TTT - The Trumble Travels: September 2007

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Misc Stuff Ethiopia VIII

From: Dan Trumble
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2007
Subject: TTT The Trumble Travels - Misc Stuff Ethiopia VIII

Ethiopia is a very interesting place. Here are some final pictures and comments.

I bought this map on the street for 40 birr (about $4.50). The first price the guy said was 80 birr so I did pretty well…or maybe not. Someone else had this guy or some other willing to sell one of these maps for 20 birr…oh well.

Devil Soup at a Chinese Restaurant

Dan with a sweat rag

Most of the folks involved in the CIV meetings.

Rodeo Addis ---- ???

Habesha Restaurant – a traditional Ethiopian restaurant. The waitress has injera in the basket.

Hand washing, traditional seating (we sat on more typically western-style chairs, not the round ones in the second picture below), food to eat with injera, and Dr. Alemayehu and me.

Macchiato (a chocolaty coffee-ish drink)

Ethiopians work off of a different time system than most of the rest of us. What we think of as 7:00 is 1:00 to Ethiopians. Here are a couple of examples of clocks on Ethiopian time compared to my watch which is on the time system to which I’m accustomed.

Haile Sellassie I was the last emperor of Ethiopia. He was overthrown by the Communists in the early 1970s and was later executed. He is the one that is viewed as the Messiah by Rastafarians. The other guy is Dan. He is not viewed as the Messiah by anyone (which is good).

Kids in Spiderman and Batman outfits

Just like most of the rest of the world soccer is a big deal in Ethiopia. Pictured are a bunch of really good guys but I don’t know all of their names. Here are some of them. From left to right:

Mystery Good Guy -- Roberto Carlos – Another Mystery Good Guy – David Beckham – Ronaldinho – Henry – Raul – Mystery Good Argentinean Guy

We watched some of the championship game of the FA Cup between Chelsea and Manchester United. Drogba (a good guy) saved the day for Chelsea in the end. It was a typical high scoring football match: Scoreless at the end of regulation with a final of 1-0 at the end. Good grief.

Never heard of the FA Cup? 687 teams participated in the most recent quest for the FA Cup.
Read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FA_Cup

Ronaldinho is a really good guy from Brasil that plays for Barcelona in club play. Below are some Ronaldinho things from around the world.
Brasil: Texaco Ethiopia: Orange jersey on left Uganda: Minibus Burkina Faso: The other two jerseys Ethiopia: Pepsi ad

On Monday morning I left Addis Ababa to head home. On the way to London we stopped briefly in Alexandria. We didn’t even deplane so that wasn’t all that exciting but we did fly near some of the pyramids. This may be one of the worst pictures you’ve ever seen of the pyramids but it is what it is (buy a postcard or something if you want a really good picture).

The arrow on the left side of the page points to what may be pyramids but the little highlighted box is definitely at least two pyramids…pretty cool!

Poverty Ethiopia VII

From: Dan Trumble
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2007
Subject: TTT The Trumble Travels - Poverty Ethiopia VII

There is great poverty in Ethiopia. Something that was new to me was people sleeping in the grassy medians of major streets or along the side of the road during the day. It really puts our own wealth in perspective. I guess we all know that there are homeless people and have even seen them but I saw some crushingly poor people while in Ethiopia. After lunch one day with one of my colleagues we went out for coffee. I asked him how much our waitress would make and he thought about 175 birr per month (about $20). He also mentioned that they may turn to prostitution at night. The chasm between the income of some of these folks and what we’re used to in the West is immense.

If you’re walking it is common to be approached by people on the street or while you’re driving to be approached in your vehicle while you’re stopped at stoplights. They beg for money. Some are disabled in some manner or lead another disabled person around or carry a baby or something like that. It’s hard to know whether money you might give to them would be used by them or whether they are working for someone who would skim the profits. Regardless, their material poverty seems genuinely extreme.

One evening on the way back to the hotel from the office there was a young man who had a bad leg or bad foot. He had kind of a walking stick/cane thing and he would sort of wrap his bad leg around it and use it sort of like a peg-leg. He could get around pretty good on that. There was another place where we were stopped for some shopping and there was a man that kind of went around on two hands and one foot. Not crawling on his knees but sort of hobbling around bent over on hands and a foot. Pretty sobering.

Some boys came up to the window wanting money one day and sang “This is the Day” in Amharic. I ended up giving each 10 birr (about $1.15). I gave a 10 birr note to one of them but the other wanted his share too and I ended up giving one to him as well. Given the great poverty and low income of some of these folks, that was probably a pretty good score for them.

On Sunday I was approached by 3 more children and they also sang “This is the Day” so perhaps that is a common ploy that is used and not anything special after all.
We are so wealthy in the West and have so much to be grateful for. I think of the circumstances that some of these homeless people find themselves in and wonder about family or friends that could help. If I fell on hard times, there are a number of people that would help me out (hopefully!). I have much to be thankful for, not only material wealth, but spiritual and relational wealth as well.
Think of the scripture passage about the rich young ruler in Mark 10. The young man asks Jesus how he can inherit eternal life and Jesus basically says to keep the commandments but then in verses 21 and 22 Jesus says one more thing to him:

Jesus looked at him and loved him. "One thing you lack," he said. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." At this the man's face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.

In following Christ, if He wants me to get rid of all my stuff, am I prepared to do that? Ouch. It would be really hard. May God grant us all the right attitude toward our stuff. Let’s not hold onto it too tightly.

Person sitting in the street. I’m not sure what was going on.

Housing near our hotel

Various poor people

Not a very good picture but these “tents” are people’s dwellings.

Sunday Ethiopia VI

From: Dan Trumble
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2007
Subject: TTT The Trumble Travels - Sunday Ethiopia VI

On Sunday Stephen Reynolds and I had the privilege of attending Melkamua’s church. Melkamua is the Admin & Finance manager in Compassion’s Ethiopia office. Her husband Tefera came and picked us up and we attended the service at Misrak Addis Ababa Meserete Kristos Church. The service was entirely in Amharic but Tefera and another gentlemen provided some translation for the two of us who don’t have any Amharic. This church is also the church partner for Compassion project ET-333.

After church we went back to Tefera and Melkamua’s house and ate with them.

Sign for the church

People inside the church building

Singing during church

Dan, Tefera, Melkamua, and Stephen in front of the church building

Melkamua and the special lunch that was prepared for us.

Some of the food.

Melkamua pouring coffee after we ate

Tefera, Melkamua, and Dan

Project Visits Ethiopia V

From: Dan Trumble
Sent: Sunday, May 20, 2007
Subject: TTT The Trumble Travels - Project Visits Ethiopia V

The original impetus behind my trip to Ethiopia trip was some meetings about Complimentary Interventions (I’m on a team looking at ways to improve the way Compassion handles this stuff). Complimentary Interventions include “extra” funds that can be requested for a variety of activities not funded by the normal Child Support. This can include things like

Construction of latrines and wells for projects
HIV treatment
Disaster response due to floods, famine, earthquake, etc.
Vocational training for older children in the programs
Resource centers at the projects
Non-Formal educational activities
Major medical expenses
Parental education that will help caregivers as they raise their children

Some of us visited a couple of Compassion projects and saw work that was partially funded through Complementary Intervention funds provided by Compassion.

The first project was project ET-302 where a resource center has been put in place. The church provided the facility and Compassion helped fund the furniture, books, computers, and A/V equipment. This project has had 6 students advance to the Leadership Development Program which is a program for a select few within Compassion’s programs. It is a program that gives an opportunity for leadership training and university scholarships to students who have demonstrated good Christian character, good grades and meet other criteria. Worldwide, Compassion will soon reach 1400 LDP students and 4000 church partners (Ethiopia has close to 100 LDP students and more than 240 projects) so for one project to be the source of this many LDP students is really something. They must be doing something right.

The second project was ET-602 in the town of Arerti. This is the town where the water supply had gone dry (or nearly so) and thus there was no good water source at the church either. A combined effort of funding through Compassion and funds contributed at the local level (perhaps by the local government) allowed for the drilling of a new bore hole to access water. The church benefited by getting water brought right into the church grounds and because there was an existing water distribution system (of sorts) for the town (from the old water system), they were also able to access water from this new source.

Dan and the project director at ET-302

Resource Center

The shelter for the generator located by the bore hole. The generator and the guy who maintains things is inset in the picture (not the inset of me, the other one).

The bore hole location is indicated by the arrow. They had to go down about 160 meters.

Some of the kids at project ET-602. The three on the left are sponsored children. The lady standing behind them in the white is the project accountant. The other lady works in the resource center in this project and this is her neighbor’s child or something.

Dan and the kids

Monday, September 10, 2007

Teff Ethiopia IV

From: Dan Trumble
Sent: Sunday, May 20, 2007
Subject: TTT The Trumble Travels - Teff Ethiopia IV

The drive to the town of Arerti took us WAY off the beaten path. As mentioned in a previous TTT it included many kilometers of driving on rocky roads. This took us through areas that are rural and where many modern luxuries are unavailable to the common person.

We passed through teff-growing country. Teff is a grain that is used to make injera, one of the main staples of the Ethiopian diet. To make injera, one takes teff and lets it soak in water for 2-3 days so that it ferments a bit and then it is cooked (or baked or whatever) and made into injera. It may be crushed into flour or something before it is soaked but I just am not totally sure. If you must know you can ask me and I can probably find out. The farmers use animals and their own effort to do the farming…no tractors.

A 100 kg sack of teff can be purchased for about 500-600 birr (about US$55-70). In rural areas it is transported by a person or a beast of burden like a burro or a camel. Burros and camels can also be used to haul water.

Teff (taken from a poster in one of the projects)

Rocky road and cattle

Fields in a valley where teff is grown

Beasts of burden

Bags of teff

Financial records at one of the projects we visited

Camel with yellow water containers

Transportation

Camel

Arerti Visit Ethiopia III

From: Dan Trumble
Sent: Saturday, May 19, 2007
Subject: TTT The Trumble Travels - Arerti Visit Ethiopia III

Egg Omelet. Injera indicated by the arrow.