Updates, Soul of Athens and More!

So it had been a long time since I had updated my blog for reasons of school, a new job at the university and a little bit of traveling with my family – most recently in Guatemala.

There’s so much to update on and stories to tell I don’t know where to start!

First off, below are a couple older stories that I wrote about my trip to Africa: Ailing and Addis about my experience at an Ethiopian hospital and Obamamania about my experience following the elections while in Eastern Africa and the support for Obama I found in Kenya because of his heritage.

Also, this year I had a role as a multimedia producer for the award-winning Soul of Athens, a magazine produced by students at Ohio University’s School of Visual Communication. Please visit the site, and in particular check out some of the stories I produced and edited:

Simply Sassafras

Photography by Go Takayma

A Beautiful Soul

Photography, audio by Kevin Riddell
Interactive by Andy Phillips

What if Death was Three Months Away

Photography by Xiaomei Chen

The Athens Farmers Market

Videography by me

Obamamania in Kenya

The World is Watching

“The world is watching what we do here.” The words flooded my ears like the first day of rain after the dry season. Barack Obama’s speech in Texas crackled from an old television set into the green patio of a dusty hotel in Yabello, Ethiopia. It was early March, and Obama had just lost my home state of Ohio to Hillary Clinton. I was on the other side of the globe, probably at the only satellite TV in a hundred miles, but I had never felt closer to the man who spoke of change.

That morning in Yabello, I looked over at the faces the young Ethiopian men watching the screen, their eyes filled with eagerness and excitement. I knew in that moment that across the world, in living rooms, classrooms, restaurants and bars, the world was indeed watching.

I had left the U.S. in January, right after the Iowa Caucus, to report on water scarcity and climate change in Ethiopia and Kenya. Two months in, we were halfway down the deteriorating road from Addis Ababa to Nairobi. Post-election violence in Kenya had calmed for the time being, and I was eager to spend my last few weeks in Africa in a country as riveted to Presidential politics as my own.

Obamamania

On a cool morning a few days after our eventual arrival in Nairobi, I squeezed my way into an overcrowded matatu headed for downtown. The minibus was silent as we wound through the green jacaranda trees and glass-windowed malls of the suburbs. Then I heard it. A reggae beat started up, punctuated with calls of “Obama.” As lyrics extolling the candidate’s virtues poured from the blaring speakers, I could sense the exuberance and pride of my fellow passengers.

The Nairobi I saw in early March seemed recovered from the violence that had recently swept the country – and ready to let Obamamania sweep over recent unpleasant memories.

Henry Gadiga, a senior in Communications at Daystar University in Nairobi, says he watches news of the elections on CNN every morning.

“Now that things are coming back to normal, we’re back to talking about the elections in the U.S. ” he told me, standing in a stone courtyard outside the university. As we talked we were joined by other students eager to share their views on elections here in Kenya and in the U.S.

“Truth be told, it’s either you have the traditional McCain, who is like the rest of the presidents that the U.S. has had, or you have a black man who has African roots, or you have a woman. I don’t think Americans have been faced with such a decision before, and that’s part of the excitement,” added Moharry Matua, also a Communications senior at Daystar. But he worries that excitement over superficial change could distract from the meat of the race. “People are [more] caught up with the image of who he is than really with his policies.”

But Gadiga points out that the symbolism in this race is important. “Most people are proud that Obama has a Kenyan father,” he said, “most people, especially right now, did not believe in the American Dream in a way. But if the son of an immigrant can become president, then anything is possible. Just the chance is good enough for us.”
Claiming a Piece of Obama

Penninah A. Ogada, PhD, a lecturer of Gender and Political Economy, helped explain why this election resonates so strongly for Kenyans: “Obama has a piece of Kenya. He has a piece of the Luo [ethnic group]. He has a piece of Islam,” she says, adding that an Obama presidency would help the world see the U.S. in a new light.

Obama also seems to have piece of all Americans: of the white man who’s been laid off, of the immigrant trying to feed his family, of the African American struggling through the education system.

Although I am now back in the U.S., I have thought back to that moment in Yabello, Ethiopia many times. I remember the questions Obama addressed in that March speech, and the answers we were searching for.

As he talked about coming together across party, religion and race, about being a responsible global leader, about making our country the “last best, hope of Earth,” I looked at my colleagues. All our faces were contorted with a plethora of emotions – shock, inspiration, empowerment.

Obama was talking to the women who walk miles a day to fetch water from a contaminated spring. He was speaking to the Somali pastoralists who have clashed with neighboring tribes over resources. And he was talking to us – a group of five weary travelers in Ethiopia. He was saying to the world, “Yes we can.” And we were hoping he was right.

© 2008 The Common Language Project

Ailing in Addis

A classic form of torture is the practice of ripping off the fingernails of the victim until the information is forcefully and mercilessly extracted.

For a CLP reporter, a single fingernail torn out by the quick bite of a rusty folding chair, to the smell of unpalatable spaghetti, only evokes sympathetic questions.

And while such a bloody episode is more often dealt with by the likes of a fictional character played by George Clooney in the sociopolitical montage Syriana, my encounter was very real, covert activity notwithstanding.

On the contrary, my absurd experience at St. Gabriel’s hospital in Addis Ababa exposed me to the realities of healthcare in Eastern Africa, and provoked me to look further into healthcare availability and costs while comparing the Ethiopian system to healthcare realities in the United States.

It all started at the 7Up hotel and restaurant across from the CLP’s Addis Ababa home in a pocket of the 22nd neighborhood. We were planning on enjoying a late lunch. Tired of the fermented injera that we had consumed relentlessly for the past two weeks, we ordered a few plates of warm oily spaghetti and a round of cold St. George.

In my eagerness to take a closer look and whiff at the food served, I naturally scooted my chair closer to the table, tucking my hands between the two metal bars of the chair.

I felt a sharp quick tear, which soon turned to a numbing pain. My little finger had been mangled in the rusty joint of the chair. Choked up by tears, no words could come through my lips, except for a nonsensical screech, that my colleagues told me sounded like a distressed street cat. I assured the group that I was fine, and that they could continue eating. But suddenly none of the food seemed appetizing and Sarah insisted that we go to the nearest clinic or hospital.

Do you think my finger nail is even still there? I ask, looking down at the small, crimson ponds of blood oozing out of the sides of my finger.

“Ummm… I don’t know,” Sarah replied hesitantly, looking over at Jessica.

“Let’s just go see about a Tetanus shot,” said Jess avoiding the question.

We soon arrive at the small, white private hospital just a block from our house. There were a few other people in the waiting room, all sitting patiently and calmly. I looked around, and didn’t see any other blood but the one that was gushing from my finger. Within only five minutes I was already meeting with a doctor, who began pouring water and disinfectant onto the wound.

I immediately thought about how long I’d have waited in the U.S. to see a doctor.

“I think your finger nail is still here,” the doctor said.

The cold antiseptic burned like fire, and sent shivers throughout my arm.

She swabbed my finger gently and looked at me curiously. She could tell that I was eager to ask her something.

Which was true, while I was there, I thought it’d be a good opportunity to interview her about some health issues related to our stories on sanitation and water, not to mention health concerns regarding traveling.

As a traveler in Africa in particular, health is a topic of discussion several times a day. It might go something like this:

“Don ‘t drink this water, you’ll get diarrhea.

“Ok, just bottled then. And what about this fresh lettuce?”

“No, no, that’s washed in the contaminated water.”

“Ok. But I miss salad.”

“Well, you’ll miss proper digestion too when you become a hotel for parasites.”

“I think I already have parasites.”

“Ok, well, let’s get some Zentel. Did you remember your malaria pill today?”

“Yes, and I have my yellow fever vaccination card so I can cross the border into Kenya.”

“Ok, good.”

My conversation with the doctor took a bit more serious tone.

“Do many people come in here because of water-related illness?” I asked.

She told me that a large percentage of her patients suffer from waterborne diseases by simply drinking the city water, mainly due to road construction, which has broken some of the water pipeline, exposing this water to dirt and contamination.

“Most people don’t believe they are sick because of the city water, so they don’t boil it,” she added.

In Ethiopia, less than 40% of the population has regular access to an improved water source, compared to almost 100% of the U.S. population, according to the World Health Organization.

Due to these poor sanitary conditions, 250,000 children die every year in Ethiopia. One woman Ernest and I spoke with in the poor slum of Kechene in Addis told us how she had lost her granddaughter because of a water-borne disease. Where she lived, she had to walk 45 minutes to find a spring which was still probably too dirty to drink by most standards.

We also met NGO workers at CARE international who work on improving malnutrition in children around the border town of Moyale. With more than half of children under five severely malnourished, many Ethiopians chronically suffer from a lack of regular food.

There is no doubt that Ethiopians suffer from poverty and disease at an exponentially greater rate than Americans. But like my surprise regarding the accessibility of healthcare here it’s important to examine the benefits and drawbacks of both places – maybe with some lessons to learn in the process.

While most Americans have enough food to eat and drink, it is difficult to find organic meat or vegetables at affordable prices. Processed fast food, with its lack of nutrients, is much more accessible to America’s poor, who often suffer health problems as a result.

Ethiopia on the other hand, raises and serves grass-fed beef and organic vegetables by default. You won’t find a trendy, organic health food store here. Instead, market-fresh vegetables and fruits are found on almost every corner in Addis, and freshly butchered goats hang lifelessly in corner-store windows.

Unlike in America, most everyone here has access, though irregular, to organic meat and vegetables, but ironically, these foods raised in a natural environment without chemical fertilizers or pesticides are also often tainted by being irrigated or washed with contaminated water.

The same idea extends to healthcare costs. According to a Wall Street Journal-NBC Survey, almost 50 percent of the American public say the cost of health care is their number one economic concern. While an emergency room visit for someone without health insurance in the US can cost a month’s paycheck, in Addis, a trip to a private hospital is closer to $10 or $20. Public hospitals are even more accessible to Addis’ poor and working classes.

But in many remote regions of the country, Ethiopians have no access to hospitals private or otherwise and for many a few dollars in medical fees might as well be thousands. The grinding poverty of the country combined with a desperate lack of infrastructure creates an environment where most Ethiopian’s won’t live to see their fifty-fifth birthday.

Back at St. Gabriel’s hospital, with my interview completed and my finger snugly dressed I welcomed Sarah and Jessica as they arrived to pick me up.

“Well, the doctor thinks that my nail is still there. It’s just crushed,” I said.

“Actually,” Jessica said… “No.”

She held a single nail up in the air, the nail’s surface reflecting sunlight upon its incandescent curve.

“Oh…uh…really?” I laugh nervously.

“We found it under the chair. We just didn’t want to put you into shock.”

Laughing, I went and showed the doctor the nail. She was as dumbfounded as I was. I tucked the finger nail in my bag, and decided it might be a good thing to keep as a souvenir.

It’s easy to say that the healthcare system is far more advanced in the U.S. compared to a country like Ethiopia, and in many ways it is. But the reality is that the U.S. healthcare system is also in need of change. And like access to clean water, access to regular medical care—or lack there of—speaks to the level of development in a country.

My hospital visit in Ethiopia made me realize that while country is in great need of more medical resources, some services are more readily available and affordable than in the privileged nation of the U.S.

Losing a fingernail is the least of most people’s worries. Meeting those in Ethiopia who struggle daily with common yet potentially deadly diseases such as diarrhea and malaria makes me thankful for my health and the health of those around me more than ever. And it helps me understand the crucial issue of healthcare with a new depth.

Throughout the globe, it is up to us as individuals and our leaders, to help ensure the health and well being of all within our society. I know it sounds funny, but I still have that fingernail. I carried it all the way here from Africa to remember the experience and to remind me that as old systems die off, new ones can grow back.

© 2008 The Common Language Project

World Water Day and Documentary to Air this Week!

This March 22 is World Water Day, reminding us of the 1 billion people on Earth who lack easy access to the water most of us take for granted. This week, our first ever piece to broadcast on TV, CLP’s “Water Wars,” will air on PBS’ Foreign Exchange. It was a really profound experience work on this project and to discover how global climate change is leading to increasing drought and drying wells, threatening an ancient way of life and fueling conflict. Check it out on PBS’s Foreign Exchange all week; and on the CLP Web site and YouTube any time.

done

Also, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and 1H20.org is featuring a series of other multimedia stories by the Common Language Project group. For more details, check out CLPmag.org.

Cheers to the release of all these new stories, and Happy Easter!

Ethiopian Retrospective

After five long days of traveling throughout southern Ethiopia and Northern Kenya, the CLP group and I arrived in Nairobi. It was a bitter-sweet transition. On the one hand, it’s such a relief to arrive in such a vibrant city and country. Nairobi is lined with green trees and flowers juxtaposed to its glass skyscrapers, small shops and restaurants. Despite the excitement of finally reporting in Kenya, there are so many things I’m sure I’ll miss about Ethiopia, many which I might not fully realize except in retrospect. Thus, I’ve compiled a “top five” list of reasons to fall in love with Ethiopia:

1. Coffee

During our first few weeks in Ethiopia, Ernest and I were invited to a coffee ceremony with our friend Zuray’s family. They live on the outskirts of Addis, in a small quiet compound surrounded by green coffee groves and jacaranda trees. We were sitting down, watching Ethiopian TV (ETV) and looking through photo albums. Zuray’s sister arrived with a plate of green coffee beans, just picked off of the trees and smelling of a slightly unrecognizable, fresh fragrance. In a small clay pot she roasted the beans, the awakening rich smell of coffee saturating the air. Minty grass spread in a circle on the floor. In the center – a tray full of small white macchiatto cups. The freshest cup of coffee ever tasted. For those who know me, you can imagine how amazing this was for me – coffee possibly being my biggest weakness.

Ethiopia is the land for coffee lovers. In fact, the country is considered the “birthplace of coffee”, where according to legend, a goat herder named Kaldi discovered that his goats were chewing on mysterious berries and dancing with reckless abandon. Kaldi then informed the local monks who then began making drinks with the berries and discovered that it kept them awake at night. Ever so slowly knowledge of the energizing effects of the berries began to spread. Now coffee is found in local coffee shops like Donkey in my town of Athens, Starbucks across the world and traditional coffee ceremonies in homes across Ethiopia.

2. Dance

Let these amazing shoulders speak for themselves:

3. Food:

I will share with you an embarrassing secret – the first time I tried injera in D.C. four years ago, I thought that the flat, sponge-like bread was a napkin. Soon I saw people eating the napkin, savoring every bite of the seemingly inedible substance as if it were an addictive drug. It was dumbfounding. Even after I tried it, I was still surprised by its sour, strange taste. I’m not a picky eater in the least bit. I have tried fried bugs in Thailand, chicken feet soup in Bolivia. But Inera, which is crepe that is made from tef, a sour-wheat-like grain that is mixed with water yeast and then fermented, has a taste that never leaves you. In Ethiopia, people are so crazy about injera that they will eat injera with injera on injera. They will scramble injera in a dish called firfir, and then scoop it up and eat it with more injera. I have not met one Ethiopian person who did not love the stuff.

The injera and the spices eventually began to grow on me. But it was the familiar, delicious Italian influence, as well as the abundance of organic produce, that made my group’s taste buds water. The fascist Italian regime occupied Ethiopia during WWII – the only European occupation Ethiopia had ever encountered. The fascists fortunately fizzled, and while the country was happy to purge the militant control, it was blessed by the lasting presence of Italy’s taggliatelli, homemade ravioli, marinera sauce, romano cheese and endless cups of cafe macchiato.

4. The Compound:

When living abroad on a small budget, the living situation cannot be perfect. In our case, rent was rather expensive, water was frequently missing, cockroaches invaded the fridge and fleas infested the coaches. Despite all that, the place was rather quaint, located in a great part of town, and was accompanied by a family and group of amazing people.

We spent a lot of time with our landlord’s kids – 10-year-old OB (top right), who was extraordinarily intelligent and acted as our interpreter in the house, and 8-year-old Phillman, (bottom left) who asked to be our bodyguard and claimed to be from the future. The kids also had a puppy named Suki. I’ve never had a dog before, it was really fun to have Suki around – even though she piddled in our house every time she saw us.
Here are poems OB and Phillman gave us before we left:

“Julia – standing on the tree like a bumblebee. She is looking at the stars like an angel from afar.” – OB

“Dear Julia,
She is very sad and she is very sweet and sweet.
Her office looks like a tree and is shaped like a Veee!!
- Your friend, Phillman of the Future.

I also grew close to Tanene, a woman who worked around the compound making spices, injera and bread from scratch. She didn’t speak any English but we’d still find things to joke about as I struggled with my broken Amharic. We’d stand in the kitchen and make Chai. She’d braid my hair in the afternoon.

To say the least, it was hard to say goodbye to the people and the compound.

5. Lucy:

Ethiopia is one of the few African countries to escape colonialism, and is one of the oldest civilizations, dating back at least 2,000 years. In fact, Ethiopia is renowned for being named the “birthplace of civilization” after a team of anthropologists discovered the remains of the world’s oldest human ancestor, who was predicted to have lived approximately 3.2 million years ago.

Technically, she was known as AL-288. But during the celebration of her discovery, the one of my favorite Beatles’ songs, the acid-inspired “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” was played over and over. The name just stuck, and her discovery continues to influence our understanding of evolution to this day.

Also, check out the recently published Ethiopian Fact Sheet on the Common Language Project Web site.

Surfing in the Desert

“I will never, never take water for granted again.”

I repeat this mantra to myself as I stand in the shower, somewhat awkwardly. Shampoo is still lathered in my hair and is slowly dripping into my eyes. The water has stopped pouring from the spout again. It just ran out. It does that here. The irony of course is that the CLP came here to report on water scarcity issues, some of which we are experiencing first hand.

Talk about immersion journalism. Sarah walked for 2 miles with a woman from the remote village of Dillo just to fetch water for her community. Now, I’m learning to anticipate such situations, and more than ever before, have begun to appreciate the true value of water. Who ever thought water was a luxury? For many in Ethiopia, it is just that, and it’s still taking me time to fully understand how such an essential resource has become as much a source of conflict and hardship as oil. Water should be a basic human right.

In Addis Ababa, this women walks miles from her home along with hundreds of others to bathe and wash clothes at the springs at the top of Mt. Entoto, where the Italians had left water points during WWII.
A few hours later, I repeat another mantra I’ve grown used to repeating:

“I will never, never take internet for granted again.”

I’m sitting at the internet cafe hoping to connect with family and friends. But the blog-page has frozen, e-mail won’t send, and the photos are too large to upload. This hasn’t been the first time, so I brought a book to keep me busy while the pages load. There’s a couple interesting reasons for the dragging internet. One – the Ethiopian government holds a monopoly on internet by owning the only internet service provider in the entire country. Lack of competition and restricted freedoms (it’s impossible to start a blog from Ethiopia. They have them blocked), have made internet a rare commodity limited to the rich. And two – just a few weeks ago an underwater break in the fiber optic cables caused an “internet blackout” that swept Eastern and Northern Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia.

Thus, the lack of working internet has been an issue for the CLP group since we arrived here. But this comes with the terrain when you are an international journalist, especially when you’re dealing with online, multimedia journalism.

The circumstances have been a blessing and a curse. We have learned to live spontaneously, to expect the unexpected, to go days without a shower or e-mail, and to revel in the chaos of a city like Addis Ababa, or the fragility of the remote villages of Oromia. It is frustrating, but frankly, sometimes I love it. Every day has brought something new, and despite the failing internet or the lack of water infrastructure, I will miss this country desperately when I leave. But before I return, please do me a favor. Take a warm shower. Surf the speedy internet. Revel in its rare luxury, it’s blessed comfort. Don’t take it for granted. Although I’ll miss Africa, I’m relieved it will be waiting for me when I return.

My colleague Ernest and our interpreter Ali visit an internet cafe in the town of Awassa during our 3-day long journey to Kenya. Ernest said the internet was so slow we couldn’t open e-mail, so we decided to hit the road.

More Photos

My apologies for disappearing for a while. Trying to upload photographs to the web in Ethiopia is not an easy task. I am beginning to work on an in-depth photo essay on the city of Addis Ababa that will explore such themes as the incredible Rastafarian culture, coffee ceremonies, traditional dance, orthodox rituals and the city’s mission to emerge as a modern metropolis, as well as the city’s on-going struggles with poverty and democracy. Let me know what you think of the photos I’m posting so far, and I’ll make sure to post the essay when it’s finished!

Heading South Part 5: A Dawn with Dion

Jessica Partnow is one of those talented audiofiles who pays attention to every intricate detail and small flicker of sound. That’s one reason I’m glad to have her as an audio production mentor here in eastern Africa. As you can tell by her photo on the left, she takes her job very seriously.

To complete the CLP’s five-part series “Heading South” Jessica produced an audio blog reminiscing on the “challenges of reporting on the impoverished southern Ethiopian community of Dillo. Especially while Celine Dion is blasting in the background.” To listen to Jessica’s audio piece, visit her Common Language Project blog page .

Also, check out these cool photos of the “Water Walk” by Alex Stonehill:

© 2008 The Common Language Project

Heading South Part 4: A Night Under the Stars

By Sarah Stuteville

The word travel traces back to the Middle-English word travailen, meaning to journey, labor, strive and most importantly, to torment.

Much of traveling does feel a little like torment and as the strange bug bites, desperate trips to the bathroom and embarrassing cultural misunderstandings mount (who knew that blowing raspberries was one of the rudest things you can do in traditional Ethiopian culture?) I often wonder how I’ve found myself so far away from home.

I would say that the last four days my colleagues described fall firmly in the category of travailen and those stories of flat tires, sleepless nights avoiding lions in the bush and meals of curdled milk are the type that most often make their way back home as proof of true intrepid grit.

Which is why I’m embarrassed to admit that by the time I joined them in southern Ethiopia, they had figured out most of the hard stuff, allowing me to be absorbed by the overwhelming beauty of the place and the quiet hospitality of the people.

Youyouyouyouyou! Shout tiny little kids at our beat-up land rover as it races down the arrow-straight road from Yabello, slowing occasionally for dust devils and herds of annoyed camels.

We’re on our way to Dillo, to report on some of the most extreme water scarcity problems in the country. I’m trying to focus on my notes, all of the interviews and statistics I’ll need to contextualize the interviews we have set up and the long-distance water walk we’ll be participating in the following morning.

Problem is there are too many distractions.

The teardrop nests of Weaver birds hang like crude little ornaments from umbrella trees, pairs of mammoth-black Abyssynian hornbills amble together along the side of the road, occasionally I glimpse a frightened antelope or kudu with delicate white stripes sprinting in a warbling silhouette through far-off heat waves.

Bright, metallic blue flashes of swooping birds sporadically streak past the car windows, a shocking breath of color in a dry monochromatic landscape.

As the day and the heat wear on, we turn off at a local camel market onto a dusty road and begin picking up hitchhikers, nomadic Borena people returning to their small semi-permanent villages after adventures selling tea in the nearest town or cutting hay up in the hills.

First we meet an older Borena couple, the man clutching his kalashi (many of the pastoralists here are armed with ancient Kalashnikovs, to protect precious cattle from hyenas and occasionally other tribes) and his joking wife who compares her homemade metal jewelry with mine and wonders at our blaring pop music.

Next two Borena women, in loose scarf dresses flag us down. They’ve been cutting grain and looking for water all day, and are relieved to tie their huge bundles to the top of the car and drink our cool bottled water while they discuss the diminishing rain through our good-natured (and Celine Dion loving) translator Ali.

We reach Dillo, a one road town 40 miles from the Kenyan border as the sun is fading. The Assistant Administrator examines our paperwork and greets us heartily by saying with an enthusiastic smile “You are welcome, you are welcome, we have no place for you to stay!”

n our excitement to reach far-flung Dillo (and for the scoop, of course) we’d neglected to take into account how few Ramada Inns there are in the area. Shrugging our shoulders, we say we’ll all five sleep in the car, already knowing that the friendly administrator and the crowd of curious onlookers we’ve attracted will never allow it.A team of young men borrow worn mattresses from around town and drag them to the marginal shelter of a partially constructed health center on the edge of Dillo (despite our uber-polite Seattle-style protests “no please, we’re fine in the car, really”).

We head for a small hut on the main road that serves as a restaurant, tea shop and general gathering spot as our accommodations are arranged.

As we wait Ali tells me the story of his family’s hardships during the years of Ethiopia’s oppressive communist government (referred to as the Derg) over impossibly sweet, scalding hot tea served in little thimble glasses.

Jessica hears the faint singing of kids down the road and heads off her microphone swinging.

Alex, after scaring the kids of Dillo half to death by trying to take pictures of them, has now attracted them all back. At least two dozen clamor for a spot around him, begging him to endlessly continue scrolling through his photos on the little play back screen.

He squats in the middle of the road, a big bearded guy being climbed by a mob of kids. At least six are sitting in his lap at once and the faint blue light of the screen softly illuminates all of their faces.

I hear Jessica from the dark beyond the teashop. “Sarah you’ve got to see this.”

It sounds urgent and I step quickly out into the now deep night.

“Look,” she says pointing upwards.

Alex comes too, the kids drop away disappointed.

As I look up I almost fall backwards.

There is a riot of stars swimming in inky black.

There’s no city for hundreds of miles in any direction and the sky is a crowd of constellations. I’m so dizzy I feel like they’re moving towards us.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Alex whispers.

“Stars!” he shouts pointing above his head.

The few remaining kids follow his gaze, look back at us confused, and point in turn at the camera in his hand.

Ali laughs at us and says our rooms are ready.

As we head to the health center a big lopsided moon is rising fast on the dead flat horizon. We’re not used to such big empty spaces and the jaundiced light spooks us with the strange midnight shadows it creates.

We’re headed for bed. There’s some travailen ahead of us as we follow the story in the morning, in retrospect I know there’s much more hard traveling beyond that–but it hardly seems worth mentioning now.

Photos by Alex Stonehill

© 2008 The Common Language Project

Heading South Part 3: A Night at the Yabello Motel

By Julia Marino

The white Toyota Hilux glowed as it pulled up in the middle of the unrecognizable night to what was the small, destined village of Arero. In my comatose daze, I was astounded by the reality of our arrival, our minds and bodies unscathed, curious, and ready for a warm bed and an Aspirin. At that moment, I realized that part of me believed we would navigate the nebulous, jarring road forever, the truck jerking to and fro rapturously, repeatedly, sending our bags up in the air before stopping urgently to change another bald tire. Such an experience erases all consciousness of time, all understanding of place. Yet, once the moment sinks in, its unfamiliarity can create a sense of peace even amid chaos.

In the darkness, I was led to a place where I could sleep. The room was a shadow cast by a single candle that dripped wax onto a makeshift chair wobbling on the dirt. Dawn must have been approaching, for as I finally began to fall back into sleep, the first beams of sunrise streamed through the holes of the wooden door, casting fingers of thin light onto the walls. Outside, a rooster called steadily. Dogs howled, and the hum of insects harmonized with the abrupt sound of men as they yelled in their native language of Oromifa.

I gave up on the prospect of sleep as the orchestra of sounds invaded my consciousness.

Unrefreshed, I found Ernest, Alex and Salihu in a similar room across the compound. We began an early breakfast of roasted goat tibs in a broth over a coal-fed fire. It was then time to talk about our goals, our ethics and our hopes as researchers, storytellers and journalists.

Salihu had been immensely helpful to us, and I respected his knowledge, compassion and eagerness to assist us in our work. Without his generosity, we all knew we wouldn’t be traversing the remote villages of Borena. He had led us to invaluable information and insight, helping us gain access to others who could inform us further. But after hundreds of kilometers from Addis, and many adventures lived already, we knew it was time to seek out the best location to do our reporting on our own. So, it was decided we would have to part ways so we could travel to Yabello, a central location for researching the lives of pastoralists and water-walkers.

Traveling Through the Bush and the Brave Borena Woman

Before we left for Yabello, we set up a spot in the dirt pathway to interview Habiba Boru Gutu, an internally displaced Borena woman the Red Cross truck had picked up in Negele. While we roamed the rocky road to Arero the previous day, I joined her in the back of the truck, at the protest of Salihu who couldn’t understand why I would possibly give up my warm seat in the back of the truck.

“But it might be too cold! You’ll be more comfortable up front!”

I insisted that it would be fun, that I wanted to get to know the lone woman, and wanted to feel the cold wind on my face.

He eventually relented, and I found a spot on top of the dusty, green tarp covering our many bags next to Habiba, who like many Borena women, wore a brightly colored scarf around her hair that draped onto her shoulders. The truck took off on the road and jerked us toward the back of the cab as the sunset began to set, the trail behind us narrowing until it disappeared into the horizon.

Despite a rather large language barrier, Habiba and I communicated with hand gestures and facial expressions, her unidentifiable locution lingering in the air. She spoke several dialects of Oromifa, as well as Kiswahili and Amharic. I, on the other hand, only knew only a couple words in Amharic: Sulamn, ishi, ah may say ganalo.

I later discovered that she had lived in Nairobi for a few months, and so could distinguish a Kenyan any day. She and Ernest soon struck up a connection, where he learned details about her life I couldn’t grasp in the back of the truck.

Now in the dirt hallway of the humble inn, Alex and I set up and handled the video camera while Ernest interviewed her in his native tongue. Ernest explained how she had to flee her home once the Guji people massacred her village, mainly made up of Borena people, because of conflict over resource scarcity. I learned that she had once a very productive business, and was able to afford to fly her children from Kenya to Ethiopia. After the massacre, she said that she lost everything – all her wealth, the basic necessities she needed to help support her family, and her home.

Despite being internally displaced and dealing with the harsh consequences of such conflict, Habiba spoke calmly, as if the experience had forced her to strengthen and placidly overcome the challenges around her. I knew at that moment, that I had a lot to learn from her bravery.

Mirages and the Governor’s Clothes

After we interviewed Habiba we said our goodbyes. We promised to see Salihu again in Addis, and he and Habiba gave us warm hugs. We hopped in the back of a Red Cross Ambulance, another Borena woman sat in the back next to us, offering us a sip of the cursed, curdled milk that we tried the other other night.

As we drove, we came across tiny villages with thatched huts. The women wore distinct, ebony braid, and children carried large sticks, spears, sometimes even guns to help protect their cattle. Dust whirled into clouds as we passed the staring natives. The truck drove precariously in a gust, infinity ahead of us.

And just when we thought our flat-tire days were over, the truck came to a sudden stop again. Our sixth stop in the middle of the bush; the scene appeared to us like a mirage. After all, the earth stretched as far as the eye could see on all sides, the sun coating our every breath. Only dust, a couple thorn bushes and two trees were within sight. All speculations aside though, we were all happy to know we had a functioning spare tire. We learned the hard way that you can never have enough spare tires in southern Ethiopia.

The changing of the tires was now clockwork, and before we knew it we were on the road again. Not too long afterward, what seemed to be another pseudo-mirage approached us. It was a paved road! The bumpy surface we were so used to bearing was now a calm, smooth pathway leading to Yabello. But about six feet before the truck hit the pavement, the car thumped again, and we were almost sure we had lost another tire, despite our relief. At that moment, we held our breath so tight that as soon as we made it across the paved road, we all let out a sigh so immense, the truck almost tipped over.

Next stop would be finding the Provincial Commissioner for all of Oromia- Abdulqadir Abdii.

“PCs in Africa have so much power,” Ernest said, matter-of-factly. Our driver stepped out of the car asking random people if they knew where Abduliqadir was – that’s how small of a town Yabello was.

We finally found his home and sat down on small wooden stools near his front yard. We discussed our plans for the next day, where he agreed to help us find a driver and translator to take us to the town of Dubluck, a small pastoralist village famous for its singing wells about 70 km away. Another area we were planning on reporting in was an even smaller village around 200 km away named Dillo, an area with the most dire water scarcity in the entire region.

The Motel and The Buzzing Commissioner

After being stranded in the middle of the elusive bush, and experiencing the morning nap in the dusty room in Arero, we were all fantasizing about a clean bed, and more importantly — a shower. Hot, warm, frozen, it wouldn’t matter. At the advice of our handy Lonely Planet, we pulled into the Yabello Motel, a place the book described as “clean and comfortable.” Although the toilet and the shower were outside, it was nice to finally find a place to unpack and unwind.

The next day, we had a scheduled meeting with the Province Commissioner to discuss plans to visit pastoralists in Dubluck and women who carry water long distances around the area of Dillo. He picked us up at the motel, sunglasses glistening, shoes polished, his face with a serious look that meant business. As the PC approached our table, the waiters stared, the manager gawked, the birds chirped curiously from the tree branches, and the receptionist from that day forward became mysteriously more polite.

We entered Abduliqadir’s office to find it adorned in polished wood, shiny leather, and an assortment of documents stacked in his bookcase. The room smelled of cleaner and cologne. We sat in the conference area, his overstuffed, black leather chair asserting the head of the table. The ironical juxtaposition of his luxurious office to the thatched huts and outdoor toilets in the town made me a little dizzy. Although Abduliqadir was a generous man, this dichotomy showed the extreme gap between the wealthy and the poor, those with power and those without.

Between different phone calls, the PC would hang up his phone and then assertively press a giant button on his desk.

“buzz. buzz.”

The sound was piercing.

His secretary would then peak her head in the doorway, nod her head as he spoke and close the door again.

Two minutes passed. “Buzz, buzz.” The secretary peaked her head in again, nodded, closed the door. “Buzz, buzz.” The same would repeat.

He told us he would find us a driver and interpreter to help us in our reporting in the region. However, finding an interpreter might not be an easy task, he said.

“English is a problem in Ethiopia, not like in Kenya,” he said smiling at Ernest. Ernest let out a loud guffaw, the kind of laugh he makes when he’s both amused and speculative at the same time.

But at the last buzz, we were on our way out, accompanied by the PC’s personal assistant Atanach Tolcha, who would interpret for us in the pastoralist village of Dubluck.

Cattle, Camels and Pebbles In My Sandals

The drive to Dubluck was rather short in comparison to our other treks, the truck letting out a large puff of dust with every bump in the earth.

As we approached the village, we observed a wide dirt road lined with mud homes serving as the center. As we opened the doors to the truck, little kids with no pants and snotty noses approached us wildly, pointing their fingers at my face and exclaiming, “you, you, you, you, you, you!”

We found the deputy chief Galgalo Dida at this center, and he guided us to the desert-like pastures and singing wells.

The ground was as dry and expansive as a deserted planet, with layered sand stretching for miles on all sides. A thin layer of dust grazed the surface of the ground as hundreds of cattle, goats and camels dotted the landscape. Cattle were being herded toward us and behind us and by our side toward a trough for a drink of water, or toward the horizon to graze or to the town to make fresh milk.

After a short interview, the chief led us to one of the traditional wells — its deep walls resonating with the low chanting of men, their beaming baritone steadily bouncing off of the well walls an into ears with each approaching step. The men’s singing is a ritual dating back centuries that helps them endure hours of long, laborious work under the scorching sky. The singing men bent down and then reached forward with such ease and steady deliberation, never missing a beat or a refrain.

At the “hauuuyauuuh!” of a pastoralist, the cattle stampeded down toward the well to drink water, scattering the ground with dung and mud at every step of their hooves. Women and men rotated buckets back and forth as they poured fresh water from the earth into a canal of water.

As Alex and I handled the video cameras, taking turns experimenting with new shots and angles, Ernest worked his interviewer-magic. The chief and a dozen pastoralists surrounded us as he asked about the struggles of the community to maintain a healthy livestock and livelihood in such a resource-scarce region. They talked about the importance of the wells in order for the cattle and the people to survive, especially during the dry season when it would cease to rain.

I began to imagine harmonizing with them in a hand-dug well, strengthening every muscle as I scooped out more cold, refreshing water. I tried to picture myself exerting hours of labor each day just to receive enough water for my family to live on. Of course, it was somewhat a difficult task to fully realize a life lived in a village in Dubluck – a place so distant from my own sprinkler-running, Aquafina-drinking environment. But now that I have come to know the beauty and struggle of these pastoralists, I am certain that water will never again taste the same.

With the approaching sound of the next cattle stampede, I was snapped me out of my thoughts and motioned back toward the truck. As I walked away from the well, I could hear the distant echo of the men singing, the water splashing, the pastoralist shouting, and the cattle mooing – its distinct rhythm and unfamiliar pattern, somehow, resembling a peaceful chaos.

Photos by Alex Stonehill, Sarah Stuteville and Julia Marino

© 2008 The Common Language Project