ETHIOPIA – WEEK 3 – ADDIS / ADAMA / NAZARETH
ETHIOPIA SPECIAL...
After 2 weeks in Ethiopia I believe it is time to share some ‘insights’ and ‘good to know’s’ about this fascinating country - something which might be new for the readers of this blog
1) Ethiopia advertises with ‘come to the country with 13 months sunshine’. That is no joke , the Ethiopian calendar has 12 month with 30 days and a tiny little month with less than ten days, that is there 13th month…
2) to arrange for meetings you should better know, that for Ethiopians the day starts at 6am our time, i.e. 7 am our time is 1 am Ethiopian time…
3) if an Ethiopian bumps into you with his right shoulder, that is a nice gesture and absolutely fine – that is exactly the way they greet themselves…
4) Ethiopians do know things like fork and knife, but they definitely prefer to eat with their fingers and you are most welcome to do the same… best if you ate from the same plate !
5) the most important tool for a car is its horn – it is the gentle way of reminding other participants that there is something coming, which is faster then their donkey-carts and horse-carts…
Day 15– 9th July
Today we spent at the WVE office working on our notes and preparing for our visit to the Adama Program Office and ADP this week. We also managed to find very interesting web-pages about business and marketing in Ethiopia especially from other NGO’s who have apparently already some experience in this field. We will continue to explore further tomorrow
Tonight we went to dinner at Castelli, an Italian restaurant off the Piazza and. It is interesting driving around Addis. Street signs are apparently a relatively new addition to the city, but the English translations are often not spelt quite right and they are certainly not placed in the easiest spots to see. The Piazza looked like quite a hot spot with many shops, bars and restaurants. It was buzzing with people and we plan to visit there during the day another time to check out the shopping.
Day 16– 10th July
The night before we feasted on Antipasto and I enjoyed ravioli with mushroom sauce – maybe it was all a bit much, and with the addition of being back at an altitude of 8000ft, I was suffering from the effects this morning. I did not have breakfast…
Today consisted of another day in the World Vision office. We spent some time on the internet and found some very interesting information around organizations like SNV, GTZ and the EBDSN that we think will be quite useful in developing our recommendations at the end of the project.
We also met with Joseph from WV Australia. Joseph acts as the liaison between the "sponsor" office and the local office, in this case WV Ethiopia and several other African countries. Joseph grew up in Uganda but now lives in Melbourne, Australia. Joseph shared his perspective on Ethiopia's, and indeed Africa's, issues with business and marketing development. His view is perhaps more of a hard realistic view than the mainstream WV one. He described the role of cooperatives in Zimbabwe and the how they fell apart when the white farmers were ejected and the land was given to the poor black farmers who didn't have sufficient farming experience or education. He described the challenges associated with developing countries and the lack of awareness. His mother, he told us, plants seeds for vegetables but doesn't understand or appreciate the relevance/importance of planting in rows and or equal spaces. He described his concerns with the WV model of ADP's and WV efforts to review their appropriateness and the alternatives.
Unfortunately as I was still feeling unwell we decided to return to hotel for a quiet night. Katherine had just yesterday mentioned that all was well and that we could be grateful none of us been sick, particularly given the horrendous hygiene conditions we have been living in for the last few weeks… -
Day 17– 11th July
Today, Wednesday, I am thankfully feeling a little better and we departed for Nazareth, a large city (1m people) 100 km southeast of Addis on the road to Djibuti. It took about 2 hours through fairly intense truck and donkey traffic. We arrived at the Rift Valley Hotel, a dubious establishment on the main highway on the outside which turned out to be OK on the inside. Again, cleanish toilets count for a lot. Even a general malodour is acceptable at this point. We had lunch at the café next store and learned that the trucks thundering past on the way to Addis would indeed continue through the night. Fabulous news for the next three to five nights!
I met up with even more Germans lunching at the same place. The country is full of them! I was not fully aware that the country of my origin played such a philanthropic role in Ethiopia and am positively impressed. The Germans came to this place through GTZ (Gesellschaft für technische Zusammenarbeit) and had lived in Africa in different places over many years and had been in Ethiopia for about four years teaching people construction and furniture making skills. The state of construction here is shocking. Buildings that barely have a concrete foundation already look decades old. The newly completed buildings look like bomb shelters. They shared with me their deeply rooted frustrations with Ethiopian society and the generally lackadaisical approach to responsibility or entrepreneurship and the cultural resistance to constructive criticism. It is very important for us to get different perspectives on the local history, culture and potential for change. The challenge will be not to become disillusioned or cynical in the process.
After lunch we went to the Adama Program Office and met with Ashefani, the PrO deputy and his business and marketing officer Mulatwa. They spent a few hour talking to us about there experiences locally. Due to the proximity of Adama to Addis their challenge is not so much with awareness (they see the trucks thundering by on the highway laden with produce) but more associated with the variable environmental conditions (basically drought or flood). It became even clearer that we need the WV HO folks to share their background with us when we learned for the first time that they had received training 3 months back from USAID on marketing! They also reinforced how important the governmental relationships on a very local community level are in Africa. Much of WV efforts are around facilitating those relationships. Tomorrow we visit the Adama ADP and will learn more about their work around marketing of vegetables, in specific onions, tomatoes and green pepper.
We took a short drive through the "city" and found newly bituminized roads and tree seedlings planted in the median strips and evidence of the government's commitment to the city. Tesfeye drove us through a crowded street with market stalls lining the alleyways to the side. It would have been great to get out and explore but Samson was adamant that this was a bad idea and that we, as farenji, would be soon chased down the streets by the locals attempting to sell something to the farenji. It will difficult to avoid temptation and explore this without bodyguards (although naturally without money or other valuables). Katherine is, sadly, now feeling sick too and has a wretched sore throat and associated aches and pains.
I went to bed and had once more a fight with the mosquito-net, which was not really big enough to cover the whole bed, so it was all over my body and face – not very pleasant but necessary in this area and I finally fell asleep.
Day 18– 12th July
After a hot night under this mosquito net we had breakfast at 8 and had to learn that Katherine was still feeling quite sick and her sore throat had got worse. So we wished her well and left for the Adama ADP, which was only about 15 km from the hotel.
We met Berhanu – the ADP Manager, who has been with this ADP for 4 years. This ADP is apparently one of the oldest ADP’s in Ethiopia and was founded 1991 (European time…)
We learned a lot about their field of intervention. In BD and Marketing this is around organizing trainings in both agriculture and economics, organizing interest groups which could form a co-op and act with more selling power on any market etc.
We were again informed, that know-how, training and market access are considered main issues from the ADP point of view. I am not sure if that is all and if those are really the major ones but it is such a complex area and the background of the country with only little stability over the last 3-4 generations makes any change certainly not easier.
We then visited the vegetable co-op which only acts on the production site as a group with common interest (all members use the electrical pumps owned by the co-op for watering their fields). Harvest is three times a year and each farmer sells his products on a one by one basis as the co-op does not have storage facilities. We interviewed a group of co-op members and asked them, what they thought was most important to change in order to get the co-op up and running properly. They mentioned more than once that a storage facility would make the difference but they have no plan how to achieve that.
Our last meeting for today was with the governmental administration body responsible for the set up and ‘well being’ of co-operations. The government has a huge interest that the co-op’s can survive and get stronger but acts unfortunately only with a limited budget and man-power. They very much depend on NGO’s like World Vision to help them with their job, and for this ADP the co-operation between government and WV apparently works quite well.
At dinner we got Katherine to eat with us but she was not really recovered- we hope she will be better very soon - poor thing.
Day 19– 13th July
As we were very diligent the day before and concluded all our planned meetings we had the day for us and went in the morning in quite hot weather to visit some hot springs outside of Nazareth to enjoy a big swimming-pool with hot water. There is also a small pool only used from Monday to Wednesday, where as the water in this big pool is only there from Thursday to Sunday and then renewed. So we had the second day of this week for the big pool.. Apparently there are many weekend traveler to come to this place and I was glad that I did not face this hygienic challenge… I also went at this place for a massage which was o.k but not as relaxing as I hoped.
The only downside of this trip to the hot springs was, that Katherine has taken some drugs but was still feeling quite sick and she had to decide to stay in the hot hotel… - I can imagine that was the saddest day so far for her. As we did not want her to stay alone for a very long time we came back for lunch and then set of for Addis.
I was not feeling to well (again) and was not hungry at all so decided to do something for my diary and blog and went on my own to the Hilton to feed my blog. In the business center I was finally approached by a young Ethiopian woman, who misunderstood obviously my presence and instead anted to convince me to have (again) a massage. I had a feeling it would have been a different one from that I enjoyed yesterday and denied friendly but firmly….
I then went home by taxi and this driver by the name of Goncho was very business oriented and gave me this mobile number and offered his service throughout my stay in Addis.
Day 20– 14th July
I slept long and arrived at breakfast at 9:25 missing the agreed time by 25 minutes. Katherine was sadly still in her room not well enough to join us for a trip to the Piazza and the marketplace called Merkato. Apparently the two most lively places in Addis where the only concern normally should be to avoid being pick-pocketed...
So the three of us went there by taxi and left the car in the minute it started to rain. Not really surprising as it is the middle of the rainy season but I had my rain jacket forgotten in the hotel and needed to react… I have hardly seen such a massive wall of rain drops an we in the middle, so my first bargain for 30 Birr (2.5 Euro) was an umbrella and it was well invested money I can assure you. We tried to stay under arcades but it was not always possible and our feet and other parts of the body got their share of water. We went to different shops to help Ronaldo to buy a shirt of the Ethiopian football national team for his son but after about 9 attempts we stopped. I this huge market you can buy shirts of any European team and any size but not of the national team of the country you are in…
We had then a stop at a shop which sold Ethiopian hand made shawls and table cloths so I managed to find a nice piece and negotiated with the owner. He started at a price of 350 Birr which was much to high for me so I wanted to leave but he asked me to stay and taught me, that if he says a price like that I should of course never agree and pay this but place a counter-offer instead. That is how negotiation in Addis works he explained… I think I understood the lesson and left the shop paying only 150 Birr (EUR 12) for that beautiful hand made table cloth….
Finally we left the Merkato had lunch at the Piazza in the Italian restaurant Castelli (raviolini with mushroom sauce) and went back to the hotel, where we then had a team meeting (including Katherine who felt slightly better) discussing the first 3 weeks and agreeing on some routines going forward.
My stomach got worse over time and I for the first time took Immodium against diarrhoea…
Day 21– 15th July
Today is Sunday and due to my stomach issues I was not able to join Ronaldo and Anne-Sophie for their museum tour so I decided to write this part of the blog between my visits of the bathroom….
Not much really to tell you about this day in the bed. But I try to: I experienced an extremely unstable wireless internet connection, which gave me a lesson in patience I learned that 3 minutes to Germany cost USD 10 over the hotel phone but the connection is not worth USD 2. I realised, that placing an order for a huge pot of tee to be delivered to the room is not common here hence I did not get it…
more photos are available at: http://picasaweb.google.com/Guenter.Blog/ETHIOPIAWEEK3ADDISADAMANAZARETH
After 2 weeks in Ethiopia I believe it is time to share some ‘insights’ and ‘good to know’s’ about this fascinating country - something which might be new for the readers of this blog
1) Ethiopia advertises with ‘come to the country with 13 months sunshine’. That is no joke , the Ethiopian calendar has 12 month with 30 days and a tiny little month with less than ten days, that is there 13th month…
2) to arrange for meetings you should better know, that for Ethiopians the day starts at 6am our time, i.e. 7 am our time is 1 am Ethiopian time…
3) if an Ethiopian bumps into you with his right shoulder, that is a nice gesture and absolutely fine – that is exactly the way they greet themselves…
4) Ethiopians do know things like fork and knife, but they definitely prefer to eat with their fingers and you are most welcome to do the same… best if you ate from the same plate !
5) the most important tool for a car is its horn – it is the gentle way of reminding other participants that there is something coming, which is faster then their donkey-carts and horse-carts…
Day 15– 9th July
Today we spent at the WVE office working on our notes and preparing for our visit to the Adama Program Office and ADP this week. We also managed to find very interesting web-pages about business and marketing in Ethiopia especially from other NGO’s who have apparently already some experience in this field. We will continue to explore further tomorrow
Tonight we went to dinner at Castelli, an Italian restaurant off the Piazza and. It is interesting driving around Addis. Street signs are apparently a relatively new addition to the city, but the English translations are often not spelt quite right and they are certainly not placed in the easiest spots to see. The Piazza looked like quite a hot spot with many shops, bars and restaurants. It was buzzing with people and we plan to visit there during the day another time to check out the shopping.
Day 16– 10th July
The night before we feasted on Antipasto and I enjoyed ravioli with mushroom sauce – maybe it was all a bit much, and with the addition of being back at an altitude of 8000ft, I was suffering from the effects this morning. I did not have breakfast…
Today consisted of another day in the World Vision office. We spent some time on the internet and found some very interesting information around organizations like SNV, GTZ and the EBDSN that we think will be quite useful in developing our recommendations at the end of the project.
We also met with Joseph from WV Australia. Joseph acts as the liaison between the "sponsor" office and the local office, in this case WV Ethiopia and several other African countries. Joseph grew up in Uganda but now lives in Melbourne, Australia. Joseph shared his perspective on Ethiopia's, and indeed Africa's, issues with business and marketing development. His view is perhaps more of a hard realistic view than the mainstream WV one. He described the role of cooperatives in Zimbabwe and the how they fell apart when the white farmers were ejected and the land was given to the poor black farmers who didn't have sufficient farming experience or education. He described the challenges associated with developing countries and the lack of awareness. His mother, he told us, plants seeds for vegetables but doesn't understand or appreciate the relevance/importance of planting in rows and or equal spaces. He described his concerns with the WV model of ADP's and WV efforts to review their appropriateness and the alternatives.
Unfortunately as I was still feeling unwell we decided to return to hotel for a quiet night. Katherine had just yesterday mentioned that all was well and that we could be grateful none of us been sick, particularly given the horrendous hygiene conditions we have been living in for the last few weeks… -
Day 17– 11th July
Today, Wednesday, I am thankfully feeling a little better and we departed for Nazareth, a large city (1m people) 100 km southeast of Addis on the road to Djibuti. It took about 2 hours through fairly intense truck and donkey traffic. We arrived at the Rift Valley Hotel, a dubious establishment on the main highway on the outside which turned out to be OK on the inside. Again, cleanish toilets count for a lot. Even a general malodour is acceptable at this point. We had lunch at the café next store and learned that the trucks thundering past on the way to Addis would indeed continue through the night. Fabulous news for the next three to five nights!
I met up with even more Germans lunching at the same place. The country is full of them! I was not fully aware that the country of my origin played such a philanthropic role in Ethiopia and am positively impressed. The Germans came to this place through GTZ (Gesellschaft für technische Zusammenarbeit) and had lived in Africa in different places over many years and had been in Ethiopia for about four years teaching people construction and furniture making skills. The state of construction here is shocking. Buildings that barely have a concrete foundation already look decades old. The newly completed buildings look like bomb shelters. They shared with me their deeply rooted frustrations with Ethiopian society and the generally lackadaisical approach to responsibility or entrepreneurship and the cultural resistance to constructive criticism. It is very important for us to get different perspectives on the local history, culture and potential for change. The challenge will be not to become disillusioned or cynical in the process.
After lunch we went to the Adama Program Office and met with Ashefani, the PrO deputy and his business and marketing officer Mulatwa. They spent a few hour talking to us about there experiences locally. Due to the proximity of Adama to Addis their challenge is not so much with awareness (they see the trucks thundering by on the highway laden with produce) but more associated with the variable environmental conditions (basically drought or flood). It became even clearer that we need the WV HO folks to share their background with us when we learned for the first time that they had received training 3 months back from USAID on marketing! They also reinforced how important the governmental relationships on a very local community level are in Africa. Much of WV efforts are around facilitating those relationships. Tomorrow we visit the Adama ADP and will learn more about their work around marketing of vegetables, in specific onions, tomatoes and green pepper.
We took a short drive through the "city" and found newly bituminized roads and tree seedlings planted in the median strips and evidence of the government's commitment to the city. Tesfeye drove us through a crowded street with market stalls lining the alleyways to the side. It would have been great to get out and explore but Samson was adamant that this was a bad idea and that we, as farenji, would be soon chased down the streets by the locals attempting to sell something to the farenji. It will difficult to avoid temptation and explore this without bodyguards (although naturally without money or other valuables). Katherine is, sadly, now feeling sick too and has a wretched sore throat and associated aches and pains.
I went to bed and had once more a fight with the mosquito-net, which was not really big enough to cover the whole bed, so it was all over my body and face – not very pleasant but necessary in this area and I finally fell asleep.
Day 18– 12th July
After a hot night under this mosquito net we had breakfast at 8 and had to learn that Katherine was still feeling quite sick and her sore throat had got worse. So we wished her well and left for the Adama ADP, which was only about 15 km from the hotel.
We met Berhanu – the ADP Manager, who has been with this ADP for 4 years. This ADP is apparently one of the oldest ADP’s in Ethiopia and was founded 1991 (European time…)
We learned a lot about their field of intervention. In BD and Marketing this is around organizing trainings in both agriculture and economics, organizing interest groups which could form a co-op and act with more selling power on any market etc.
We were again informed, that know-how, training and market access are considered main issues from the ADP point of view. I am not sure if that is all and if those are really the major ones but it is such a complex area and the background of the country with only little stability over the last 3-4 generations makes any change certainly not easier.
We then visited the vegetable co-op which only acts on the production site as a group with common interest (all members use the electrical pumps owned by the co-op for watering their fields). Harvest is three times a year and each farmer sells his products on a one by one basis as the co-op does not have storage facilities. We interviewed a group of co-op members and asked them, what they thought was most important to change in order to get the co-op up and running properly. They mentioned more than once that a storage facility would make the difference but they have no plan how to achieve that.
Our last meeting for today was with the governmental administration body responsible for the set up and ‘well being’ of co-operations. The government has a huge interest that the co-op’s can survive and get stronger but acts unfortunately only with a limited budget and man-power. They very much depend on NGO’s like World Vision to help them with their job, and for this ADP the co-operation between government and WV apparently works quite well.
At dinner we got Katherine to eat with us but she was not really recovered- we hope she will be better very soon - poor thing.
Day 19– 13th July
As we were very diligent the day before and concluded all our planned meetings we had the day for us and went in the morning in quite hot weather to visit some hot springs outside of Nazareth to enjoy a big swimming-pool with hot water. There is also a small pool only used from Monday to Wednesday, where as the water in this big pool is only there from Thursday to Sunday and then renewed. So we had the second day of this week for the big pool.. Apparently there are many weekend traveler to come to this place and I was glad that I did not face this hygienic challenge… I also went at this place for a massage which was o.k but not as relaxing as I hoped.
The only downside of this trip to the hot springs was, that Katherine has taken some drugs but was still feeling quite sick and she had to decide to stay in the hot hotel… - I can imagine that was the saddest day so far for her. As we did not want her to stay alone for a very long time we came back for lunch and then set of for Addis.
I was not feeling to well (again) and was not hungry at all so decided to do something for my diary and blog and went on my own to the Hilton to feed my blog. In the business center I was finally approached by a young Ethiopian woman, who misunderstood obviously my presence and instead anted to convince me to have (again) a massage. I had a feeling it would have been a different one from that I enjoyed yesterday and denied friendly but firmly….
I then went home by taxi and this driver by the name of Goncho was very business oriented and gave me this mobile number and offered his service throughout my stay in Addis.
Day 20– 14th July
I slept long and arrived at breakfast at 9:25 missing the agreed time by 25 minutes. Katherine was sadly still in her room not well enough to join us for a trip to the Piazza and the marketplace called Merkato. Apparently the two most lively places in Addis where the only concern normally should be to avoid being pick-pocketed...
So the three of us went there by taxi and left the car in the minute it started to rain. Not really surprising as it is the middle of the rainy season but I had my rain jacket forgotten in the hotel and needed to react… I have hardly seen such a massive wall of rain drops an we in the middle, so my first bargain for 30 Birr (2.5 Euro) was an umbrella and it was well invested money I can assure you. We tried to stay under arcades but it was not always possible and our feet and other parts of the body got their share of water. We went to different shops to help Ronaldo to buy a shirt of the Ethiopian football national team for his son but after about 9 attempts we stopped. I this huge market you can buy shirts of any European team and any size but not of the national team of the country you are in…
We had then a stop at a shop which sold Ethiopian hand made shawls and table cloths so I managed to find a nice piece and negotiated with the owner. He started at a price of 350 Birr which was much to high for me so I wanted to leave but he asked me to stay and taught me, that if he says a price like that I should of course never agree and pay this but place a counter-offer instead. That is how negotiation in Addis works he explained… I think I understood the lesson and left the shop paying only 150 Birr (EUR 12) for that beautiful hand made table cloth….
Finally we left the Merkato had lunch at the Piazza in the Italian restaurant Castelli (raviolini with mushroom sauce) and went back to the hotel, where we then had a team meeting (including Katherine who felt slightly better) discussing the first 3 weeks and agreeing on some routines going forward.
My stomach got worse over time and I for the first time took Immodium against diarrhoea…
Day 21– 15th July
Today is Sunday and due to my stomach issues I was not able to join Ronaldo and Anne-Sophie for their museum tour so I decided to write this part of the blog between my visits of the bathroom….
Not much really to tell you about this day in the bed. But I try to: I experienced an extremely unstable wireless internet connection, which gave me a lesson in patience I learned that 3 minutes to Germany cost USD 10 over the hotel phone but the connection is not worth USD 2. I realised, that placing an order for a huge pot of tee to be delivered to the room is not common here hence I did not get it…
more photos are available at: http://picasaweb.google.com/Guenter.Blog/ETHIOPIAWEEK3ADDISADAMANAZARETH
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