Ethiopia

a fascinating and mysterious country a mosaic of wonderful people and magnificent landscapes where Christianity and Islam peacefully meet, the cradle of coffee and khat.

Ethiopia • Footsteps in dust and gold

Ethiopia

Ethiopia Footsteps

ISBN 978-90-5856-479-5

Arjan van Dijk • Jos van Beurden

in dust and gold

Melesu Dirba Melesu Dirba (1970) wanted to escape from poverty and from a moneylender. She lives in Silsa, a hamlet in the Oromo Region southeast of Addis Ababa, with her husband and four children.

Their house is located near a main road. ‘Through some other people I learned where I could borrow money at a favorable interest rate. With my first loan I purchased a hen, food and medicine for the children and I bought ingredients for talla, which is local beer. I used the beer proceeds to pay the interest and installments.

With the sale of the eggs, I made my first profit. With the fourth loan and some of my own savings I completely paid the moneylender.

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That is now three years ago, and since then we have been doing better. We have bought a few cows and a new house. My husband cultivates a plot of land and has a sideline in the construction industry.

All the children go to school.

Do I have a dream? Yes, my dream is a grocery along the road.

Very many people pass by here and buses make short stops quite regularly. It would be the first shop in the area. If this dream comes true, we could really leave our troubles behind. Come back in two years of time, maybe the shop will be there.’

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Melesu Dirba Melesu Dirba (1970) wanted to escape from poverty and from a moneylender. She lives in Silsa, a hamlet in the Oromo Region southeast of Addis Ababa, with her husband and four children.

Their house is located near a main road. ‘Through some other people I learned where I could borrow money at a favorable interest rate. With my first loan I purchased a hen, food and medicine for the children and I bought ingredients for talla, which is local beer. I used the beer proceeds to pay the interest and installments.

With the sale of the eggs, I made my first profit. With the fourth loan and some of my own savings I completely paid the moneylender.

10

That is now three years ago, and since then we have been doing better. We have bought a few cows and a new house. My husband cultivates a plot of land and has a sideline in the construction industry.

All the children go to school.

Do I have a dream? Yes, my dream is a grocery along the road.

Very many people pass by here and buses make short stops quite regularly. It would be the first shop in the area. If this dream comes true, we could really leave our troubles behind. Come back in two years of time, maybe the shop will be there.’

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Nega Degy cares about the environment Nega Degy will have died by now, not much older than 40, but when we met him a few years ago, he told us how hard it was for his mother and other neighborhood women to collect firewood and how firewood became the basis of his dream.

‘In 1997, I discovered energy-saving ovens, in which you can bake injera, in the nearby southern town of Soto. I purchased ten of them and gave them to my mother and the other neighborhood women. They were immediately enthusiastic.

With their experiences I approached the managers of the nearby Nechisar National Park, since I knew that the illicit cutting of trees was a major headache there.

They purchased five hundred ovens and distributed them among the inhabitants of the park. I initiated contacts with prisons, hotels, restaurants, the university and other institutions. They all switched to the new type of oven.’

Nega Degy still had more ambitions. ‘I happened to meet with a few young European businessmen. One of them taught me to write a business plan for an organization for the local production and sale of ovens. He helped me to get a seed grant.’

He set up an organization that produces and distributes energysaving ovens that are affordable for the common women.

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Zenebetch Wondimu, housewife in Arba Minch ‘When I baked injera before, I could do two things: Spend 35 birr on firewood every few days, or to keep a child away from school to gather dead wood.

Now I have this oven, and it is sufficient, if the children gather pieces of paper, twigs, dung and so, on their way to school or when they are playing outside.’

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Nega Degy cares about the environment Nega Degy will have died by now, not much older than 40, but when we met him a few years ago, he told us how hard it was for his mother and other neighborhood women to collect firewood and how firewood became the basis of his dream.

‘In 1997, I discovered energy-saving ovens, in which you can bake injera, in the nearby southern town of Soto. I purchased ten of them and gave them to my mother and the other neighborhood women. They were immediately enthusiastic.

With their experiences I approached the managers of the nearby Nechisar National Park, since I knew that the illicit cutting of trees was a major headache there.

They purchased five hundred ovens and distributed them among the inhabitants of the park. I initiated contacts with prisons, hotels, restaurants, the university and other institutions. They all switched to the new type of oven.’

Nega Degy still had more ambitions. ‘I happened to meet with a few young European businessmen. One of them taught me to write a business plan for an organization for the local production and sale of ovens. He helped me to get a seed grant.’

He set up an organization that produces and distributes energysaving ovens that are affordable for the common women.

18

Zenebetch Wondimu, housewife in Arba Minch ‘When I baked injera before, I could do two things: Spend 35 birr on firewood every few days, or to keep a child away from school to gather dead wood.

Now I have this oven, and it is sufficient, if the children gather pieces of paper, twigs, dung and so, on their way to school or when they are playing outside.’

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Tsinu Beftary Twelve years old Tsinu Beftary lives with her parents and two brothers in the city of Arba Minch in the south. Her father is sitting on the clay ground, using the Internet on a modern computer. Her mother is preparing a traditional coffee ceremony. When asked what is her dream, Tsinu first mentions her birthday. ‘I have just had my birthday party. Many friends came. My parents put out papaya, mango, banana, sweets, cake and avocado. As presents I got a pink T-shirt, blue sunglasses and a cap. We also played games. Bread biting was the most fun. My father blindfolded us and tied our hands behind our backs and then we had to try to be the first to find a piece of bread on a rope and eat it.

My other dream has always been to become a doctor for street children. When I meet homeless children who no longer

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have parents, tears come in my eyes. Many of them suffer from terrible diseases.

But during the summer holidays, I went with my parents and others for a long music and dance tour. Finally, we arrived in Addis Ababa. In the house where we slept, there were all sorts of musical instruments, which we were allowed to play.

I enjoyed that tremendously and suddenly thought that nothing could be better than to become a comedian.

Humor makes people happy and can contain a message.

I would like to create an act about girls’ circumcision. I would dress up as an old lady in dirty clothes and with a wrinkled face. I would make it appear if I had been circumcised and tell my experience from the past. I would scream so loudly and so long, until everybody started to laugh.’

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Tsinu Beftary Twelve years old Tsinu Beftary lives with her parents and two brothers in the city of Arba Minch in the south. Her father is sitting on the clay ground, using the Internet on a modern computer. Her mother is preparing a traditional coffee ceremony. When asked what is her dream, Tsinu first mentions her birthday. ‘I have just had my birthday party. Many friends came. My parents put out papaya, mango, banana, sweets, cake and avocado. As presents I got a pink T-shirt, blue sunglasses and a cap. We also played games. Bread biting was the most fun. My father blindfolded us and tied our hands behind our backs and then we had to try to be the first to find a piece of bread on a rope and eat it.

My other dream has always been to become a doctor for street children. When I meet homeless children who no longer

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have parents, tears come in my eyes. Many of them suffer from terrible diseases.

But during the summer holidays, I went with my parents and others for a long music and dance tour. Finally, we arrived in Addis Ababa. In the house where we slept, there were all sorts of musical instruments, which we were allowed to play.

I enjoyed that tremendously and suddenly thought that nothing could be better than to become a comedian.

Humor makes people happy and can contain a message.

I would like to create an act about girls’ circumcision. I would dress up as an old lady in dirty clothes and with a wrinkled face. I would make it appear if I had been circumcised and tell my experience from the past. I would scream so loudly and so long, until everybody started to laugh.’

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Firewood All over the country women and girls collect and sell firewood. In Addis Ababa alone, they are estimated to number fifteen thousand. A quarter of the households in the capital depend upon their services. Officially, their work is illegal.

The authorities rightly think that it contributes to the depletion of the forests. Yet they mostly turn a blind eye to it, as most firewood women and girls have no other choice and many families have no alternative but to cook with fire. Bent under heavy faggots, the women and girls descend the hills to the towns daily, where they arrive around four o’clock in the afternoon. Customers quickly buy the wood so that they can cook their evening meal.

In rural areas women gather wood for themselves. It is a time-consuming job and one of the daughters often has to help.

She cannot go to school. In and around camps, refugee women, coming from Somalia or Eritrea, roam around to collect firewood. It is not unusual for them to be harassed by men.

As in most countries in Africa, women also collect cattle and donkey excrement, dry it against the walls of their huts or houses and then use it for fuel.

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Firewood All over the country women and girls collect and sell firewood. In Addis Ababa alone, they are estimated to number fifteen thousand. A quarter of the households in the capital depend upon their services. Officially, their work is illegal.

The authorities rightly think that it contributes to the depletion of the forests. Yet they mostly turn a blind eye to it, as most firewood women and girls have no other choice and many families have no alternative but to cook with fire. Bent under heavy faggots, the women and girls descend the hills to the towns daily, where they arrive around four o’clock in the afternoon. Customers quickly buy the wood so that they can cook their evening meal.

In rural areas women gather wood for themselves. It is a time-consuming job and one of the daughters often has to help.

She cannot go to school. In and around camps, refugee women, coming from Somalia or Eritrea, roam around to collect firewood. It is not unusual for them to be harassed by men.

As in most countries in Africa, women also collect cattle and donkey excrement, dry it against the walls of their huts or houses and then use it for fuel.

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Spices Spices are an essential part of the Ethiopian kitchen. The most popular and widely used spice is berbere. It is used to give meat, fish and vegetarian food a special taste. The hot and spicy red powder is a blend of dried ground chili, garlic, salt and some other spices. This woman has spread plastic over her merchandise in order to protect it against eager birds and insects.

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Spices Spices are an essential part of the Ethiopian kitchen. The most popular and widely used spice is berbere. It is used to give meat, fish and vegetarian food a special taste. The hot and spicy red powder is a blend of dried ground chili, garlic, salt and some other spices. This woman has spread plastic over her merchandise in order to protect it against eager birds and insects.

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Meat shops Ethiopians are fond of meat. They like to get beef or chicken on their plate. Fried, boiled, crumbled or roasted; they eat it in all forms. At weddings and other special occasions, the well off eat raw beef. Some restaurants also serve it. To prove that the meat is really fresh, the cow carcasses hang there.

With a thin sharp knife, the waiter cuts off the desired slice and the person enjoys it by dipping it in a spicy sauce together with some injera. Every major city market has a meat lane, where customers pass by different shops to select what they like or can afford.

Talking about all this meat, you could almost forget that that Orthodox Ethiopians fast on Wednesdays and Fridays, when they avoid meat.

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Meat shops Ethiopians are fond of meat. They like to get beef or chicken on their plate. Fried, boiled, crumbled or roasted; they eat it in all forms. At weddings and other special occasions, the well off eat raw beef. Some restaurants also serve it. To prove that the meat is really fresh, the cow carcasses hang there.

With a thin sharp knife, the waiter cuts off the desired slice and the person enjoys it by dipping it in a spicy sauce together with some injera. Every major city market has a meat lane, where customers pass by different shops to select what they like or can afford.

Talking about all this meat, you could almost forget that that Orthodox Ethiopians fast on Wednesdays and Fridays, when they avoid meat.

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Food processing Outside the urban centers, there is very little ready-made food.

The processing of food is a daily affair in villages and most of it is the women’s job. Going to the local grain mill is a weekly activity for many.

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Food processing Outside the urban centers, there is very little ready-made food.

The processing of food is a daily affair in villages and most of it is the women’s job. Going to the local grain mill is a weekly activity for many.

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