January 29, 2007
Lillian's report from Agarfa, January 2007
After a week of touring the northern historical
circuit on my own, I met the Partners team in Addis: John
Baigent and his Ethiopian partner Woinshet, David Cosco and
his wife Gina, engineer Tesfaye and his brother Azmara, along
with our 2 drivers. The two-day journey to the project area
passed through beautiful landscapes ranging from Rift Valley
lakes surrounded by hills just like the Okanagan, to forested
mountain slopes reminiscent of the North Shore, and finally
into rolling grain fields that could be the Prairies except
for the ubiquitous mud huts with thatched roofs. The project
area is centred around the town of Agarfa, in the Bale Mountain
highlands southeast of Addis Ababa, with a mixed Muslim and
Christian population.
The
people use horses and donkeys to transport goods as pack
animals, or to pull carts, or for riding. Everywhere are
herds of goats, sheep, cows and oxen being shepherded through
their grazing pastures (and making for slow driving!) [photo
15 optional] Apart from livestock, there is much grain farming,
mostly barley and tef, the local cereal used for making
injera (the pancake-like base for all meals). These are
the original organic farmers: oxen pull the plows and thresh
the harvested grains under their hooves, people winnow (separate
the grain from the chaff) by throwing it in the air, and
the leftover hay is stacked by each hut to be used as fodder.
We bunked with Woinshet’s family and were able to
experience the local lifestyle. The kitchen and latrine
are in separate buildings from the main house, all made
from “chika” construction: mud walls on a eucalyptus
frame, with corrugated tin or thatched roofs. Only the main
house has a concrete foundation, with plastered interior
walls and an exterior covering of woven bamboo to protect
it from rain; all the other structures have bare mud walls
and floor. The women and children fetch water in jerry cans
from public wells. Cooking is done over wood fire or charcoal.
In the evenings, the whole extended family (four generations(VIEW
PHOTO)), gathers to eat injera and various stews, both
meat and vegetable. Every Wednesday and Friday is a fasting
day for Ethiopian Orthodox Christians, which means no meat
is consumed. The room is dimly lit by weak lightbulbs, and
in fact John has given one of the older girls a headlamp
to enable her to study after dark, since all daylights hours
are busy with school and chores. It gets dark very quickly
after sunset at 6:30, being so near the equator. We were
quite spoiled, as other homes further from the town centre
have no electricity.
Partners in the Horn of Africa are already active in this
area, with several schools already improved – including
new classrooms with desks [photo 12 optional], and a new
library with books – along with an established a micro-finance
program to help women start up market stalls.
Several water projects are already in progress. Partners’
goals in this area for this year are to improve ten schools,
and develop several more water projects. Partners looks
for communities that will commit to the project through
contribution of labour, materials, and/or money.
Each day we set out to visit various project sites within
a 25 km radius. We inspected a number of Grade 1 to 8 schools,
from which Partners will select ten to work with this year,
based on need and community commitment. Children attend
either morning or afternoon shift – the rest of the
day is likely spent shepherding, gathering wood and water,
and helping the family with farming. All of this in addition
to walking up to 10 km to school and back, in a hilly region!
It’s amazing that some of these students go on to
Ph.D.’s! Typical schools consist of a number of classroom
blocks, almost always chika construction, except for a few
lucky schools constructed of concrete blocks or concrete
panels. Some schools have covered the exterior walls with
woven bamboo matting to protect from rain. There might be
a soccer field or volleyball net, and there might be a water
tap or pump. Without fail, every school latrine we visited
was in appalling condition (VIEW
PHOTO). Offering no privacy, often full to overflowing
and thus no longer used, or simply disgustingly dirty, the
lack of proper latrines is a serious deterrent to hygiene
and comfort while learning.
EBA is supporting one school, Kasso Manso, along with water
projects nearby. This school is typical of those visited.
There are 1115 students, 642 boys and 473 girls. None of
the teachers has a university degree; 9 have diplomas and
12 have certificates (the lowest level of qualification).
Two very old classroom blocks are badly deteriorated (VIEW
PHOTO). The community has recently built additional
classrooms of unfinished chika (mud) construction.
The existing mud floors are so uneven that desks are useless
– the classes have only benches. The classrooms are
lit by 2 small open windows, with no electric lights, and
are shockingly dark (VIEW
PHOTO). In addition, the roof overhang is insufficient
to protect from rain, so the windows must be shuttered during
rain (for those windows that have shutters).
The school director and teachers prioritized their needs,
which were typical of most schools. Desks and tables are
desired, which means a concrete foundation must be poured
in each classroom block. This community is very committed,
having already purchased and gathered piles of rocks for
the foundation. We also identified glazing the windows as
a possibility, since they are currently inadequate. Next
on the list is a library building and books, followed by
water. Currently there is no water on the school property,
and the nearest source would be a spring that is over 1
km away. Thankfully the water table here is very high, so
a hand-pumped well will be easily built on the school grounds.
New latrines are also needed: the school currently does
not have a functional latrine, and students go in the fields.
Providing both latrines and water for handwashing will greatly
improve the children’s hygiene.
An additional topic raised at one school was the fact that
most girls stay home during their period. Imagine trying
to pass a grade after missing one of every four weeks. We
spoke with a courageous student and her teacher about possible
methods to remedy the situation. Already, looking at the
numbers of students in each school, on average there are
25% more boys than girls. Clearly access to education for
girls is already an issue. Education of women is a fundamentally
important aspect of development and progress. It is the
single greatest factor in reducing the birth rate, which
links into the broader context of environmental degradation
due to overpopulation – in Ethiopia there are obvious
conflicts over resources like land and water along with
widespread deforestation due to cooking and building needs.
One other side note regarding access to education is a
bridge project in the area, near another school. Those children
are cut off from school during rainy season when the river
overtops the footbridge, which looks to be in danger of
washing away completely during the next flood (VIEW
PHOTO). Tesfaye, the Ethiopian engineer who works with
Partners, has already identified a suitable location where
a higher, stronger bridge will be built.
EBA is also supporting a number of water projects around
Kasso Manso (EBA’s sponsored school). It is a wet
area, with marshes, natural springs, and ribbons of green
following the groundwater. However, the quality of water
points is poor. The women and children kneel beside muddy
holes to fill there jerry cans from the mucky spring that
has been dug out.
EBA will sponsor the development of the springs, which involves
covering the holes and piping the water by gravity to a
convenient water point downslope.
We visited one other Partners water project, where the
construction of hand-dug wells with hand pumps is already
in progress. A number of muddy holes are in place, where
the people collect water by lowering 1-litre tin cans on
a string to fill jerry cans for themselves and to fill basins
for water their livestock (VIEW
PHOTO). The animals defecate around the holes, contaminating
them. The constructed wells will be capped and will feed
a number of troughs downslope from which the animals can
drink, which will protected the water from animal excrement.
Being amongst the people and understanding their challenges
first-hand has been an incredible experience. We should
all be very proud of EBA’s contribution and making
a real difference in the lives of children and families
in Ethiopia! 
