What an Ethiopian village needs

Today — Day 11 of the Run Across Ethiopia, which has now taken us to the southern, coffee-growing town of Yirgachefe — Northern Express journalist Anne Stanton and I visited Hase Gola, the scene of yesterday’s raucous welcome celebration and the site of the first school that On the Ground Global will build here. Hase Gola is desperately poor and largely cut off from the outside world. The purpose of our visit was to meet local coffee farmers and learn about their daily life and needs, and how a school will help improve life in the village.

The first video below is taken inside a coffee farmer’s meager hut. Notice the smoke, the sun shining through cracks, the cracked mud ground, and the meager sleeping space. I’ll post more videos throughout the day:

Here’s the local “tej” bar in Hase Gola, where locals drinking fermented mead for 1 Birr (about 7 cents) a glass:

Anne and I presented schoolchildren with notebooks, pencils, crayons and other school supplies donated by a school in Ohio (and carried here by runner Claire Everhart). School wasn’t in session today though on account of the Epiphany holiday.