Beyaynetu: The Cornerstone of Ethiopian Cuisine

Here's a picture I took of a dish of beyaynetu we ate in Hawassa.  It's essentially a plate of injerra bread topped with different kinds of beans and bean pastes, cooked/raw vegetables, rice, and tibs.  Tibs are just little bits of meats often sauteed in a spicy sauce.  This dish is consumed by tearing off a small fragment of the injerra bread (in your right hand, traditionally) and scooping up some ingredients from the assortment in front of you.

I enjoyed eating this dish because it's a much more communal activity than your average American dining.  Usually you're in a group of four to six people eating from the same plate of food.  Plus, the etiquette of the meal is much more casual since you grab your food with your hands and there are no utensils involved...my kind of meal!

Meeting with the president of The East Africa University of Science and Technology

Today I accompanied my dad in going to the Mass College of Art and Design to meet up with his good friend Deo Baribwugere. He is the president of The East Africa University of Science and Technology which is currently being built in Tanzania.  We will definitely try to involve him in our efforts to bring the importance of education to light in Ethiopia.

We also met up with Anna, a junior at Mass College of Art and Design, who will be designing a book for EAUST.  She is also a potential role model we will be using to inspire children in Ethiopia to learn how to read and write.  We're working on a short video featuring her to show to the children.

Research on Ethiopian Education

In order to fully understand what the educational needs of Ethiopia are, I visited the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) website.  Upon reading the first two sentences of a factsheet I found on the website, I was already shocked by some disturbing information: Ethiopia is ranked 126th out of 127 countries in the Education for All (EFA) development index and it is unlikely to meet the EFA Goals by 2015.

 Needless to say, the nation's education system as a whole requires a lot of help if Ethiopia wishes to blossom into a developed country.  However, the education of girls is ailing especially.

 The above chart represents the female literacy rates in Ethiopia in 2004 and 2008. The list of literacy rates on Wikipedia shows that in 2003, the female literacy rate was 35.1%.  Oddly enough, the literacy rate of girls in Ethiopia is on the decline!

This is a trend that GeoCDI is targeting to reverse by inspiring young Ethiopian girls to read and write.

Mount Wenchi (Crater Lake pt. 2)

We finally completed the 24 km journey up the rocky mountainside to the summit of Mount Wenchi.  Here, we would continue to the base of the crater lake via horseback, which made me a little nervous since I'd never ridden a horse before.  Along with a guide, two people came down with us to make sure we didn't fall off the horses.

This is what crater lake looked like from the top of the mountain:


As you can see, there's a lake surrounded by a ring of elevated land covered by trees.  In the middle of this lake was a small island with an old church on it- a very old church, from the 1500s.  In order to see this remote island for ourselves my dad and I had to be escorted by a dugout canoe to the center of the lake.  These canoes were amazing to me because they were so old looking.  I could've sworn I had seen these in my history textbooks from the 16th century! 

In fact, just about everything about the Wenchi lifestyle had an outdated feel to it.  When I asked about the fishing in crater lake, our guide told me that spearfishing was the most popular method.  This simple, yet happy lifestyle of the Wenchi people was enlightening to me, and gave me a new perspective on technology and modern society.

Charming Young Lad of the Mountains (Crater Lake pt. 1)

The paved road ended at Ambo.  My dad and I would have to be escorted by our driver 24 kilometers up a rocky road to the peak of the dormant volcano of Wenchi.  We were making our way to the storied Crater Lake of Wenchi.  Pretty soon we exceeded the boundaries of civilization, where village people gazed at us bumping down their road.  Stray dogs and donkeys carrying supplies mingled about.

One curt encounter that stuck with me occurred half way up the hillside.  A small boy no older than 6 years old was standing alone in front of a dozen cows grazing a small bit of pasture behind him.  With a stern look on his face, he was swinging a 10 foot long whip above his head.  It took every cent of strength and coordination the child had to maintain the whip's circular motion.  I grew tense thinking about what this young man was aiming to do with this huge whip.  We passed him slowly, and then he cracked the whip behind us, making a deafening blast that made all three people in the car jump.  I looked in my side mirror, and the boy was bent over laughing at us with his whip lying limp in his hand.

We had a good laugh about it and continued up the road, spoiled by the breathtaking landscape that surrounded us.

Why Ethiopia LOVES Bob Marley

Haile Selassie is the most adored Ethiopian of all time.  He led the country from 1930 to 1974, overcoming Italian invasions during the 1930s.  In fact, Ethiopia is the only African country to maintain independence during the colonial era.

But it is not for this reason that he was deemed the god, or "jah,"of Rastafari.  Legend has it that upon arrival for a visit in Jamaica, he ended a long drought.  The people of Jamaica believed he was the performer of this miracle; thus claiming him to be Jesus.  This was obviously an idea that Ethiopians could agree with, to say the least.

As we all know, Bob Marley was the head advocate of the Rastafari lifestyle, gaining the love and support of Ethiopians throughout his career as a musician.  So you see, there really is a strong...

                             

(Photo by: www.ethiopianrestaurant.com)

First Impressions (pt. 1)

Boston to Ethiopia was a much more grueling itinerary than you'd expect.  My dad and I had to stopover in New York and then Istanbul en route to Addis Ababa.  JFK is basically hell on earth in my opinion, but Turkish Airlines is a flight fit for royalty.  After more than a day of flying, we finally touched down in Ethiopia.

It was interesting to see what a graveyard of an airport Bole International really is.  I mean wow, the people looked like zombies in a place that just had the color sucked right out of it.  My first impression of the place was that it resembled a building in America from the 60s or 70s (even though I was never alive in those decades, it still felt like a time machine).  That's kind of what Ethiopia's like...they're behind on things, like architecture.

Stepping out of the airport is always my favorite part of the trip.  That's how you know you're all done with the traveling; the sitting, the waiting, the standing, the wailing babies seated two rows away from you.  It was great to just breathe some air and look over the lights that illuminated the sleepy city of Addis.