August Pictures

I've gone ahead and posted additional pictures that I've taken throughout the month here to a Picasa album if you are interested in seeing a bit more of my experience:

August Randoms

Weekend in Wolliso

This past weekend we decided to get out of the city and took a road trip to Wolliso, Ethiopia.  It’s not far, just a bit over 100km from Addis Ababa, but was a breath of fresh air – literally!  Wolliso is a relatively small city, but they have a fairly decently-size lodge, the Negash Lodge, where we stayed.  The biggest highlight of the weekend was all of the wildlife at the lodge, especially the monkeys!

Although it is a small city, we went riding around a bit on Saturday and stopped to take a look at some of the scenery just outside of the city.  Somehow we were spotted by the children, who ran straight towards us in increasing numbers, and decided to thoroughly check us out and then play a bit of soccer.

 To see more of the weekend escape photos, click here.

Ashenda

There have been 15 days of fasting by the Ethiopian Orthodox Christians, called filseta, leading up to a feast day today.  Today is called Ashenda, which is primarily celebrated in the Northern Tigray region of Ethiopia, but the influence was definitely seen here in the city today, as well.  Ashenda literally means “tall grass” in Tigrinya – the language spoken in the Northern region.  Ashenda is mainly celebrated by girls and young women who wear traditional dresses, make-up, and a grass skirt made of these “tall grasses”, and sing, drum and dance.

In addition to the large gatherings and decorations at the church we noticed on the way into work this morning, very noticeably the meat stalls were back open everywhere and there were many animals, both still alive, and bloody skins of goats and sheep out along the road this morning.

This "sheep wheelbarrow" is a relatively common sight for moving individual sheep around here.  Sometimes holding the back legs and walking forward, and sometimes holding on to the front legs with the sheep behind them.

We also indulged with a co-worker and went out for tibs (roasted meat) for lunch today.  Also, very popular here today was kitfo – raw beef eaten with injera – although I'm going to pass on that. 

Roasted beef tibs with spicy dipping sauce.

Eaten by picking off a piece of injera and then eating a piece of meat at a time.  

A view from our table of the side window to the restaurant's meat house.

Front window - Definitely a popular place to be today!

Although the holiday is mainly celebrated in the Northern region, we did see multiple groups of young girls of Northern heritage out celebrating today – including right outside of our office building where we had our own private show.

Girls in traditional dress

Singing...

...and dancing...

My co-worker and office-mate, Fikerte, who is from the Northern region, decided to borrow one of their drum's and get in on the festivities.  Other co-workers and I are looking on in the background there.

Pictures from Millennium Villages Ethiopia Visit

Millennium Villages Ethiopia Visit Photos

Belas!

So the roadside delicacy that was in season in the Northern Tigray region of Ethiopia while we were there was belas!  Theses belas (cactus fruits/prickly pears) could be seen still growing on the cacti all over – everywhere from on the lodge’s property where we stayed, to out in the fields along the road.

These belas are collected into buckets and sold, mostly by children, who will peel and give you a belas at a time to eat.

Although I really enjoyed the flavor of them, they have many hard seeds, which I was not a fan of.  I enjoyed them, but one at a time was good for me. 

The natives, however, could eat one after another and the piles of rinds left on the ground at their feet where they were eating served as the method to count how many were eaten before payment.  Most of the belas were 1 birr (about 6 cents USD) for four. 

Although they were everywhere, we did make a special stop on the way into and out of the village at the most established looking Cactus Shop.

Millennium Villages - Ethiopia

The Millennium Villages project is working to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 80 rural African villages, in 14 different clusters, in 10 countries.  The clusters were chosen in distinct regions of different agro-ecological zones to represent conditions seen in the majority of the sub-Saharan African.  Different initiatives in agriculture, health, education, infrastructure, and business development are implemented to help achieve sustainable change towards the MDGs, and ultimately escape from extreme poverty.

This past week I was fortunate enough to be able to travel the Millennium Villages Cluster in Ethiopia.  It was an amazing, and travel-challenge filled journey, of which I will work to post more general photos soon.  But to focus on the cluster first, there are 11 Millennium Villages located in the Koraro cluster.  I was able to visit several of the villages in the cluster to see first-hand some of the initiatives on the ground, as well as visit a village health post and health clinic.  The health aspect is most directly applicable to my work here, and I will add a separate blog post about that specifically, but I wanted to share some pictures and experiences from the villages, in general.  For more official details on the Koraro cluster and progress to date in the area, please check out the official website.

Outside the office

The landscape in the area was beautiful – striking mountains, cliffs, and lots of green – both trees and cacti and some so big that they looked like trees – and very reddish ground.

Stretching my legs on a break along the ride

Unfortunately, very stormy cloudy skies much of the time, but it is the rainy season!

Some local homes built into the hill

This boy was watching us very intently as we passed through

Again, lots of animals all around, but most excitingly this was the first location here I’ve seen camels – in the village and out on the road!

Many sheep and goats in this area

This one was grazing on top of a home.  Many of the homes there had grass on the roofs.

This was one serious mountain climbing cow.

Back near the office we encountered this very shy boy, and his cows

Camel in Koraro

We also encountered this herd of camels along the road

Up close view from the truck

One of the facilities I visited was one of the micro-dams currently under construction, which will be used to help improve irrigation in the area.

A co-worker Birkti, who accompanied us to the villages, and me near the construction

We often get teased by our co-workers about our boots, but there is no denying that they come in handy both out in the villages and even back in the city here.  They are just jealous, I think!

I also was able to visit one of the primary schools in the village.  Although school was out of session here now also, one of the teachers showed us around:

Entryway to the primary school grounds

Almost every wall inside and outside the buildings was covered with educational material.

The school library

School books were all piled up, waiting to be given out to the children when they return from break

Science classroom

The back of the science classroom

I also visited the main village of Koraro, including the village center:

You can see the wires, they are in the process of getting electricity to the village here

One hard working donkey

A view into the village center

As always, we are the attraction for the kids here - they love to get a good stare in and try to figure us out