I'm home!

I’ve been out of internet range for the last 10 or 11 days – it feels like a dream world ago, but I’ve had the privilege of spending the last week and a half with our 2011 Ethiopia UNION Team…

5 young, thoughtful & enthusiastic Grade 11 & 12 students and 3 dedicated leaders of Run For Water, including the students’ history/geography teacher. They were a fantastic team! As always, it’s just a little sad at the end of a UNION trip – I’ll miss them! I really liked this team – they were all so positive & supportive, grateful, and eager to learn and be put to the task of thinking & talking their experiences through, and putting their passion, creativity, and energy into future action. So, I’m happy to send them off back home to keep working out together as a tight-knit team what this trip will mean for them and for their futures. Run For Water will be pushing towards their $300,000 fundraising goal for clean water projects in Ethiopia this year. And for the students, looking ahead to finishing the last months (or year) of high school, they’ve got the world as their oyster, bright and promising futures and all the possibilities in the world ahead of them – something that they realized through the trip is an amazing privilege. The next 5-10 years will be very formative years for them, and I’m glad really glad that they chose to have this UNION experience as an early part of that journey from high school to the rest of their adult lives. I have a feeling they will all be movers and shakers in their lives as well as their communities.

For now, a couple along-the-journey pictures, until I get the more story-ful photos sorted out. But anyways, we did spend a lot of time on the road – luckily we were in good company. :)

From the capital city, up and down mountains and through the countryside, to HOPE’s project camp site in Southern Ethiopia and six rural villages in the area in various stages of development, we bumped and bounced along by jeep for more than 1500 km to enter into the world of poverty and development in Ethiopia.

 

 

And for all the bumps in the road (literally, and figuratively - from early mornings and long travels, to blazing sun and high altitudes, to lots of patience for African time, to spiders, to a plague of coughs and sore throats that spread through the team, and so on!), I think that we really did come to know, learn, and understand some of the needs in urban and rural areas – and possibilities for changes that meet those needs, sustainably.

In our debrief time while still miles away from home, our team has been reflecting on our experiences to bring out stories to share that really capture what they most want to share. So that is what I will do as well… soon! But until then, here’s at least  a little taste of the students really wanted to bring home:

•  Clean water is a privilege for us…  We haven’t done anything to earn it or deserve it, and it is nothing to take for granted or feel entitled to. That people work SO hard, for dirty water, is injustice.

• Poverty is common… it's not just the “unfortunate few” that experience the misfortune of having less than others…Poverty is real and insufficiency & daily struggle is the situation of many, many, many people

• Development that enables people to look beyond just surviving today brings freedom and hope to be able to aspire for the future

• To address poverty, women have to be involved!

It’s been an packed-full, exhausting but also energizing-because-so-inspiring 10 days. It’s one thing to know need exists and projects exist. It’s another to see them firsthand and hear from communities and families that are really, and joyfully & incredibly actually moving from poverty towards a better future with the resources to help themselves. And to see young people take it in and make sense of it in a personal way… that is just pretty darn awesome. 

I am – really – awed by HOPE’s work in Ethiopia, and to be connected with the truly amazing local staff and ongoing projects there! I’ll share more stories and pictures soon! 

xoxo

Rainbow