How about a slideshow instead?

I've decided that doing photo slideshows is going to be easier than doing regular blog entries for my trips. I will still plan to blog sometimes, but my captioned photo slides will be on Picasaweb. Here's the link for my Bolivia trip last month:

http://picasaweb.google.com/safietu/2007_08Bolivia?authkey=F6O_kxztLi8

My first stop on this trip is Ethiopia. I traveled here to conduct a workshop for our team related to early warning systems in order to better help us plan emergency relief interventions for so called “slow onset emergencies” such as droughts that can lead to food shortages. The workshop took place in northern Ethiopia in Tach Gayint, a three hour drive SE of Lake Tana.

Tach Gayint is located roughly at 3000 meters above sea level. It’s very mountainous and the temperature ranges from 50s to 70s Fahrenheit. The Amhara population of the area is hard working, cultivating potatoes and barley on steep hills on land that is tired and barely productive. FH has been in Ethiopia for over 20 years helping to increase agricultural productivity, diversify income sources and protect individual and community productive assets. As one person said during my trip, the fact that people still live here is a testament to FH’s work. The landscape is some places is peppered with reminders of past wars, such as the tank shown in this photo.

The workshop went well in spite of the fact that I sprained my ankle quite badly the first day when I misstepped in the dark into a ditch. I hobbled around on a cane for the rest of the week.

The staple food in Ethiopia is called injera. It looks likes a large pancake and it's made from slightly fermented grain (like sourdough). It's typically eaten off a common plate with sauces spread across the injera. A sign of Ethiopian hospitality is "gursha" - hand feeding your guests to encourage them to eat more in order to ensure they eat enough.

I was fortunate to be able to do a little bit of tourism at the end of the workshop to the historical city of Gondar. Located on the north end of Lake Tana it is home to the palaces of 7 Ethiopian kings from the 17^th and 18^th centuries. The original palace, belonging to Emporer Fasil. Is in the best shape (pictured on the right)

Living in Camps

One and half million people were moved into what have come to be known as “mother camps” between 1997 and 2003 for their protection and to undermine support for the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) that has been waging war against the Ugandan government for the last 20 years.

As security has improved over the last 8 months, the government is encouraging people to participate in the “decongestion” campaign and move to satellite camps closer to their original homes.

In spite of continuing feelings of insecurity, many people are very eager to move to the satellite camps. The mother camps were very cramped, and provided people with few opportunities to sustain themselves, since it was too dangerous for them to travel too far outside the camps to cultivate or conduct business activities. Thus, the international community along with the government had to provide food, and basic services such as water, sanitation facilitations and education, schooling and health services. Still, the proximity of the huts, the lack of privacy and the idleness led to many problems, such as the spread of disease, increase in alcoholism, difficulty in controlling children’s behavior, and an increase in divorce rates, among others.

In every satellite camp we went to there were new huts being constructed all over. There was a palpable feeling of joy for those re-starting their lives close to home. And yet their optimism is cautious.

There are two main reasons why people still feel insecure: the peace talks with the LRA are uncertain. In addition, the Karamajong, a fierce nomadic people in the east of Uganda and known for cattle rustling, have been attacking the Acholi communities, stealing livestock, beating people up, and sometimes raping and killing as well. The displaced in mother and satellite camps rely on soldiers from the national army to protect them and the few livestock they have, and many still do not feel they can go back to cultivating their family fields yet.

FH is distributing seeds and tools for those who will be able to plan next season, as well as continuing to provide water and sanitation facilities in a number of satellite camps.

Northern Uganda and the LRA

The north of Uganda has been in war for about 20 years. The Lord’s resistance army (LRA) has been fighting against the government, but also against its own people, without having a real cause.

One of the tactics of the LRA has been to abduct children and indoctrinate them, forcing them to kill. Abducted girls are given to LRA soldiers as wives, and many of then have born children. They are referred to as child mothers. The abductions gave rise to the night commuter phenomenon, documented so well by “Invisible Children”: children walking several kilometers from the villages to the main town to sleep on verandas, bus parks and any other place they can find to avoid being abducted.

Over the last few months, the LRA and the government of Uganda have been negotiating a peace deal. The negotiations broke down in January and there are efforts to restart them.

And yet, in the last 8 months things have improved significantly in the north. Most aid organizations no longer travel with military escort. The number of attacks has decreased significantly. The night commuters now come in 20s and 30s instead of 2000s or 3000s. The LRA are presumed to be largely in southern Sudan, the DRC and even CAR. But some are still in Uganda.

Some colleagues and I took a day trip in a 5-seater airplane to Dadaab in Eastern Kenya, which is host to 170,000 Somali refugees, spread out in 3 camps. The camps are some distance from the border, and have been there for 16 years. But almost half of those refugees came to Kenya within the last few months due to insecurity caused by fighting between the transitional government and the Union of Islamic Courts.

The UN and its NGO (non-governmental organization) partners have done quite a good job of managing the camps and providing for the basic needs of the refugees. Security is quite strict, and it is necessary to have an escort for travel between each of the camps and the UN/NGO bases. The Government of Kenya does not allow the refugees to leave the Dadaab area, and so they have little or no opportunity to provide for themselves. This is a very arid part of Kenya, and not much grows here. Many Somalis are pastoralists and a number of the refugees have animals that they graze in the areas surrounding the camps. But basic food and non-food commodities, water, health care and education have to be provided by the international c infrastructure in that country. Thus, their time in the camps provides a unique opportunity to the international community.

In spite of these provisions, malnutrition rates in the camps are very high, and the organizations working there have come to the conclusion that it is not for lack of food. For example, the mother in this picture seems to be in very good health, compared to her visibly malnourished baby. The reasons seem to lie in the infant and young child feeding practices, such as giving babies sugar water after birth, giving babies liquids (such as animal milks) other than breastmilk during the first six months, giving weaning foods that do not have enough nutrients, etc. We heard that the number of admissions to the nutrition centers increases after Ramadan, indicating that some young children fast during that time like the adults. This is an area that we are ommunity. Here the refugees have exposure to education and health practices that they might not have in Somalia due to the poorhoping to do more research on so we can find ways of addressing the issues.

While in Kenya I also go to visit my old boss Keith and his family and to meet the darling Kenyan baby they are adopting – Fiona.

And I had a special treat before I left Kenya - I overlapped for two hours at the Nairobi airport with my brother Steve who lives in Niger.

Assessment mission to Chad

I spent the end of January/early February in Chad with a team of 6 other people representing a total of 5 organizations to assess needs in Chad an opportunities for intervention.

We started out in the capital N’Djamena, where I celebrated my birthday with the assessment team members and also with my friend from grad school Simeon who is working there as a nutritionist.

We spent most of our time in the eastern part of the country which borders Darfur, and shares many commonalities with that part of Sudan, such as the topography, some of the people groups, desertification, a rapidly shrinking water table, tension between “arab” nomadic pastoralists and sedentary farmers, and unfortunately, political conflict.

We stayed in the eastern city of Abéché with another NGO who kindly hosted us. During the day we met with people working in the refugee camps and/or assisting displaced Chadians and local villages, and in the evening we hung out with our hosts, since a curfew prevented us from venturing too far. One of the more adventurous parts of or stay with them involved preparing and tasting a local delicacy: locusts (fried with lemon and salt, and minus the wings and legs).

Access to the 12 refugee camps that house the 230,000 Darfuri refugees can be difficult because of security, but we were able to visit Gaga camp 1 ½ hours out of Abéché. Thanks to its relative accessibility, this could be considered the “Hilton” of the refugee camps, with a good medical clinic, sufficient water, access to some agricultural land and basic veterinary services for those refugees lucky enough to still have animals.

But don’t get the wrong idea, this is still a refugee camp, and most of the people living here lost everything they had when the fled their homeland. It was heartening that in spite of the difficult life, the people were friendly and welcoming, and the children especially, were excited to see us!

Four members of our team (not including me) spent some time in the refugee camp and IPD (internally displaced people) settlements farther south in the Goz Beida area. They visited the village from which some of the IPDs originated, which had been attacked and burned to the ground just after the harvest last October. 40 men of the 2,500 inhabitants were killed, some of the women were taken away for several days and abused, and all the animals and harvested grain were stolen. The villagers said the attackers were “Janjawit” (armed men on horses) from Sudan, but it’s often difficult to tell who the culprits are exactly. Now they live in an improvised settlement, competing with the local villagers, other IDPs and the refugees for water, agricultural land to borrow or rent and jobs, in order to get by (photo of burned village by Ray Buchanan).

Insecurity is caused by the presence of a number of armed groups who attack at will: Chadian rebels trying to overthrow the government, who are sometimes allied with Darfuri rebel groups, “Janjawit” who could be Sudanese or Chadian, and bandits.

The IDPs for the most part are worse off than the refugees, since they do not receive consistent assistance. IDPs technically are the responsibility of national governments, and in the absence of forthcoming assistance from the latter, it is not always clear who should step in with a mandate to look after them. This is a gap that our team identified and we hope that we will be able to step in and help to fill this gap.

Photos by David Lynn: Girls getting water from a borehole and man drinking filthy water from an unprotected well.

Early Warning Survey in Northern Kenya

After a couple of weeks back in Washington, I was off again. First stop: Marsabit District in Northern Kenya to work with the Food for the Hungry team on an Early Warning (EW) survey for food shortages. This area is drought prone, making life periodically difficult for the nomadic and semi-nomadic pastoralists as well as for the farmers. The purpose of our EW system is to detect signs that people's food security is getting worse in time to plan interventions so as to prevent or mitigate food crises. My survey team was assigned to North Horr and Kalacha areas, not far from the Ethiopian border. We covered about 700 km in 5 days. Oh, the joys of being bounced for hours on dusty, bumpy roads! (I hope those for whom English is not a native language caught the sarcasm in that comment).

First a couple of survival tips:
They say a hot cup of tea is the best way to cool off in the desert heat. Here we are having tea with camel milk, which is the staple for the Gabra.
Wearing a headscarf is often thought to have religious significance, but in this area women who are Muslims, Christians and those who practice traditional religions all tend to cover their head. I tried to probe on the reasons for this and didn't get farther than that oft-quoted line from Fiddler on the Roof - "Tradition!" Nevertheless, I can also see that there are very practical reasons for wearing a head covering: it protects your hair, neck and ears from dust and sun. Furthermore, though the landscape looks deceptively calm, in many places there is a very strong wind, and the headscarf keeps your hair from becoming hopelessly tangled from the wind. So you will see many pictures of Fatouma, Mary and myself with our heads covered.

The population here is mainly Gabra, and almost all of them are pastoralists. They keep shoats (sheep and goats) and camels, and some also keep cows. Typically it is the children who look after the herds. The Gabra live in round huts made with a frame of sticks and covered with animal hides, cloth, cardboard and anything else they can find,and topped with a thatch roof.

Note: I was told these women were not wearing a headscarf probably because they had just oiled their hair and didn't want to stain the cloth.

Women are the ones responsible for building the houses.









The man in this picture is taking a pinch of tobacco mixed with salt from a small pouch to chew on. The small stick in his turban is a traditional toothbrush; the twig of a particular tree that is rubbed against the teeth to clean them. It is quite effective!


Our stay in North Horr coincided with the New Moon festival, during which the Gabra and neighboring tribes have a number of rituals, which have some striking similarities to the original Jewish passover, including the killing and roasting of a goat (and the stipulation that is has to be all cooked that day) and putting blood from the goat on the doorposts. The eldest son gets a special mark on his forehead, such the one sported by one of our staff who is from this area.


People often ask me where I stay when I travel. Answer: it depends. In the capital cities I often stay in a hotel or with friends if I happen to have some that live there. In rural areas, the accommodations range considerably. In North Horr for instance, we stayed a lodge on the edge of Chalbi desert. It was simple, clean, with a dirt floor.In all these places it is imperative to sleep under a mosquito net, unless you want to be eaten alive. It was tempting to sleep outside because the rooms were hot and stuffy, but the sightings of scorpions and a couple poisonous spiders dissuaded us from pursuing that option.

The shower here (pictured left) was quite clever, I thought - an oil drum with a spigot mounted on a platform. The open ceiling offered a great view of Orion, Taurus and the Seven Sisters as you showered. The small building you see in back to the right of the shower is the pit latrine we used.

The survey was pretty grueling. Fortunately the questionnaire was relatively short, and people were generally friendly. For most of the interviews we looked for a slightly shady spot alongside the houses. On a few occasions we were invited inside, and other interviews took place under trees or at the well. I mostly observed, but also gave guidance on the questionnaire as needed.

Most of the Gabras we encountered really don't like to have their pictures taken, and they also get upset if you photograph their animals. The believe that taking a picture reduces their blood. But I did find a few people who were more than willing to have their picture taken, as long as showed them the pictures on the camera screen.

One thing I'm often curious about is what children play with in different places. This interest probably stems from a project I worked on in graduate school that considered the psycho-social environment in which children live as they develop. I was delighted to find kids in one village playing with blocks of wood. Given that wood is not a common construction material (aside from branches), I was surprised to find them. Here they are showing me how they make a house from them.

I saw very few animals besides the above-mentioned livestock. But we did chance upon a couple of ostriches and some pretty birds. However, the most interesting sighting on the animal front was a pair of camels mating by the side of the road!

Christmas in Guatemala

Welcome to my blog! It seems fitting that my first entry should be about the country of my birth, Guatemala. I spent Christmas 2006 there with my parents and my brother Ben (pictured here with me). My other brother Steve and his wife Beth could not make it, since they just moved to Niger, West Africa. As per tradition we lit fireworks at midnight on the 24th after eating a traditional tamal (made of maize with meat and sauce, wrapped in a banana leaf and steamed). It was all muy alegre (very fun) as we like to say.


One of the highlights of the trip, besides spending time with family and old friends, included visiting the contemporary art gallery owned by Ben's girfriend's family called Sol del Rio. It is one of only two contemporary art galleries in Central America. The photograph you see in this picture is by Luis Gonzalez Palma, one of Guatemala's most famous artists.


Then there was the tour of the mushroom lab where Ben's girfriend Maria Rene works; it is one of two places in Guatemala that produces shitake and oyster mushrooms. It's quite an involved process that involves reproducing mushroom spores, innoculating sorghum grain with the spores and placing them into a sterilized bed of sawdust, keeping them in a dark room until they start to "flower" and then keeping them moist until the 'shrooms are ready to harvest. Now I know why they are so expensive!

Mari is also experimenting with a new variety called "Hen of the Woods" shown here: