Bale is the place where Partners in the Horn of Africa got started with its first project 7 years ago…a simple footbridge, which allowed several thousand people to cross a swollen river to hospitals, schools and market places during the rainy season. Since then Partners has completed more than a dozen projects in the area…..libraries, micro-financing programs, water distributions systems and school classrooms. It is one of our favourite areas, nestled as it is high in the Bale Mountains. The main crop in the area is wheat and the rolling hills of Bale remind Albertans of their own Rocky Mountain foothills
Our trip this year was for a very special occasion. Last year Partners was approached by EBA Engineering Consultants
Ltd., one of our strong corporate supporters in Western Canada. EBA and its employees offered to raise money for a major project in rural Ethiopia…one that would hold the attention of their entire staff and accomplish as much as possible for the people of rural Ethiopia. The small rural community of Kasso Manso and its elementary school were quickly settled upon as the site of the project.The village of Kasso Manso is about 12 kilometres from the nearest road and can be accessed only by a trail that is used mainly by horses and donkeys. The village itself is amazing. It has an elementary school with an excellent academic record despite the fact that it is almost completely isolated from the larger community. There is (was) no electricity or water in the town and the village is about as self-sufficient as you can get. Education and the school are important to the community. The fathers of the school kids voluntarily farm a small piece of land dedicated to the school and with the proceeds from the harvest each year the community buys stationery and school supplies. Two years ago the community built three large classroom blocks from chika (mud and straw) but could afford no more than the bare walls. As such, the buildings were unusable and in time the absence of a foundation would lead to their collapse. Partners decided that the school would be a good fit with EBA.
Over the past year Partners finished the classrooms (cement foundations, floors, windows, mortar on the exterior/interior and desks for the kids). Piped water was brought to the village of Kasso Manso and distribution lines were run to the school. Latrines were also built so that kids no longer had to do their business in the nearby bushes. In the nearby town of Kasso Wara two more water distribution systems were built and in the community of Retaba construction is underway for a footbridge, which will allow some 300 kids to attend school throughout the year. In short, major changes have been wrought in the community.
EBA raised over $100,000 for this project, the lion’s share of it by fundraising from their employees. And then last week, Maureen Marsh, an EBA employee joined us for the inauguration. We left Addis Ababa for the 12 hour drive to Kasso Manso knowing that the celebration would be something special but were still astounded with what we found when we arrived at Kasso Manso.
It is hard to convey what an event the inauguration was. New school buildings are rare in this impoverished country and especially so in areas that are so far off the beaten track. Yet rural Ethiopians know that education is their best hope for a better life and a new school is a signal of a new beginning and a new chance for their children. It is an important event in the life of the community – a sign to one and all that a milestone has been reached and a success achieved by the village.
On the day of the inauguration every important education official and local official within 50 miles attended along with several hundred members of the community and, of course, the students. We managed to get our Land Cruiser right to the school site and along the way noticed women dressed in their finest clothes walking towards the school carrying large pots of gumfo and chiko, favoured local dishes which we knew would be served as part of the feast following the inauguration. Everywhere people were streaming towards Kasso Manso and you could feel the electricity in the air.
At the school grounds half a dozen large tents had been erected for the dignitaries. Food was being carried to and fro and the local television station had somehow managed to get a cameraman and camera 12 kilometres down the road to Kasso Manso. At the start of the festivities we were greeted by some 25 Ethiopian horsemen in a traditional Oromo welcome. Horses racing frantically, but in unison, up and down the school grounds coming within yards of the assembled guests. And those guys could ride! Most of the riders were dressed in traditional garb though two sported western suits and ties. Regardless of their clothing all rode with great skill and pomp…most of the horses festooned with red bunting and riding at top speed just inches from each other. This was followed by a procession of respected women from Kasso Manso all dressed in colourful traditional dresses, waving branches over their heads and chanting in unison as they greeted us.
Then came the speeches, all of them expressing gratitude and reflecting the community’s strong commitment to education. One graduate of the elementary school had gone on to great things becoming a senior official in the Ethiopian Development Bank. He had driven all night to attend the inauguration and gave a wonderful talk to an adoring community about the value of education. Maureen spoke for EBA telling the community of the empathy of her fellow Canadian employees for the people of this community so many thousands of miles away.
The community took advantage of the many relatively well-to-do visitors and held an auction to raise money for a library and laboratory for the school. This was done with an auction conducted by two very funny villagers intent on entertaining the majority of those in attendance who could not afford to bid. Every bid was treated with an anecdote about the bidder and feigned sympathy and comments for the bidder who had just been trumped. Further bids were elicited by one auctioneer removing clothes and threatening to bare all unless more bids were forthcoming. The items auctioned were a painting commemorating the inauguration, a very fat sheep and a pot full of for its next project….a school library and laboratory. The community was exhorted to drop their donations onto a large shawl laid out on the ground…and many did so. It struck us that this new project was made to order for Partners. It was a project selected by the community and one to which the community was prepared to commit its own scarce resources. So, as the donations began to flag we announced that whatever amount was in the shawl in another 15 minutes would be matched by Partners. This caused an unbelievable flurry of activity as everyone rushed to the shawl to “double their money”. We were later to discover that 241 single Birr (about ten cents) had been deposited with many more donations of larger denominations. It appears that more than 300 donations were made in the last 15 minutes and Kasso Manso got a good leg up on its next project.
It was a great feeling driving back to our rooms that night. We’d witnessed several thousand people celebrating the education of their kids and their accomplishment (as always, Partners had required the community to put up a significant portion of the costs in cash, labour and local materials) in empowering their own community. The kids in Kasso Manso were no longer going to have to take notes in class sitting on rocks, they could get a drink of water when the hot African sun made them thirsty and they could use latrines when they needed them. I had no doubt that the banker who had driven all night to get to the inauguration was going to be joined by more successful graduates of Kasso Manso in the years to come.
And good on you, EBA. You have done much to bridge the gap between our very wealthy and privileged people and those of rural Ethiopia. Your efforts have changed the lives of the Kasso Manso community.
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