When it rains, it pours . . .

I suppose many other MCC programs around the world could write this blog. Ethiopia is hurting. It began with a lack of normal rains in February-March. The normal dry season from October to February turns everything brown and thus rain is needed to ‘green things up.’ Also to begin the first planting of the season. But there was to be no planting in the desert dry soil. Then when the rains did come in May and the farmers planted, another plague besides drought hit the corn crop. Being as the soil was much warmer, when the rains hit it, army worm larvae popped out of the ground and found the tender shoots of corn ready to eat. The crop was devastated.

But that wasn’t all. Prices for all food basics had been rising in the past year; livestock, grains, oil, sugar and, especially here in Ethiopia, the staples of teff and berbere. Not just 5 or 10% mind you, 100 to 200% in some cases. Imagine people who make the equivalent of $1-2 USD per day and were just surviving a year ago on that 10-20 Birr, now all food staples have gone up but wages are not going up near as fast, particularly in the agrarian countryside. What can the family head do?

What should the government do? There have been no riots over food prices here like in other countries and we’re glad about that. But I’m not sure why. The government does have a feeding system in place and lots of foreign aid helps. A familiar sight since March, at least in the city of Addis, has been the large feed sacks of wheat that say US AID in large letters. The government was handing them out free to the poor families in the kebeles (districts) all over the city. If you are registered at your local kebele then you are to go to the kebele office on a certain day of the week (based on your name), wait in a long line all morning for your sack of wheat. In April one could get the grain if one registered to vote. Is that encouraging democracy or bribing the poor?

A ship laden with Canadian wheat is just arrived this week at the docks in Djibouti. The wheat comes from Canadian Foodgrains Bank (CFGB) partners, all the church denominations in Canada, with strong assistance from the Canadian government. For every dollar raised by CFGB through their partners, and ordinary Canadians, the Canadian government gives 4 more dollars through CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency, the counterpart to US AID).

This grain will be given to partners of CFGB here in Ethiopia. MCC’s partner, Meserete Kristos Church Relief and Development Agency (MKC-RDA) is one of those partners. We are the intermediary, the liaison between CFGB and RDA. The grain will be unloaded within the week at the docks onto trucks which will then be trucked to the various regions in Ethiopia where all the partners are working, from the Ogaden region in the east to the Borena region in south and to the Southern Nations & Nationalities People Region (SNNPR) where MCC and RDA work.

It all sounds so straightforward. But there is a story behind this too of course. A story about how it almost didn’t happen . . .