February 15, 2006
Two scenes from a drought
More than 100 men, women and children crowd around the edge of a rough-cast well in Ethiopia's southern Moyale zone, held back by a single man carrying a whip made out of a broken branch
The man gives a short cry and the crowd surges forward, throwing buckets down over the side, leaning back to pour the water into cracked jerry cans, kicking over each other's containers in the rush.
They have to move quickly because this is probably the last water they and their children are going to see for more than 10 days. The water arrived two hours earlier, pumped out of a leaky government tanker truck. A few hours later it is all gone.
Moyale is at the heart of a devastating drought that has left an estimated 737,000 Ethiopians struggling to survive without access to clean water. Beyond Ethiopia, the drought has spread out to affect more than 8.3 million people, including 1.2 million children aged under five, across the Horn of Africa.
The zone sits on Ethiopia's porous border with Kenya, the southern most part of Ethiopia's lowland Oromiya region. Most traditional water sources, from hand-dug wells to underground cisterns, have already dried up after the near-total failure of two successive rainy seasons.
All that is left for Moyale's 124,000-strong, mainly pastoralist population, are three motorised boreholes and the one leaky truck which trundles slowly between them, collecting water and transporting it to 17 collection points, including the rough-hewn well.
The truck is driven by Tafesech Sahele, a 45-year-old mother-of two from Addis Ababa, who has been flown in by the Ethiopian government to help keep the water flowing to the most needy.
When she first got her driving license 20 years ago, she dreamt of becoming a taxi driver in the capital. But she was quickly snapped up by the government to become one of Ethiopia's very few female long-distance lorry drivers, transporting cereals across the country.
These days she sleeps in her truck, filling up from boreholes around Moyale in the early hours of the morning when the water pressure is good, before setting off on her rounds.
"When people see my truck coming, they run up, jumping around for the water. When they see that I am a woman they are even more surprised. It is very unusual.
"I enjoy the job very much, because it is saving lives."
**********
More than seven hours drive up the road is Goraye, a small settlement perched on the edge of the crater of an extinct volcano. Any other year, the crater and its 13 salty wells would be part of picture-postcard Africa.
This year the picturesque scene is littered with the corpses of thousands of goats and cattle.
Pastoralists from as far afield as Kenya have come here in search of water for their livestock. A constant stream of goats, camels and cattle slowly makes it way down to the bottom of the crater for their small allotment of water.
For many of the weaker animals, the walk back up again is too much. "We are losing about 200 or 300 animals every day," said Yatani Ali, a 42-year-old, father-of-two who makes his living through his herds.
"We have not had such a drought for the past five years." Yatani says he has lost 100 goats, five cows and four camels - more than a fifth of his total livestock - since the failure of the last hagayya rains, which should have fallen from September to December.
These days he is more worried about the health of his two children, aged four years and three months.
"People are facing a lot of problems. They are not getting a proper diet. Last week we had a lot of children with diarrhea."
Development experts say it is generally the sheep and goats that go first in a major drought. Then it is the cattle, then the camels, then the people - many of them aged under five, picked off by opportunistic diseases like measles. Estimates of the number of human deaths during the region's last major drought in 2000 range from 56,000 to more than 90,000.
A few kilometers from the top of the crater in Goraye, the NGO Care is constructing a new bore hole that will stop pastoralists having to make the exhausting climb down to the salty wells and then back up again.
Until that arrives, Yatani is holding out for the next rains, expected in April. "More rain and God's help are the only things that can help us."
Posted by aheavens at February 15, 2006 2:56 PM
Comments
Here in America, the size of the cars, TVs and computers people are buying are getting bigger and bigger every year. In Ethiopia, people are dying for a drop of water.
I feel so sad and so, so angry at this injustice.
May Allah answer the prayers of the people of Ethiopia.
Thanks for sharing this story with us.
Safiya
Posted by: safiya at February 15, 2006 11:48 PM
Thanks for your very interesting take on the scenes of drought in Ethiopia, this is what I call life saving journalism. You are bringing a serious issue to everyones attention and I thank you for it. For me the root of the problem in all of our problem remains the same as far as I am concerned: powerlessness. People are hungry because they are powerless and powerless because they are hungry. In the meantime, to state the obvious, people in many parts of Africa are hungry and without regular and healthy food they are not likely to build much of a groundswell of demand for accountability from the politicians. What can we do to address immediate hunger and at the same time encourage a citizenship that demands their rights? is the big question all of us have to ask. My feeling is that relief and development food assistance (and non-food assistance when this makes more sense to address hunger) should not be delivered in a knowledge vacuum. Refugee and IDP camp food assistance, school feeding programmes, general food distributions, food-for-work projects and nutrition projects can all be delivered in ways that expand people's choices and knowledge. What we have to do is make sure that the delivery of food and other assistance is regular and sufficient so that we are not constantly starting from scratch each time there is a new crisis. Or barely helping to keep people's heads above water as they survive year in and year out through chronic poverty and food insecurity. Our national political leaders will continue to be unresponsive - as long as the kind of people that WFP helps do not gain a voice. Maybe consistent and sufficient support at grassroots level among hungry people - including with food assistance - is the way to achieve that voice. Thanks again for your timely report
Posted by: Netsa at February 16, 2006 1:07 PM
Thank you for sharing this, Andrew. The injustice and the imbalance in this world is overwhelming. አምላክ ከነሱ ጋር ይሁን!!!! (may The Lord be with them)
Posted by: A at February 16, 2006 4:23 PM
Dear Freind,
Once I was attending an international peace conference in India.I was one of the speakers presenting the topic peace and development in Afrcia. Prior to my presentation , I was asked to introduce myself to the participants, consequently I told them my name, my profession but not my country, rather I told them to close their eyes and I siad 'Visualise a littel skinny kid with a big tommy , visualise skinny mothers crying and begging' and asked them where I am from...yes no body had a problem to say Ethiopia. The cycle of drought and the untold level of mass poverty have been consuming the uofrtunate ethiopians for centruries...time may be different but the story is the same drought,famine, war and poverty.Despite the pouring aid we are still stuck in the mud of backwardness.Our natural resource could have saved our life but sadly we have chosen to die for it than to live on it.
Ethiopia needs a leadership...enough is enough , this country needs a proper managment of resources. We need justice and peace, we need to start holding our leaders responsible for their retrogressive approach towards development. Aid may save life but it dose not bring development.
Love
F
Posted by: frank at February 16, 2006 10:14 PM
Ethiopia also needs Our hands.
What is Ethiopian if he doesn't feel the suffering of his sibling? What is an Ethiopian, if he can't do his part to alievate this situation?
Don't talk, give your help, that is what is expected from us for now.
STOP YOUR LIPSERVICE
Posted by: Help at February 17, 2006 7:40 AM
To the previous commentor.I think we should not exclusively think this problem as Ethiopia's.. it is the whole horn of africa.. a very recurrent theme.. but good reporting andrew..
Posted by: normal at February 17, 2006 6:45 PM
It is quite discouraging that most of the comments so far express blame on ourselves and not on the basic injustice of the world economic order.
No matter our goverement, Ethiopia can not develop if the rich northern countries deny us access to their markets. Even if we have the best govt in the world, what good is that if the price of coffee falls by half, or if agricultural and industrial products are taxed highly by the wealthy countries. We have no oil or other natural resources to offer the global economy. Yes we need better leadership, yes we have had and still do misguided economic policies. But in the end, we are poor because the rich countries effectively have a trade embargo against Ethiopia and the rest of Africa.
We pay exobirant prices for a cup of coffee here in the west even as Ethiopian coffee farmers are paid less. So what happens-their children are malnourished and end up in feeding camps set up by rich country NGOs ran by well paid employees from rich countries.
I for one am tired of our self-flagellation and self-blaming for the poverty of Ethiopia.
Posted by: safiya at February 18, 2006 1:22 AM
Thanks for the blog and the pictures. I like the pictures you take. I was wondering if you could give me a few tips on taking pictures in Ethiopia. What type of camera and lens(es) do you use?
Many Thanks.
Posted by: Nebiyou at February 20, 2006 8:26 PM
Why would the West put a trade embargo on Ethiopia and the rest of Africa?
Posted by: wonderchops at February 21, 2006 4:46 AM