Time to reflect

Sisay, Bishoftu Utility Worker

The trip has been inspiring to me, too. Seeing Steph and Sisay, the Bishofu utility worker, discussing pipes, wrenches and more importantly life and dreams with so much passion (albeit via a translator) was really nice. It was a testimony that regardless of where we come from - socially and economically - we are still fellow human beings with so much in common.

You know I travel a lot across Ethiopia and meet with locals, spend a night or eat in their house sometimes. Before I take any picture or video, it's my duty to explain what the images will be used for and when I mention the words, "supporters" or "donors", I see that user communities wonder, "why would people care about people they never saw or even heard about before?". It's not easy to explain, the generosity. But when I saw Steph in Woliso town talking over lunch with a health extension worker about the latter's recently killed brother, with so much sympathy, and when two other health workers put a pair of ear rings on Steph's ears, that question began to become very simple to answer. We are all fellow brothers and sisters divided only by waters and mountains, and by borders that are increasingly fading away everyday.

Exchanging gifts!

Looking forward to seeing and making more friends from YW.

Best,

Behailu

Voices From The Field Officer - Ethiopia 

Final day in Ethiopia!

Sat waiting for the airport and reflecting on our week here. Today we've been to a town called Woliso and visited a school to look at latrines that WaterAid has funded. WaterAid has also funded water infrastructure and a dry waste facility. As always, they're very well designed and the children's loos came complete with a disabled facility and taps for washing. We also spoke to hygiene educators in the town who told us that many people still get water borne illnesses but more from poor hygiene than poor water. Having spent the week mainly looking at asset management it was good to talk
direct to people who are benefitting. It's been a great week and we have to give a massive thank you
to the WaterAid in Ethiopia team who are inspirational in their dedication to improving the lives of their fellow Ethiopians. The three of us from YW have been humbled by the work they do on limited resources and still manage to stay cheerful. We have learned a lot from them and just being in this big, beautiful country

Back to Addis and meeting DfID

On Thu 21 the team travelled back from Butajira to Addis Ababa in the morning and in the afternoon had a really good session in the Water Aid office discussing the field trip looking at what was good, what appeared to be a challenge in the visited towns and from that the areas of development with the capacity building 20 town.

Some of the Water Aid team collected us in the evening to meet socially at the Abyssinian Restaurant that allowed us to gain a very brief insight into Ethiopian food, music and dance culture.  We appear
to have been very lucky to attend on a night when the Restaurant was hosting 2 weddings that enhanced the evening.

This morning it was back to the Water Aid office to meet up with Martha Solomon who is the Water, Sanitation & Hygiene (WaSH) Advisor for the Department for International Development (DfID).   The UK Government Department of DfID has the second largest donor portfolio in Ethiopia after the World Bank.  They have just had 106 Million UK pounds (UKP) approved for the WaSH programme in Ethiopia.  This is divided into 3 areas of spend and Martha explained how the 20 town Urban wash initiative could feed directly into the 22 Million UKP Complimentary Support budget.  There was also an opportunity to indirectly gain support from the 80 Million Government WaSH account part of which was for Urban WaSH.

Following our meeting with Martha there yet more discussion about the form YW support could take.  There now seems to be some real themes coming through about quick, medium and long term wins that are possible as well as strategic support.  It is all very encouraging for us.

Great to get out and See Some real assets

Just arrived back in Addis after 2 days out on field visits to Bishoftu and Butajira. Both villages have excellent water resources, with significant recent investment in boreholes and service reservoirs, but from there it really does go down hill, with lots of work needed on the distribution systems and water quality.

Bishoftu service reservoir

We had very productive meetings with the local utility companies and built relationships which I hope we can continue with offers of technical help and support.

Bishoftu Utility Office - Bill Payments

Spent time out in the communities meeting engineers, technicians, operators and customer. The approach to health and safety leave a lot to be desired, but we met some fantastic people. Got chatting to some kids on their way home from school with water carriers. They have to take water to clean the school and kids that are late have to clean the pit latrines. We suggest that a similar policy should be implemented at YW for colleagues who are late for meetings!!

From your Addis Ababa correspondents

We've (2 Daves and Steph) had a great day starting with meeting the world's greatest ever long distance athlete Haile Gebresailasse at Addis airport. What a lovely guy- even offered us his airport trolley! Made a sleepless overnight flight worthwhile.

Ethiopian Airlines can be highly recommended except for their habit of leaving cabin lights on all night. After a quick shower and change at the hotel we went to the WaterAid office to meet our partnership colleagues.

Meeting with Minister for Water

After a traditional Ethiopian lunch we then had a meeting withe Minister for Water (very informed at committed) people from his department and the Ethiopia Utilities Forum. We had a really interesting two hour discussion which has helped clarify the capacity building where YW will really make a difference.

Tomorrow is World Toilet Day and our first day in the field so our blog tomorrow will combine the two events.

MEET, EAT, FLY, HAILE GEBRE SELASSIE (I know it should really rhyme with repeat but we're too tired to be that clever)

Finally the 3 Yorkshire water and 2 Water Aid travellers met up in the food court in Heathrow and managed to get on the plane in time.  A pretty uneventful overnight flight with very little sleep left us all exhausted on arrival at Addis Ababa International Airport.  However Exhaustion turned to excitement whilst standing in the customs queue when we spotted a familiar face.  A bit of delving through the old grey matter brought the realisation that we were only stood looking at one of the greatest atheletes and Olympians of our time.  There smiling and waving acrosss at us was Haile Gabre Selassie.  We thought that was going to be it but fortunately we met up again in the baggage reclaim and this time the photo opportunity was not missed.  Hopefully we will manage to sort out the IT issue and get the photos on the next blog.  (Apparently Dave didn't want his persoal SD card encrypting in line with YW security).

Just sat having a nice cup of Ethiopian Coffee waiting for Tefri, the country Rep to take us to Water Aid Office where we will be meeting the ministry of Water and Energy.

SUNDAY JOURNEY TO HEATHROW

Not too bad a show by England yesterday and a really nice evening spent with my son Tom and his mate Nick finds me in good spirits today.  As you can probably tell I'm sat here thinking what to write in this blog.  We haven't done anything really yet but I am looking forward to meeting up with everyone else at Heathrow and getting on with the trip.  I spent this morning reading up on Ethiopia and it did make me think how lucky we are to live in a society that is not faced with the problems that the population face in Ethiopia.  The expense, both monatarily and in time of getting water that needs to be invested by so much of population holds them back from investing in their own progress.  I remember watching a film about a man who grew up in Sweden and how much his Mum looked forward to getting a washing machine because it freed up so much time.  She used the extra time to take her son to the local library.

Looking forward to our trip

Dave