Text and Photographs by Wang Chih-hung
Translated by Lin Sen-shou
Reprinted with permission of Rhythms Magazine

The plane leaving the Addis Ababa airport in Ethiopia for Bangkok, Thailand, was delayed. As I stared out through the airplane window in the jam-packed airplane, I noticed the sky had turned very dark. It had started raining, and the captain announced through the speakers that the plane would be delayed because of the storm.

It rained very heavily and pools of water began to form on the apron. The rain splashed when it hit the ground and streaked down my window. My watch told me that the plane had been delayed almost an hour, but I wasn't in a hurry. I wasn't displeased by the delay either. Instead, I hoped the delay would carry on and that what was bothering me could be diluted by the rain.

The drought-tormented Ethiopians probably felt the same way about the rain as I did. Could the rain bring a slight chance of hope to this miserable country?

This story happened long ago, so please let me tell you now.



Suffering from drought

In April this year, Halimo Muhamed, her four-year-old daughter Fadumo, and her sick, 75-year-old mother traveled on foot for miles to look for help. All the livestock that they had depended on had been killed by the drought.

Other mothers also brought their malnourished children to the village for help. "Many flooded regions are too remote to receive any domestic or international assistance," a local official commented. "At the same time, a two-year-old child was buried in Denan, 450 kilometers south of Addis Ababa. He had died of malnutrition. Experts say that hundreds or even thousands of Ethiopian nomads have died either directly or indirectly from starvation."

I had not particularly looked forward to visiting Ethiopia again. I wouldn't have come here again, four years after my previous visit to this poor nation, if it hadn't been for the huge photo in the newspaper's international section of a skeletal child in the arms of his helpless-looking mother. I came here just to find out the truth and to see if there was any way I could help.

This time, I was a member of a visiting team from the Tzu Chi Foundation. We came to attend the inauguration ceremony for a hospital expansion and innovation project sponsored by Tzu Chi and the French organization, Medecins du Monde (MDM), in Debre Birhan, North Shewa Province. We also came to check whether the fifteen clinics and two health stations that we had helped build in Menz and Gishe Awraja were still in good operation after having been transferred to the Ethiopian government, and we wanted to find out how serious the famine was.

What I worried about the most didn't take place: there was no sight of any bony children on the streets of Addis Ababa, and I could relax for a while. Our old French friend, Jose Fernandes, the MDM country director in Ethiopia for the last sixteen years, told me positively that we wouldn't see anything like that here.

He was here to help with the 1984 famine, and he said, "There are some levels of hardship here now, but not as terrible as in 1984." Because of the widespread starvation that year, famous singers like Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder sang "We Are the World" together to help drought victims.



Finding our roots

I told the other members of the Tzu Chi team: "Coming back to Ethiopia again, it's like looking for our roots." We all went to see "Lucy." We were the only visitors in the national museum in Addis Ababa, where a replica of her fossilized skeleton was on display in the basement. Lucy was a female Australopithecus afarensis unearthed in 1974 near Hadar, in the Afar desert in northern Ethiopia. She was a 3.5-million-year-old hominid that could stand upright (though she was only about three feet eight inches tall) and is considered to be one of our oldest human ancestors. In 1994, bones of another possible human ancestor, Ardipithecus ramidus, about 4.4 million years old, were uncovered about seventy-five kilometers south of the same location. Perhaps since these may be ancestors of the entire human race, everyone around the world should do something for Ethiopia.

Compared to the trip I took four years ago, this time fewer ill-clad children would rush out and beg for money at your car windows when your vehicle stopped. "Ethiopia is also a country with rules and regulations," Jose said flatly. "Everything will improve with time."

The whole world was stunned in 1984 when famine in Ethiopia took the lives of one million people. Developed countries all pledged that they would never allow the same thing to happen again. In order to help farmers feed their families, dozens of long-term projects such as irrigation systems, seed distribution, reforestation and small loans are now being executed by foreign charity groups in every part of the country.

A complicated early famine warning system set up by the United States at a cost of US$7 million dollars a year records the growth of crops and trends in weather conditions by satellite. The Ethiopian government also set up the Emergency Food Security Reserve, gathering donations from around the world in eight granaries around the country. This reserve was designed to maintain a minimum of 350,000 tons of grain, enough for 4.5 million people for half a year. The granaries were meant to act like dams, storing food supplies in normal times and delivering them to any region short of food in this drought-prone area of the world. The government also established the Disaster Preparedness and Prevention Commission (DPPC) to make regular assessments of food shortages and coordinate donations from the international community.



International precautionary measures

Some years ago, all predictions pointed to another possible serious, continuous drought in the northeastern part of Africa. If the situation this time could not be controlled and prevented, the great famine of 1984 would happen all over again. About one and a half years ago, the DPPC publicly urged every country in the world to increase their assistance to Ethiopia. The United Nations estimated that a drought lasting two consecutive years would be disastrous to at least fourteen million people in the Horn of Africa, or ten million people in Ethiopia alone.

Unfortunately, "People don't cry until they see the coffin." Emergency food supplies in February had dropped to 50,000 tons, and promised donations of food were delayed for various reasons. An official in charge of the early famine warning system for East Africa recently told a reporter from the Washington Post that half a year ago it would have been extremely difficult to get US$100,000 to improve the water supply system. It is only when things have gotten out of hand that help suddenly comes pouring in. When they see pictures of starving, emaciated victims, it is much easier for people to open their purses. But then it's often a little too late.

The elderly and the children in remote areas are always the first to succumb to starvation. MDM staff member Mengis said helplessly that famine hits nomads very hard. The nomads have come to depend more on cattle, which are much more profitable than traditional camels when it comes time to sell them, but which are much more susceptible to drought. When the nomads lose all their livestock and everything else, they have no choice but to walk for miles to get help. The children and the elderly are always the first to be sacrificed.

Ethiopia has eighty different races and more than two hundred spoken languages, and the country is in constant chaos. Jose observed that currently the places worst affected by drought were all pocket areas closed off to outside aid because of bad road conditions or bandits. The southeastern region of the country was the first area to experience problems with drought, but aid to the region was never successful because of attacks on international aid groups by the Somali militia.



A meaningless war

The day after we arrived in Addis Ababa, we traveled a hundred kilometers south to Nazret. A huge government granary there could store up to 100,000 tons of food, but less than a quarter of that amount was being stored there at that time. Workers hummed simple tunes while moving food donated from many countries into the granary, and at the same time other workers were loading food onto trucks to be transported to needy areas.

I heard that Ethiopia purchased five Su-25 jet fighters from Russia for the war with Eritrea. On the way to Nazret, we passed by the heavily-guarded Mojo airbase. A blue Su-25 that cost US$20 million flew above the town on a training flight. At the same time, townsfolk on the streets were celebrating a victory against Eritrea.

In May 1998, Ethiopia again went to war with Eritrea in the long-standing dispute over their border. Because of this meaningless war, assistance from foreign countries decreased dramatically, while some countries and international organizations like the World Bank completely stopped all assistance.

In reality, these two poor countries used to have a special relationship. They were both part of the military union under the former socialist dictatorship of Mengistu Haile Mariam, and until 1993 Eritrea was a province of Ethiopia. President Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia and President Afeworki of Eritrea were also once military comrades.

The year after the Mengistu regime was overthrown in 1991, the province of Eritrea was granted autonomy. However, no one expected that Eritrea would start issuing its own currency and taxing goods heading towards Ethiopia through its ports. These events angered Ethiopia, and the unilateral declaration of independence by Eritrea in 1994 was the direct cause for war between the two countries.

The war was one cause for famine, and another major cause was natural disaster. Floods that rampaged throughout Mozambique in southern Africa should have been moistening the drought in northeastern Africa. One foreign aid worker once shouted to heaven, "It should be our rain, but it rained down in Mozambique!" Abnormal weather patterns caused by El Nino were the major cause of the drought.



Man-made and natural disasters

As we continued our journey, the parched land showed different shades of brown colors. Some fields that had just been tilled showed no sign of green sprouts anywhere. Occasional valleys moistened by rain and lush with green vegetation looked like different worlds. Ethiopia should have been a giant swath of green land this month.

The drought swept through the whole of northeastern Africa. Kassaw Gebeyaw, DPPC official in Debre Birhan, North Shewa Province, about 120 kilometers northeast of Addis Ababa, explained to us that normally there were two rainy seasons in Ethiopia. The "belg," or "small rainy season," runs from mid-February to April, and the major rainy season begins in July. However, there was no belg for two consecutive years, and that affected the planting of crops. This year, less than one percent of the expected belg crops were actually planted.

Although North Shewa Province was not the hardest hit in the country, the drought still affected 280,000 people among the total provincial population of 1.8 million. According to Gebeyaw: "When we receive reports of drought from the local health and food system, we go immediately to investigate the conditions. If the reports are true, we report back to the government and food aid comes immediately." He emphasized that the government was quite efficient in handling such situations.

The Great Rift Valley travels north-south through most areas in North Shewa Province. The steep landscapes of the valley are not only beautiful and elegant, but they are also the nursing place for the Blue Nile, the upper stream of the famous Nile River. On a plateau 2,700 meters [8,900 ft] above sea level, stony, round, mushroom-like houses stand in scattered clusters. Local farmers in white robes move slowly along the horizon, herding zebu, goats, mules, or other livestock.

"Salaam (peace)" is the greeting they use, and people always return with a bow and "Salaam!" The sterile land is full of rocks, so the people's lives have always been difficult. Years of famine and civil war have ruined much of what little they had. How they live is quite obvious from their old, torn robes and patched clothes.



A hard life

In the granary in Zereme, North Shewa, the DPPC had stored close to a million tons of grain. Bags marked with USAID and EU (European Union) were piled up neatly. Fifty thousand people out of a total population of seventy thousand had been listed to receive distributions from the DPPC. Each person could receive 12.5 kilograms [27.5 lb] of food every month. The manager of the granary told us that the distributions were on schedule, and that they had already handed out some food this month. More food from the central granary would be transported here soon.

We went to visit a local family. Medisin's husband was out herding their livestock. They and their six children lived in a round, stone, mushroom-like house that was less than 285 sq. ft in area. The house had only one door, and to keep the house warm in winter, there were no windows. It took me a long time to adjust my eyes to the darkness inside the house.

One little calf also lived in the house, and two hens and a kitten walked around. There was a bed to the left side of the house. Cookie-shaped pieces of cow dung were neatly piled on top of each other next to a tiny dung-burning stove. This small space was the warm home for the family and the livestock, and it also served as their granary. Because of the drought their own crops were not enough to feed them, so they also received food distributed from the DPPC.

A neighbor was out in the courtyard, driving cows and donkeys to tread the harvested crops, their traditional way of threshing grain. The neighbor's shouts broke the surrounding serenity and the occasional sound of blowing wind. As I looked around, I felt like I had been transported through a time tunnel back to the Middle Ages. Except for the twentieth-century road and our car, everything else still remained the same as in ancient times--no electrical wires, no pipelines.

Medisin and her daughters had to walk for miles to fetch drinking water with traditional pottery jugs. The only silver lining I could see for this family was that her daughters had begun to attend school.



Frightening figures

Figures provided by the World Food Program showed that Ethiopia has been having serious food shortages since 1984, except for only one year when they had some extra food for export. The problem lies with their primitive agricultural technology and a huge increase of fifty percent in the population in the past fifteen years. Ethiopia right now has a population of sixty million, more than eighty-five percent of which is in the farming sector. Therefore, the crops of this land can barely feed the population.

The two provinces of North Shewa and Welo are located on a plateau to the north of Addis Ababa. Some of the drought victims in these two provinces have to walk for miles--or, if they are lucky, ride donkeys or lead camels--to distribution sites in towns to receive food. Then they have to walk back home again on mountain roads to reach their families, who are longing for the arrival of the food.

Taddesse Bekele Fanta, who is in charge of the logistic services and transportation department of the DPPC, said helplessly that even if there was substantial rain as expected from July to September, the country still needed 900,000 tons of food before the end of this year. So far, he knew 790,000 tons of foreign food aid would definitely arrive. If the rainfall fell far short of expectations, Ethiopia would need at least another 300,000 tons of food.

On the road outside of the major northern city of Dese, I saw the wrecks of several Russian-made tanks. When I asked Mengistu, an Ethiopian working for the MDM, if these tanks were from the civil war in 1992, he nodded quietly. This road was also Ethiopia's main artery to Eritrea, and hundreds of thousands of soldiers and an unlimited amount of military supplies had also passed through this road to the battlefield against Eritrea in the north.

This is the most horrible border war in African history. It is estimated that 100,000 people have died in the war and more than 750,000 people have become homeless. Everything about this country is still in the Middle Ages, but ironically the weapons they use to slaughter their enemies belong to the modern era.

Many things are so hard to explain. "Famine and war are part of the destiny of Ethiopia," said one foreign diplomat. UN teams stationed in Ethiopia estimated that the cost for solving the drought problem faced by ten million Ethiopians would reach as high as US$200 million.



A ridiculous war and valuable cooperation

The Cooperative for American Remittances to Everywhere (CARE) has been in Ethiopia for many years. CARE manager Paul Baker explained to us that Ethiopia needs food, water and AIDS vaccine urgently. "Every day, eight hundred Ethiopians die from AIDS, and that means 300,000 people a year. This death toll is much higher than the people killed in the war." His words indicated the horror of a war without bullets.

For at least a week, our team was busy in the central-northern region with the opening ceremony for the hospital expansion jointly built by the Tzu Chi Foundation and the MDM in Debre Birhan. This hospital has only seventy beds, but it has to shoulder the responsibility of caring for 1.8 million people in the region. It is also the only hospital that can perform surgeries.

Since 1993, the Tzu Chi Foundation has cooperated in building fifteen clinics and two health stations in Menz and Gishe Awraja. During this visit, we saw that these clinics are still in good condition and running well. The foundation also built public drinking water systems, which are now under the care of local villagers and are still in good operation.

At the hospital, there is a stone plaque carved in Chinese, English and Amharic: "In commemoration of the love of the Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation Taiwan with the conviction of respect for all life, and Medecins du Monde in jointly sponsoring the expansion of this hospital." That's right; we came all the way from Taiwan because of our conviction of respecting life, and many other charity organizations and volunteers are also offering their strength in Ethiopia.

I tried to imagine that when Lucy was learning to walk on this soil, she would not have believed that her descendants millions of years later would be trying to kill each other and at the same time fighting together against drought, famine and AIDS on the same soil. This trip can be seen as a very serious one in search of our roots, but it also allowed me to witness both the absurdity and the dignity in human nature.