Alliteration City

A Motley Crew

This picture was taken immediately following the first meeting of the Happy Helping Hands of Hurso club. Unfortunately, I don’t think the name will stick. As you can tell, our colleagues are thrilled to be there!

This is the humble beginnings of the delegation designed to develop Hurso. (This post is going to be titled: Alliteration City) They are each representatives selected by the community to serve on a board that will plot the village’s course to improvement. They select the problems, they design the solutions.

From left to right, we have Bortukan, a woman of about 50, though I am too scared to ask, 2nd in command of the village, highly opinionated and very passionate. Then there’s Peter, a strapping young man of 23. To his left is Kafialo, a kind-hearted man with a wife and a new baby girl, who runs a kindergarten and was recently elected as the health representative for the village. Next is Colonel Ray. The Colonel was stationed at a military compound in Hurso for a number of years and he fell in love with the village. When he retired, he moved back to the village and took a vested interest in promoting development motivating the community. He is knowledgeable, direct, and eager to see Hurso improve. Then me: lanky, bearded, and awkwardly holding the Colonel’s hand. Finally, there’s Warku who has been working hard to finish the school for the last 4 months while also running a local restaurant. He represents the school’s interests and the role the school will play in education development in Hurso.

The meeting was scheduled to start at 9am, thus we began promptly at 11am. Peter, Alex (introduced in a previous post), and I introduced ourselves and discussed GHNI’s vision and hope for Hurso. As we began, it was clear that they had all heard these tired speeches before. NGO’s come and NGO’s go without ever helping very much. They may dig a well, truck in food, or simply drop a huge pile of cash, but Hurso is never much better off for their visit. Tales of these previous NGO’s are told by the ground littered with broken and long dried up wells. All that remains of their efforts are resilient skeletons of projects past: metal cans meant for food storage now flattened for a more functional purpose: shingles, plastic jugs meant for potable water are now lawn ornaments.

Though we expected it, it was sad to hear of past failures. As we continued to share our purpose, it was awesome to see their appearances shift. The four pair of brown eyes we spoke to began to widen, expressions softened, and excitement built. “GHNI is not here to solve your problems for you; we are here to stand side by side and help you transform yourselves. You are in charge of your development; we are not your future.”

Colonel Ray replied, “This is great! We want to take responsibility for our future; for every (dollar) you contribute, we should at least match it.”
What was most exciting to me was to see the passion in these four people. Life is hard in Hurso and the problems and pain are very real. Bortukan loved the vision, and immediately began looking far into the future and getting really angry at problems we will face then. She knew we were on the right track and didn’t want to see our progress hindered in the least bit.

In order to understand her anxiety, I offer a brief look into life in Somali villages in Ethiopia. If a Somali person offers you a service, helps you out, or answers your questions, he expects some compensation. After all, that was time he could have spent hoeing his field. So, Bortukan was upset because she suspects that if we have community wide meetings to discuss community solutions, Somali’s in attendance will expect to be paid. “We don’t have the money to pay people!”

Our American solution: Potlucks, problem-solving Potlucks.

We are excited to support this committee as they rally the community to conquer their crises, and are glad to have the opportunity to work with such enthusiastic partners, to share in their struggles, and play a part in their future.

A Story of Transformation

A few days ago we had the chance to visit the town of Woliso with Zerihun as he was checking in on some GHNI projects. I was especially excited as it was a chance for me to return to the neighborhoods I had worked in and see the people I had met previously on my short term project. It was on that trip that I fell in love with Ethiopia, and now ten months later I am back. Our team of volunteers had helped to build houses for four AIDS affected families, and to construct a small store for Aschelew, a young man with a tragic story. As a teenager he lost both parents to AIDS and became suicidal. In an effort to protect him, his brother and sister tied him up in his house, cutting off the circulation to his arms which both had to be amputated above the elbow. On our February trip, our team built him and his brother a store to run, giving him the ability to help himself out of a life of begging and poverty. We had completed the framing and roofing on the buildings before our team left, but I had yet to see the finished projects.

Ian and I drove down to Woliso from Addis Ababa with Zerihun, his wife, and his two young sons, all crammed into a little Toyota corolla. When we arrived in Woliso and began weaving our way between busy townspeople, dilapidated horse carts, and scruffy donkeys, I started to pick out a few familiar sights. Zerihun announced, “We are here!” In front of us was a clean, sturdy building with a man at the store window that I suddenly recognized as Aschelew’s brother. As we walked up to the store we heard someone calling and turned around to see Aschelew hurrying towards us. He looked great! He had a huge smile and a confidence about him that I hadn’t seen before. I gave him a big hug and he invited me into his store. We looked over his merchandise, bought some snacks, and pretended to sell random items to his neighbors. It was so cool to notice the pride he had in his store and his home, and to see the positive attitude in both him and his brother. We heard from Zerihun that soon he will be receiving artificial limbs so that he will have the use of his arms back. It was amazing to see the hope that had come into Aschelew’s life and to observe the transformation of a hurting, helpless individual to a motivated, optimistic young man.

TCD in Hurso

Our First Video Update!

Our Story: Chapter One

The Setting

Dire Dawa, Ethiopia- A city surrounded on all sides by limiting mountains: limiting travel, rainfall, and cell phone reception. The city is well planned with streets aligned to a grid, roundabouts, and paved roads, for the most part. Where there is not pavement, there is baked, hardened earth that rarely remains on the ground but rises to eye level with each passing tire, foot, or hoof. Supposedly, there is a large western population here, but after a week of roaming the streets, habitually lost, occasionally perceptive, and always exploring, we have yet to come across the elusive White westerners or “Ferengie” as they, and we, are called here.

The city bustles each day from 7am until noon and is relatively silent until 3pm, when the scorching heat subdues and life returns to the streets. There are restaurants, cafés, shops, and kiosks, and street markets all filled with friendly chatter. As we walk up and down the streets a freshly-familiar echo follows us: “Hello! Are you fine?” and “why is your name?”

We have met local businessmen, other humanitarian aid workers and students. This city serves as both our base of operations and our community and we are beginning to find our place in it.

The Characters

Zerihun Kassa- Project Manager for Ethiopia. He lives in Addis Ababa with his wife and two kids. He is nearly six feet tall and not a day over thirty-five. He used to play professional futbol and has the body to match. He has a degree in Economics and is working on a second degree in Community Development. He has a broad smile and a frequent laugh. He is a compassionate, friendly, and dedicated man with a wise and humble spirit. He is scared to death of Hyenas. He met us our first day in Addis, showed us around and helped us to get settled in Dire Dawa. He will be coming to Dire Dawa once a month to help our projects, solidify our direction, and keep us on track.

Alex- ( Alemayehu) will be our right hand man as we begin TCD projects in Hurso. He is an energetic 23-year-old Ethiopian who is living and studying business administration in Harar. He works with Great Commission Ministries in the Harar and assists with their ministry in the northeastern region of Ethiopia. He has partnered with Zerihun over the past couple of years as GHNI has started projects in Woliso, Hurso, and other areas. His English is limited but good - he can converse about macroeconomics and competitive advantage but certain basic words can throw him for a loop, like “river.” He is single but apparently working on a girlfriend in Dire Dawa, which may make his visits here more frequent. He is excited about learning more English from us and is looking forward to being a part of the TCD work in Hurso.

Siggi- Our landlord is a tall, lanky, soft-spoken Swiss man with a heavy German accent, and so far he’s been an invaluable resource in learning about life here in Dire Dawa. He studied agriculture in his home country but seems to be gifted in everything he tries. He’s lived in northeastern Africa for nearly 25 years including Djibouti, Somalia, and different regions of Ethiopia. Although he is incredibly modest, we’ve learned that he can speak at least 7 languages and is a self- taught carpenter, tile worker, electrician, plumber, mechanic, machinist and musician. He’s used his talents over the past 3 years to construct the beautiful hotel compound that we’re staying in, each room a unique work of art custom designed and built with hand-crafted materials. He is one of the most patient, humble guys you’ll ever meet, with a big grin and a booming laugh to match. He has a wife, Kadera, who is a beautiful Ethiopian woman that is every bit as intelligent and linguistically talented as Siggi, and two young boys that love him to death.

Welcome to Blog Hurso!

Hey! This is where you can follow Ian and I as we spend a year in Hurso, Ethiopia. For those of you who aren't familiar with what what we are doing, here's a little bit of background.

Ian and I are interning for a year with Global Hope Network International(GHNI) in the northeastern part of Ethiopia in a small village called Hurso. GHNI is a Geneva-based humanitarian organization that is works with some of the poorest people groups in the world, helping villages transform themselves through sustainable development. Their TCD(Transformational Community Development) training and curriculum fosters ownership by using locally-available resources and takes a holistic approach to development in order to create a healthy community.

Our role in Hurso will be to work with GHNI's Ethiopian staff as we train and equip local leaders to begin development projects and help bring their village out of poverty. Ian and I will be regularly posting on our progress, so check in to hear the latest stories from Hurso.