Adwa to Axum

It turns out Scott was wrong, both sides of the hotel were noisy. It appears that there was a nightclub somewhere in the vicinity and it was kind enough to turn up the bass. I come down for breakfast. Scott has three baked eggs in a round metal dish. They look good, so I ask him how I should order them. He tells me I should order "three eggs, ka-choek, ka-choek, ka-choek." With he "ka-choek" he cups his fingers downward as if dropping an egg into a pan. I stare sceptically at him. He repeats the order and motion. I look over at the cashier to see if she'll help me out. No dice. I follow Scott's order and get the three eggs. I also agree to try a spreis which Scott bills has half coffee-half tea. The eggs are great with crisp edges and the spreis is actually pretty good. I've now had two coffee-based drinks that I've liked, but Scott is looking way high on his estimate of 22 coffees. Today we're going to visit two communities in need of water and then we'll see some wells in progress.

The first community we visit is very close to the city of Axum. In fact we are no more than a mile from the airport when we stop by the side of the road. We walk into the field of teff next to the highway. It's muddy, so we step carefully. We find their water source in the middle of the field. It is no more than a puddle. We're told that they appreciate this because in the dry season (that's about nine months of the year) they have to walk over to the airport where they dig a hole to get water. We speak with several men from the village as a few women stand off to the side. We are also joined by a government official who has scouted out spots for wells. We climb up the hill to get a view of the whole community. We're surrounded by cows, goats and one donkey trying to mount another. The view is beautiful. They point to each of the villages and tell us that they don't have clean water either.

We head back through Axum. At the edge of town our road degrades into a bumpy, muddy track. On several occasions we get a running start and muscle our way through the mud. It doesn't always feel like Daniel's in complete control, but it never feels like we're not going to make it. After awhile we arrive at our next village. We follow a stream bed down the hill to meet another village group. This conversation is similar to the last. Again it is a beautiful setting. We are in a vast, vivid green field. We have walked down a large hill and the slope continues for quite a distance before rising again in mountains.

Again the men tell us about the water situation. This is an interesting and consistent dynamic. Fetching water is the task of women and girls, but it is always the men who talk to us about it. They are the one's who tell us how far the women must walk, how they get attacked by animals and how sometime they drop their clay pots and their husbands beat them. We make a point of asking the women to tell us about their situation. Many of the women we've talked to in these situations pull a piece of cloth over their mouth as they talk. This is a sign of deference that they are taught form a young age. One older woman, she's actually my age, doesn't do this and she seems to speak with more confidence. She tells us that the fetching takes so long that many woman are late for their work with Safety Net (I'll talk about that later). That means that they don't get paid for a full day. She also says that she must leave to fetch water when it's still dark out so hyena's sometimes eat her chickens. The men laugh at this. She retorts "why do you laugh you know it's true." Finally, we ask again about the neighboring villages and find that none of them has clean and safe water either.

We climb back up the hill and drive back into Axum. At the airport in Addis there is a big banner encouraging tourism. It has three photos. The first is of a woman with a colorful basket. The second is of the stelae at Axum. The third is of several young man walking across a stream - one of them holding an AK-47. I'm not sure the Ethiopian government has really nailed its tourism message yet. We stop to see the ruins in Axum. These are huge stone obelisks the largest of which has fallen. There is one stele that has been returned from Italy. It is surrounded by what may be the only metal scaffolding in Ethiopia as they try to get it to stay in place. The stelae are impressive for their size (100 feet tall, one billion tons), for being made from a single piece of stone and for being old - about 1700 years. There are several young men trying to sell tourist trinkets. Having survived the assault of hawkers at the Taj Mahal, the efforts of these guys are almost quaint.