May 12, 2006
Katherine Johnson from the Whitehorse office is just getting ready to go to Ethiopia. She leaves on Sunday, May 14. She will meet John Baigent a Director from Partners in Addis Ababa. They will travel to all the EBA/Partner project sites and will also visit some of Partners other projects including the construction of foot bridges and to HIV orphanages. Katherine will try and get some information out to us during her trip and if she does we will share it with everyone.
We have just received the following update on the EBA Ethiopia Project through John Baigent. For background, Ato (Mr.) Zenebe is a director of AWWA which is an Ethiopian aid organization that has helped Partners with "on the ground" support on a range of projects. By the way, AWWA is not an acronym but stands for one of the ancient Ethiopian gods. Tesfaye is the Ethiopia engineer who travelled with Brian Adeney and evaluated the various candidate spring sites in January.
Brian's first impressions of Tesfaye were certainly right as he continues to do a fantastic job in a very challenging environment. Finding local labourers to help with construction has been difficult as families need to tend to their crops and livestock at this time. Apart from the five spring sites, you will also note mention of a footbridge in Zenebe's update. This bridge will cross a 20 m deep gorge between the villages of Tekulesh and Mendina that floods in summer and prevents safe access between the villages. Several people have perished trying to cross in the past. We all wish Katherine well in her pending adventure and look forward to her personal experiences on how these works have made a difference in the lives of others less fortunate than ourselves.
Email update from Ato Zenebe (AWWA) to John Baigent (Partners)
By way of glossary "tej" is sweet honey wine and "atela" is rough, dirty homemade beer.
Ato Zenebe and his daughter in her Sunday best"My visit to kobo was a success. I went to Tekulesh and Mindina and visited the pilot spring development which is already completed and at use by the community for
drinking, washing Clothes, Cattle drinking and irrigation. I talked to women who came to fetch water, who said now we are drinking [tej] before we used to drink [atela] thanks God and John. I have
seen cattle drinking the spring water and plantations irrigated by the spring water and I and Tesfaye was invited banana by the farmer who grew using the spring irrigation.
I also visited the new spring development at wuha mekja /my mekja/ which is already to finish except connecting the reservoir and the distribution lines. The foot bridge is as well on the way to finish . what
remains is putting the logs and then the bars across the river . I have also visited the shema matebia spring development which is almost completed except connecting the pipe lines between the reservoirs
with the distribution system. Engineer Tesfaye is doing his job quite excellently. I very much appreciate his commitment and dedication to accomplish his duty according to the agreement. During
your visit with the engineer from Canada, I hope you will get the two new springs completed and under use."
Ato Zenebe, Director of AWWA
