Saturday, January 28, 2006

The famine

I think all of us on our trip were asked by friends/family/acquaintances “why on earth do you want to go to Ethiopia… isn’t there a famine, and isn’t the country all desert?” Most people seem only to know about Ethiopia through the eyes of Live Aid or some other charity, and the message they give is one of starvation. Yet there is far more to know about the country. Sure there was disease and poverty, and many people are indeed very poor, but the country is not all a desert – in parts it is quite fertile and the country’s main industries are related to agriculture. Indeed this is part of the problem, since if the rains fail, then the crops fail and then there is no local food and no local industry earning money so they can buy food. In what we saw there seem to be few other industries in the country and few natural resources to export.

The country is visually stunning, particularly in the time of year we were there, so there is perhaps a small tourist industry to come (indeed, this is why I was there!), but this will not solve Ethiopia’s problems. I don’t know what will solve them, but I am glad to have been and understand a little more about their problems. I also learnt about some of the targeted charities that are doing great work in Ethiopia.
THET is a charity based in UK that provide support to local Health services in Ethiopia (and some other countries in Africa), helping them to develop plans for improving local health services and putting them in touch with partner hospitals in UK. Our trek guide Getenet was also involved in a lot of charity work – he set up the school at Mekarebya that we visited, and just as we left him he had just received approval for another school!








Mekarebya School

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