Ethiopia 2008, Part 2

The drive back from Awassa to Addis Ababa took four hours. The most interesting things we saw were two truck loads of beautiful camels being driven to Djibouti. According to our driver, they were being sent by ship at Djibouti to one of the Middle East countries to be used for work or as food. We also passed a number of huge greenhouse operations, owned by the Israelis who have an extensive flower industry for the European market.

We are in the middle of the Ethiopian winter or the rainy season; summer is the dry season. In Addis, where the altitude is over 8,000 feet, most of the day is cloudy with intermittent rain. Many of the streets don’t have any pavement, and we are constantly maneuvering rocks and big stones, or trying to avoid huge pot holes every few yards. Traffic just zooms down the street with goats, sheep and occasionally cattle running into the road.

As soon as we drove into Addis, I began to cough again due to the diesel fumes bellowing from the cars and trucks. Addis has to be one of the most hectic, intense and interesting cities I have ever seen. In this country of 80 million people (the second largest in Africa) almost 90 percent of the population lives in the small towns and rural areas. Addis is alive with its more than five million people. One thing I noticed is that the rich and poor live in the same neighborhoods. This is different from most major cities in the world, where the population is segregated by wealth and class. This probably creates interesting phenomena because the tension between the Muslims and Christians (about evenly divided) is minimal. With both rich and poor living in the same space, both groups are dependent and interdependent upon each other.

Ethiopia 2008

After spending 24 hours on the plane I finally arrived at Addis Ababa in the Horn of Africa. Getting off the plane and clearing customs, we walked into the craziness of this airport waiting for Yohannes to pick us up. People were running around like mad and there were security lines everywhere just to get into the airport (there have been some terrorist incidents in this Ethiopian capital city during the past year so security is very tight). The smell of smoke from diesel engines on cars and the burning of wood and charcoal permeated everything. I started to cough.

This is wintertime in Ethiopia, even though there are really only two seasons: wet and dry. The temperature is in the 60’s with periodic rains. It felt cold the first two days primarily because most of the houses are concrete and have no heat. It took me a couple of days to begin to get adjusted to the dampness. However everything was green unlike when I was here 18 months ago when everything was hot and dry and BROWN.

The rains came late this year and this has made a situation that is already tough for millions of people, especially children, even tougher. A lot of this country depends on the rains in the early spring to successfully plant the crops. In some parts of Eastern and Northern Ethiopia the rains were scarce, and coupled with the tremendous increase in the price of gasoline, hardships were even more evident now than when I was here last year. The international media, including a recent article by the Los Angeles Times, have been reporting famine conditions.

Ethiopia Trip: Final Thoughts

I am flying out of Addis Ababa this evening for the US and want to write my last email partly about my week in the coffee growing/jungle area of Southern and Southwest Ethiopia and my final thoughts on leaving this wonderful country and this incredible experience I have had during the past three weeks.

Most of the past week was spent in Southern Ethiopia in the towns of Jimma (the capital city of the Kaffa region) in the birthplace of coffee. I also spent time in Bonga and Chira that are smaller towns and villages. My hosts for this visit were the Catholic Secretariat that has a series of schools, health care clinics, programs for women, economic development activities where they provide coffee plants for farmers and help with forming coffee growing cooperatives.

Shabbat In Ethiopia

The following story is written by Rich’s son, Daniel, who went with Rich to Ethiopia. Rich and his wife wanted to share the story:

Friday night my dad and I had a Shabbat dinner we will never forget. But let me tell you, this wasn’t just any Shabbat dinner. At home my Shabbat dinners usually consist of getting dressed up nicely, sitting down at the table as a family (while my mother makes sure we’re wearing nice kippot), singing Shalom Aleicham, Eishat Chayil, and following up with Kiddush, washing, and a Motzie. We would then proceed to eat the meal in courses: fish, soup, salad, the main event (usually chicken and kugel), and then dessert. My mom might throw in a d’var Torah. But for the most part it’s a traditional Shabbat dinner.

This dinner on Friday the 12th was as opposite as I could get while still being Jewish. We were invited to the home of Dr. Rick Hodes, a Jewish American internal medicine doctor who lives in Addis, and was hired by the Joint Distribution Committee to take care of the Falasha Jews. In addition, he volunteers some of his time at an orphanage/medical clinic.

Ethiopia Trip Update #4

I am so pleased and relieved that my two day training session on Thursday and Friday went well. I had been studying, organizing and planning for this session for three months and spent an inordinate amount of time preparing. Over 40 NGO’s from throughout the country registered for the session and they are working on a wide variety of issues around health care, AIDS/HIV especially for kids, reproductive rights and family planning, disaster and famine relief, rural community development, and women’s groups that are fighting the female circumcision issue.

I don’t know why I was so worried about this session because I have conducted literally hundreds of training workshops on this topic, but I was concerned about the cultural and language issues distracting from a rhythm I need to feel comfortable in the training sessions. It did take me about 4 hours until I started to relax and then the rest of the training was super. Ethiopian people and NGO’s are very formal that have their coffee and tea breaks at a certain times as well as the lunches. Having these breaks is a ritual and the coffee they make is almost a sacred ceremony.