by Heather Plett | Sep 14, 2007 | Ethiopia
We had a visitor in our office yesterday. Ato G. from Ethiopia. A gentle yet bold man who’s responsible for the project we visited in the Afar district, where a water diversion project has transformed the community and dramatically increased the food security for hundreds (maybe even thousands) of people. He brought pictures and stories of lives transformed, new crops growing, and a bustling and growing village. When we were there in January, the people boasted that the village school which had had only 1 student 3 years earlier had grown to 64 students. Now, merely 8 months later, Ato G. tells us that it has now grown to 250 children, and 40 % of them are girls. Women have increasingly greater responsibility in the community, especially since it has been recognized that they possess many of the skills required to move the village forward economically.
When we were there, we visited the second project that Ato G’s staff are overseeing. At least a hundred workers bustled around a busy work site carrying rocks, mixing concrete, hauling water, and digging trenches. He tells us that that water weir has now been completed and they are enjoying their first crops. There is renewed hope in the community. Access to water means access to life in arid regions like the Afar.
Ato G. came with some sad stories, however. Last year’s flood in the region set the communities back and meant that thick silt had to be removed from their new canals. We watched a man on a video tell us how he’d lost his farm when the flooding moved the river about 150 metres from the original riverbed. He stood looking over the rushing water and said “this used to be my farm.”
The piece of news that Ato G. brought that haunts me the most, however, is the story of the young girls. “Remember all the girls you watched carrying loads of rocks in their sacks to help build the water weir? They made up a large part of our work force there. But many of them are dead now.”
Female genital mutilation. That’s what’s killing them. The community comes together for the coming of age celebration once a year or so, and with a single contaminated blade, 50 to 100 young women lose a little piece of themselves. In the weeks that follow, many of them lose their lives.
I can’t get that out of my mind and my heart. We watched these young woman work. We watched them dance in the setting sun. We watched them walk their livestock home from the fields. We watched them cast subtle flirtatious glances at the young men – the same looks you’d catch in any country of the world when young people gather.
But many of them are dead now. And those that aren’t dead have been violated. And they’ve lost their friends.
Sometimes the work of international development feels like one step forward two steps back. The community has changed, they have access to water and more food. There are even woman serving in key roles in the community. That’s all good news. But their young women are dying.
Today I am sad for those hopeful young women who danced in the evening sun. My hope and prayer is that those who survived will rise up and be strong, and that some day, when it is their turn to step into whatever leadership roles they are afforded they will say “this is enough. We will not watch our daughters die.”
by Heather Plett | Sep 11, 2007 | things I've learned
– Rain and wind are ONLY fun if you’re in a warm place watching through a window, NOT if you’re sitting on the side of a soccer field.
– Saying good-bye to the same person again and again gets old. Quickly.
– Sending three kids back to school is FRICKIN’ expensive. New outfits, new shoes, school supplies, school fees, lunch fees – YIKES!
– Signing two kids up for indoor soccer just after you’ve finished paying for their return to school can be downright painful.
– Going grocery shopping after the above two expenses can be very nearly impossible.
– Household renovations or decorating projects will always take at least twice as long as you originally estimated.
– Wearing sandals when it’s 5 degrees (Celsius) and windy is stupid.
– Even with a “resistant to change” child, the return to school gets easier as they get older.
– Drinking hot chocolate while sitting at the side of the soccer field in the wind and the rain makes you feel only marginally more comfortable.
– Chasing half a dozen napkins (that came along with your hot chocolate and muffins) across the soccer field when the wind picks them up can be embarrassing. Especially when you’re wearing a poncho that flips up in your face every time you try to bend down to grab a dancing napkin.
– Folding your lawnchair with a cup of hot chocolate still in the cup holder is not a smart idea.
– Nutella on toast makes nice comfort food at ten o’clock at night when you’ve been watching soccer in the rain, trying to scratch together a few dollars to buy groceries, saying good-bye for the umpteenth time, and you didn’t have time for supper.
So what we’ve established so far is that I am broke, stupid, clumsy, and cold. Yep, it’s a good day to be alive. Thank god for Nutella.
by Heather Plett | Sep 6, 2007 | family, school
To see what was originally in this post, go here. I didn’t want anyone to hate me for having to listen to the same song every time they opened my blog.
by Heather Plett | Sep 5, 2007 | beginnings, school
School supplies are bought, everyone is equipped with indoor and outdoor shoes (yeesh), the oldest two have carefully written their names on all of their belongings, and each child is outfitted in new clothes for the first day of school. And so it begins.
Tomorrow morning, Maddie meets her new teacher. Madame R. The same kindergarten teacher Julie had. The woman is a marvel. I have seen her transform a group of five-year-olds from screaming and chaotic into quiet subdued sitting-on-the-floor-and-listening with one wave of her magic wand. Well actually it was one well-timed game of follow-the-leader around the classroom, but to my admiring eye it looked like magic. Maddie is ready to be a schoolgirl like her big sisters. And so it begins.
Yesterday Marcel met his new cooperating teacher and spent the day at his new school. He will finally be student teaching in a high school in the subjects he’s been studying for – history and social studies. This is his last year of more than 5 years of university. After a summer of being the only one awake at 7:00 in the morning, I had to smile a little when his alarm went off this morning. And so it begins.
Soccer practice for Nikki this afternoon. Julie starts again soon too. After a week at soccer camp, they’ve learned new skills and are raring to go. They have play-offs from now until the end of September. And so it begins.
Julie and Nikki are both happy with the teachers they get this year. They’re switching teachers. Julie’s moving into the grade 5 class Nikki was in last year and Julie’s teacher from last year is moving up to teach grade 6 where Nikki will be. They both liked these particular teachers last year, so they’re offering each other words of hope. And so it begins.
Beginnings for everyone. Except me. I’m thinking it’s time for a new beginning for me too. Perhaps an art class. Or photography. Or pottery again. Something that sends me out to buy school supplies for ME.
by Heather Plett | Aug 31, 2007 | Maddie
As I watched Maddie play in the water on the slide the other day, I came to an odd and rather uncomfortable realization. I have spent the past 5 years preparing for her funeral.
I watch her play and more often than I care to admit, a fleeting thought passes through my mind. “How will we describe her at her funeral? We’ll talk about how delighted she was to splash in puddles. We’ll recount some funny stories about her. We’ll say she was a ray of sunshine after the dark. We may even play some of her self-produced videos.”
It’s not that I spend a lot of time worrying about her imminent death. She’s a healthy, robust child who barely ever got sick until this past year at daycare when she was exposed to all the pesky bugs that love to breed in a room full of small children. Yes she has a heart murmur, but the doctors tell us it is very, very slight and nothing to be concerned about.
So then why am I preparing for her funeral? I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about Nikki and Julie’s funerals, why Maddie?
The thing is, when you bury one child, death perches on your doorstep and you can never again live in a fantasy world that “it couldn’t happen here”. After we lost our son Matthew, we had a miscarriage. Throughout my pregnancy with Maddie, I waited for the day when the pregnancy would end. It seemed inevitable somehow.
When Maddie was born a healthy beautiful child, I thought “well, I’ll enjoy the time I have with her because it won’t last.” When the doctor discovered a heart murmur, I thought “no big surprise. I knew it wouldn’t last”. When they told us the heart murmur was so slight it was of essentially no concern, I thought “okay, then it will be something else that will take her.” I never said these things out loud, but somewhere in a hidden corner of my mind, I believed them.
I know it’s crazy and irrational, but it’s what the mind does sometimes. I don’t obsess about it, and it hasn’t made me into one of those overly-protective can’t-let-the-child-out of-my-sight parents, but it sticks with me and pops up now and then when I watch her.
I think it is the memory of Mrs. B. standing at her son’s grave that has brought this all back to me now. I wish I could banish death from my doorstep and go back to the fantasy that it could never happen here
We had a visitor in our office yesterday. Ato G. from Ethiopia. A gentle yet bold man who’s responsible for the project we visited in the Afar district, where a water diversion project has transformed the community and dramatically increased the food security for hundreds (maybe even thousands) of people. He brought pictures and stories of lives transformed, new crops growing, and a bustling and growing village. When we were there in January, the people boasted that the village school which had had only 1 student 3 years earlier had grown to 64 students. Now, merely 8 months later, Ato G. tells us that it has now grown to 250 children, and 40 % of them are girls. Women have increasingly greater responsibility in the community, especially since it has been recognized that they possess many of the skills required to move the village forward economically.
Female genital mutilation. That’s what’s killing them. The community comes together for the coming of age celebration once a year or so, and with a single contaminated blade, 50 to 100 young women lose a little piece of themselves. In the weeks that follow, many of them lose their lives.
