The Most Beautiful Place in The World?

We’re just back from some incredible trekking in the Tigray region.  We hiked with our new British friends whom we met at the kids’ school.  



 Tigray is in northern Ethiopia (close, but not too close to the Eritrea border).  It was the region most severely affected by the 1984-85 famine.




A bit of history about Eritrea/Ethiopia.   At various times in history Eritrea has been either on or off the map of Africa.  Eritreans share the same language (Tigryna) and culture as the Ethiopians of Tigray.

Eritrea had long been an independent nation.  It was then colonized by the Italians in the late 1800’s.  Then in 1948, for various political reasons, the UN’s General Assembly decided that Eritrea would become Ethiopia’s 14^th province.  Eritrea was then off the map of Africa.  

This forced arrangement didn’t work out terribly well.   In 1993, after many years of strife Eritrea became an independent nation (again). Eritrea is now back on the map of Africa.

From what we understand border tensions have eased over the last few years, but VSO still suggests that we don’t wander within 30km of the Eritrean border.

At any rate, we are lucky that we had the chance to trek in Tigray.   We flew into Axum and then drove 2 ½ hours on mildly hair-raising roads to start our hike.  We were rewarded with a four day trek , that took us into some of the worlds most spectacular scenery .  Of course, we came equipped with hiking boots and quick dry shirts, while local kids scampered around vertigo inducing cliffs, in broken plastic shoes.

The best part was that we didn’t have to carry our packs (this job was left to some very hardy donkeys).  As well, our meals were cooked by local women from nearby villages (which meant no cooking or clean up by us).   Our lodging was in “local accommodation”, which was a structure fashioned on local homes; no electricity or running water, but comfortable and clean (with perhaps the exception of the toilet facilities and a few fleas).  

 

We had a terrific guide who had grown up in a nearby village and knew the mountains like the back of her hand.  Every time we thought  “ are you crazy, there is no way we can climb up that ridiculously steep ridge”, she would know a way up.  

Who knew that Ethiopia was home to one of the most beautiful places in the world?

Too Much Altitude

Some of the X-country team

Today we ran our first road race in Addis Ababa.  We hitched a ride with Aysha and Sunil’s X-country team.  The race was sold out, but their coaches were kind enough to provide us with unused bibs.

Here’s a little play by play of my race.

The elite men

The race got going and it all seemed kind of cool.  We got to see the elite men start and Haile Gerbrselassie was there providing some inspiration.   Then the not so cool part; we had to run. 

The first 2km were not too bad, nice and flat.  Then things started to get a bit bad--hills and altitude to deal with. Running on the flats seems to be similar to running at home, running up hills seems to be is when the altitude starts to rear its ugly head.  Added to this was parched lips and a mouth that was as dry as a biscuit.  Luckily, the race was sponsored by Coca-Cola and glasses of coke were provided at about km 4 (no water, just coke!).   Finally things got very bad: the last km was all uphill and the battle in the head to not walk began, but a Coca-Cola as you crossed the finish line made you forget all your troubles.

The kids were terrific.  Aysha had done the same race (it’s part of a series) last month and took 4 minutes off her time this time around.   Sunil ran the race for the first time, the longest distance he has run!

For Mike and myself, more training is in order.  However, in spite of the near nausea, it was a great day.  Tons of runners, music, Amharic medals, and of course, Coca-Cola.  If only Addis could do something about the altitude, I would be set.

Capacity Building

Before I started working with VSO I hadn’t thought much about the idea of “capacity building”.   I’m still not sure I completely understand what capacity building is, though I did read a shockingly long Wiki entry about this very subject. 

At any rate, a lot of our job here falls into the category or idea of capacity building.

Working in Dawit's office

The Family Medicine Program in Ethiopia is still in its infancy (actually it’s still in the gestational period).  We are here to help build the program and get people on board with improving primary care.   Fortunately, from what we have read, good primary care does save lives, so we are starting on good footing.

Abbas and Brian

Our current team is Brian, Abbas, Dawit (our Ethiopian colleague) and the two of us. Initially, things seemed to be moving at a snails pace, but things have picked up and we have more and more to do.   There is often a little ping pong match going on in my head in that one minute the task seems unmanageable and I think what are we doing here then the next minute I think we are well on our way to doing something very good here.

The cafeteria at Y12 hospital

It is however nice to have a few concrete projects on the go.  We are all helping to prepare a day of CME for GP’s and possible recruits to the program.   We are also involved in a project to teach GP’s C-sections.  As you all know, women have very limited access to safe obstetrical care in Ethiopia, so we hope this will be a good capacity building project as well.   Luckily, a lot of this capacity building and planning can be done outside while sipping machiatos and eating cake.:)

On the home front, things are good. The kids continue to enjoy school and are making friends.  They are both running on the cross country team and have a 7.5 km road race this coming weekend.  I am no longer afraid to go into our kitchen, so we are cooking a bit more and eating out a bit less (this is good).  The weather has turned spectacular.  It’s sunny and warm everyday, which is a very welcome change from rainy and gloomy everyday.

Two Rivers Meet

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As many people know, the Nile River is generally thought to be the longest river in the world; about 6650 km long.

Lake Tana, source of the Blue Nile

It has two major tributaries the White Nile and Blue Nile.  These two rivers flow north, join up in Sudan and form the Nile River.  The Nile then carries on to Egypt and eventually empties into the Mediterranean Sea.

17th Century Bridge, on the way to the Falls

People may not know the Blue Nile is the source of most of the water in the Nile and its source is Lake Tana, in Ethiopia.   90% of the water and 96% of the sediment carried by the Nile originates in Ethiopia.

Blue Nile Falls

For various historical reasons Egypt has had control over the Nile water resources.  You can imagine the challenges surrounding sharing water in drought prone East Africa.  There is obviously some crankiness among the countries (Uganda, Tanzania, South Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda, DRC, Ethiopia and Kenya) through which the Nile flows as they have little control/access to the waters.  There has recently been progress on a Nile Basin Initiative to promote a peaceful solution regarding water sharing among theses countries. For more info. on this here is what the informative  Wikipedia has to say:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nile_Basin_Initiative

All of us and Brian

During the Meskel holidays we  and our honourary family member, Brian took a little jaunt to the city of Bahir Dar to see the source of the Nile and the Blue Nile Falls.  A very lovely weekend.

Aysha and Sunil do a Blog Post

Today is the start of the Meskel holidays at school.   We get a lot of holidays, because we get to celebrate the Orthodox Ethiopian holidays, Muslim holidays, Christian holidays and random holidays.

This is the legend we learned at school.  Empress Helen was looking for the cross that Jesus was nailed to.   She looked and looked and couldn’t find it.  Then she lit a fire and the smoke pointed to a hill in Isreal.  She traveled to the hill and her people started digging for a really long time.   Then luckily they found the cross on March 10^th (we're not sure why Meskel is celebrated in September).   The cross was split into four pieces.  Now Ethiopia, Egypt and two other countries have a piece of the cross.

lighting the bonfire

Today at school we had a huge bonfire with a cross on top.  It was bigger than any bonfire you would ever see at a Canadian school.  Most people wore traditional Ethiopian clothes.   We only had ½ a day of school and have the rest of the week off, so that is really good.

As always, popcorn for all

traditional clothing

 













 

Getting Taller

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Red Cross Training Centre

We’ve just completed our formal in country training with VSO.  10 days of being cloistered away at the very nice Red Cross Training Centre.   We are about 35 volunteers in all with most from UK/Ireland and the rest a spattering from Canada, Sweden, Uganda, Holland and Kenya. 

Things started off with an in-country medical. The medical was very good for me, in that I gained 8 cm of height.  My height was measured by the nurse, and she informed me that “150 cm is too less for height”.  I wholeheartedly agreed and my height was then scribbled out and she gave me an extra 8cm.  I’m really quite pleased with my new height of 158cm.

The presentation on culture could be briefly summed up as follows: ferenji (foreign) men can mostly do what they like while ferenji women have a list of things they can’t or shouldn’t do.  When you first hear this you want to stamp your feet and holler; but we are then reminded that things weren’t so different in Europe/North America 40 years ago.

In gender issues we learned that the Ethiopian constitution is quite progressive in that gender equality is written into the constitution.  Child marriage and FGM (female genital mutilation) are also illegal.  In practice, these laws are difficult to enforce and prosecuting offenders is rare, but as in all countries change comes, but slowly.  Girls are also still noticeably absent beyond primary school.  Some more unhappy Ethiopia Unicef stats:

Youth (15-24 years) literacy rate (%), 2005-2010*, female 33%, male 56%

Child marriage 2000-2010* (girls), married by 15:  24%

Female genital mutilation/cutting 1997-2010*, prevalence: 74%

And for the most shocking: Justification of wife beating 2002-2010*, male 52%, female 81%

                                                  

On a happier note, we had about 15 hours of Amharic language lessons.   After all these hours I can now say about 10 things (a slight improvement).   I can’t tell if Amharic is a difficult language to learn or if I am just a difficult language student (likely the latter).

getting coffee

All in all an enjoyable 10 days.  Was nice to meet our fellow and previous volunteers, who seem like a talented bunch of individuals.  We’re also extremely happy that our colleague Brian is now in Addis, and hope to get down to some “real work”.

 
A few words from Aysha and 
Sunil.  The in-country training
was good (but sometimes boring).  The food was excellent.
The dancing at the cultural restaurant was kind oflike amazing.  We heard some funny
stories from other volunteers.

I'd Like to Line Up Please

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                                            I need to get used to not having to queue up for things.

Line Taxis

Mike and I have started using line taxis as a mode of transport.  Line taxis are blue mini buses that can hold any number of people.  It’s quite a cozy ride.  There is not really a fixed route and the system works like this: a young boy hangs out of a window, yelling out a destination at an extremely rapid rate.  The mini bus comes to a rolling stop and if you want to board the bus, it’s a mad scramble to get into the small bus and get a seat.  The idea of lining up and entering the bus in an orderly fashion is a no go.  Budding and gentle shoving to get to the front is the order of the day. 

I have to restrain myself from behaving like a 5 year old and yelling “it’s not fair, I was here first, I should be able to get on the bus and not have to wait in the pouring rain for another bus”.  I think I find the whole thing irksome, because since the age of 5, it’s been drilled into our heads that budding in line is a very serious violation of some unwritten moral code.  Perhaps we should allow kids in kindergarten to bud in line, in order to prepare them for these kinds of things in their adult life.

My book and unused deposit slip

I recently opened up a bank account.  This was another exercise of forms and photos. I now have a bank account at the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia.   My bank book comes complete with a photo of myself (I guess in the event that I can’t identify my book or myself). 

The only problem is that I have not yet been able to make a deposit.  I’ve tried twice.   I show up when I am told to, fill in the deposit form and wait for a teller to appear.   Within a millisecond of the teller appearance, there is a mad rush of bank books flying into a pile in front of the teller.  And then you wait some more, hoping that your book gets to the top of the pile.   And then you get told that the teller is going away, please take your book and come    back “later”.  I need to sort out how to get my book to the top of the pile.

 I would really just like to line up and wait my turn.

Kids and Wondesa

A few words from Aysha and Sunil:  We have started taking taxis by ourselves.  Our favourite taxi drivers are Wondesa and Biruk.  We went to a fancy reception for the VSO volunteers at the British Embassy.  Who would have thought that the fanciest thing I have been to would be in Ethiopia.    The line taxis are not as bad as we thought.