Charis Van Dusen Thatcher and Professor Lynn Curtis, International Studies
Statement of Problem:
Addis Ababa the 110 years old capital of Ethiopia with a population of 2.3 million emerged from local grass thatched roofed shanties to a densely populated city without planning. Congested living area with serious housing problem with poor housing conditions, poor health and sanitation facilities, shared latrines and kitchens, lack of proper drainage systems added to economic and social problems make life very difficult. It brings the urban poverty level to over 45 percent, positioning Ethiopia as the poorest or second poorest, least developed country in the world.
Work opportunities are minimal, nonexistent here. The paradox of needing money to go to school and needing school to get any job keeps most of at least Addis Ababa unemployed and idle. At our English Teaching class, Tigist told me she was crushed she did not get a custodial job cleaning the Branch’s building. “There is nothing else to apply for.” I am more convinced that these people do not sit around because they want to but because there is little else to do.
The people struggle with their disapproval of the government and their inability to express it. In this ‘democratic’ country the city is the worst place to be in during election days—when they exist. Votes are either coerced at gunpoint and voting booths are outside and visible to the public or the people already know who has bought enough, swayed enough votes to win that they know their democratic duty is a waste of their time. Consequently, war seems to be much a reality for Ethiopians. It is not so much a question of ‘if’ but ‘when’.
We encountered a young girl in the next village who had been circumcised, a practice some ninety percent of Ethiopian women do before marriage. She was fourteen or fifteen, filthy and scared. Her legs were tied together and she was kept in the dark musty hut until the marriage— until she is fully scarred—when she will tear again during sex. Hers was complete: labia, clitoris—even the pubic hair area is scalped essentially. She must not cry or wince; this brings shame to the parents who arranged this marriage some five or six years ago.
Methods: Laubach Methodology Training
In our two months in country, we instructed some four local NGOs with a total of ninety facilitators who individually teach three groups of twenty local woman. These facilitators were either trained or refreshed on the Literacy for Social Change Methodology. The three-day programs included reviewing a sample lesson, the teaching methodology, teacher/learner guided balance, four elements needed for social change, watching them teach their peers, giving feedback and, finally, watching them at their project site teach participants.
Discussion and Personal Insight:
Though it was of entertainment value to be among the first white people they have seen, it wears on me and I tire of it. What are we to think? Should we just give them the money they beg for? Are we just creating a dependence? Will they expect hand-outs to fix their problems later? Or are they trying to change their lives anyway and could just use whatever help one can give? I do not know and I will be frustrated until I do. I want to be generous, but I also need to take care of my own. We are not the well-off older American NGO officials that they normally see. It is a tough line to walk, not only for the individual but for donating agencies, other countries and the world.
After one night’s monsoon and moving furiously to a nearby hut, Steve and I slept the African rainy season night in damp clothes and a wet wool blanket. Maybe it was Steve’s TB-like cough or the louse infested sleeping pad (which I now have ring worm from) or the pained animals howling at 3am, but I floated in and out of sleep all night. To my embarrassment, I woke up in my blanket and underwear to the men of the village who had come for the morning coffee ceremony and breakfast. Everyone else had moved to the car before they showed up, and I found myself shaking hands with the men from my horizontal, lightly clad, ratty-hair position. But I guess none of the women ever wear tops so who was I to feel out of place.
Conclusions:
- The human mind is powerful, if we can guide it in a direction and allow it time to process. This methodology is a means to that end: allowing the intellect controlled time to analyze, assess and resolve. Simple, but brilliant.
- Social problems and disparities are even evident between NGOs. City-base MAMA’s facilitators are much quicker to understand, ask more critical questions and seem to sense a greater picture than ADAA, RCWDA and Quersa Alallah country-stationed facilitators. Critical thinking skills and functional literacy appear to be increasingly less as opportunities for education are less an option. Critical thinking skills truly permit grander vision, opened horizons when people have the ability to ask ‘why’?
- Nothing can be powerful enough to truly evoke real change unless people are emotionally (or spiritually) connected to it. In a local discussion on AIDS, I could not help but laugh and cry at the sensitivity and such personal nature of the issue. Women wept as others described their experiences of taking care of a neighbor and preparing a neighbor’s son for burial because no one else would. To hear and see these women nod and shed tears with these women was to watch a very real concern arise to be analyzed, processed and sought out some real solutions for it. I too hurt for them and was personally empowered to do the smaller things in my power to create awareness, prevention and understanding.