I know there are a lot of people that follow this blog from Europe, so I wanted to mention an event that will take place next week in Italy. In the city of Milan, the 20th Festival of African Cinema will run from March 15th to March 21st.
There is a long list of films, not only from Africa but also from Latin America and Asia.
From Ethiopia two films will be shown: Sankofa, the 1993 classic film by Haile Gerima; and the new documentary film by Ethiopian born director Dagmawi Yimer, C.A.R.A. Italia.
This last film narrates the story of two young men refugees from Somalia that lived in a center for asylum seekers in Italy while they waited for their legal papers as refugees, and then when they got them they suffered the frustration of not getting a place to live or nothing to eat in the new land.
Dagmawi Yimer also arrived as a refugee in Italy not so long ago, after escaping political persecution in Ethiopia. He’s the author of several films, among them, Like a Man on Earth.

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Many times at home we talk about how great it would be to spend some time in Ethiopia with the children so they can learn the Amharic language and have a chance to immerse in their native culture.
It’s almost impossible now to do that. Work, school, money and everyday life keep us firmly in place here where we live, but we hope that some day, hopefully not so far away in time, we would be able to go back and enjoy the country.
I know from my own personal experience that the best way to learn about a culture is to live in it. Tourism is great as recreation, but barely scratches the surface of what a culture has to offer.
Among the new trends in tourism, there is something called “voluntourism” which is supposed to be a cross between tourism and doing volunteer work. In voluntourism, you “pay” to volunteer, to have a chance to live the “real” life of the locals and do some good. It sounds good, right?
Well, I feel that there is something “fake” about it, I still don’t know what it is, but it doesn’t make me feel good.
I guess it is because I think it has been created to make the privileged people of the world feel less guilty about how most of the rest of the world lives. It’s cleverly marketed as if the money spending tourist “makes a difference”. Maybe in some way it is that way, I don’t know, because tourists can see with their own eyes how the less fortunate live and supposedly that will change the way they see other cultures.
Mmm, no, still doesn’t feel good…
I can’t stop picturing in my mind those white overweight tourists once they get back home to their upscale neighborhoods and tell their friends how hungry, dirty, and ignorant those “poor third world people” are. They paid good money to have the chance to witness the misery of others.
I don’t know, maybe it is just me… but it feels like exploitation instead of really making a difference.
Maybe it’s because I’ve been on the other side of the equation. Even when my life was never really bad when I was in Argentina, I’ve seen people coming from other parts of the world to “help” us, poor little savages. How they would spend a couple of weeks teaching English and be able to see up close how we, the “uneducated” ones live, to then run back home to seat in front of their huge TV screens and feel good about themselves.
I’m on the other side now, I have the big TV and the privilege, but I don’t want to wash my guilt doing “voluntourism”. 
I’m not against volunteer work and I’ve done it many times, but to do tourism and disguising it as volunteer work sounds a bit phony, specially when you go to a country from which you don’t even know the language.
If I ever have the chance to travel to Ethiopia again, I think I would prefer to do some kind of community tourism, something like the TESFA project. A kind of tourism run by locals, that gives work to Ethiopians, helps them manage and protect their environment and resources and also empowers them to make a change in their country.
Or if I really want to experience the real life, maybe the answer is to go and work there, real work. I mean to live there and work side by side with the Ethiopians like one of them and not from a position of privilege. Maybe that’s something that my children would like to do in the future, I hope they do. That feels more real…

Links:
Voluntourism.org
Volunteerlogue.com
Voluntourism – Pros, Cons, and Possibilities
The Luxury Voluntourism Debate
The Argentimes: Voluntourism – Holiday or Help?
Voluntario Global - Argentina

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44 pounds, twice a day. That’s what many Ethiopian women have to carry on their backs during most of their lives to have clean water.
“Clean water” is more a wish than a fact, since this water comes from hand dug wells and it is untreated and usually dirty, but it’s what many people have to drink, cook and wash.
Maybe some of you already watched the 80 min documentary 44 pounds by producers Mike McCamon and Ashleigh Reimer, but for me it was the first time.
The documentary is mostly filmed in real time and follows the journey of Birhane from her village to the community well to gather water for her family.
The film starts with her morning chores very early in the day, and then follows her when she leaves her two children alone in the house and join the village’s women in the long 2 mile walk to pick up water with their 44 pound plastic jugs.
It takes them about 30 minutes to reach the well, then 30 to 60 minutes to fill all the jugs and another 30 minutes to go back to the village. Actually the way back takes a little longer, because the women are carrying the 44 pounds of water on their backs.
This long walk happens twice a day for most of their lives, since the women carry water from when they are 12 years old until they are old. That’s roughly 4 hours a day just to provide themselves with enough water for their daily needs, or 1,460 hours a year. Let’s suppose that these women are able to reach the “old age” of 50, then the would be walking to fetch water for 38 years, and 55,480 hours of their hard lives would be spent on that task alone.
But this is a risky task. The water is not treated, so it can carry diseases that can affect the women health and their families. The women can be attacked by men or by wild animals, so that’s why the walk during the day. Also, the constant heavy weight on the backs on the usually malnourished women, will affect first their development and then their overall health. Many won’t reach their 50’s.
As I said before, the movie was filmed in real time, so the majority of it, is just people walking. Women walking on their way to the well, on rocky terrain carrying empty water jugs for 1/2 an hour, then women walking on rocky terrain on their way back home carrying the jugs filled with water on their backs. No dialogue, just a few captions highlighting the facts, but mostly just them walking, talking or holding hands. Boring, right? Maybe.
But make an effort and accompany them in their journey to get water. For you is going to be just 80 minutes of your time, for them is 240 minutes a day, 87,600 minutes a year, 3,328,800 minutes of their lives just to get enough water to survive.

Links:
Water.org
44 pounds on Vimeo.com

 
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I just realized that I’ve been talking about injera for a while, but never posted anything about the main ingredient, teff flour, or more precisely about the grain teff.
Teff (ጤፍ ) or “Eragrostis tef” is an ancient grass that originated between 4000 BC to 1000 BC in Ethiopia and has been cultivated for centuries. The name teff  means "lost" because grains spilled on the ground are so small that they are lost. Actually is the smallest grain in the world, so tiny that it takes 150 teff grains to equal a single grain of wheat.
It was first described in western literature by James Bruce, a Scottish travel writer that went to Africa to try to find the source of the Blue Nile.
It has many advantages over wheat and other grains. Nutritionally, teff consists mainly of bran and germ, and contains no gluten - a source of many food allergies. It’s ideal for people suffering from celiac disease. Teff is rich in calcium, phosphorous, iron, copper, aluminum, barium and thiamin, and is a good source of protein, amino acids (especially lysine), carbohydrates and fiber.
Teff may be used as a substituted for seeds, nuts or other small grains when baking, as a thickener for soups, stews, gravies and puddings, to make grain burgers, and in stir- fries and casseroles.
Animals seem to love teff too, specially horses, and it is also used to feed llamas and alpacas that sometimes have difficulty digesting hay.
It is now cultivated in the US too, particularly in Idaho. It’s a warm season annual grass that requires a frost free growing season and it has been lately used as a hay crop between alfalfa rotations here in the US. Very few disease and pest problems have been observed in the teff crops and it can be grown in most locations, without insecticides or fungicides.
It has some set backs, though. Since the grain is so small, it is difficult to harvest and later to convert into flour with the regular machinery used with other grains here in the US. Also some researchers in Ethiopia say that teff is one of the culprits of soil erosion in that country.
You don’t need to make injera to take advantage of the nutritional benefits of this grain, just add teff flour to regular wheat flour when baking. Since it has no gluten, if you use it alone, you should add some type of yeast.
I use teff when I make pizza, about 2/3 wheat flour and 1/3 teff flour and it tastes delicious, or if you prefer 50/50. Actually teff pizzas are the best I have ever tasted!
Injera is the first solid food that Ethiopian children eat and it is said that anemia is rare in Ethiopians that eat teff regularly since the grain is so rich in iron. It is so easy to digest for babies, that it’s ideal to make purées.

Links:
Bob’s Red Mill
Teff Co
True Foods Market
Abyssinian Market
Garden Spot Distributors
ConAgra Mills
Teff Co. Recipes
Versagrain Teff Recipes
Teff is blooming in the fields of northwest Kansas – The Ethiopian Reporter
Teff: Food Crop for Humans and Animals

Teff Grass (Eragrosttis Abyssinica): A Valuable Hay and Pasture Grass for Arid and Semi-Arid Tropical and Warm-Temperate Regions [ 1916 ] by Joseph Burtt-Davy	People Of The Plow: An Agricultural History Of Ethiopia, 1800-1990 by James C. Mccann
Plant Genetic Resources of Ethiopia by J. M. M. Engels, J. G. Hawkes, M. Worede.	Food Culture in Sub-Saharan Africa by Fran Osseo-Asare

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For those who live in London or are planning to visit the city, there are to upcoming exhibitions at The British Museum that seem quite interesting.
The first one is called Impressions of Africa: money, medals and stamps and will show images of Africa that illustrated coins, banknotes, medals and stamps during the past 100 years. The display includes art from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, French West Africa, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Zimbabwe. This event will last from April 1st 2010 to February 6th 2011 with free admission, so there is plenty of time to see it.
The second event, Kingdom of Ife: sculptures from West Africa seems even more appealing. The subject of the exhibition are sculptures made in brass, copper, stone and terracotta that belong to what it was the Kingdom of Ife (modern south-west Nigeria).
The art is amazing and for those of us who can’t go and see it in person, here is a promotional video made by The British Museum.
This is a shorter exhibit that will run from March 4th to June 6th 2010 and you need to buy a ticket to be able to see it.

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Frère Jacques, frère Jacques,
Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous?
Sonnez les matines! Sonnez les matines!
Din, dan, don. Din, dan, don.
Frère Jacques, French Version

Are you sleeping, are you sleeping
Brother John, brother John,
Morning bells are ringing, morning bells are ringing,
Ding, ding, dong. Ding, ding, dong.
Frère Jacques, English Version

We all know the famous children’s song Frère Jacques, but very few know the Amharic version of it.
Feven loves music, and specially to sing songs, so she is learning many songs and rhymes, mostly in English, some in Spanish, but this is our first try to sing a song in Amharic. She already knows the French, English and Spanish versions of the song, but now I’m trying to teach her the Amharic one.
She still messes up all the languages and has a preference for the English version but I hope she will learn it soon.
If you want to teach it to your children, here is an approximate transliteration of the Amharic lyrics:

Wendime Yakob, Wendime Yakob
Tegnag Wey, Tegnag Wey
Dewil Tedewele, Dewil Tedewele
Tenesa, Tenesa

You can find a longer version of the song in Amharic in Volume 1 of The Life of Childhood CD:

(BTW, the drawing on the cover of the CD is a bit scary…)

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We went to San Diego for the President’s Day holiday. The idea was to run away from the cold and the rain, at least for a while. I’m not a fan of theme parks or anything that has to do with big crowds, but I promised the children (or I should say Dylan) that I would make an exception and take them to LegoLand.  Sigh…
Oh well, at least we survived.
We rented a small apartment two blocks from Mission Beach, half a block from Mission Bay but we spent most of our stay outside in line for several “you can’t miss this” rides. Honestly I would have preferred to go only to the beach, I really don’t get theme parks: overpriced tickets, large crowds, cranky kids, loud music, lame entertainment, crappy expensive food… and I could go on and on.
I didn’t like LegoLand at all, most of the rides are intended for taller children like Dylan, but the problem is that they are suited more for younger kids. So there was Dylan, doing baby things for his age and the two that wanted to go and would have enjoyed them more, Feven and Feromsa, were crying and frustrated because they had to stay out just watching.
But we fell into the trap of theme parks, not once, but twice, because the next day we went to Sea World…
Yes, the animals at Sea World are cute, smart, and dangerous, but I won’t be back for a long, long time.
The best moment in Sea World was when Miguel took the children to watch a 4D movie (??) and I had some time for myself to wander around. I ended up in the manatee conservation area. There was practically no people around but me and two beautiful manatees swimming / dancing in a big tank. That’s really the kind of Sea World I prefer, just a moment alone watching animals. Honestly I prefer the Oregon Coast Aquarium, less people, no rides… just fish. Way better place and cheaper.
And if I want to spend a day with the children in an old fashion amusement park, we can go to Oaks Park here in Portland. 
The last day of our stay we went to the beach. We got wet and enjoyed the waves, we walked the boardwalk by the ocean, ate some spaghetti, took some pictures, and relaxed in the sun. That’s the kind of San Diego I like!

Disneyland… forget about me!

Note: Just when I was ready to publish this post I learned that a whale at Sea World, Florida,  killed a trainer. I don’t like animals in cages or tanks unless the purpose of that is to help in the conservation of some species. I don’t know much about Sea World, and how the whales ended up in such small tanks performing for the crowds, but there is something sad about it… Sad and tragic, for the trainer that died and for the whale that is just an animal forced to live inside a small place and do her “tricks” over and over again.
Believe? I don’t think so… I won’t be back to Sea World ever again.

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Even when Jose Cendón is a “ferenji”, he has been working in East Africa since 2004 and he is now based in Addis Ababa.
He’s an Spanish photographer born in Venezuela that has won 1st prize in the World Press Photo Contest in 2007 for his work in the psychiatric hospitals of the Great Lakes Region of Africa. 
In 2008, he was kidnapped by Somali pirates and was later liberated after 40 days in captivity; he wrote a book about that experience too.
He mostly does journalistic work but some of his photographs are truly amazing. Like the series I mentioned before that shows the hundreds of mental patients, victims of war in Africa, that usually the news ignore.
 

He, of course, takes plenty of photos in Ethiopia, and you will find that many photographs that illustrate the news about that country have been taken by Jose Cendón:

Links:

World Press Photo: Jose Cendón
Lightstalkers: Jose Cendón
Valencian Institute Of Modern Art shows Jose Cendon’s photos of war and trauma

 

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Two events are taking place at this time in Europe. Unfortunately I can’t attend, but maybe some of you are living close enough to go. 
The first one is the ARCO 2010 in Madrid Spain. This time there is an event called Arte inVisible with works of African photographers, among them my favorite, Ethiopian artist Aida Muluneh.
The other event is CinemAfrica, an African Film Festival taking place in Stockholm, Sweden between the 24th to 28th of February 2010.
The Ethiopian movie Atletu (The Athlete) will be shown.

Don’t miss it!

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Ethiopia is well known for its runners, but did you know that they also have Olympic skiers? Even when there is no snow in Ethiopia, and nowhere to practice any kind of winter sport, a smart athlete figured out how to train and compete.
His name is Robel Teklemariam and he’s the only pro-skier from Ethiopia. He has lived in the US since he was 9 years old and contrary to what I wrote about other athletes living in America, he competes under the Ethiopian nationality.
According to himself, he doesn’t think he has a chance to win any medal in the current Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, but he has a bigger goal: to open a door for other Ethiopian athletes to start practicing and competing in winter sports.
He is the founder of the Ethiopian National Skiing Federation and this is the second time he enters to compete in a Winter Olympics, so he is not only a dreamer but an achiever.
 
Since Ethiopians are really good runners, there is a great chance that they will do well in a sports like cross country ski. That’s why he hopes to attract the attention of Ethiopians living in colder climates who are willing to train in that sport and compete for that country.
He is passionate about ski and about Ethiopia.

Links:
Ethiopian National Skiing Federation


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