Street Dreamers David van Reen

PREFACE:
Ethiopia is the most beautiful country in Africa. You will find the most beautiful nature there: mountains and deserts and lakes. And however diverse the people are, they are especially pure. By western standards they may be poor, but they are rich by the way they live and treat each other. Despite the plagues of the climate, which lashes them sometimes with long-term droughts or devastating rains, they are optimistic by nature. This attitude is at least partly rooted in their belief that prosperity comes from God and setbacks come from the devil. Their rock-solid faith in God, and the certainty that they will prosper in the afterlife, makes them accept the poor conditions in which they live and the vagaries of the climate affecting them like the plagues of Egypt.

“Allahu Akbar,” “God is great” said the imam at the small grave. In the village of Kersa, in southern Ethiopia, a baby was buried. Alongside the grave were three more new children’s graves. The rain had just arrived in June. Too late to save the harvest of corn and tef. Food prices had skyrocketed. Hunger was the result. And the children were the first victims.
What always amazes me when there is a famine is that there are many cattle around. Cows are abundant, and use too much land. Goats eat any tree or shrub so that, in densely populated areas, hardly any original tree survives. Planted acacias are all that remain. You wonder why the farmers in times of famine did not slaughter and eat their animals, at least to save their children. I understand: it goes against the culture of Ethiopian farmers. Historically, when they were with much less, the cattle was the pride and prestige of the farmer, their greatest asset. So they want to maintain it at all costs, even in these days of a massive population explosion. Outdated norms and values are also maintained by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and Islam. These religions are each adopted by half of the population. They ensure that people get far too many children. More than they can ever feed by their outdated farming methods.

In general most of them will be undernourished their whole lives. In the end also the cattle succumbs and on TV the images of landscapes are shown full of cow carcasses, feasted upon by the vultures. If only the people had eaten the cattle, I would think. Then support comes, like Live Aid, help initiated by Bob Geldof after a long dry period, in 1986. Much too late. And often with unfortunate consequences. Famines, one after another, sometimes caused by drought, sometimes by prolonged rain, keep the people dependent on food aid. Surpluses from the western world are distributed for free. Even when the harvests are normal again, the food distribution remains. So the farmers can not compete with the United Nations Food Supplies and can not sell their crops, as these are of lesser quality. (see photo page 81). It takes away the courage for the next crop to be sown. The need to work in order to survive is gone. And that a following crop failure and hunger will be the possible effect, if help arrives, too late because of impassable roads, or does not come at all because of a more urgent disaster elsewhere in Africa. It is this culture which makes people frequently fatalistic, and reluctant to take matters into their own hands. They just wait for what tomorrow brings, what god gives and what the devil takes.

Often I have been to places in countries like Ethiopia and Kenya, where poverty reigns and hungry people are needlessly suffering and die, because they can not afford medicine. For example, in Axum a mother of four daughters died in front of the hospital, because she could not pay the six euro for a malaria drug that could save her life. Still, several international aid organisations were present on the spot, but they were too busy with meetings, compiling records of their bureaucracies and cleaning their air conditioned SUV”s, with which they race through the country. In their organizations much of the available money is spent for the maintenance of the organization itself. All those hundreds of aid agencies are closing their eyes for the children and old people on the street in Addis and in all other Ethiopian cities. Why not help the street children? Why let the old people lie in the muck?

Religious people, such as Orthodox Christians and Muslims in Ethiopia, give poverty a name: the Devil. Thus they deny their own responsibility. Often they live permanently in poverty, not only caused by natural disasters and bad harvests, but also because they remain dependent on the age-old habits. Wasting productive time with over one hundred religious holidays during which they do not work, with chewing and cultivating the drug quat and with making day-long trips to markets, churches and mosques. All this time lost stands in the way of development. The men like to sit under a tree to palaver and let their women do the work. Women and girls – often pregnant - carry goods, fetch water from rivers, sometimes miles away, collect wood, cook and do the laundry, meanwhile caring for the children. The husbands demand more children, even though half of the children die before they are five years old. Previously, the children were helping hands in the fields, but also the facilities for the old days because parents continued to live with their children. In many Ethiopian farms you’ll find four generations under one roof. (Photo Marut 100 years) These days it is still common for kids to work on the land, or to beg in order to survive. Therefore they cannot go to school and will remain poor all their lives. Because of malnutrition and poor health, they die on average before the age of forty. Half of the children in Ethiopia do not attend school, because they live in accordance to outdated traditions.

They say that it is getting better in Africa, that Ethiopia realises an economic growth, but every year I see more beggars in the streets. The gap between rich and poor is widening. A small group of people owns nearly everything. The majority of people do not know how to survive. The future is looking grim. In 2040, Ethiopia will have 150 million people, twice as many as today. Eighty per cent of the inhabitants are below the 20 years of age. The land is getting scarcer and is a source of conflicts, especially now that Ethiopia has leased thousands of acres of land leased to Saudi Arabia and China. In spite of the economic growth, according to bank figures, comparatively few people profit of it. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The poor are forced by crop failures, disease and hunger, to move to the big city of Addis Ababa, hoping to find work. But as most of them are uneducated, nobody hires them and they languish in the streets, already crowded by those who arrived before them. People who in no way integrate into the rapidly changing world; and their traditional way of life makes them fall behind permanently. In Ethiopia, one finds millions of people living an ancient lifestyle, like in the time of the Bible, next to the western city dwellers in the metropolis Addis Abeba, who maintain a modern way of life and benefit from the new era, but close their eyes for those who do not stand a chance.

I try to understand the world of the poor. I write about it, as in my novel “ENGEL DER WRAKE/Avenging Angel” that is set in the slums of Nairobi. And I make pictures that I often look back upon with bewildered eyes. I travel and I incorporate my experiences in books. With the photographs in this book I try to show people in our world who have been badly affected. The pictures show shocking footage of people who have been written off and to whom no one cares. Only when they die, they are noticed and brought to the crematorium.

I do what I can to help. With the help of some other people, I have set up the Foundation Lalibela (www.stichtinglalibela.nl), for support and education of the poorest in Ethiopia. My parents and me have adopted the four daughters of the mother who died of malaria in Axum. There are hundreds of small foundations, founded by foreigners, but also by Ethiopians living abroad, who use their money for one hundred percent for the aim it is donated, as our foundation does. Many drops in the ocean do help.

Get on the bus with me (photo page 4), travel with me and look through my eyes at Ethiopia. See how beautiful this country is. See that many people want the best, but also see that the country should be liberated from the straitjacket of rigid conservatism.