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| Women's self-help group meeting |
I am fresh off of a field visit to some partners in a town
about 1.5 hours South of Addis. Solomon (our Program Manager) and I were
visiting a Maternal and Child Health project run by a church partner as well as
a WASH project to improve sanitation in three schools where there has been no
water source or functional toilets for several years.
By way of premise, I am reminded of a high school biology
class I was in, in which our teacher was explaining the limitations of the electron
microscope in trying to understand the function of a cell. He noted that freezing,
and slicing a cross-section of a cell to put in the microscope was tantamount
to dropping a bomb on the roof of the school then peering into the hole in
order to understand how a school functions on a normal day. –While there may be
some clues in the wreckage about certain objects’ functions, you would not see
how it all works.
That is often my sense of my own presence in the communities
where our partners are implementing projects. The idea that a ‘ferengi’
(foreigner) can walk into a community and observe without quickly disrupting
every activity and becoming the central focus is absurd.
Because of this, it is clear that field visits are well-scripted events with special group meetings planned, often with people waiting
for hours for me to show up. Needless to say, things appear to be functioning at
their best.
I am not saying this cynically, it is just a reality here. If
I really want to have MCC do a monitoring visit, one of our national staff
would go without me.
That said, it is always very satisfying to be able to see
the projects running on the ground, and I make it my mission to document in
photos and stories, the participants who are involved as beneficiaries as well as
implementers.
Solomon and I left Addis Tuesday morning and drove to Ziway.
Despite heavy traffic coming out of Addis, we arrived just before lunch and met
our Mennonite Church Development partner (MKC-RDA) at their office where we had
an extensive debrief with the regional office director and project manager.
We provide funds for providing training for volunteers who
run 9 self-help groups made up of pregnant and lactating women. The volunteers
help reinforce the practice of attending all pre-natal care visits, going to a facility
for delivery, doing post-natal visits, getting childhood vaccinations, etc. They
also instruct on the practice of immediate and exclusive breastfeeding and introducing
a variety of complementary foods at 6 months.
After lunch, we visited several of these groups who were in
session. Generally, they had about 20 women (most with children in attendance),
who were receiving training, exchanging experiences with the trainer, and
cooking some food together based on promoting a diverse diet. The women were
gracious in letting me photograph them, even a number of Muslims in full burkas.
Since the groups also include a self-help component, women
save money together which they lend to each other to start small businesses.
Many have quite successful businesses and Solomon and I visited several. Some had
shops, like a used clothing store or coffee restaurant. Others made enjera at
home for sale to people in the town.
Ziway is a small but bustling town with a large industrial flower
farm (for export). Many people come for work, but most do not find it there.
Young women and girls often end up in the commercial sex business in town. These
self-help groups provide a way out of poverty and commercial sex work.
Solomon and I finished the day of visits at about 5pm and
retired to our hotel for the night. The next morning we started out early with
the project manager of BCDA, another church-based NGO that has been doing WASH
projects in the town for a number of years.
We have supported them in doing WASH in 3 schools in the
city. The schools lack sufficient toilets and none of them had a functional
well or any running water at the school whatsoever. All of them served about
3000 students a day.
I need to do another aside here to reflect critically on a
western mindset that I come with. There are many aspects of this that seem to
defy common sense. Why, for instance, would the local govt. build schools of
this size for primary school students which do not have toilets of some kind
integrally built into the building infrastructure? The makeshift pit latrines had a few tin sheets as walls and roof and had 6-8 stalls. (That is one stall
for every 500 students) Most had them either for the boys or girls, but not
both. They are usually located about 100 or more meters from the school itself
so it is a hike. There is also no running water at the school so there is no
hygiene or evidence of regular cleaning. The toilets are generally surrounded
by open defecation all over the floors and the area surrounding the latrine.
Water, available with a hand-dug well could easily serve a
school community with some inputs like a pump and storage tank, but none of
this is considered to be a basic necessity in the school and is not part of their
operational budget.
That said, it is encouraging to see the dedication BCDA puts
into the infrastructure (2 ventilated pit latrines in 3 schools) as well as
training teachers, administration, and parent’s committees in maintaining good
hygiene.
It is a bit disheartening that despite the addition of 3 new
latrines (6 stalls each) two of the three schools still do not have sufficient
numbers of stalls for boys. (Girls were prioritized in this phase). I also
noticed that even after only 3 months, there were already 2-3 broken spigots on
the very nicely constructed hand wash station outside the latrines. It is hard
to get good hardware here and spigots break easily.
Despite this, it was good to see that having running water
near latrines, even the older ones, meant that they could be cleaned with
water, and the evidence of improvement was there in the clean wet floors I saw.
(I imagine they cleaned in anticipation of my visit, but hopefully continue to
do so regularly.)
Again, when I look with western eyes, it seems to fall short
of what I would want to find in a toilet at a school, but compared to what they
had a year ago, it is a vast improvement.
We went from visiting schools to visiting a very exciting cottage industry BCDA has set up at their regional office. They have begun manufacturing 'dignity pads' (reusable sanitary napkins) in-house. They had several seamstresses constructing them. These pads are invaluable to girls in school who sometimes must choose to stay at home during their menstrual periods. BCDA provides these reusable pads to girls for free as part of our WASH project.
Solomon and I returned to Addis on Wednesday afternoon. It
is a super busy week with mid-year reports coming in, and we were scrambling to
get them done before our departure for a week of Rep. meetings in Kenya, to
which we departed on Saturday morning.
Rebecca continues the blog with other activities of the past
10 days…
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| Oren at breakfast |
Our older son Oren is now deep into preparing for his
college applications, including taking the SAT again. He hopes to find a good University in the
Baltimore/Washington, D.C. area, so he will be relatively close to extended
family. It’s a major life decision for him, obviously, as he tries to discern
between two very different directions for his future. He’s strong in Chemistry
and could combine that with a teaching certificate, for a very practical
degree. On the other hand, his life experiences have given him a keen awareness
of all that is going wrong in international relations and politics,
environmental and economic issues. He would like to be someone who can make a
positive contribution to the world, but that would be a very different kind of
degree than chemistry. We are really praying for him to apply to a variety of
places and then to pray for clarity as it comes time to make a decision.
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| David's class surprise party |
A couple of friends also persuaded our younger son David to
try out for the drama club, as they prepare to present “A Charlie Brown
Christmas” in a few months. Astonishingly, David was cast as Charlie Brown – I guess
he must have that super-depressed-sounding voice 😉. He is working on memorizing his lines, and
I’m really glad he is part of this student-run effort. It seems like social
gatherings are also opening up for David. He was invited to join in a surprise
party for a classmate and was very happy to participate. He is also joining us
in a community choir, run by friend Lori K, to prepare a Christmas concert. He
wasn’t interested in the sports options this term, but he shoots a lot of
baskets when he is at home.
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| youth group games |
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| Junior high youth discussion, |
We took another turn at hosting the Redeemer Youth group
last weekend. This time, we had more structured activities, including a big
team-building game and a time for worship music and a reflection. For the last 45 minutes, the kids just enjoyed
hanging out together. I also happened to be preaching the next day, and it had
been a busy week with little quiet time to prepare and think. So it was a bit of a stretch, getting a sermon
finished after hanging out with 20 teenagers. But I am learning more and more
to trust that God will give strength and inspiration when it is needed.  |
| Coffee at the church potluck |
Overall,
I am so encouraged by what is happening in our international church in this
season. Over 20 new adults have joined us since August and many of them have
kids (lots of those youth group folks). Two weeks ago, our Council chair hosted
a potluck at her house and the place was full, with over 70 people, both adults
and lots of kids. When we met for the women’s bible study on Wednesday night,
only 4 out of 10 women had been part of Redeemer for more than 6 months. And we
had 6 different countries represented in that group. The new folks are really
ready to share and engage and be part of this community, even in the middle of going
through the rough transition to a new country.
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| Intentional conversation at potluck |
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| Sam, Ephraim, Mesfin & Neil |
We have had several visitors in and out of the house. Neil
Miller stopped back in for a night at the tail end of his two-week trip visiting
farmers. We happened to invite Sam Vander Ende to join our time for lunch on that
same day. When Neil showed up with an older agronomist named Ephraim, it turned
into an impromptu reunion of old friends involved in farming. We were delighted to watch these colleagues
interact and learned that Ephraim was the same man who grafted and planted the
four apple trees in our garden, two MCC Reps generations before us.
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Paul, Mesfin, Shimeta from AEID,
with Lori & Migs, VHP |
We had other visitors this week, from our MCC partner Afro-Ethiopia
Integrated Development (a well-drilling organization) and their partner Village
Health Partnerships. We have entered into a three-way initiative to try to
improve the health systems in a particular region in South West Ethiopia. Many
health centres – even referral hospitals -- have no water whatsoever. Imagine requiring
a C-section and the doctor responsible cannot change gloves between surgery,
let alone wash his own hands. We heard a story about how VHP was once visiting a clinic with some midwife experts. They observed a delivery that seemed to be going well until the doctor was surprised to find that a second baby was still waiting to come out. The infant was delivered blue and floppy, but thankfully the experts knew how to resuscitate a baby that wasn't breathing. They handed the second baby, living, back over to the clinic staff, relieved and happy, though covered in blood from their efforts. They expected to wash up, and for that purpose were handed a half cup of water. There was absolutely no way to get clean and they had to basically throw away their clothes. VHP is trying to work on the clinical practice of
medicine with training and monitoring staff, but they need water as a basic
resource for safe care. AEID is working on drilling the wells, and MCC had
raised money for this effort through the Abbotsford, BC “Run for Water” initiative.
We had to sit and talk for a while because the ongoing rainy season has made
it difficult for the big drill rig to travel to one of the required sites, but
we are hopeful that it will become accessible in the dry season.
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| Wonde's birthday cake |
Other fun things – our Logistics officer Wondwesen had a birthday
this week, so we gave him his free tray of eggs, flowers and a cake on that
day. I also went to visit our accountant Eyerus, as she is still on maternity
leave. Her son is now two months old and is quite an observant and cheerful
little guy.
We are currently on a plane (the best place for blog
writing!) on our way to Mombasa. From there we will drive on to Turtle Bay
Beach Club for our 4th visit since 2009. This time, we are gathering
together with all other MCC Reps in Africa along with MCC leaders from the US
and Canada for five days of meetings. It’s a bit hard to be stuck in a conference
room when one is at the beach, but at least our kids will have the opportunity to
rest and play in the water. We will probably skip lunch and try to sneak in
some snorkelling between meetings. And we have two days planned at the end when
we will be able to relax and enjoy the place with our kids. News on all that
will come in our next blog…
BONUS PHOTOS
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| Volleyball |
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| Agriculture friends' lunch |
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| Trying out the Maresha plow / planter |
Always enjoy hearing what's up in Addis! So Bingham is doing 'A Charlie Brown Christmas'? They did that over a decade ago when our daughters were there (Sophia was Snoopy).
ReplyDeleteHi Doug! I think they have been doinng A Charlie Brown Christmas as a traditional annual event for many years.
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