Melkam Addis Alem

Billboard hits from 2006

-       Don’t Forget About Us- Mariah Carey

-       Check on It – Beyonce

-       You’re Beautiful – James Blunt

-       Temperature – Sean Paul

-       SOS – Rihanna

-       Hips Don’t Lie – Shakira

-       SexyBack – Justin Timberlake

While 2006 seems well in the past to many in Ethiopia, this time last week (our Sept 11) Ethiopians were ringing in their new year! Happy 2006—take two?

 The Ethiopian Calendar is based on the Alexandrian or Coptic calendar, this puts them seven years behind the majority of the world who follow the Gregorian Calendar. The amount of days between the two calendars fluctuates as they also have a 13^th month known as Pagume and all other months only have 30 days (minus leap years).

Ethiopians also use a different clock, which can create confusion when making arrangements with the likes of taxi drivers or restaurants. What the international community would refer to as 8pm or 20:00, in Ethiopian is 2 o’clock (6 hours behind a standard 12 hour clock). The easiest way people tend to differentiate is by referring to one as Habesha (Ethiopian) time and Forenji (foreigner) time.

So how do Ethiopians celebrate the New Year?

While at home there is always a lot of hype around making great NYE plans, it tends to be one of those nights that most find to be overrated. And yes there were many events, concerts, dinners etc. that you could attend in the city similar to the type you would attend in Canada. Yet, hands down the most common response I received when asking Ethiopians what they would do to celebrate was “eat meat.. lots and lots of meat”. Thus in order for the Ethiopians to eat all this meat goats, cattle chickens etc had to be slaughtered on the masses. Needless to say there was a noticeable increase in livestock roaming the streets of Addis, likely on route to the slaughterhouses, in the week leading up to New Years.

It is however worthwhile mentioning that this year Sept 11^th fell on a FASTING DAY. Now what might that mean? All Orthodox Christians (the majority of Ethiopians) ‘fast’ every Wednesday and Friday which essentially means they are vegans for the day- aka they consume no animal products. Thus, this put a huge damper on the main event- meat eating- of the celebrations! As a result many also took Thursday as a holiday, slaughter their goat or chickens, and made up for the lost day by consuming more meat than most can imagine!

It was wonderful to be here for New Years, the atmosphere in my office alone on NYE day reminded me of grad school children, unable to focus before their Christmas holidays! There was a coffee ceremony, cake and lots of Ethiopian dancing! As excited as I am, to re-live 2006, I am even more excited that many consider the Ethiopian New Year to mark the end of the rainy season! Bring on the sunshine!

So happy 2006 every body! Melkam Addis Alem J

Sports

X-Rugby Team Post National Championship Win

As the rain is finally drying up in Addis Ababa, I know that the leaves are slowly changing colours and the humidity fading in the little town of Antigonish Nova Scotia,which more importantly means that the university rugby season is starting. While I have naturally missed many things during my three months in Ethiopia –family, friends, summer weather, THE OCEAN, organized infrastructure…etc- Now that it is fall in Nova Scotia, I wish I could be playing with my X-rugby family as they kick off against Acadia tonight to open their season.

For as long as I can remember, I have been part of a team whether soccer (football) or rugby. As it was my ‘normal’ I did not realize the massive impact it has had on me as a person. Yet as this is the first time in FIVE years I am not playing X-Rugby, I find myself feeling as if I am almost missing something. When at the gym, I used to run faster or work harder primarily to secure/ fight for playing time. I remember the first time I went for a run once our season finished last year, I couldn’t help but ask myself what my purpose was? Is this simple for my physical fitness? A foreign concept to me!

So what is it that drew me to spend sooo much time with a team? Why do people pay big bucks to sit at professional games? Playing rugby at StFX was an incredible experience, for so many reason, but the only way I can explain it was when you were on the field, and everyone was on their game, it felt like you were one piece of an incredible well oiled machine, you knew that you were never alone, for me it epitomized teamwork and accomplishing something as a group that would be far out of your reach as an individual. When people would ask me how I spend upwards of 15 hours a week practicing and playing a sport, I would ask ‘how could I not?’ But up until recently, now that it isn’t at the center of my world, I could never have explained what pulled me to be part of it, it was just never a question in my mind. In hindsight however I think it is that feeling of being part of something bigger than you alone.

While I can hardly speak for all of society I think that there is something very powerful about sports, something unifying, something larger than ourselves whether you are actively participating in the game or engaged as a spectator. I know I chased that feeling for years, and the natural high I gained by playing rugby and winning two national championships with my X-Rugby family is a natural high I can compare to nothing else I have ever experienced.

Yet I also see this passion translated to fans. While at home in Canada it may be a passion for hockey which is most popular, but in Ethiopia my short time here has lead me to believe the passionate support is strongest for their national football team and runners. The first of my two experiences with this pride was when a parade erupted on one of the main roads when Ethiopia beat South Africa in a world cup-qualifying match, EVERYONE was cheering and dancing sporting the team’s colors. Or when their runner (Tiru) took the 10 000m title in Moscow- I was in a small bar in Yabello (500+km south of Addis—the middle of no where!) and 35-40 people were huddled around a small TV stand set up outside. When she won the small crowd erupted in cheers, hugging and congratulating one another for their nations victory.

Pre-Match vs South Africa - Fans on route to watch at Meskel Square
photo credit to Caroline

There is a wonderful unifying and connective power to such moments of celebration. A city or groups of people feel alive. It is for this reason that I am likely going to stake out a local sports bar this weekend with whoever else is game, to secure a good seat for when the Ethiopia – Central Africa football match starts.

So, to my X-Rugby ladies, even though I am half a world away TOP LEFT, I am still and will forever be with you even if not physically present. Best of luck defending your national title this year! And if my internet cooperates you best believe I will be watching all of the live streamed games… even if they do come in more like a slideshow of photos!

A Right of Passage

For most of August a group of us, made up of Oxfam and Coady staff, traveled to three project areas in Southern Ethiopia to collect information as part of a final evaluation. It was an exciting opportunity for me to sit with many of the project participants and hear their stories, opposed to sifting through jargon heavy documents in an office! I really appreciated the way the evaluation was conducted as well- we used a Most Significant Change Approach (MSC), MSC is an evaluation technique which allows community participants to tell stories about changes in their lives since the project started—and then they rate the stories in terms of which changes were the most important. These are then compared to a baseline that was set at the beginning of the project.

Examples of unexpected change continued to present themselves, but the most intriguing by far was outside of Yabello, where one community brought a training they received on household expenditures (the Leaky Bucket) to their traditional authorities. The result was such that, once the traditional authorities realized how much money was being spent on Alcohol and Chat(a local leaf which is chewed to become high) they decided to enforce somewhat of a prohibition in the area…

On Day 8 of our travels, our group was set to visit a Gum and Incense collecting cooperative, approximately 40km outside of Yabello. While the distance of 40km may have initially seemed like a trivial detail, it later proved to have quite the impact. The first 20km of our journey that morning was on typical Ethiopian road, aka hardly an American interstate but MORE than sufficient. As for the second 20km, well if you spun me around in the middle and asked which way the road went I would have laughed and said ‘what road’? Needless to say the combination of my third row seat and my tendency to become car sick did not bode well. A Kenyan colleague joked that I should feel lucky to be receiving a free “African Massage” and laughter immediately erupted throughout the car!

When arriving at our destination, I felt as if I had just gotten off of a ride a universal studios and my stomach was in my throat. As my colleagues could see this based on the color… or lack there of in my face they insisted I stay in the car for a moment to regain myself. Feeling like a silly forengi—foreigner—I fought my better judgment and after 10 minutes I returned to the group. Immediately upon sitting down I knew this was no longer just carsickness. I made my best efforts to discretely remove myself from the focus group discussion and rejoin the drivers reclined in their cars. Just when I thought I felt better I realized my bean breakfast was about to made a re-appearance. A Camel watched me throw up, next to a piece of used cardboard that upon a second glance I realized read “WFP” (United Nations World Food Program)—I couldn’t help but ask myself "Where am I write now?!" It was certainly a situation I never could have imagined this time last year.  

I have since realized that I likely had food poison, as later that day I could no longer retain fluids. (I am incredibly thankful for CIPRO! Never ever ever ever travel without it!) Now that I have recovered, my experience of getting sick has come to feel very much like a right of passage. I feel as if I could ask almost anyone in Addis what their worst “sick” story was, and if they didn’t have one they would certainly be incredibly thankful and somewhat surprised by their good fortune.  

Beyond my realization that my water throwing up experience 500+km from the capital, was nothing short of a right of passage it also made me aware of a number of other things, particularly how fortunate I am in soooooooo many ways.

Firstly, that I was traveling with amazing colleagues who wanted to make sure that I was fine and treated me like family. I felt like my hotel room window was a reverse drive-through and people just kept bringing things to my window, in hopes that it would make me feel better; crackers, juices, flat pop, whatever they thought might help.

Secondly, while I am aware that people who live in rural areas have a much better tolerance for the local foods due to years of building up the right bacteria, when they become very ill, a large portion would not have access to the luxuries I had at my disposal—a Toyota Land Cruiser and driver to take me back to Addis—(he was already taking someone else!).  The experience also made the rural quality of health care more apparent. There were many health centers present but they often lack the physical materials necessary as well as the staff. Some colleagues explained that while Ethiopia has at least two reputable medical training facilities, many trained professions seek work outside of the country, tempted by much better wages. 

However, in stark contrast to the quality of healthcare available in rural areas, my experience at the Korean Hospital (one of many hospitals in Addis) made me aware of how efficient the medical system is in the capital. I was in and out of the hospital in less than an hour and half, having seen the physician twice, once before and after additional test. I was blown away at the speed and quality of service—perhaps based on the fact that I have spent many long hours in Canadian Emergency rooms!

All and all I took my health and my privilege in being able to maintain it seriously for granted until I was ALMOST not even COMPLETELY in a situation where I was not immediately able to access some of those privileges.

Steph xx

As always feel free to get in touch at steph.milo.mackinnon@gmail.com