field by having a farmer pull it behind some oxen and plant corn. 

The test in the field happened on the third day of the visit. The first two days were spent in a large conference room at the Paradise Lodge hotel where partners shared their experience with improving the method and sharing technical details on cover crops, fertilizer, and pest control. 

It was a good opportunity to network with our food security partners and see what they are doing. At meals, I took the opportunity to practice my Amharic that Rebecca and I are fast and furiously trying to absorb. Mesfin, MCC's Food Security Program Manager was particularly helpful in teaching me some farm-related Amharic. 

Last Thursday was the field visit and our group piled into a bus and headed upcountry. Actually, it was quite a steep climb up higher into the escarpment which offered a commanding view of the entire city and lake from the highway. 

The bus let us off near a small village and we walked several kilometers to visit some model farms where CA has been practiced for several years. We met a farmer who proudly showed us his corn crop intercropped with haricot beans. 

Our second stop, several more kilometers away was an elderly woman and her husband who had some very nice fields with various vegetables and legumes. She took us to meet another couple whom she had trained and had their own field.

After lunch at a well-known fish restaurant, we headed to a research farm with the new ripper (maresha in Amharic). As planned, Neil hooked it to some oxen and gave it a test run. The first try was not entirely successful because the oxen were a bit uncooperative. After making an adjustment he was going to try it again when it began to pour rain. We had to delay the completion of the demonstration to the next day. 

I, unfortunately, had a morning flight on Friday and missed the demonstration but heard it went well. I was actually happy to get home and see the family after 4 days away, and I know leaving Rebecca alone to parent and do her job is a real challenge. 

We had a good weekend together, although there was a lot of homework on Saturday, and I had to prepare a Sunday school lesson for kids at our new church. Fortunately, that went well the next day. Oren spent a fair amount of time playing a gigantic game of Axis and Allies. 

One Sunday highlight was the launching of our new small group. we had 4 people join on week one by are hoping that a few more will come as well as we get more established. 

Neil dropped this week as well on his way back to Arusha. He had dinner with us and it was good for Rebecca to have a chance to catch up with him since I had a chance during the trainings. 

Rebecca and I, as mentioned above have really been plowing into Amharic. Despite it being a difficult o language, we are finding we are beginning to be able to have simple conversations with our colleagues and staff at tea and lunchtime.

Travel has afforded some time to listen to some audiobooks. I just finished Ready Player One, which was interesting in terms of a genre I would not normally read. I also am listening to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. I have to say, it is nothing like I would expect, and am fascinated by the focus on relationships, particularly creation to creator, and the 'monster's fascination with the family he spied on to become 'civilized'. At times it sounds like the 'beast' is narrating Pride and Prejudice. There is little interest in the technical aspects of the animation of the monster, something that a male author would likely find far more interesting. Definitely worth listening to if you think you know the story but have not heard it from the source. I am not sure that the 'moral' as it is often described (man's hubris), is actually completely accurate. There is something about the pathos of this 'beast' rejected by his creator that seems to be a comment on faith. More when I finish. 

We are heading to Kenya next week for a Rep's meeting. It is term 1 break so the whole family is going. More on that later as well.