War and Peace, and Planning a Vacation on Tatooine (aka Djibouti)

 "The hits just keep on coming!" as Colonel Jessup retorts in A Few Good Men. And no sooner had Rebecca posted her treatise on Afar, we were out on the road again--in different directions this time. Actually, I need to start back a bit before that to talk about peace (then war). And it might be better to begin by telling you all where we are right now. We are in a kind of a 'down day' in Djibouti, having just spent about 5 days on a beach snorkeling and returning back to 'civilization' in Djibouti town to get a COVID test so we can travel back to Addis on Saturday. But the details of our vacation will have to wait for the next entry. Suffice it to say, Djibouti is a tiny country on the coast of the Red Sea and mostly a part of the Grand Bara desert. This place is definitely a candidate for a Star Wars planet if it was not already used as Tatooine, complete with Tuscan raiders! But I diverge. 

On Rebecca's return, we mercifully had a full week of 'normal' activities. By normal I mean the kids had school and we had at least a few days in the office. In fact, we had one day to catch up on work in the office on Monday. It was good to hear Mesfin and Rebecca report back on their experience and there were quite a number of office tasks to prepare for our end of fiscal year activities to discuss. 

Actually, on the Saturday before, we had a bit of an adventure when Yididiah, our Amharic teacher invited us to lunch at her house. She lives with her husband and 3 kids in a modest home a few kilometers from us. She prepared us a number of traditional Amharic dishes and we were challenged to use as much Amharic as possible as her husband and children had very limited English. It was definitely a big challenge for David and Oren who do not know Amharic and do not have a huge affinity for some of the spicier dishes, but they were very good sports and participated politely in conversation and tried everything. 

Tuesday, Rebecca, myself, and Solomon (our senior Programs Officer) were invited to attend a very significant follow-up meeting to the first meeting MCC had sponsored to bring church leaders from every denomination together for reflection and conversation on how the Church could take a leading (Prophetic?) role in standing against the civil war that has been tearing this county apart in the past 14 months and came to a head this past November. While tensions in Amhara have diminished significantly, there is still ongoing fighting in the Afar region and along the Tigray border. 

By way of reminder, Ethiopia is a largely Christian country with an ancient Ethiopian Orthodox church which has significant influence in much of the country. There is also a large protestant (Pente) movement which unfortunately has found itself in conflict with the Orthodox church. While the civil war is not along inter-Nicene lines (there are Pentes and Orthodox on both sides), there is some sentiment that Pentes are identified with the govt. and Orthodox with the Tigrayans. 

The fact that that Christian identity is so prevalent in the conflict has been seen by MCC and the International Bible Society as a leverage point if the church (orthodox and pente) could speak in unity against the violence. This was the focus of the first meeting in November and brought together a number of high leaders in the Orthodox and Pente communities as well as a number of national political figures.) The Bible society created the event but needed a convener that would be respected by all. They found that in a man name Abune Petros. Who is the patriarch of the Orthodox diaspora church in the US, and based in New York. He seemed to be the ideal person to garner the respect of the Orthodox community while being sensitive to the pente community as well. 

The meeting in November went well and was a start, but Rebecca and I were not able to attend. So we were very pleased to be able to attend the follow-up meeting last week. Again Abune Petros was in town to be the primary convener, although leaders from the Evangelical, Mainstream protestant, and Catholic churches spoke as well. 

After giving an exhorting challenge, to confront politicians who were sowing division in communities, Abune Petros invited each significant denomination to tell what their action plan would be to sensitize their congregants against violence in this conflict. Each leader spoke about their plan for training their clergy in peacebuilding. The meeting ended with commitments from everyone to continue to move forward and hold politicians accountable for their words. 

It is definitely a start. We are aware that there are ongoing tensions between the Orthodox church and Govt. in Addis, and the church has begun wielding some of its power and influence to get its way in some 'turf wars' (over who has the right to certain public spaces.) Fortunately, these have not resulted in violence, and I certainly do not have objections to groups using political power to come to political solutions to conflict. I am hoping the Orthodox church can model this in these disagreements. 

It was moving to watch these leaders come together although the language of discussion was Amharic. Rebecca and I are working hard to improve but it was way above us. I was happy to have Solomon translate the significant portions as we listened. 

Having a long meeting on Tuesday made the day seem full, but I also had to prepare for a field visit in Amhara near Shewa Robit where one of our partners (AEID) was doing an emergency WASH project. They had completed a phase and I needed to get some pictures to share with communications. 

I went with Mesfin our Food Security Coordinator and Wonde our GSO (whose driving skill was much appreciated). We planned a two-day trip with an overnight in a town about 140 kms north called Debre Birhan. I remembered from a previous visit that the latter is higher than Addis (about 10,000 feet) and quite cold at night. I packed appropriately this time. 

We started out early on Wednesday in hopes of getting all the way up to Ataye, the point furthest north where the main project activities had happened. This was about an hour north of Shewa Robit and 2.5 hours north of Debre Birhan, so getting up there and back to Debre Birhan before night was a factor in our trip planning. 

The journey started well and we met our partner Shimetta, the head of AEID in Debre Berhan, and followed their jeep up north. The route north of Debre Birhan was a place we had not traveled since the conflict in November as this was the main route that the TPLF came down in their attempted siege of Addis. Once we passed Debre Birhan and made our way north the ravages of war were extremely apparent. Many houses were blown up by heavy artillery presumably, and about every kilometer we found the skeleton of a burned-out military vehicle lying on the side of the road. Other remnants of army camps were also apparent and graffiti left on the road by the TPLF. It was hard to believe this was a war zone two month ago. 

We got to Ataye by early afternoon and surveyed the damage. Ataye had been the site of an IDP camp beore it had been overrun by the TPLF. Also the town had been the site of several previous OLA attacks which had left a number of houses destroyed. At this point there were several NGOs and returning residents beginning to rebuild. AEID, our partner, was charged with restoring water to the town again. Sadly, it has been the strategy of marauding militias that attack and occupy, to systematically hack through water lines on their way out thus destroying essential infrastructure and making return by the community that was chased out, difficult. This had been the case and AEID had restored several kilometers of pipe that had gone to homes, a health post, a school, a mosque and various other venues. The school had hosted the IDP camp and AEID had put in a large water point to get water. Now that the IDP camp was gone, it was left for the school which was great for the kids there as they had fresh water coming to the school grounds. 

We talked to the local water committee about the work they were doing and the challenges they were facing. Despite the trauma of having to flee more than once, they were courageous to rebuild and keep water flow maintained in the community. One of the current challenges is the large population that is returning and exceeding the capacity of the reservoir tank they have on a nearby hill to keep water flowing to the community. 

I asked about whether they feel that at this time the attacks of various rebel groups might stop, and they said only if politicians stop riling them up. They claimed that in the communities themselves people of different ethnic groups and faith do not have problems living in peace. 

We returned to Debre Birhan for the night without incident after a brief stop at the AEID in Shua Robit for a check-in. The MCC team on the trip ended up having a discussion on what current security protocol should be since the worst of the conflict seems to be over for the moment, but tension remains high. We are currently reviewing our protocols. We had a good evening in Debre Birhan with excellent habesha (Ethiopian) food at our hotel and left early the next morning to get us back to Addis just in time for my Amharic exam.

Rebecca did stay home long enough on Wednesday to see the kids off to school, but then she too went with Solomon to the South, to a town called Adama where our partner RPC has a pre-school. They have also been due a visit since our return to Addis, and we felt the only way to cover all of our visits was to divide and conquer. 

RPC, (Remember the Poorest Community) has been involved in a preschool program to give extremely vulnerable children an opportunity to succeed by participating in a preschool program. The town of Nazreth where the preschool is located has had a rapidly growing population and a large sector of destitute families who have had to resort to begging and comercial sex work to support their children. RPC educates about 250 of these children per year and provides some limited school feeding along with teaching. This head start is the only education they will have before starting school. Without it, their likelihood of school success is very limited. 

Rebecca went to visit the school and see the results of an external grant that came in for school feeding. She and Solomon were able to meet with the directors and get some photos. She got home by the end of the day Wednesday. It was also a good test for our family to see if our kids could get themselves off to the bus and back home on their own, as she did not get home until evening. Rebecca and the kids have also been trying to add a weekly horse-riding lesson to their weekly schedule. When possible, they do it with David's friend Peter. There is a riding paddock and stables in town, although the space for riding is quite small, but does provide some opportunity for the kids to work on technique. 

It was good to be reunited with the family on Thursday after school when we were all back together. Oren and David had a fair amount of homework as they were approaching a midterm break for a week. Rebecca and I had planned to try to squeeze in a week of vaction as work has been very intense, and Addis is not entirely restful as the urban environment gets a bit draining, and our office is on our home compound so it is hard to 'be away' from work. 

When we moved, I did do some geographic research to see what was nearby and saw that Djibouti is a short flight from Addis, and apparently is being promoted by some as an 'undiscovered snorkeling paradise'. (or some words to that effect.) We are avid snorkelers and beach lovers so we decided to research it. 

What we discovered quickly is that almost no one with a hotel has an active website. It was very hard to get anyone to respond to our inquiries and we almost gave up in frustration. Little by little though, mainly by Whats app we were able to find connections. One reason why it took some time is because Djibouti is francophone, so English language websites miss a lot. I will say that being fluent in French was the only reason we were able to make any progress at all. 

We did finally manage to book a place called Sables Blanc, quite far from the capital that promised to be a remote, amazing snorkeling area. We book it and made arrangements to get there. One challenge we realized was that we would have to leave it and go back to the town for several days before departure so we could get a COVID test to leave. (It is amazing how COVID test logistics have beome a normal part of our travel planning--and must be carefully factored in!) 

We had a huge set of complications when we realized Oren's passport would expire in 6 months. I took Oren down to the US embassy for a passport renewal which was not going to be on time. The US embassy experience was shockingly unpleasant and seemed to be designed to give one a bleak impression about the prospect of successfully procuring a visa to travel there for Ethiopian nationals. It is also very forboding. Quite a far cry from the British embassy where they let me get membership to their golf club on the embassy campus for about $100 per year!

Despite the difficulty and long wait, we did succeed in getting the application turned in. The next challenge was getting a Djibout visa in a passport that had under 6 months of time left (usually not allowed.) I talked to the embassy of Djibouti in town and they told me that if I brought the passport, itenerary, Ethiopia residence permit, and COVID test the day before we flew, they would process it. 

Long story short I did jump through all the hoops on the day before we left and it only took 2 visits to get the visa completed (on the same day). It was stressful because the rest of us all had evisas and were ready to go. (Would we have left him if we failed??)

There was one more step, getting USD. In Ethiopia it is all but impossible to get USD to travel, and Djibouti is one of thoes countries where very little is done with plastic. You need cash. We would have been stuck if we did not know that ROSE our friend and former Rep. was coming to Addis from the US for a project she is working on. We were able to get her to bring $1000 cash of our with her. We picked her up from the airport about 10pm on the night before our morning departure and got the money. We also got all of our negative COVID test results and were ready to fly. 

I am asking myself how restful a vacation can be with that much stress just to leave. But we will leave the vacation experience itself for the next blog. (Some preview pictures are included though).

Sable Blanc