March Forward, Dear Mother Ethiopia!
The title of my blog is that of the National Anthem of Ethiopia. I decided to use it for my blog title because:- The oldest forms of human life have been found here ("Mother")
- Ethiopians pride themselves on their strength in war, and they certainly have proved themselves, having never been colonised despite various attempts. ("March")
- Ethiopia is currently developing very fast, and it's economy is growing rapidly ("Forward")
- The exclamation sounds like an encouraging call to move in a positive direction, which is relevant for many Ethiopians struggling for survival in areas with scant resources and a growing population
- This national anthem was adopted after the overthrowing of a military junta called the Derg in 1992. Always good to remember deposition of oppressive governments.
Human-Centered Design
One of my assignments from Lem Ethiopia was to look for funding opportunities for them. I found a great one by IDEO and so I introduced Lem Ethiopia to the Human-Centered Design approach to creating solutions. They found the approach very interesting and innovative, but I wonder if they will pursue it further. I think it would be a great opportunity for a relatively small and traditional NGO looking to advance and broaden its horizons, but only time will tell . . .
Population, Health, and Environment in Girar Jarso
The main project I am involved
with here is an integrated project in a poor rural community 110 km north of
Addis. The project aims to improve the community’s knowledge and practice of
natural resource management, reproductive health/family planning, harmful
traditional practices, and alternative income generating activities. My role is
to contribute at all stages of the baseline survey—its creation, its
implementation (collecting quantitative and qualitative data), and analysing
the data.
Donor influence
NGOs are often at the mercy of their
donor’s ideology, for example, the Swedish Embassy is currently promoting the “rights-based approach." We have to
tailor our project proposals to suit donors' ideologies, so a proposal for a
particular project will look different depending on whom we are applying to for
funding. Although a lot of these donors nowadays include “participation at all
levels” or something along those lines, they are still very much bringing in
(imposing?) their external ideologies, which may or may not be best for the
recipient communities. How can this be countered? Can it be?
We're in the year 2005!
According to the Ethiopian calendar, we are
still in 2005. The calendar has 13 months—12 have 30 days and the 13th
with 5 days was added in order to keep time with the Gregorian calendar. As for telling the
time, just like in Kenya, subtract 6 hours from what you’re used to. It makes
so much more sense, because when the sun rises the day starts around 1:00am
(7:00am Gregorian time). The working day ends at 11:00am (5:00pm Gregorian time) and the night
starts around 1:00pm (7:00pm Gregorian time).
Copy cat!
There is no law on international copyright
in Ethiopia (local copyright does exist though).
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| Yes, this really is the logo of Ethiopia's Kaldi's Coffee. |
Truly a Hidden Gem (cliché I know, shh)
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| I promise this is not photoshopped. |
We rode down on horses to get past
the wet mud, marshes and rivers. We then stopped at a hot spring in the rocks
and drank fresh bubbling carbonated water from another spring under a rock.
After dismounting from the horses, we walked through deserted paths, among wide
fields with wild horses and some wandering pastoralists with their goats. Upon
reaching the lakeside we jumped in a boat and were ferried across to an island
in the middle of the lake. There we paid a visit to the small local orthodox
church and its bright paintings.
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| Drinking fresh sparkling water straight from the spring |
Note to self to return here and
camp at the lakeside.
