Hawassa
My flatmates, Mark and James, and I took a trip to Hawassa, the capital of Ethiopia’s Southern Nation, Nationalities, and People’s Region, this weekend. It was quite the experience but I haven’t yet had the opportunity to sort through the thoughts and emotions it conjured.
James is a Finance Manager and wished to see some field projects. Hence, he was able to arrange a trip through Save the Children and he invited Mark and me along. We left Friday afternoon. The drive to Hawassa was nothing short of incredible; Beautiful fields with trees dotting the horizon, mountains towering in the distance, and lakes scattered across the land. A few things which I noticed, given my work with Save the Children, included that the herds were all tended by boys. The long distances the boys travel with their cattle leads many families to believe that boys are at greatest risk in times of food insecurity. However, boys have easy access to the products of the livestock, including milk. Girls are most vulnerable at times of food insecurity given their heavy domestic workload and that they often eat second-to-last or last. Moreover, this misperception exacerbates gender inequality leading to even less food availability for girls.
In any case, we arrived in Hawassa in the evening and woke up early the next morning. Mark was wearing his Northwestern shirt at breakfast and a man came up to us and informed us he was a law professor at Northwestern (the youngest to ever be invited to teach), and that he had arrived in Ethiopia ten years ago and begun a youth center. Paul is an energetic man, full of passion and commitment to the center. We grilled him at breakfast but he was eloquent and persistent in his explanation. He invited us to visit the center.
The Awassa Children’s Project, as it is called, is simply lovely. It is entirely run by solar power and the compound has several, small, brightly colored, buildings and is replete with flowers and vegetable patches. They even grow their own coffee. The Project hosts approximately 100 children, but not all of them live in-residence. One of the Center’s first children, a young man who is now studying civil engineering, received the highest nationalscore in the 12th year university entrance examinations – something like 99.9%. Awassa Children’s Project is called a youth center and not an orphanage because it is integrated into the community. This means that the Project is not a little town onto itself, but rather, the children go to school in the community and remain tied to any distant relatives they may have there. There are also several vocational classes the Center offers for children who live with their families in the city. Paul told us of a saying in Ethiopia which states that children in orphanages, and not neccessarily youth centers, “are good students, but not good Ethiopians.”
The Center
Just hanging out
We spent the entire morning and some of the afternoon at the center. The children at the center have a huge field in which to play; I regressed and jump-roped, collected wildflowers, and frolicked with them. A large group of us then climbed to the top of a close-by mountain, Tabor. It was simply stunning. In fact, we saw two small groups of individuals holding church services and meditating at the top of Tabor. To be perfectly honest, it was nourishing to spend a morning like that one. As a Fellow working with Save the Children, having the opportunity to actually spend time with children was a gift.
At the top of Tabor
In the afternoon, Paul, James, Mark, Yared (a Save the Children driver), and I visited a town called Shashamane. The land was given as grant by Emperor Haile Selassie to the Rastafarians and apparently the original plan of the city was in the shape of his initials; quite modest of him. We ate at a restaurant called ‘One Love’, rice and beans and this delicious juice made of papaya, berries and all sorts of fruit, and went to visit one of Paul’s friends.
Danny is a man in his 60s, the leader of the Rastafarian community, who came to Ethiopia in 1975. However, he still speaks in a thick Jamaican accent; “Danny, I hope I can visit again” I said. “You bettah girl”, he replied. He and Paul have been competing in Scrabble for years and so they sat down and battled it out. Danny won and he was delighted. Good grief, he pulled out words I had not the slightest clue existed and it could all be checked against the official scrabble dictionary. I asked Danny to tell me what brought him to Ethiopia, and why Ethiopia. He said that many Rastafarians came to Ethiopia because of what it stood for; the only country that was never colonized and one with a deep, religious history. Danny told us that Jamaicans living in a community would collectively save their money and when someone was selected by Ethiopia and invited, they would financially support this individual. Danny is just a wonderful man; he was very close friends with Bob Marley and several prominent reggae artists while he lived in Jamaica and, in Ethiopia too, he is legendary. There is going to be a six-day reggae festival in November, in Addis and in Shashamane, which I hope I have the chance to attend!
Playing Scrabble with Danny (far right)
The rest of the weekend contained fewer adventures than those we had on Saturday. We went for a boat ride on the lake on Sunday and spent the day enjoying the sun. I met some wonderful, and very diverse, people. A cowboy from Texas, Jamie who was recently on the cover of Time magazine, a photographer, a nun from California, a South African man who manages tourism to Southern Africa, and an artist in a metal rock band. I particularly enjoyed speaking with the lovely Sister Donna.
Lake Hawassa
Sister moved to Ethiopia about ten years ago and lives in a remote village where she has begun a shelter for girls. Her shelter and facility sits on a mountain with no electricity, running water, and the things we generally take for granted. This 60-year-old woman is simply incredible; outspoken, dedicated, an activist for girls and women, and even a black belt in Japanese martial arts (she did a demonstration for us!). She has had typhoid, been beaten and threatened, contracted malaria, but she will not leave her Ethiopian community. She is the doctor, the teacher, the mother, and the friend for so many of the children. If a child has an ear infection, she pours in a bit of vinegar. If a child splits open her finger, she stitches it close. If she has to cook potatoes, she wraps them in banana leaves and sticks them in the ground with coal. Sister Donna told me that gender abandonment is an enormous problem in rural Ethiopia. If families do not have food, they take their sons and leave their girls behind. And so, girls as young as two get involved in sex work – they simply have no choice. If they are lucky enough to attend school, the curriculum is tailored for children living in the city; Physics, engineering, and subjects which have not been adapted to a rural setting. So, girls have little value, in the eyes of their family, even if they are educated.
I have so much admiration for Sister who can work untiringly in communities the government has not done enough to reach and NGOs have been unable to reach. I hope I do not come across as cliché when I say that this weekend was for my soul. A reminder that reaching individuals in the right way, as multi-faceted and complete human beings, is as important, if not more, as reaching as many as possible.
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