Celebrations and Laments from farmers in Gojjam

Wheat harvest ready for threshing

We have ended these past two weeks in a time of tension and darkness. But we began with celebrations, and we have been on journeys since then.

First, the celebrations! On the last day of January, our housekeeper Yeshi had a birthday. We do our best to remember and recognize all our team members. David very kindly made a yummy chocolate cake the night before and we enjoyed it at tea time. And then the celebration continued into lunch…

Yeshi, Hana, Eyerus and Barry

Our longest-serving staff member, Muluneh Adamu, recently turned 60. We found out that he is obliged to officially retire by government labour law (though he is eligible to continue on with a new contract). So, within a week, we processed all the paperwork to release his pension fund, etc. And then our staff led the way in planning a celebration to recognize this milestone in his life. We all went out for a special lunch at an Ethiopian cultural restaurant. It was a very light-hearted time together. We enjoyed some special non-alcoholic honey mead called birs and big plates of delicious habesha food. Our logistics officer, Wonde, really loves to practice a special cultural gesture of love and care called “gursha”: he would take a sizeable portion of injera and sauce, and feed it to each of the rest of us. It’s funny and awkward, a bit the way one feels when seeing a bride and groom feed each other wedding cake. The team of staff sharing his plate complained that he was causing deforestation of their food supply, so we had to supplement from the rest of our plates. Anyway, it was quite a nice bonding time for all of us.

Gursha

We were also really happy to begin rehearsals again with our local community choir, Sing Again! We are preparing a selection of songs from movie soundtracks. It should be fun! Our kids continue to find good ways to connect with other kids in the neighborhood and have been enjoying weekly get togethers most weeks. We were also really delighted to help Oren's friend Barry finish his college applications and to see him receive his National ID card, necessary for his passport application.

Saturday was quite an unusual day on our compound. Our dear little cat Charley turns out to be female, a fact that was only too obvious recently when she became very loud and annoying. It was not seemly, in a compound is also a professional compound for our office. We do not have mental space for kittens and so we resolved to have her fixed. The vet turned up at 10 am, set up his portable operating table under a gazebo here, and we sedated Charley enough that she wouldn’t move. Paul was “enlisted to be the surgical assistant in giving our cat an ovariohysterectomy.” I absolutely could not bear it. In fact, I was really happy when I had to leave to take Oren to physiotherapy to work on loosening the sprained ankle that has been bothering him since November. Charley was very sick and dizzy when I got back, struggling with the anaesthesia. She had a plastic netting around her neck to keep her from licking her wound – a bit better than a cone, I guess, but still not very easy for her. She struggled to walk at all and actually fell down some steps at one point. It was very worrying and heartbreaking.

Amy with Mesfin and me

Halfway through that afternoon, we received a long-anticipated visitor from MCC Canada, Amy Martens. In March 2020, Amy was in the airport in Toronto on her way to Ethiopia when the pandemic officially shut down travel, and she had to return home. We were very happy to welcome her 3 years later. Amy has been an amazing colleague, working alongside us with patience and deep discernment. Her domain has been food security projects, along with some of our emergency relief work. And we know she has been a faithful advocate on our behalf, as an intermediary with our big back-donor Canadian Food Gains Bank (CFGB).

Our family up at Entoto viewpoint

We had a quiet first evening with her, grilling chicken and nursing our ailing cat. Amy had been travelling for the past two weeks in Uganda and so it wasn’t bad for her to have some downtime. In the morning, we all got up early for church. I was preaching on communion Sunday, so it was interesting to have an MCC visitor join us on that occasion. After church, we ran home and changed and then drove up to Entoto Park to take Amy for a good long walk. We actually made it to the end viewpoint of the Park, 4 km in 40 minutes, snapped some photos, had lunch, and then walked back to our car. We arrived home 2 minutes ahead of our friends for small group bible study. Phew! We made it a fairly early night because Amy and I needed to get out the door by 6:30 am the next morning.

The welcome coffee ceremony for Amy

We took a quick local flight to Bahir Dar, the major city of Amhara region on Lake Tana. Normally, it takes about 10 minutes to check in and head to the gate. But the domestic terminal was packed – probably 8 times the normal volume. It seems like people are feeling better about flying than going by road right now. That was our reason for flying, too, when we could have driven in about the same amount of time. We just barely made it to the gate. That was the only really stressful part of our day.

The driver of our partner MSCFSO met us at the airport and took us for breakfast before we hit the road to drive south to Debre Markos, about 5 hours away. On this occasion, we somehow managed to do the entire drive without stopping. Unless you count stopping for a major religious procession at a town about halfway. Everywhere we went, people were dressed in black. Tadele, like all the other Orthodox people we met, was observing a three-day Sabbath fast for Nineveh (remembering Jonah’s time in the whale's belly). This is normally a time of preparation for the long Lenten fast. 

Black flags flying for the fast

This year, the Holy Synod also called people to fast and mourn for a schism along ethnic/political lines that has suddenly erupted in the Orthodox Tewahedo Church. Debre Markos is a hard-core Orthodox town and even the little 3-wheel bajaj taxis were flying black flags in observance.

We dropped our bags at our hotel, had a cold Coke each, and then made an appearance at the MSCFSO office. They had quite a reception ready, with introductions to the whole span of their work, and then an evening coffee ceremony with snacks. Amy is quite an important visitor for them -- they have worked directly with her a lot on preparing several CFGB grants. Currently, we are all working on a huge grant with the Canadian government to promote Nature-Based Solutions for climate resilience in a particular watershed in Amhara region. We all understand how important it is to really get to know one another well. Yihennew, the Program Manager, accompanied us through the whole visit, along with the Director Ato Mihretu. 

Area closure with check dams to stop erosion

We were exhausted by the time we got back to our hotel but refreshed in the morning when we began our field visit to the Kosso Amba - Tibtab watershed. I visited back in May with our Area Director Wawa. That was a different season -- things are much drier now. On the other hand, it was clear how many farmers are practicing conservation agriculture and leaving the crop stubble in the fields to stabilize the soil and stop erosion. We walked through the Tibtab watershed first, past a large area enclosure that was fenced off 3 years ago. The forest inside is even more impressive after 8 months. It will provide more sustainable firewood and charcoal for the community, along with cut-and-carry animal fodder made of acacia limbs.

Threshing in a designated area

We had come at the wheat threshing season. The watershed committee there had decided together that all threshing would happen in designated areas on top of the hill. It's more work for each farmer, but it also means less soil loss and erosion on each farmer's field.   

Heavy rains last year caused the creation of a few pretty serious gullies along the edges of the area closure. Those are part of the reason that we are working to get a 4th year of the project approved -- there are still parts of the watershed that need to be stabilized and repaired. This kind of work is not completed in only three years. 

a quick-growing new gully

We visited two other areas -- Gibto Amba and Kosso Amba.  I was so encouraged to see the visible growth of the trees planted in gullies to help stabilize the soil and halt the gully development. I clearly remember standing and looking at Wawa across a very bare red gully. Now that whole area was green with low shrubs. We walked a lot and saw many fields, edged with tree lucern planted in rows on the contour lines, one more defence against erosion. Quite a few farmers were using lupine as Green manure, growing it until just before the seeding stage and then cutting it into the soil to add biomass. Other farmers were growing lupine in order to collect and sell the seeds as snack food. Either way, it's a nitrogen-fixing indigenous plant that helps enrich the soil between grain crops. 

We had to drive back 30 minutes to the nearest town for lunch -- fasting lunch of lentil and vegetable dishes this time because of the church season. In the afternoon, we had time to meet with three different community groups. A self-help group talked about the profits they were able to make, the women mostly brewing local liquor and the men fattening animals. A revolving seed group talked about how they were able to pass on good seeds to their neighbours in the next season. And finally, the watershed committee talked about how much they appreciated MSCFSO and their approach to involving community members from the very beginning. 

Yihenew with lupine seeds,
in a lupine field

One question really struck me. MSCFSO's project has brought job opportunities to landless youth in this community, paying them cash-for-work to build the physical structures to repair gullies (check-dams) and to plant the trees and shrubs that are biological means of remediation. This income has made a huge difference in the lives of these young people. They have been able to live at home rather than migrate to cities. What will happen to these youth when the MSCFSO phases out their work in 12 months? There are few other opportunities for them in their home community. 

We asked the Self-help group members what hopes they had for their young adult children, and they all hoped their kids would have a better life. Farming is hard. They want their kids to get educated and leave. But who will grow food for the country if all these young people leave the land? And is life really better in the cities in a country with very high youth unemployment? At the end of our day, we met a University graduate who had come home to help his parents with their wheat harvest. He told us that if he got a better job, he probably wouldn't come back for this. 

That's a big rock!

As we drove back to Debre Markos in the evening, we found ourselves following a large dump truck. In the bed of the truck, pushing out the sides, was one enormous boulder. We found ourselves marvelling that anyone would want to move such a huge rock. How did they load it? How would they unload it? How in the world could it be valuable enough to be worth the cost of transport? it was quite a novel sight.

In the morning, we woke up even earlier to move on from Debre Markos to visit communities that are part of a different CFGB project, SCASI. First, we made a quick visit to some older watersheds. Projects in those places are now phased out, but farmers clearly continue to practice CA principles and maintain their fields against erosion. 

Then we headed up over a mountain northeast of Debre Markos. We climbed and climbed, up through a town called Rob Gebeya -- Wednesday market. It was Wednesday. There was a market! Farmers were streaming down from the highlands, with donkeys loaded with potatoes, the crop most suited to high altitude. We kept climbing up Ch'ok'e mountain until we reached the highest point on the road at almost 4000 m (13,100 ft). 

On Ch'ok'e Mountain

It was spectacular, with alpine heath vegetation that reminded me a lot of the Shira plateau on the Western slopes of Kilimanjaro. We stopped for about 20 minutes to breathe the fresh air and marvel at the view. We got the news that Yihennew had gotten a flat tire -- no surprise on the rough gravel roads we were travelling, so we didn't hurry too fast back down the other side of the mountain to the project communities. This is one of two Woredas where MSCFSO is implementing a new Scaling Up Conservation Agriculture (SCASI)

We met Farmer Anagew Sinishaw in his field in Bibugn woreda (_____Kebele). His homestead was built just on the edge of the main road, with his fields running off towards the valley. He had left the stubble of wheat in his lower field, while he had plowed his upper field. He immediately volunteered that this was the third year he had employed principles of Conservation Agriculture, and he was delighted with the results. This year, he had harvested a healthy crop of maize, and he showed us --  using his whole forearm -- the length of those ears of maize.

Anagew in his field

At first we were confused: how had Anagew been practicing conservation agriculture for three years already? This was only the first year of the SCASI program in his woreda. He explained that before SCASI, the Packard program had sponsored training for agriculture extension agents. He learned some general ideas about conservation agriculture at that point, though he only had been doing it in an organized way for this third year. Before these changes, his field was very infertile and he could only grow lupine.

This year, he planted one 20 x 20 field with maize using conservation agriculture. Now he’s plowed that field and will plant potatoes (that was the reason he plowed). The following season he plans to plant barley, practicing the principle of crop rotation. In total he has 1600 m² under cultivation using conservation agriculture, including two other sections of land.

He elaborated on his maize field this last season, where he mixed both compost and chemical fertilizer into the soil. He also used mulch, which then decomposed. He could visibly see the change in soil color and could see how the mulch kept the soil moister.

Vermicompost

He participated in agriculture training through the SCASI program this year, but his wife Anchiney Muchey did not. He explained that she had just given birth when the program started and was very busy caring for their new baby. Some of the trainings included topics such as Green manure/cover crops, field layout training, compost production and the timing of chopping mulch and how to incorporate it. He feels very supported by his wife and kids and some of them help with the work. Most of his neighbors are also positive and are trying out CA on their own fields.

Anagew is also a member of the kebele Watershed Committee. He has been part of making decisions to enforce an area closure to allow the watershed at the center of the community to regenerate. That gully rehabilitation began several years ago through a Ministry of Agriculture initiative called the Soil and Land Management Program. We could easily see the stark contrast between the area where animals are allowed to graze (which was completely denuded of vegetation) and the area closure beside it where animals were forbidden to enter.

Anagew with maize

We walked back towards the road from Anagew’s field into his homestead, where he showed us what was left of the enormous ears of maize he had harvested. Then he took us around to his vermicompost box along the outside of the house. He had learned about preparing compost this year, and he had a nice setup, with a shaded, raised rectangular box, the frame built of eucalyptus poles and mud, lined with plastic and filled with soil and lots of worms. He is a little worried about the ants that seem to be drawn to the compost as well. 

We were about to leave and meet with some other farmers, but Anagew's wife pleaded with us to stay and have something to eat. We entered their home, made of the same building materials as the vermicompost structure, but with a very high roof. Anchiney brought out several trays of injera, with a little pile of dark ochre Awaze in the center (spicy berbere paste mixed with oil). The family also offered us glasses of the local beverage T'alla -- this one pretty basic and unfiltered. I was interested to try a few sips, but that was all I could manage. I was actually praying that it was fermented enough to protect me from whatever else might be in the liquid. 

I noticed some large colorful photo banners on the wall of their home, depicting a very attractive young woman congratulating her on her graduation from college. It turned out to be their daughter. They had just celebrated her wedding the past weekend there in the village. I wondered what a married college graduate would do when it comes to participating in the land her father is farming. 

Hail victims

We left Anagew's village and moved further north to visit one more SCASI community. the Mosaba kebele of Bibugn woreda. A group of men and women pulled up benches under the shade and we gave them a chance to share their stories. Sibeltal began by sharing how he had gotten training in conservation agriculture earlier in 2022. He used planting stations and Green manure cover crops with his wheat. In July, they had a light hail storm, but nothing was too badly damaged. Like most of his neighbors, he bought fertilizer on credit and added it to his field. The crop was growing beautifully and was looking almost ready to harvest in November. On the night of November 13, at about 9 pm a massive freak storm blew through the area, dumping rain and piles of hail for an hour and a half. People were terrified as they heard the sound of trees crashing down, hanging onto their roofs so they wouldn't get ripped off. People were scared for their lives. 

Hail the morning after

In the morning, when they ventured out of their homes, everything was white. The ground was covered with piles and piles of hail. The crop was covered with ice and ruined. It was 100% crop loss in that community. Everywhere, birds were dead, pelted by the hail. Their fruit trees -- the supplementary income they relied upon in times of crop failure were also badly damaged, all the fruit ruined. Mothers and fathers were weeping, as they took in the disaster. Yet these farmers gave thanks to God, that the storm had come at night. If it had come during the day, surely some of them would have lost their lives. 

Another man, Mosit, spelled out the bad situation they were in, going forward. They had all bought fertilizer on credit, anticipating paying off the debt with their wheat harvest.  The rain was so heavy that the fertilizer they had bought was all ruined. In addition, they had been given seeds to plant for the first season. They had used it all and had no seed left to invest in a new crop to try to dig themselves out of debt. The terms of their loans have been extended, but they are on borrowed time and don't see any way to pay it off, Many people have left the community, looking for work in order to feed their families. 

Kebele chief and hail survivor

It is a pretty awful situation for these farmers. Normally the government has a disaster response department that would help them with recovery. However, much of northern Amhara along the Tigray border is still devastated by the conflict, with many displaced people struggling to make ends meet. Water systems and schools need to be rebuilt, and many people missed a year of farming. There are just too many disasters going on here, all at the same time. MCC feels the same, as it tries to respond to longer-term crises like the war in Ukraine and the earthquake that happened just the day before we met these farmers. And the structure of the SCASI project is rather rigid, with a new back donor from Norway, making it hard to suggest changes and additions to the budget. We are trying to think about how to advocate for this small community in their time of need.

As we were preparing to part ways with the MSCFSO team, they very graciously gave us gifts of wonderful Gojjam honey to take back with us to Addis and Winnipeg. They are a very dedicated group of people, working extra hard for their communities in all kinds of holistic ways. 

We continued driving up North, following the gravel road until it met with another major route coming from Addis. It was a windy way, full of switchbacks and very dry countryside. Once more, we decided to just drive all the way through to Bahir Dar rather than stop. We had an early dinner there at our hotel and got some rest. 

On Thursday, the last day of our northern visit, Mesfin had suggested that we give ourselves a little time to enjoy the scenery. We were a little delayed by a flat tire. Our driver made sure to repair the spare before we continued our journey, so we were a bit delayed. Then we drove out to the Blue Nile files, a few kilometers beyond the place where the Blue Nile exits Lake Tana. We found a very kind guide named Dawit who led us expertly on a circuit trail around all sides of the falls. We first crossed the Portuguese bridge, one of 3 old stone bridges in the country, built by an empire looking for converts to Catholicism. The bridge crossed the Nile, noisy with rapids on one side, and calm as it flowed towards Sudan on the other side. We then climbed up a long rocky hill to a point where we could down into the next valley and see several parts of the falls. Originally it was a massive expanse of falls, in 5 separate streams. 

Being funny at the falls

But in the 1950s, Italy had kindly constructed a hydroelectric dam  (reparations for their past wrongs?). Now sometimes 90% of the water goes through the power plant and the falls are much diminished from what they had originally been. On the day we went, there was still a decent amount of water going over the falls and creating spray. Dawit made sure to take photos of each of us and various intervals. I also enjoyed the birdwatching, especially the little bee-eaters that love that environment. 

Next, we crossed over a suspension bridge and then down right up to the point of high spray. We got a very refreshing light shower, which felt great on a warm day. It was quite an exhilarating place to visit. We finally returned across the Nile by a short boat trip and found our driver. He took us back to Bahir Dar where we settled down on a floating restaurant to enjoy some fresh lake fish. We were just heading out to the airport when we started getting rumors of unrest and people demonstrating back in Addis. It was quite unsettling to know our kids were just getting out of school, we were far away, and we didn't know if it would be safe for them on the roads. When we got through to our staff, we heard that things were normal and calm -- it had been just a localized problem in one neighborhood. But this was the climate of political-religious tension we were coming back home to. 

At Blue Nile falls

We had planned for some work meetings on Friday, Amy's last day. Sadly, she was quite ill and really needed to rest before getting on a long plane ride. The government had mandated that schools be closed Friday, so we kept our kids at home. And meanwhile, I was on the phone and email with our Church council, trying to discern if we should meet as normal at our church building on Sunday. In the end, we made a plan for neighborhood worship in four different locations on the periphery of the city. I'm glad we decided that, because at the last minute, the government announced road closures through most of the center of town, part of security drills in advance of the big African Union summit that begins this coming weekend. So, on Sunday morning, we had worship with 12 teens and 7 adults in our backyard. 

We had a few other adventures over the weekend, including Paul resolving a traffic fine before flying to Tigray. But I think this blog is long enough and I will stop there. 

Dark church at sunrise in Debre Markos

 

 Bonus photos below:

With MSCFSO staff at Bibugn

On the Portuguese bridge

Fish lunch on a floating restaurant, with Malt soda Senq

Saturday night fire pit dinner

Lutheran ordination service on Sunday afternoon

Gully full of trees now

Men on the Tibtab watershed committee, a living Ethiopian flag

Good grain storage with airtight PICS bags

Little bee eater

Blue Nile Falls, Tis Abay

Another bee eater