Paul and Rebecca Mosley in Ethiopia: May 2023

LLT on Orientation Day

These past two weeks, we have been hosting a Leadership Learning Tour and taking them all around the country. It’s Wednesday night, May 31, and I need to get our second May blog mounted tonight. The LLT will officially end on Friday, so we’re not quite at the end of this two-week hosting extravaganza, but this is a good moment to offer up a very long account of the partner visits and learnings we have had along the way. Rebecca writing for now, and hopefully, Paul will add details in the next blog.

Orientation Day

Sunday, May 21: We officially welcomed the learning tour team on Sunday evening for dinner at the hotel cultural restaurant Mesob. It was interesting to realize that most of the participants did not know each other any better than we knew them. We enjoyed a good evening together, mostly over traditional Ethiopian food, starting to build relationships. People were quite surprised and pleased by the hotel we found for them. Honestly, that was an amazing coup for us – Wonde supplied us with a connection, the hotel made an offer, we responded with our actual budget per night, and they thought about it and agreed to give us standard single rooms for $35/night. The rooms were really nice, and there is a pool, a gym, nice grounds, three restaurants, and a pleasant common space. Oh, and quite a nice board room for our meetings at either end of the trip.

Preschool welcoming committee

Monday, May 22: We started our two weeks together with a full day of orientation. In total the whole team included 12 Learning Tour participants (many board members from different MCC regions, a few donor relations and other staff), our International Programs Director Rebecca, Our Area Directors Wawa & Kristen, The Southern Africa Area director Pugeni, the DRC Rep Jacob and ourselves. Our very first activity was delegated to Paul, to lead us all in a folk dance, which people really enjoyed. Then the MKC President Desalegn led us in a devotional, exploring ethnic diversity, conflict, and the church. He made some interesting observations about Acts 6 – that the ethnic conflict between Hellenistic Jews and Hebrews occurred in a moment of church growth and change. Then we moved into more practical considerations of the Learning Tour, logistics, presentations of our Programs, etc.

RPC parents in Self Help Groups

It was a good day, but also involved a lot of hosting attention to detail. By the time we got home, we were tired – but we still needed to pack and make sure everything was arranged for David to figure out how to carry on with life with no parents present (specifically, would he eat and get himself to the school taxi?). Thankfully, Oren’s friend Bereket (18) agreed to stay with him, and they get along well. Barry is also a very responsible and resourceful guy.

Tuesday, May 23, RPC Preschool:

It’s really hard to lead a learning tour and leave the house on time at the same time! We were just about ready with suitcases, etc, and still there are questions: has anyone fed the dogs? We did manage to get to the hotel to pick up our guests pretty much when scheduled. We drove to the nearby city of Adama to start our partner visits with Remember the Poorest Community Preschool. We were greeted by a little choir of 30 kids, singing their welcomes in English and Amharic, sharing their smiles and beautiful faces.

Preschool snack program

One major challenge for this project is that children are selected from extremely vulnerable families – orphans, and single parents, without regular income. MCC used to support a school feeding program but had to cut that because of funding issues. Now many children do not have resources for lunch, or they come with a lunch box that is empty. It’s been heart-breaking for their teachers. Currently a simple snack of tea and bread is provided, but it’s not enough. Yet hunger at school is a community problem, not just a school problem. MCC is now supporting RPC in a new approach, forming the parents of these preschoolers into self-help groups (SHGs). These groups meet weekly to save a little money, support each other and then give each other loans for small businesses. RPC has worked with many other groups of vulnerable people and seen huge changes in their livelihoods over time, so we are hopeful that the parents of these children might soon have enough to provide lunch.

Parents SHG

We had a good time splitting up and talking with three different new groups, just six months old. The Andenet (Unity) group are all drawn from the same neighborhood. In the past, they never even noticed each other or greeted; now they are close friends and support to one another. They have saved about $500 USD so far, and given out loans to each other for projects like selling used clothing, making injera, and buying a scale for selling vegetables. The group includes two men, and one of them talked about the purpose of the group: “We are not just meeting for our personal development, for making money. But we are meeting because our country has no peace. When we meet, we establish our stability, our peace.” Social cohesion was not an explicit project outcome, but it is affirming to hear that peacebuilding is naturally emerging out of this new project approach.

We split up and visited different classrooms, listening to poetry and song in English, Amharic and Oromo. Those kids are absolutely the cutest ever, and their smiles are real. They are really getting a head start in education that can carry them into a better place in life. The teaching staff at the school remains incredibly dedicated, in spite of the challenges and low salary, with almost not staff turn-over. They remain creative and engaging and the children know that they are capable.

We finished our visit by RPC treating our LLT guests to their first official Ethiopian coffee ceremony. The whole process of roasting green coffee, pounding it and boiling it in the jebena – it was all going on through out our visit to the classrooms. And then we sat and talked more about the project and it’s challenges. It would be great to offer more long-term follow up of these young students, to support them as they move into primary and secondary school – but it’s hard to know how to do that. And the demand for such good preschool education is very high. We wish we could support dozens of schools like this.

Batu Lakeside

After leaving the preschool, we had lunch and then drove on further south to the town of Batu/Ziway. We got there in good time and had opportunity to rest and walk. I joined a few other folks, exploring the new paved walkway right along the lake. It was a wonderful addition to the town, with lots of waterbirds along the way, and many locals walking and relaxing in the green space. Hopefully tourism will start to return at some point, if the situation remains stable. I even had time to jump in the pool and swim a few laps before dinner – very refreshing on a warm night.

Wednesday, May 24:

Kids play, mothers talk

MKC-DC MCH project: We have two partners working in Batu/Ziway and so we started the day meeting at the MKC Church in town. During the HIV/AIDS crisis, this congregation became aware of the needs of many vulnerable women who were commercial sex workers out of financial necessity, and needed health care support. The church started working to help these women find other ways to earn a living, through self-help groups and income-generating associations. Overtime, this congregation-supported project has become a real development project focused on maternal and child health. Now women are part of care groups and receive weekly training in various aspects of public health. Income generation and savings remain an aspect of the project.

Mothers' group

We sat and watched as one group of women met under the trees in the church year. Many of the women in this group were ethnic Somalis from eastern Ethiopia, displaced from home by a conflict a number of years back. All the women came with their babies and little children. We had some time to freely interact with them and ask them about themselves. One of our members decided to show them the little family photo album he had brought with him, and they were fascinated to see an African-American family pictured there. Then the meeting officially started. A Muslim volunteer offered them information about how to prepare a birth plan when they are expecting a baby. They also talked about other sensitive subjects like miscarriage. Meanwhile, the other volunteer staff member offered us coffee. It was a low-key yet positive visit to one aspect of the project.
BCDA Welcoming Committee

BCDA WASH:

After lunch, we went on down the road to the Batu office of our partner Beza Church Development Association. Beza is a big new church, mostly serving English-language diaspora Ethiopians and other Africans, and they do an amazing job at motivating their members to be involved in community service and giving. They have a branch in Batu, and were already working to support education in schools through their Compassion project. MCC has supported water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) activities in the three public schools. After briefing and another wonderful traditional coffee ceremony, we visited a workshop on the church grounds.

Reusable Sanitary napkin production

Several women work full-time now, sewing reusable sanitary pads. Impoverished girls can’t afford disposable pads and so they often miss several days of school each month. This new social enterprise helps girls with an affordable solution, and gives income to some local women. We also visited one school to see the finished improved pit latrines and really solid water infrastructure.

It’s hard to imagine a school with no running water and no toilets for girls, but that was the situation in the past. It was great to hear from the student WASH club about they changes they have experienced. Most notable: now kids are able and willing to wash their hands and there is almost no diarrheal illness among the students. I was wondering: who would join a school club where your job was to clean the pit latrines??!? But these kids see the value for their community and so they have taken leadership. The new school director is a young woman who was very impressive and is running the school well.

Young leaders of the WASH clubs

My evening ended late as I had to take responsibility for settling the hotel bill. It is very difficult to pay for things in Ethiopia. That’s because the customer is responsible for calculating and paying the withholding tax owed by the business. It is not always easy to calculate which part of the bill is involved, and often the hotel staff don’t really know how it works either. That was probably an extra hour to my evening, just struggling to pay! And this experience was repeated at every hotel on the trip…

Scenery on the drive

Thursday, May 25: It has been great to wake up in a nice hotel, with the option to go work out in the gym and prepare oneself for the challenges of this day. And then end the day with a refreshing swim in a pool with a perfect temperature. With all the details and pressures of hosting, that has been a wonderful part of this trip so far. The hotel was really working very hard to make a good impression, and just as we were about to leave at 8:30 am, the hotel staff surprised us with a spontaneous coffee ceremony and a little cake to share. It was a good example of hospitality that is gracious and wonderful and yet really interrupts your carefully planned schedule!!

I was a bit concerned about this day because I knew I would need to be one of our drivers. And from Batu on down, the expressway ends. The road is just a two-lane highway, with lots to keep you on your toes and demanding decisions. Big container trucks run up and down, so there’s always the question of whether to pass or wait. Horse-drawn carts, going at 5 km/hr also share the same highway, along with Bajaj 3-wheel taxis, herds of goats, cattle, and donkeys. There are potholes to avoid. And there is always the possibility that you overtake a truck, only to find you need to also allow for a horse cart or a pothole. I was thankful to receive a spontaneous message from a bible study friend, telling me she was praying for peace for me this morning! In the end, it was not a bad drive and we didn’t have any of those worst-case scenarios.

Welcome coffee at Hawassa

And when we arrived in Hawassa—the next hotel also greeted us with a wonderful, spontaneous coffee ceremony! Again, setting us back in getting lunch… Ah well. Haile resort Hawassa is truly beautiful and worth spending time in – but we didn’t have time. We had an appointment at 2 pm to go and visit the local Hawassa Industrial Park.

It turns out that Hawassa Industrial Park was the first of its kind in Ethiopia. An enclosed, duty-free zone, the government of Ethiopia built it to be a one-stop shop for foreign investors. There are warehouses and sheds that are move-in ready; water and power are all prepared to run without interruption; ex-pat staff housing apartments are located on the periphery of a property 24 km in diameter. Labourers are recruited from the countryside, screened, and ready to be hired. Foreigners with all the right business approvals can get their work permit in 5 minutes, apply for the resident ID, doing their banking and connect with telecom, all in the same main office building.

Hawassa Industrial Complex from above

Ethiopia was promoting these massive industrial parks for several years now with three main goals: earning foreign currency, providing labour opportunities, and getting some transfer of skills to that labour. Foreign companies who export to the US were drawn to Ethiopia because there is an abundance of labour, and the good climate allows for factory work 12 months a year (as opposed to places with a more extreme climate). Garment industries were flocking to Ethiopia (from which other countries??) up until 2021, when US government sanctions (loss of AGOA tax-exempt status) were imposed due to the northern conflict. AGOA still has not been restored, and many garment industries have left. Earlier, 25,000 young women were employed, but at this stage, 10,000 have been laid off because the tariffs in the US are too high.

Mr. Murli explains the details of the production

We had the opportunity to visit one working factory. An India-based company makes Raymond three-piece suits and sells them to JC Penny in the US. They have survived the AGOA sanctions because they have a much more valuable product and that margin allows them to absorb the cost of the extra tax (shared with the buyer). The story is not the same for low-value items like t-shirts. It was a little disappointing to realize that all the raw materials are imported (fabric from China, etc) and everything is just brought to ET for assembly before being shipped out again. At the same time, the technology and systems in place for producing a suit were mind-blowing to observe. After passing quality inspection, the fabric is cut into large sections and then passed through a robotic fabric cutter machine. This machine has the exact sizes and shapes of each piece of the suit in it’s memory and cuts 6 pieces of fabric at the same time, with minimal waste and in 10 minutes.

Suit under construction

Then the pieces are all sorted by hand and passed into the proper lines for assembly, bit by bit. Each piece of one suit comes from the same piece of fabric so that there is no color fade. An army of seamstresses each put together on particular aspect of the suit, keeping each piece on hangers that are passed from station to station. The final product of the suit is then pressed by another army of custom shaped irons, one for each part of the suit. Quality control happens all down the line. The final product is ready for the rack at Penny’s, on a hanger with size markings, price tag, pressed and beautiful.

We spent a long time that evening thinking and debating – is this kind of industrial park exploitative of cheap labour? Or is it a real benefit for the community? Are these unskilled workers actually receiving skills? Are they paid enough? Why isn’t more being done to empower them? Is it enough to be paid, $30 a month plus 2 meals? How does that compare with their other opportunities in life? Most of these workers are young women between 16-24 years, who have finished Grade 8 and probably not more. There really is not much other work except being housemaids and babysitters in a big city.

Thousands working under one roof

There seems to be a way that factory work extends the time a girl remains single and doesn’t have kids – a potential benefit for her and the community. There is some good learning for those who sew. But who is benefitting the most from cheap labor? I will never, never look at a suit the same way and imagine that it springs from the hand of 1 tailor, at least not one in the $220 range. I learned that 180 people touch a suit from start to finish. Lots of justice and economic dynamics to think about and weigh.

During a massive downpour, back at the hotel, we got a briefing on the Boricha project that we planned to visit on Friday. We were all tired and got to bed early.

Friday, May 26, 2023, Boricha project:

Former project participants, ongoing IGA

We got an early start again today. We had just barely enough time for a good workout (pool/gym) to grab some breakfast and then join our morning devotional under a massive tree, by the lakeside, thinking about unexpected heroes, like the servant girl of Naaman. Then we loaded up into three Landcruisers and headed off to the Boricha district, further south in Sidama region. It turned out that the regional president was in town and was headed on a visit to exactly the same district. So, we didn’t see the government officials who were entertaining him. Instead, we stopped to visit the MKC church in the district center – a church planted 20 years ago when the Boricha project started. Then we left the paved road and followed one of the feeder roads (built by the former project) which connects all the different centers or peasant associations (PA). After a short drive, we pulled into a row of buildings and were greeted by a large group of pretty cheerful people. They were the same people who had formed income-generating associations (IGA’s) 15 years ago, one for men and one for women.

restored watershed allows water collection

They had started saving 2 birr a month back then. Now they can save 50 birr a week. They have continued to meet together all these years since the project left abruptly and now are a full cooperative together. They have a grain store they share: MKC provided iron sheets for the roof and nails, but they provided the timber and the labor. We heard a few stories about the impact of the project – that completely degraded land was restored, families moved back to reclaim their previously worthless farmland, roads were built to connect communities, and uneducated village adults learned literacy and numeracy. They continue to store improved seed each season and distribute it to their members. Now they also grow fruit tree seedlings to distribute to one another. It was honestly a deeply encouraging moment, to see that a project had this level of sustainability. Towards the end of our time together, one of our group wondered if they might share a song with us. They sang with energy and joy. We also responded by singing “this little light of mine.”

Wildlife returning, hyena in the badlands

From the meeting, we drove out to visit one of the watersheds. It had been rocky and barren 20 years ago. But through the project, nitrogen fixing grevilia trees were planted. Soil bunds were dug to catch and collect rainwater run off in deep trenches. Now the hillside is covered with grass and smaller shrubs. Water is now percolating properly through the soil and women were able to collect jerry cans of water, slowly, from a trickle that comes out through the rock. We continued on down from the top of the watershed to the gullies at the bottom, probably a 2 km walk downhill. It was rough ground, so some of our group needed to remain back at the top of the hill. But those of us who made it to the bottom were rewarded with views of some pretty serious badlands and erosion, pillars of dirt rising up around areas that had been worn away. Apparently, the return of forest on this land has allowed wild animals to return, and we even saw three huge hyenas running along the hillside across from us. Now much of the upper land is farmable, and people are aware of how to protect the land below. I really enjoyed talking with a few local government officials, including at least one person who had been MKC staff in the past and now works for the local government. It was a vigorous walk back up the hill, but also refreshing to do that much outdoor exercise.

Getahun's family

Next, we visited two individual households. One man, Getahun Wondemo, showed us his cow – he’d been given a heifer 10 years ago, and now she has bourne 3 calves. The latest was nursing as she ate some mash. He has a beautiful adobe home and was delighted to take a photo with himself and his wife Tsehaynesh Gulise and daughter, Aberash Getahun. He also showed a photo of Dan Wiens, an MCC staff member who visited 12 years ago. In addition, we visited his towering mango and avocado trees, grown from distributed seedlings back in the height of the project. And then, one of our group members expressed that he would really love to go into a home and see what it is like. So we visited a beautiful traditional thatched home, built expertly like a tall woven beehive.

Thomas' family

The family of Thomas Gabiso was all mostly there, and we appreciated the community we saw gathered around him. They were so gracious to just let total strangers walk into their private space. That was the end of our field visit and we drove back to Hawassa for some lunch and down time. A little later in the afternoon, we had a more intentional debrief with Ato Gulma, the staff member from MKC-DC. People had many great observations – what they were impressed with, what could be done even more. But we ended with recalling again the scripture from Haggai 2.

Following all this work, I was able to arrange for a little tourist activity – most of our group took a boat ride out on the lake. We were really fortunate to run across three different hippos in the evening. They kept surfacing so we could see their ears and noses. There were a few B&W colobus monkeys in the distance and many, many wonderful water birds. It was refreshing and bracing to be out on the water as a massive storm was brewing out behind the hotel. People really appreciated the opportunity to do something fun and connecting us with our beautiful host space. We ran in just in time; the squall hit about 5 minutes after we were off the water.

Hippos in Hawassa

It was a quieter evening. We took some time to play a game with Oren, shared dinner and conversation with a smaller group of people and then headed to bed.

Saturday, May 27, 2023

Have I mentioned how great it is to stay in places where one can take a morning swim in a warm pool? What a great way to start the day! We had time for good morning exercise and breakfast, before enjoying one more beautiful devotional time with a view of the water, under the amazing spreading tree at the center of the hotel green space. These times out of the city, visiting projects and being in natural beauty, are what sustains me in this work. Leading the LLT is a lot of work, but there are also many blessings.

What a spot for a devotional

We spent most of the day on the road driving back to Addis. Thankfully, our travels were uneventful. David had survived our absence fairly well, thank God, and even had a nice time at his Grade 8 dinner. We had prepared everything for him in advance, hanging in his room, even the tie already tied. But I think he may have managed without all the support – he’s a resourceful kid!

Paul stayed home to spend some time with him. Oren was exhausted. And I helped Wonde host 6 of our visitors at an Ethiopian cultural restaurant. It was jam-packed with local people, including a wedding party. Our guests really enjoyed the people-watching in that restaurant. There’s a lot of heavy drinking though, so I was a little confused about seeing so many families with young kids out for an evening together. The main attraction is a good variety of traditional food, and then the music and dance. The restaurant has a resident dance troupe, performing different regional styles throughout the evening. The band plays on traditional instruments (amplified). It was very entertaining, including one dance where the dancers did their best to get audience involvement. Wawa and I were both roped into standing up and doing some dancing with them.

Yod Abyssina cultural restaurant

Sunday, May 28:

Lots of visitors!

Our whole group made the trip to the East side of Addis to attend Solomon’s local Mennonite congregation. We were joined by about 20 members of another huge meeting of MCC folks involved in a Nature Based Solutions (NBS), Canada funded grant. That’s another story and maybe Paul will write more next week. In any case, somehow this local church absorbed almost 35 visitors. We had a chance to enjoy the worship music and a relative short sermon. We offered greetings and sang a song in Amharic and English: “We are One in the Spirit.” The service was 2.5 hours but it seemed to fly by.

Connecting with Amy and Yihenew at NBS

We joined the NBS team for lunch – and their plans included the buffet at the Haile Grand hotel in Addis. It was pretty spectacular, but more than we needed. Anyway, this offered a great opportunity for interaction between our two groups. A number of MCC staff from other countries were present and we had time to talk over lunch and then an outing to the local botanical gardens. Logistics were a bit of a challenge there, but this blog is long enough already, I won’t go into it. I enjoyed a short walk with some of our group members. Most of them were intimidated by the steep incline of the hill, but those who walked, got an amazing view of the city.

Monday, May 29: Mercato and BCDA

Having visitors is a blessing in so many ways – but it was a catalyst for me to explore more of the city we live in. Our Area Director Kristen really advocated for a tourist outing to see Mercato, the largest open air market in Africa. I had never been brave enough to go myself, and none of our staff were prepared to walk through that chaotic place with 9 foreigners in tow. So, at Kristen’s suggestion, I found a tour operator to take us, and it was a great idea! Beki from http://www.eastafricatouroperator.net/ is a really knowledgeable, friendly and relaxed guide and he helped us learn and explore for a whole market.

One problem is parking, but he had his own vehicle to pick us up from the hotel and take us there. He is well-acquainted with various vendors and they allowed us to shop peacefully at their places. In the end, we were a group of 6 total, which was about right, in terms of not getting separated and lost from each other. I know now where I could find a new carpet or birthday party decorations. Our guests were fascinated with the pottery, the incense, the spices, the cultural clothing and the whole section selling inset (powder for false banana pancake). At the right moment,

we stopped for a coffee break.

Then we went on in towards the recycling center where guys are reshaping used rebar. Some of the allies were narrow and chaotic, and it was imperative to keep your eyes open for guys carrying heavy loads on their shoulders, rushing towards you.

We ran into an unfortunate incident towards the end – in the blacksmithing section, our group got a bit spread out. Suddenly two men ran out into the street, both wielding heavy hammers and trying to get a blow to the head of the other. They very nearly succeeded in braining each other before neighbors separated and restrained them. But we had to run back to avoid getting caught up in the violence. It was pretty shocking to witness this – we were told the men had just exchanged words and this is what happened. It gives context to why so many men are in prison for murder. Nevertheless, the visit was really fascinating and I’m glad we went with a good guide and story-teller.

Wawa modeling

We had a quick lunch and then started to the north end of the city for our next field visit. First, we had to do a little more shopping for cultural clothing at Shiromeda. Again, it’s a famous place, but I had not ever been, so many thanks to the visitors. Then we went on to visit a jewelry workshop. Originally it was started with MCC support and training, to help HIV+ women turn bullet casings into beads for jewelry and earn a living. Their craftsmanship is quite amazing. It was a good day for buying gifts for friends!

BCDA visit

Finally we ended up at the Beza Church Entoto Program Office, which houses their non-formal education program. Program coordinator Lydia led us through a tour of the facility. They have now revived their own jewelry making program (they were the originators of the idea) for income generation. But the main purpose of the center is to provide after-school tutoring to low-income, vulnerable kids with good academic potential. We divided into groups and visited different classes. The kids are really bright and we had some very good interactions with them.

math class

The most impressive key performance indicator to me was this: in 2022, only 3% of all Grade 12 students in Ethiopia passed the national exam to go on to University (so few passed because the government took measures to stop cheating). These are abysmal exam results. But of the Grade 12 students in the BCDA program, ALL 10!!! passed the exam. That really shows the effectiveness of the program to prepare students academically and also to give them confidence.

Tuesday, May 30: MKC Prison Ministry visit

Prison ministry visit

We elected to leave town at the crack of dawn (6:30 am) to shorten the time of our journey to Debre Birhan, northeast of Addis Ababa in Amhara region. It was a rainy morning, but it is beautiful countryside to pass through, getting higher into the highlands. We had very interesting conversation in the car about language, identity, division and unity. Often that is demonstrated by regional flags – Oromia loves to fly their red, white and black flag proudly. In Amhara, we just saw the national flag along with the same colors on the Orthodox churches. By the time we arrived, the sun had broken through and we felt like we were right up in the clouds at 2,800 m (9300 ft). We had our breakfast in the traditional restaurant of the hotel and a few group members made a visit to a local Orthodox church nearby, just to experience more of that aspect of culture.

Inside the women's prison

The North Shewa zone is a very conservative area, with a deep sense of pride and honor. The dark side of their rich cultural heritage is a tradition of revenge killing. For a variety of reasons, murder is common. When one man kills another, the family of the victim is honor bound to avenge his death and take the life of a member of the offender’s family. This can set off a cycle of revenge and displacement that ruins the lives of many families. MCC’s partner, MKC prison ministry has a goal of breaking that cultural cycle and instead creating a culture of non-violent response to conflict, restorative justice and peace-seeking. At the heart of their efforts are two regional prisons. Debre Birhan prison houses 1800 men in minimum security conditions, and most of the inmates are doing time for murder.

Peace is as far away as heaven:
Peace committee member Zewdie

Finally we were able to arrive at the Debre Birhan prison in the early afternoon. I was delighted to see that our partner MKC had set up this time to offer training to the members of the village peace committees. About 60 adults (mostly men) were gathered in a large training shed, along with about 12 youth who are school peace club leaders. These peace committees are the ones to approach the families of murder victims to see if they are open to reconciliation with the imprisoned offenders. Often they need to visit a family 4 or 5 times before the bereaved are ready to consider forgiveness. Women are also part of these community structures, but most of them were reluctant to leave their families to travel away from home for training.

Peace club leader Zeyna

We had a chance to talk with several participants in the training. A young peace club leader, Zeyna Tekula, invited us to come to this home area, where people from three tribes live. The Afar people have a good traditional way to resolve conflict and he wanted others to learn from them. Several older men spoke about their calling to be peace ambassadors. One man, Asseyed Teshagel, was a victim himself, not of murder, but of the recent war that claimed the life of his brother and the hand of his son. He said that he was part of reconciliation because of how important it is that this doesn’t happen again. In fact his peace committee was part of intervening in a local conflict between Oromo and Amhara communities. Another older gentleman, Zewdie Desete, mourned that peace is as far from us as heaven right now. The major challenge is that we do not listen to one another.

We left the group to continue their training and then went to visit the vocational training facilities in the prison. MKC Prison Ministry has helped to provide sewing machines, wood working and metal working machines; the government sends trainers to help certify inmates in various vocational skills so that they can support themselves when they are released. Other inmates continue (or even start!) their education while in prison. About 600 inmates participate in regular school classes, from Grades 1 through 12, in a school facility that looks like any other school on the outside.

Tigist, Firehiwot & Belaynesh
women staff

We were going to continue touring the prison, but a pounding rain started and so we took refuge in a training hall and had a chance to ask many, many questions of the Project Coordinator, Frehiwot. She did an amazing job of answering all our questions with stories and illustrations, giving us a better view behind the scenes. The project is vast with so many different aims, but one of the main aims is to create a culture of peace in the prison. This includes the work of the two MKC-supported chaplains, but also a network of inmates who are co-counselors, trained in listening to their fellow inmates who are dealing with mental and emotional struggles. We learned that recently the prison was touched by conflict coming in from the outside, from the national political arena. The Prison officials called in the MKC chaplain on an emergency basis to help mediate the sudden tension between the inmates and prison police. Considering that recent security incident, it’s amazing that we were even allowed to walk into the prison, but it is a mark of the high regard that the prison officials have for MKC and their staff and approach.

Wednesday, May 31:

Inspector Belaynesh

We returned to the prison in the morning with more cooperative weather and were finally able to enter the women’s and men’s sections. I was truly delighted to see Inspector Belaynesh again. She is the prison staff member responsible for the welfare of the female inmates. She serves much more as a cheerleader and a coach than a warden, and it’s obvious that she really cares for these unfortunate women. Most of the 36 current inmates are in jail for murder, and most of the murder stems from response to abuse. Five of the women have little children with them in prison because there is nowhere safe for them to be outside the prison. The first woman we met was holding her two year old who had been born in prison. There is a preschool available on the prison grounds for those children to attend school. Five other younger inmates actually attend regular classes with the male inmates. We met three of those girls later in the morning and I was so glad to see Fasika again – a girl we had met last year. She looked so much more confident and at ease, and apparently she still manages the little tuck shop for the women afterschool. She was orphaned young, went to live with her uncle, and then was raped by him. She is in prison for the murder of the child of that rape. She’s only 17 now and it is apparently quite common for minors to be imprisoned along with adults in this community.

Born in prison

Along with the heart-breaking stories, we were all impressed at how much the women’s section resembled a village. Women were working along the periphery of the green space, doing laundry, making coffee, working on income generating activities, playing with their kids. That’s how it was in the men’s section too – except that there were many, many more men! Guys were standing around in small groups, chatting, doing various jobs and just milling around at a loose end. Some men tend the vegetable gardens. Others run barber shops to take care of each others’ hair. Quite a lot of men (and women) are employed by the prison to prepare three meals a day for 1800 people. The injera production machine of that prison remains incredibly fascinating, and the prison makes truly delicious bread rolls for breakfast, mixing and kneading the dough in a bathtub and then baking in a multilayer industrial oven. We stopped in to visit the Mennonite chapel inside the men’s prison section. It’s truly impressive that the church leaders are inmates themselves, and run a normal program of church services, baptisms, etc. Last year, we spent a long time in the men’s section, visiting lots of different corners of the complex. This year, guards kept a close eye on us and hustled us through as one compact group. Things are still tense, and so I’m glad we could visit at all.
Prison bakers

Next we had the amazing opportunity of hearing two stories of reconciliation, from two men who were just released in January this year. The first man, Shebeleleh Yekelkel, got into a quarrel with his brother over land and unintentionally killed him. He spent 7 years in prison. His younger brother Lema was so hurt and angry over the murder and at first did not even want to visit his incarcerated older brother. But later on he started to realize that his parents were dead and he had already lost one brother. The other brother was still alive and could still be family to him somehow. In the end, it was Lema who initiated the process of reconciliation.

The second story was even more heartbreaking. Ergete Bansew was a simple farmer with four children, minding his own business, when one day, his brother’s son got into a bar fight over an exchange of words and killed the other man. Ergete heard that the revenge-killers (the dead man’s relatives) were coming for him and so he tried to run out into the forest to hide. Two of his sons refused to let him go and so they fled with him.

Reconciliation stories

Like many in this community who are part of the revenge-killing culture, he had a licensed gun with him. As they were hiding, Ergete and his sons heard men approaching. One son panicked and bolted and many, many shots were fired. It seemed impossible that his son had survived and the enraged Ergete fired back, not seeing who he was shooting at. When the dust had settled, the sad facts of the matter emerged: Ergete’s son had not been wounded. Instead, two men were dead, and these men were actually unarmed relatives of Ergete, who had come to try to reconcile the feuding families. Ergete went to prison for 7 years. His nephew also was imprisoned, but later released in a politically motivated prison break and ended up in Saudi Arabia.

Injera in prison

Finally, MKC iniated the process of reconciliation for Ergete. They went to his home village to assemble a village peace committee and recruited some of the village elders and religious leaders including Kes Shitaye Terefe. When they brought the group of elders to meet the offender they were shocked to learn that Kes Shitaye was actually a victim in this case, brother to the two murdered men. Not only that, but he had been the local Orthodox pastor for Ergete when he was young. The prison ministry leaders apologized profusely for involving Kes Shitaye in the wrong aspect of the case, but it turned out that he was one who most wanted to be reconciled. It was amazing to see them sitting side by side, and they continue to all work hard for peace. In fact, murder rates are actually going down in the community as a whole, a hopeful sign of culture change.

Apparently, other evangelical churches have tried to start prison ministries but it hasn’t worked out for them. According to Firehiwot, this is because God gave the vision to MKC. They are able to raise about $200,000 each year, through offerings at local congregations on a special Sunday once a year. Even more importantly, they are supported by a powerful prayer ministry, with people meeting to pray weekly, faithfully, over the past 26 years.

We ended our prison visit by rejoining the training of village peacemakers. MKC involved us in an awards ceremony, giving appreciation gifts (shirts and hats) to the peace ambassadors who have had the most fruitful ministry. They are not paid for this work, so it is good to offer them some incentive to take it seriously.

After a quick lunch, we hopped in the cars and made the drive back to Addis Ababa. Driving through countryside is always incredibly beautiful and refreshing; driving through rush hour traffic back in Addis, not so much.

I need to wrap this up -- it's almost midnight and my mom is arriving tomorrow. This morning, one of our visitors quoted from the peace committee member, who lamented that peace is as far from us as heaven. Yet we pray daily: "Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." Jesus told us that the Kingdom of heaven is within us. Let it be so, through the work of our partners, and through the actions of the community. Let heaven draw near and may the earth feel the kiss of her peace.

Bonus photos: