Three weeks, joy and sadness

Greetings from Hawassa!

12-year-old street boy

Few emotional states are simple, but ours in approaching the end of our stay here are bordering on chaos. Especially in the last month we have both found ourselves longing for home and missing kids, friends, house, and even the cats. Yet now both of us are feeling sadness about leaving a place where our ties have deepened and we have felt needed and in return feel a true responsibility. It is not a “Hello-Goodby” relationship to the people of Hawassa and the culture of Ethiopia. Our contact has permanently touched our lives.

Saturday Marty and Dagim interviewed four 10- and 11-year-old street boys over eggs and enjera. Marty had looked forward to the interview because, in her mind, little boys are “easy”: fairly simple emotionally and with short, uncomplicated lives. Right.

It broke down when one little boy began crying talking about his widowed mother who works so hard selling enjera house-to-house to maintain a home for him and his little sister. Yet she cannot afford to buy him clothes and school supplies, forcing him to go to work and beg on the streets to stay in school. His worry was about her and her desperation, a burden (along with the financial one) that children should not have to bear.

12-year-old too small to carry on street

Then tears flowed from his friend, a tiny malnourished 11-year-old who says no-one will allow him to carry things on the street (that is one of the jobs, along with shoe-shining and car-cleaning, that street boys do in Hawassa) because he looks too weak. He described leaving his far-away Wolayta town two years ago to escape poverty and violence in his home as well as threats from “gangsters” who killed his two older brothers. He sleeps on the pavement and begs in the day and has never again had contact with his parents.

In turn, our lovely young friend Dagim took each boy and held him in his lap and kissed his cheek and dried his tears, reminding him that he had friends here in a spontaneous display of Ethiopian kindness that Marty relies on for her own sustenance. We have no answers for these young children who still have dreams of being doctors and teachers and who protect each other from the older, more hardened boys who sometimes threaten them and try to steal their money.

Barely had we breathed out when we went to our next appointment with three women who live in the place that Marty had dubbed “Beggars Village” but is really named Qerchu. She has started in the last week diagnosing and treating the sick there, after having a couple of disastrous experiences trying to get them seen and treated at the clinic at her hospital. The patients were simply lost in the system, which, though it is the public medical center, required money at every turn – registration, labs, x-rays, and prescriptions. Money that beggars simply don't have. She brought an older woman whom she suspected had cancer to the Medical Outpatient Clinic for evaluation. A couple of hours later she left her own work at the Emergency Department to find the woman lying on the floor in front of the Surgical Outpatient office. The patient had been ignored there by the nurses and providers as they wrapped up to go to lunch. Anger usually doesn't help, but Marty was pissed and demanded evaluation, which led to..... expensive tests that the woman couldn't pay for. The woman does have metastatic cancer that cannot be treated in Ethiopia and Dagim and Marty took her to the local Mother Theresa Center for care for the sick and dying on Monday.

Children of street mothers

Back to Qerchu. One of the women there has had numerous somatic complaints that Marty ultimately believes are due to hunger and depression. Marty and Dagim decided to try to help at least the hunger by making the woman part of our “study” and thereby giving her a meal and a small amount of money, while at the same time revealing the life story that led to her emotional pain. She was accompanied by two Sidama (the predominant ethnic group in Hawassa) women and their total of five youngest children, including two nursing babies. Not exactly serene, but oftentimes fun.

Two of the three women were themselves orphans at a young age, very possibly from the AIDS epidemic, though they didn't know. They had faced the fate that most orphans in this country encounter: working as servants for neighbors or extended family. All three married abusive, alcoholic husbands whom they left to try to find work, but found nothing and ended up begging with their children in Hawassa.

Street mother

The contrast among the three in their ability to face the challenges of being a mother on the street was huge. One woman, the Sidama interpreter (the other two didn't know much Amharic and Dagim knows no Sidama. We usually go through three languages, so may lose quite a bit.) was spunky and hopeful and humorous and often angry. The other two were quieter and my “patient” displayed true defeat, as did her 4-yo son.

Street mother and 14-mo-old

Marty found herself deep in homesick valley earlier this week, and finally realized that it was provoked in part by a visit to Qerchu where fights broke out among the women and Dagim was yelled at (thank God for language barriers – she had no idea what was happening) for not doing something that would have been very difficult for him to have done. The anger and hopelessness of hunger and destitution coupled with impossibly close living quarters – up to eleven people in one room separated by bamboo partitions that conceal nothing from one another – lead to much internal jealousy and bickering as displacement. Marty spent the next couple of days feeling alienated from Hawassa and pretty darn hopeless herself. When with some trepidation she and Dagim returned, they were greeted hospitably and the woman who yelled at Dagim apologized, And many of their “patients” had improved. We all respond to our environment.

Street mother and 7-mo-old

Marty has written a report (just posted at http://elmartyhawassa.blogspot.com/2012/06/report-to-city-of-hawassa.html) which she hopes to give to the Mayor of Hawassa early on June 4. She has no idea what will happen with it, if anything, but she hopes to impress upon the city the humanity and vulnerability of those on the streets.

In the meantime she is searching for support for these folks and is finding that, though everybody these days claims that they are interested and doing things for street children, you could never tell it by talking to the kids themselves. The only agency that ever seems to help them is the local Orthodox Church, that hands out food and clothes, usually on holidays. One group of kids said that they had had their pictures taken by people from an organization that said it was going to help them, but they never heard from these folks again.

Industrious, articulate 15-year-old

Marty is impressed by the energetic and generous nuns of Mother Theresa, who take in anyone who ends up at their gates. They have hundreds of folks of all ages – malnourished children, the mentally and physically ill. Austrian Sister Servita at the Center is interested in the Street People findings and wants to talk more.

All is not suffering and homelessness. We have thoroughly enjoyed visits by anthropologists Barry and Bonnie Hewlett and Rob Quinlan and their graduate students. They are setting up a longterm relationship between Hawassa University Anthropology Department and Washington State University that sounds excitingly fruitful.

And last night we were honored to be invited to Doctor Walelign's family homecoming celebration, he having just returned yesterday from receiving his PhD in India. It was very moving: we sat around a bonfire eating roast goat and his parents blessed him and spoke of the riches of having children. There are many riches in friendship as well.

Meskano,Walelign's mother and father, Wobeyed and Marty at celebration bonfire

It is exactly three weeks till we are home. Our appreciation of our contact with you and your concern and friendship is constant. We will see many of you soon. Others of you whom we are leaving here, we will miss more than you can know.

Marty and Elliot

Anthro expansion, furniture contraction and Beggars Village.

Little boy in Beggars Village.

Greetings from Hawassa!

An old picture of Marceau and Gloria, the Abyssinian ground hornbill couple

Things are green here and we had our first sighting of Marceau, the male Abyssinian ground hornbill who graced our fields in the fall. Haven't heard much from the hyenas recently, but assume they will be back.

Ell is teaching his Developmental Anthropology and Walelign's Anthropological Theory, awaiting Walelign's triumphal return from India with his PhD. We hope to have a big celebration of this wonderful event – the acquisition of the first PhD by any of the staff of the Anthropology Department of Hawassa University, but by no means the last. The previous chair, Samuel, is visiting from his PhD program at Washington State University with WSU Professors Rob Quinlan and Bonnie and Barry Hewlett. They are setting up what should be lasting ties for staff education and development, which will include PhD training for several MAs including our other friend Awoke, who helped to make villages in Konso (the ones with the beautiful stone terracing) aggregately a United Nations Cultural Heritage Site. Awoke also wrote the only book available on the peoples of Southern Ethiopia. So, there are good hopes for the future.

Again a cheat: Old picture of Ell and Awoke (kneeling) and their students. Emilia to far left, Dagim to left of Ell.

Right now Marty is writing this in hiding in our bedroom. The University workmen have come to take away more of the furniture that apparently belongs to the Australian Volunteer Services Organization, and was left here on a loan. Twice in the past an AVSO man and University worker came to the door out of the blue to demand our beds, tables, chairs, bookshelves and buffets. We had no clue and refused. When we found out that in fact the University didn't own the furniture, we agreed to let it go only if it is replaced. It has been, sort of, maybe. We received one bed to replace two – that was OK. But now they have taken out our dining room table and replaced it with a desk. They replaced our three dining room chairs and three living room chairs with a total of three desk chairs. Hmmmmm.... Five weeks.

But this is just a distraction from Marty's very absorbing (and frequently disturbing) street people project.

Residents of Beggars Village in front of homes.

She and young assistant Dagim this week visited the home of one of our moms, and discovered what Marty calls the Beggars Village, a block of the city behind St. Trinity Orthodox Church. Rows of long tin-roofed shelters divided into small stalls with bamboo mat siding house over a hundred men, women and children that were “collected” about a year ago by the church and the city from their makeshift shelters in front of St. Gabriel Church in the heart of town. Almost all of them still beg there (at St. Gabriel), but now go back and forth the mile or so to their new homes.

This was Hawassan urban renewal on a small scale, an attempt to rid the downtown of the eyesore dwellings that crowded the town center with its lovely fountains and Sidama monument.  It was a part of the town's striving for modernity and success as Ethiopia's burgeoning southern resort.

Family at Beggars Village

The Beggars Village does have its benefits: there is one toilet shared by everyone and the residents don't face constant threat of eviction by police or shopkeepers. However, there is no water spigot on site that Marty can find. People still must buy their water from the cemetery down the road and haul it to the village. Further, it is way overcrowded with up to eleven people living in a 12x12 foot space and many sleeping mats placed in the open front common area.

Such overcrowding invites disease, and kids have scabies, everyone coughs and Marty suspects tuberculosis may be living with the inhabitants. Neither the church nor the city have provided any access to medical care and yesterday Marty bajajed 3 moms with sick babies the eight miles round trip for care at Referral Hospital Clinic. More are planned for the morning.

Our first day interviewing was inspiring. We talked to two young moms with very different but compelling

Young mother at Beggars Village

stories. One escaped abuse and neglect in the Wolayta rural area from a stepmother who replaced her own mother who had died when she was a toddler. She came to Hawassa at the age of 8 and has been on the streets ever since. She is now married and with a child, but her husband, a construction worker, makes so little that she must continue to beg and sell sugar cane downtown.

The other was, literally, born on the street, on the pavement in front of St. Gabriel, to a mother and father that are still forced to beg there. Two of her three sibs died, but she has, finally, been able to stop begging and instead support herself by washing clothes and making enjera for the other families in the Beggars Village. Her dream is to get a home for her family and parents, to educate her children to become doctors so that they can “care for us”.

Dagim and Marty continue to interview others on the street, recently spending a good morning talking to women who walk into town from a nearby rural village to beg

Dagim with little hitch-hiker

house to house. They maintain their homes but cannot feed their children except through begging. On the same day we biked downtown for lunch with three pre-teen street kids who “carry things for people” in order to buy leftovers from restaurants to feed themselves. All had escaped indigent, abusive homes in the country to “find a job”. They create new families – groups who sleep together on the street and protect and share with one another.

Mother and son met while begging.

Mother out begging for her family.

A new development is pending whose outcome for the beggars and homeless is unknown. Marty visited the Hawassa Children's and Vocational Training Center and was told about rising concern from the Mayor's office about the street children. “Hawassa is a beautiful city, but these street children are a real problem,” per the manager of the Center, who stated that there were 6,000 street children (there is a question here if that includes all street people, regardless of age), of whom 1,200 sleep on the street. Amazingly, Marty was invited to a meeting yesterday of thirty or more middle class members of the city's committee on beggars. (Of course it was all in Amharic, so the scope of her understanding of the proceedings was nil.) However, there may to be a proposal afoot to clear the street of children, send them to detox somewhere and then home.

If so, then many questions: Nobody seems to know what constitutes detox (and only a minority of the kids we talked to are users of khat or alcohol.) And all the children we have spoken to left homes that were too poor to support them and most were abusive. What is the plan to remediate the issues in those individual families that forced them to leave for a hard and dangerous life in the city?

Street pre-teen

Another street pre-teen

And finally, there is no attempt to address the underlying problem that continues to drive homelessness and begging: desperate, growing poverty in the countryside that has accompanied the government's neo-neoliberal (still some state control) policies. Food, water and housing subsidies for poor families are needed to confront the inflation and at least 50% unemployment. These men, women and children won't go away and the root cause is not khat or alcohol.

It can and has been argued that support for the poor, though morally and economically necessary, is politically impossible in this neoliberal world. However, Evo Morales and his MAS Party in Bolivia made as two of their first changes government payment for school children's supplies and a nascent social security for the elderly, both of which are desperately needed in Ethiopia. It is only unthinkable if it is not thought of.
 

Another little boy at Beggars Village

In the meantime, Marty finds strength in these outrageously resilient moms and kids and feels gratitude to them for sharing their stories. She has no idea what she will do with the information, (All suggestions welcome!) though she did promise the city committee that she would share her findings (without names) with it, in hopes to impress upon the members the humanity of those that they see as eyesores. 

We miss you as always, love hearing from you, and will keep on unloading on you whether you like it or not!

Abrazos, Marty and Elliot

Six weeks, Spring, and Street People

Greetings from Hawassa!  

Maribou stork on guesthouse watertank. (Is this why we have no water pressure?)

Today marks just six weeks till our departure from Ethiopia. We are reacting a little differently to our return: Marty has become very involved both in the hospital work and her interviews with street women and children and is energized by the challenges of each. She is now the permanent Senior Staff in the emergency room and every day must go to the books to figure out some diagnostic or therapeutic dilemma. Recently the department diagnosed four cases of meningococcal meningitis which, in fact, she has always heard of but never seen. The ED overflows with patients with renal failure, tuberculosis, malaria, stroke (today in a 22-year-old man!), newly diagnosed HIV, rheumatic valvular disease, and “generalized body swelling” of unknown etiology. The ward is almost always full and patients are often fully treated before they ever make it upstairs.

Elliot and Marty in front of Lake Abiyata

Elliot is not quite as engaged. He only teaches two days a week and when he does, he often has hard times connecting with his students – class scheduling snafoos, language barriers, and lack of student preparation for and curiosity in the material. There are always a few students who are energetic, but the majority? - he wonders sometimes what they are doing here. His colleagues are hardworking and genuinely welcoming, but he feels as though his main talent, teaching, is being underused. Both of us miss our home and family, we talk about the kids, the house, retirement with great joy and expectation.

Warthogs with cute babies to left

But Ethiopia in the unexpected wet season (It was supposed to occur in March, but didn't come till April and has continued through May.) is clamoring to be noticed. It is downright gorgeous, and every being is doing its best to reproduce. There are baby goats, lambs and calves everywhere. The donkeys at the end of our dirt road are climbing all over each other with thoughts of … well if not love then fulfilling their biologic duty. We went to a small game park and it was rutting season for the gazelle bucks who were so busy headbutting each other they paid little attention to us. There were at least ten baby warthogs who, as a species could never qualify as “cute”, but who, as infants, come pretty darn close. The weaver birds are nesting themselves to exhaustion, but certainly not to extinction. And last night, for the first time, we heard a pair of owls calling their love to each other outside our bedroom window. Ah, spring!

The vacationers: Beza, Walelign and Ell at Lake Langano

On Saturday we went with friends Walelign and Beza to Lake Langano, the only of the Rift Valley Lakes (including Hawassa) without schistosomiasis, so it is swimmable. It was very pretty and refreshing, though the water is brown from the muddy bottom.

Afterward we drove through the small game park abutting Lakes Abiyata and Shala and, as the sun went down, were able to approach on foot (never would have been allowed in Kenya) a flock of ostriches and the aforementioned gazelles and warthogs. A real treat.

Beza and Walelign and Lake Langano

It turned out that that trip was our temporary farewell to Walelign who, after waiting 18 months to defend his Anthropology PhD thesis, was suddenly able to set up an appointment and today is leaving for India. Beza is seven months pregnant with their first child, so this is a little traumatic. We will be acting as surrogate supports as much as possible till he returns, triumphant, the first Anthropology PhD in the Hawassa U. Department. He asked Elliot to take over his Anthro theory course, which Elliot gladly accepted. But then he (Elliot) had to ask, "What's diffusionism?"

Beautiful camel (Aren't they all?)

Gazelle

Birdwatching at its zenith (Myron Perkins Wild Kingdom)

Marty went for the third time downtown with her anthro student/assistant/interpreter Dagim to talk to women and children living on and begging on the street. This very spontaneous project has sucked her in big-time. She has now interviewed twenty women and children, some as families, some as individuals, asking about how they ended up begging and/or homeless; how they survive the elements, the lack of sanitation, the threats and abuse they receive from other street people, shop-owners, and police (who usually are the good guys, surprisingly), the hunger, the disease (several of the women have been HIV-positive) and the sexual harassment.
She also asks about hopes and dreams which start out big -- children want to be doctors and jet pilots – but become sadly circumscribed for the women, who rarely want more than a home, food and a future for their children that is better than their own.

Quite a few of the women do not speak Amharic, but only Sidama which is the local language, so Dagim and Marty find a second interpreter. It makes difficult translating colloquialisms like the response a beautiful 13-yo gives to “rich men in fancy cars” who proposition her, tell her that if she sleeps with them they will make her rich. The translation Marty got from Dagim (further complicated by the fact that he is an Orthodox deacon) was “You can go sleep with your money!” Marty has a suspicion it was a little cruder than that.

What she is being told by all she interviews is that there are many more beggars and street people and many fewer street jobs to occupy the street youngsters, and that proto-gangs are developing over begging turf and money.

This is contrasted to the government's constant claims of economic growth of around 10%. As in our own country, GNP seems to be less and less equally distributed. Apparently the Melas government, though not truly neoliberal, still with much state involvement in financial planning and ownership, has cut food subsidies. There never has been a social safety net, even under the Durg's socialist government: no welfare or housing for the very poor. Now prices are rising, and there is land pressure (several of the children said they left their homes because their farming parents have only a very small plot that could not support them) and 50% unemployment, 10% growth notwithstanding.

Family in front of their shelter on grounds of Hawassa's largest Orthodox Church, St. Gabriel

 The suffering of the very poor is sometimes hard to bear the hearing. A very stoic woman Sunday broke down in tears when she spoke about having to leave her home pregnant and with a young child in order to try to find work after her husband died. She told us that she gave birth on the pavement, without shelter. As in America, even the best-informed, most compassionate middle-class Ethiopians believe and repeat tales of women “borrowing children” so that they can beg with them more effectively. It reminds us of the stories of the Reagan “welfare queens” who supposedly drive Cadillacs. The truth as far as Marty and Dagim can see could not be farther from these myths. We as a species can find ways to shield ourselves from responsibility for staggering pain.

Street mother

Marty is going to try to find a lawyer for a young woman with a small child who was widowed while pregnant when her husband was buried in a gold mine accident. She is also going to get an appointment for another woman with HIV who never has been treated (and appears as though she might be fairly advanced) because she thought she would have to pay. It is so frigging little in the face of such a huge and growing human disaster, but we do what we can do.

We miss you and the States, with all its stupid, evil Republicans and timid (and downright colluding) Democrats. We are glad the Socialists (May they fulfill their name!) won in France. It is thundering outside as it does on most afternoons. Spring! See you in six weeks.

Hugs,

Marty and Ell

Storm over Lake Shala

Addis Ababa to Harar, the splendid walled city in Eastern Ethiopia

Market women in Harar

We took an energizing trip last week to Addis Ababa and Harar, the fabulous walled city in the Muslim lowlands to give lectures at Addis Ababa University and Haramaya University. The talks were on our research in Kenya: “When Pastoralists Settle: Declines in Wealth, Health and Nutritional Status in Northern Kenya.” The US Embassy paid for the trip, it was part of the Fulbright Program outreach organized by  the Public Affairs office of the embassy.Our thanks to Bob Post and Eyerusalem Mandefro for setting this up.

Bus to Addis from Hawassa

We approach Yekatit 12 Monument against Italian Fascism

 

Residence of Ethiopian Orthodox Church Patriarch

Construction everywhere we look

 
We arrived in Addis Tuesday night, having successfully taken the 6.5 hour bus (Wallelign suggested wisely we purchase three seats to have more room for us and our bag), were put up in a very nice hotel (Ras Amba). We were in the northern part of the city near the University and museums, so before our lecture (at 3 PM) we stopped at the National Museum of Ethiopia, a modest but well laid out museum highlighting the national treasures including archeology of Axum (the predominant trading culture of 500BC to 700 AD), robes and crowns from the Imperial age (including Haile Selassie), and downstairs, one of the best exhibits on human evolution we have ever seen. Not only was Lucy there in her glory (the Australopithecus afarensis found in Ethiopia, called Dinknesh, ‘wonderful one’ in Amharic) - actually it was a reproduction as the original fossils are too valuable to display. There was also a very compelling and clear display of human evolution from pre-Lucy (4.2 million years ago) to the present, as every step of our evolutionary history with skulls from Australopithecines, Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Homo sapiens (and weird guys in between and around) – all of whom were found in Ethiopia. This is also the country (if you include Eritrea on the Red Sea) where the first Homo sapiens left Africa about 60,000 years ago to Asia and ultimately Europe and North America. We are amazed how such a detailed display of evolutionary history – with spectacular finds and accurate dates - exist in a country so deeply religious and fundamentalist (even some of Elliot’s anthropology students believe the earth was made in 6 days and is no older than 6000 years old). We were glad to see school tours there, and hope it makes an impact.

Model of Axum center in 5th Century AD

Below, fabulous human evolution exhibit

Lucy/Dinknesh running for her life

 

School kids at the Museum, hope they check out the evolution section

Excited about our lecture and power point at the University, we got into a cab, power point projector in one hand, canvass briefcase with the computer in the other, and drove up to the impressive stone gates of Addis Ababa U. Elliot of course had to haggle with the driver (he wanted 100 birr, Elliot wanted to pay 50 birr) and satisfied, Elliot got out of the cab, watch it drive away, and realize that the briefcase and computer were still in the cab! Not only that, but also our air tickets for Harar the next day and pretty much all the cash we were given for the trip. Y-E- O-W!!! Marty stood out front and waited to see if the cab would return, while Elliot had to run up to meet the anthropology professors who would guide us to the room for our talk. The cab did not reappear, but Elliot texted Jerry, our Ethiopian Public Affairs officer at the embassy, and told her what was what, asking her to check with the hotel to see of the cab would go there. In the middle of our talk, Marty got a phone call with amazing news that the people at the front door of the hotel had tracked down the driver via cell phones, and he had returned the briefcase with computer. This guy was going to get a big tip!

Elliot in front of Addis Ababa University, before computer loss

Our talk was animated and there were 25 Ethiopian anthropologists including a German member of the department and the Canadian director of the South Omo Research Center, which we had visited some weeks ago. This was a knowledgeable group of folks, people who live with pastoralists and think a lot about culture identity in the midst of a government that is keen on development at all costs, including displacing pastoralists from river lands where they now have commercial (but state run) sugar cane estates. One person said the tribes being most affected on the Omo – the Bodi, the Mursi – were saying they would fight to the last man to prevent their expulsion from their tribal lands. This does not bode well for the future, and we may indeed see violence. We exchanged emails, hugs, and went back to the hotel to claim our briefcase. A very honest cab driver, who could have made several years salary with the computer alone, smiles all around. He drove us to a reception at Bob Post and Denis Pusat’s house where we had a pleasant drink and pasta with some of the other Fulbrighters living in Addis.

Next day, bright and early, we got on the hour flight from Addis to Dire Dawa to get to Haramaya University. Heading east, we flew over very dry and desolate mountains, which Marty got some great pictures of. Dire Dawa is pretty hot place, built by the French for their Djibouti-Addis Railroad early in the century, which still operates. We stayed in a nice hotel (check out Marty on our balcony) and were picked up by a university driver, who we were told was available to bring us to Harar that evening (boy, are the Fulbright perks great!) Haramaya is one of Ethiopia’s oldest universities, built in the 1950s as an imperial college (Harar was the birthplace of  Haile Selassie and dear to his heart). It is a much prettier campus than Hawassa  with many shade trees, a center to the campus, and nice meeting space (Hawassa is an Alphaville of buildings in a shadeless cow pasture). 

Flying towards Dire Dawa                                 Marty checks out hotel balcony

Rather than speak to an anthropology department, we gave our talk to about ten members of the Institute of Pastoral and Agro-pastoral Studies. This is a research team who investigate issues such as boundary agreements between Somali and Oromo herders, or the effects of the expansion of state owned sugar cane estates blocking Afar pastoralists access to the Awash River, a highly contentious issue. This is very knowledgeable crowd, and they raised questions we really had to pay attention to. One was “Should we leave the pastoralists undeveloped?” They were considering changes that were happening – population growth, environmental decline, climate change, and development of irrigation agriculture in the river valleys. In a way they were arguing that the government’s policies were aimed at the welfare of the country, including the pastoralists, although Elliot remains skeptical. But we could see their point. We don’t think this government is nearly as corrupt as other African countries, such as Kenya with its laissez faire capitalism and “stuff your pockets till the burst” approach. Ethiopia’s government is trying, we believe, to direct development in the country while at the same time inviting in foreign companies for partnerships. President Meles cites China and Taiwan as examples of government-led development. So it is not quite neo-liberalism – “let the markets rule without any government interference”; they very much direct government funding (with revenues from the foreign companies) to construct roads, hospitals, and schools. But it is not a democratic government, there are no opposition newspapers, TV, or radio. It is an odd mixture of capitalism, socialism, autocracy, and modernity.

Zelalem , Marty, Elliot, and  Dr Fekadu at Haramaya University

Welcome to Harar

After the lecture, we traveled 20 minutes to Harar, passing one of Ethiopia's (and the world's) largest khat production and trading center. (Khat is the stimulent many people chew, particularly in eastern Ethiopia and Yemen). We had a walking tour and dinner with graduate student Zelalem of Haramaya U. This was a real treat, it reminded us of Sana’a the capital of Yemen. Harar is a 500 year old Muslim trading town, walled around its old center, with tight narrow streets with pastel colored walls, and throngs of people selling everything from tomatoes and khat (the mild stimulant chews by a lot of folks) to mattresses and cooking pots. People were friendly, nobody minded us taking photos. Given the time of day, 5-7 PM, the light was fabulous and the pictures great – we had a wonderful walk. It must be because it is a market town, used to strangers as well as tourists, much relief from the constant harassment we get from young boys in Hawassa who can’t stop yelling “You You, Forengi Forengi” as if they spotted an alien from outer space. (Marty’s current research with street kids and homeless families delves much deeper to the stories behind this).

Market place in Harar

Zelalem checks out Khat prices

 

Marty checks out fresh mandazi (fried dough)

 

Street kids in Harar

 

 

 

 

 

Harar streets

 

After a nice dinner (goat stew and tibs – sorry to say it but meat was on our agenda that night), we headed back to Dire Dawa for the night and then an airplane trip to Addis on Friday morning.

No cattle, but gorgeous old Peugeot 404s everywhere! (3 in photo if you look hard)

We ended our five day with a visit from and to Genet’s house. This is Mulugetta’s birth family, three of whom joined us at the hotel. Genet is such an inspiration –a really poor life story, with ten kids of whom the four youngest were adopted out, three to France, who are just beginning to communicate with her (we worked hard to facilitate this). She is genuinely grateful we have stayed in touch through the years, and help support her and her family. Her son Ermiyas lives with her, he works for a health clinic keeping the books on its construction, as does his sister Meron who lives with Genet. We had a great interpreter this time, Shoaye (“the girl from Shoa”, a region around Addis) who was raised as a member of Genet’s family. She had returned from doing domestic work in Sudan (miserable, she said), before which she worked for an Irish family in Dubai (they were great, she said). After our sodas at the hotel, we piled into a taxi and went to Genet’s home on the northern outskirts of Addis. It was a modest but not insubstantial compound, with a house, walled yard, chickens and a dog. Two little grand daughters of Genet lived in the house (Mirama and her younger sister) whose mother Megist is working in the Middle East. Genet is managing a large household. She had had pictures of all her family members, including us and the three in France, in frames on the wall. She manages to send Miriama to a private school, and for a 9 year old second grader, her English is very good. She showed us her school notebooks, where her assignments included descriptions of all the body parts in a human (engaging Marty in a detailed and animated discussion about lungs, kidneys and and livers). Genet served us a grand dinner (tibs (more meat) and njera, beer and soda, and ended with the traditional coffee ceremony that Marty decided to hold off on as she needed to sleep that night (Elliot was quite fine with it). Genet told us (again) how she thanks God for our love and support, and we thanked her for just keeping on. We had talked about the three children adopted in France, and Ermiyas showed us many photos French friends of Fasil had brought down for them. We were startled at how much Fasil resembled Mulugetta, and the fact he liked skiing (as much as Mulugetta likes ice hockey). The other kin were Yared, a few years younger than Fasil, and Freiwot the daughter, who has not yet decided whether to communicate with her birth family or not. It is a complicated family picture. I told Genet one day we will help bring all her children together for a visit with her. Both Genet and Meron held back tears at this.

Ermiyas, Genet, and Elliot at hotel in Addis       Marima at Genet's house, w photos of all the kids

Marty and Genet in her kitchen

 

Ermiyas, Shoaye, and Marty at sumptuous feast

The next day we took a bus back to Hawassa – we find using public transportation (but not the god-awful minivans with 18 people crammed inside) was easy, cheap, safe, and relatively fast.

It felt good to be back home in Hawassa. Six weeks to go until we return to our real home.

Ciao, until next time!