Ethiopia/Testimony (LONG)
 

Y'all, I was gonna put this in the HC thread, but it was too much to put in HC format. I wanted to expound on my Ethiopia HC, though, so, heeeeeeeere we go. Once upon a time, not long ago... naw, I'm just kiddin'. :p

I want you all to know, first off, that I have ALWAYS dreamed of going to Africa. I didn't know all the places, but I knew I wanted to see the Great Pyramid, go to Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa. I wanted to travel the continent a little bit. ALWAYS. I never dreamed exactly how I would do it, though. Well, that's not entirely true; I'd like to go to Egypt for my honeymoon whenver I find a husband, but that's a different topic, right? :) Anyway...

When I was in Columbus, I WANTED so bad to be able to make my dreams come true, but I didn't know how to do it and compromise to make my relationship work, too. I didn't realize at the time that only I was doing the compromising. I didn't realize that in the process of trying to make someone else happy (impossibility) I was making Monique unhappy.

I wanted to start a non-profit. I knew that I wanted to go to grad school and get a Master's in Public Policy (or Non-Profit Management or Public Administration... differs by school). I knew that I wanted to work for non-profits and learn everything about how they operate. Beyond enrolling in school, I had no idea how to REALLY make my dream a reality. I mean, truthfully, I've never really started anything, let alone my own non-profit. Sometimes thinking about it was overwhelming. But it also gave me a sense of purpose. Fast forward....

Relationship ended and I decided that it was finally my chance to live my dream. So I packed up and moved out here to DC. My friend of 11 years lived out here, so I didn't have to worry about having a roof over my head. She also hooked me up with a part-time gig at a bookstore (I LOVE to read). One of the things that drew (I have NEVER written or typed that word and it looks funny) me to DC was the number of non-profits and foundations here. I knew that I could get a job with one of them, even if it was being an administrative assistant. I just wanted to LEARN whatever I could.

So I get out here, I'm living with my friend for all of 1 month, and I land a job that gives me free housing and utilities. FREE! Did I ever tell y'all that that's my favorite word in the English language? ANYWAY, lol, not only did I get a job, I LOVE my job! And I LOVE my girls!! And what's even better, I'm GOOD at what I do! And I'm doing something powerful and meaningful, and that's important to me. I finally feel like I've found my niche.

The school that I work at is run by a foundation. My hopes when I came here was that I would work here long enough to get into the foundation side. I now have worked out my plan. If I stay until my kids graduate ('07), I can complete my Master's program (if I don't procrastinate in getting started). THEN I can MAYBE move into the foundation side of the house. Anyway, on to the more exciting stuff.

Then opportunity knocked at my door. I was asked if I would be interested in going to Ethiopia to study hunger projects. Inside, I was like ARE YOU KIDDING ME???? But I simply said it was something I'd be very interested in doing. At the time, the program hadn't even been funded or anything, there was only a 40% chance that the program would even get off the ground. But by the grace of God, it did, and I'm going to Ethiopia!!! And I couldn't feel more blessed or more happy about the whole ordeal. This is the one of the most exciting things to ever happen to me! EVER!!

I said all that to say this. When I decided to move out here, I did it so that I could live my dream. And I realized on my drive home from an Ethiopian restaurant last night that my dreams were coming true. Everything seems to be falling into place. The group of people traveling to Ethiopia (4 other teachers from public/private schools in DC and the program coordinator) had to read a book titled, The Cathedral Within: Transforming Your Life by Giving Something Back, by Billy Shore. Y'all this is SUCH a good book!!!!! And I want you to know, chapter 4 in the book is about City Year, the AmeriCorps program that I did after graduating from college. When I got to that chapter, it all seemed like fate (God's ordering).

The book touches on different non-profits and how they got started and stuff like that. As I was reading the book, I felt like I was SUPPOSED to be reading it. Have you ever felt like you could actually FEEL divine intervention?? This is EXACTLY how I felt yesterday. As if God was whispering in my ear, "This is exactly where you are supposed to be."

I have more to write for you all, but I have to go, and this is long enough as it is. I'll write more on this experience later, including to where I'll be traveling in Ethiopia and the people I've met so far.

Thank you for sharing...I needed to hear that today and be reminded that God is good all the time! He may not come when I want Him to be He always comes on time.

Have a wonderful trip.

Ideal,

First of all congratulations! That is an amazing story!

Secondly, and more importantly...thanks for posting it. I am sure you have touched more people's lives that you know by sharing with us.

Wanted to share some articles...
 

WASHINGTON POST
When Will People Pay Attention?
By Frank Wolf

Sunday, May 11, 2003; Page B07
Another international crisis is quietly escalating in the world today. But it doesn't involve weapons of mass destruction, despotic leaders, nuclear arms or even terrorism. It is hunger, and millions of people in the Horn of Africa -- infants, young children, women and the elderly -- are at risk of starvation. This crisis has yet to gain the attention of the world. When it finally does, I am afraid it will be too late. Very few media outlets are covering what is happening. When I returned from the region in early January and tried to get the media to focus on the situation, one television producer said he wouldn't be interested in covering the story until hundreds of children were dying on a daily basis. That's exactly the kind of situation worldwide attention now would prevent. When will people pay attention? The media must begin to focus on what is happening in the Horn of Africa. Hundreds of journalists were embedded with coalition forces in Iraq, and hundreds more are scattered throughout the Persian Gulf region. I would be surprised if more than a dozen American journalists have been to the Horn of Africa in the past year. It would be helpful if Hollywood and the music industry also took notice. News outlets across the country gave more coverage to the dust-up involving the Baseball Hall of Fame and actors Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon than to the crisis in Ethiopia. A BBC camera crew broke the story of the 1984 famine in Ethiopia. When the pictures of starving children began to appear on the nightly news and in newspapers around the globe, the world raced in to help. Rock stars and other musicians teamed up to raise millions through concerts and special recordings such as "We Are the World." That money helped stem the crisis, which cost nearly 1 million lives. The Ethiopian government is trying to put on its own version of a "Live Aid" concert this month. But today, between the coverage of the war and such reality shows as "Joe Millionaire" and "The Bachelor," getting the networks -- or any media outlet for that matter -- to focus on the crisis is next to impossible. While America tries to satisfy its insatiable appetite for reality shows, the starving people of Africa are today's reality in the most raw and stark and grim terms. In 1984, some 8 million people were in need of food aid. This past January more than 11 million people were struggling for their next meal. Today the situation is even more distressing. I recently read a cable from the U.S. ambassador in Ethiopia describing a grimmer outlook for the coming months than had been expected. Some are now predicting that 20 million people could soon be at risk. Other health concerns are beginning to emerge, including an outbreak of measles in some parts of the country and increasing cases of malaria. Cases of meningitis also are being reported. I have asked U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to appoint a special envoy for hunger to help elevate the crisis in Africa and to deal with other hunger issues around the world. His response to my request was less than enthusiastic. In Matthew 25, we are admonished about the obligation to feed the hungry. The United States has responded to this crisis with an enormous amount of compassion. Many countries have the ability to give more and may just be waiting to be asked. In 2002 the United States contributed 51 percent of the donations to the U.N. World Food Program; Europe's combined contribution was 27 percent. Time and attention must be devoted to mobilizing and coordinating the resources required. This is a crisis that will require enormous cooperation among international aid agencies, churches and governments from every corner of the globe. The war in Iraq has demanded our attention, but we cannot allow this silent emergency to grow worse. The lives of millions of women and children depend on this story's being shared loudly and boldly. The writer is a Republican member of the House from Virginia. © 2003 The Washington Post Company

Another article...
 

This is from the NYTimes...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

May 13, 2003
Ethiopia's Dying Children
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF


ORICHA, Ethiopia

Ladawi is a 16-month-old girl with twigs for limbs, blotched skin, labored breathing, eyes that roll back and skin stretched tautly over shoulder blades that look as if they belong to a survivor of Auschwitz. She is so malnourished that she cannot brush away the flies that land on her eyes, and she does not react when a medical trainee injects drugs into her hip in a race to save her life.

"She's concerned only with trying to breathe," says the trainee, the closest thing to a doctor at a remote medical center here in southern Ethiopia. "Most likely she will not survive."

Ladawi would be the third child to die of malnutrition in three days just at this one little health center, and millions of other Africans are threatened by the specter of a famine rising over Ethiopia and neighboring countries. To bounce over the rutted roads here is to feel transported back to the Biafra crisis in Nigeria or the 1984-85 Ethiopia famine, for sick and dying children are everywhere.

We've all been distracted by Iraq, but an incipient famine in the Horn of Africa has been drastically worsening just in the last few weeks. It has garnered almost no attention in the West, partly because it's not generally realized that people are already dying here in significant numbers. But they are. And unless the West mobilizes further assistance immediately to Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia, the toll could be catastrophic.

On Sunday morning I checked out of my hotel room at the Addis Ababa Sheraton, so luxurious an establishment that stereo speakers play music underwater in the glistening pool, and by evening I was in Awassa in southern Ethiopia, surrounded by children with glazed eyes, toothpick limbs and hideously swollen bellies.

"We've been overwhelmed by this, especially in the last three weeks," said Tigist Esatu, a nurse at the Yirba Health Center, crowded with mothers carrying starving children. "Some families come and say, `We've lost two children already, three children already, so you must save this one.' "

Since weapons of mass destruction haven't turned up so far in Iraq, there's been a revisionist suggestion that the American invasion was worthwhile because of humanitarian gains for the liberated Iraqi people. Fair enough. But as long as we're willing to send hundreds of thousands of troops to help Iraqis, what about offering much more modest assistance to save the children dying here?

"How is it that we routinely accept a level of suffering and hopelessness in Africa that we would never accept in any other part of the world?" asks James Morris, the executive director of the World Food Program. Ethiopians worry that with attention diverted by Iraq, Africa will be forgotten. It's a legitimate fear: in the 1990's, aid was diverted to the former Yugoslavia and away from much needier parts of Africa.

So far, the U.S. and Europe have responded reasonably well — it was heartwarming to see bags of wheat marked "U.S.A." even in isolated hamlets — but the needs are growing much faster than the supplies, and children are dying in the meantime.

"Now I worry about my other children," said Tadilech Yuburo, a young woman who lost one child last month and has three left. In her village, Duressa, population 300, five children have died in the last month of malnutrition-related ailments. In nearby Falamu, population 400, six children have died. Down the road in Kurda, population 1,000, six children have died.

This famine has not yet registered on the world's conscience, and the World Food Program says no journalist had previously visited this region since the crisis began. But although this area of Ethiopia has been hit particularly hard, 12 million people around the country are affected — compared with 10 million during the 1984-85 famine.

In past African crises, like Ethiopia's in 1984-85 and Rwanda's in 1994, the international community reacted too slowly, and hundreds of thousands of Africans died as a result. This time, we can still avert a similar catastrophe, but we must act at once. "We are appalled by the lack of full rations to food aid beneficiaries in Ethiopia, which amounts to slow starvation for those without other sources of food," an alliance of aid groups warned recently, adding: "For the international community to allow this to happen in the 21st century is unforgivable."

sorry, can't post the pic...
 

NEW YORK TIMES, May 23, 2003
The Shape of Hunger



By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Meet Aberash Andreos. She's a 6-year-old girl from a remote village in southern Ethiopia. I met her at a Catholic-run clinic near the town of Awassa, where she was among the throngs of children awaiting lifesaving milk to rescue them from the famine that threatens millions of people in the Horn of Africa.

Aberash is not one of the worst off. The really desperate children are inside the clinic, lying comatose on beds (two children to a bed) as nurses fight to keep them alive, or they are dying in their villages.

The better-off children, like Aberash, can stand on their own on the clinic grounds.

"I've nothing to eat at home," said Andreos Lutta, the girl's father (standing behind her in this photograph). He is a farmer whose crops have failed because of the drought that has struck the region, so he tries to find day labor and earn money to buy food. When he finds work, he earns about 40 cents a day.

I didn't visit Aberash's home, but the others I entered were similar: a windowless grass-roofed hut, called a tukul, with a couple of cows (if they haven't died) on one side, and the family on the other. Keeping the cows inside at night protects them from hyenas and rustlers. Poor families typically have a single cooking pot, a water jug, a homemade bed made of sticks that serves everyone, and no other possessions: no bicycle, no watch, no change of clothes, no food.

That's not to say there is no food in the village itself. Some families are better off and have grain, and there are merchants with supplies to sell to anyone with money. In one village, a grain merchant was insouciantly putting his grain in sacks on the main street as children were staggering by, ready to drop from hunger.

Like most parents, Mr. Lutta himself didn't seem malnourished (the father almost always eats first in these villages, and then the mother and children eat together, using bread to scoop a stew from a common pot). He has six other children, and they are better off. It's typically the smallest ones, like Aberash, who are in trouble: they no longer depend on breast milk, but they aren't strong enough to compete with their siblings in grabbing food from the pot.

"It's the first time we've seen it like this," Mr. Lutta said, referring to the severity of the famine. In this area, conditions were never this bad, even in the terrible 1984-85 famine, which killed some one million people.

Children like Aberash will be saved only if the West mounts a major effort to help them. The U.S. has responded relatively well to the calls for assistance from Ethiopia, but I'm afraid that much more will be needed. For individuals who want to contribute, some options are listed below.

Aberash is just one child, but I saw countless more just like her. In village after village, you meet these kids, hold their hands, touch their bones. But they are in a remote corner of the world, dying quietly, as we go about our business.

In the best of circumstances, about 100,000 boys and girls like Aberash will die of malnutrition-related ailments this year in Ethiopia. If the drought continues and the West doesn't provide more assistance, the number of deaths will rise to several hundred thousand or more.


***

Many readers have asked how they can donate money to help fight famine in the Horn of Africa. I don't think it's appropriate for me to recommend any one organization, and there are many groups doing good work in the region. Here are some options (in each case, write "Ethiopia" or "Eritrea" for the money to go to one specific place):

1. The U.N. World Food Program, http://www.wfp.org, whose feeding programs I visited, is very active in the area. Donations are tax-deductible in the U.S. if checks are made out to "Friends of the World Food Program." Send the donation to:
WFP
2 UN Plaza DC2 - 2500
New York, New York 10017
Phone 917-367-4341


2. Doctors without Borders, http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org, is also active in the area where Aberash lives:
6 East 39th Street, 8th floor
New York, NY 10016
1-888-392-0392


3. Childreach, http://www.childreach.org:
155 Plan Way
Warwick, Rhode Island 02886
1-800-556-7918

4. Mercy Corps, http://www.mercycorps.org, which works in Eritrea but not Ethiopia:
Mercy Corps
Dept. FM
PO Box 2669
Portland, OR 97208-2669
1-800-292-3355 extension 250

I pray I am ready for whatever it is I am going to see. :(

you can only read the bold if you like
 

This thread has to serve as my journal until I buy one this week. I want to document my feelings prior to leaving, as well. Anywho...

I finally got the last of my immunizations today. And they were expensive!! :( I still have to get some prescriptions filled and I'll be all set, medically. Lately, I've done a lot of reading on the history of Ethiopia. I've read a ton of articles on the famine (a few of which I've posted). I have began to develop (loosely) the curriculum for next year surrounding this project. I am SO excited about it all! It's funny how you can do something you've never done before, yet be so confident about it that you do it well. I have definitely found my niche. I am building a team here at the school to work with me. My school will have the TIGHTEST service learning project!!! I just have to continue to think about how to get the kids actually invested in the service. Hopefully, they will get that through the class that we are going to have surrounding service learning and Ethiopia.

I'm excited to meet all the people we'll get to meet. I'll get to meet the US Ambassador to Ethiopia! She's from ATL and graduated from Spelman. We'll also get to meet different leaders from different NGO's, including the author of a book that we had to read, Sheltered by the King. I'd recommend it to anyone. It is a story of an Ethiopian woman who had to flee the country during the Marxist rebellion. It reads like a novel, so it's a fast read. This will be networking at its best! :) So that should all be exciting.

Oh, the places I'll go!!! :) After we are done with "work," we'll get to do some cultural traveling around the country. I'm glad I decided to do some reading about the history, because otherwise I'd be clueless as to where I was going. I'll get to travel through part of the Great Rift Valley!!! Although I'm not a bird watcher, I plan to take lots of pictures of birds and other wildlife! I will also be going to the holy city of Axum!!! THEN, I get to go to Lalibela! This, I think, is going to be the highlight of the cultural part of my journey!! I can't wait to see the rock-hewn churches. They are said by some to be the 8th wonder of the world. This entire experience is going to be AWESOME!!!!! :D

This is truly the greatest blessing. I can't stop thanking God for it!! One day, I got an email from my director about this project. She was telling me how she felt that I was supposed to cross paths with my school to do this project. She also told me that she was glad I got the opportunity to do something great and build my passions surrounding world justice. I was so moved by her email that I began to cry. I felt so emotional that day. I was moved that I had been CHOSEN to do this work. I was moved that she had seen my passion and recommended me for this project in the first place. And more than anything, I felt moved that I will finally get to do something TRULY great in the area of service. Sometimes I think about it and I just get chills.

My only hope is that people are paying attention. Children are dying. I mean, adults are dying, too, but KIDS are dying. From hunger!!! It's so unfair, because there is ENOUGH food in the world to feed these people; it's not like there isn't. They say that if aid doesn't start coming in fast, this famine will be worse than that of 1984. :( Over one million people died in that famine. Just think, even more may die this time. :( I hope people are paying attention.

Service to all mankind...

Another article...
 

The Boston Globe

Ending hunger in America

By James P. McGovern and J. Larry Brown, 6/1/2003

AS OUR NATION struggles to meet humanitarian needs in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries, we might also commit to addressing a serious unmet need at home: hunger, particularly among children.

The latest annual report (2001) by the Department of Agriculture and Census Bureau indicates that the disease of domestic hunger threatens 13 million American children and 20 million adults. These staggering numbers among us frequently have no idea where their next meal will come from or have cut back on portions of food served to ration what remains. Millions of them go to bed with the painful sensation of hunger in their bellies.
Imagine an epidemic that threatens nearly one in five of our children. Even more, imagine it is wholly preventable but we let it happen anyway.

This lack of resolve has a measurable toll judging by a plethora of recent scientific findings. Hungry kids get sick more often, miss school more frequently, and are much more likely to be hospitalized. They also experience more depression, anger, and lethargy. Startlingly, even mild hunger - such as missing an occasional meal - leads to cognitive impairment in children. They do less well in school, get poorer grades than peers who are not hungry, and are more likely to fail standardized achievement tests.

Hunger is a moral issue, an outcome that is unfair and unnecessary. By letting children go hungry we rob them of their God-given natural talents. But hunger is an economic issue as well, because we squander educational investments when we send children through the schoolhouse door unprepared to learn. We also squander human capital by subjecting the thinkers and doers of the next generation to a disease that is both debilitating and preventable.

Domestic hunger is not a recent problem, so its solutions are not limited to the improved economy for which we all hope. Hunger diminished little even during the strong growth of the 1990s, a reflection of the growing numbers of parents working more jobs and more hours but at wages that hardly kept up with inflation.
Indeed, the fastest growing segment of those relying on food banks and charitable food pantries are households with at least one adult in the labor force who have young children at home. For them the reward of a weekly paycheck is the horror of having to decide whether to first pay the rent, heat, or the medical bills. Food typically is the expendable item. Forced to rely on less costly but more filling and fattening substitutes, these households frequently fall prey to the twin peril of hunger and obesity. They fill the stomachs of the home to avert the feeling of hunger, but fail to meet required dietary needs thereby robbing the body of what is truly needed for health and development.

This tragic situation can be remedied through presidential and congressional leadership. Working together on a bipartisan basis, we can see that the food stamp program is fully utilized to support work and reward initiative. After all, no working family that plays by the rules should have too little to feed their children.

We also can see that the federal school breakfast and summer food programs reach many more of the high-risk children that they now miss. And while we are at it, we also need to take steps to better protect retirees and others at the opposite end of the age spectrum, to ensure that increasing years are not accompanied by increasing hunger.

Congress and the White House need to be far more proactive in collaborating to end hunger in America. To be sure, government cannot do everything, but governmental policy is the key tool by which we can protect all of our people from the preventable scourge of hunger. Doing so will not only enable us to be more helpful in addressing needs elsewhere in the world, it will reflect our highest moral values as well.

James P. McGovern, Democratic congressman for the 3d District of Massachusetts, is co-chair of the Congressional Hunger Center. Dr. Larry P. Brown, Distinguished Scientist at Brandeis University, directs the Center on Hunger and Poverty.

Marvelous!
 

This is truly beautiful. This is how I feel about my own life's work and how I came to be doing what I do. Not every one can say that about their 9-5 and it is truly a blessing. I think I will read the Billy Shore book. Thanks for sharing this story and I wish you well Ideal!!

Washington Post
"Fossil Find May Back 'Out of Africa' Theory"
By Guy Gugliotta
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 12, 2003; Page A01

Scientists working in northeast Ethiopia have unearthed the 160,000-year-old remains of two adults and a child, providing the oldest fossil evidence ever found of how modern humans evolved and a new indication that they arose from a common African ancestor. The remains -- fragments of three skulls found near the site of an ancient freshwater lake -- are about 60,000 years older than the oldest previously known specimen of Homo sapiens, and serve as an anatomical bridge between earlier human ancestors found in Africa and the fully modern humans who began appearing throughout the world about 100,000 years ago. The discovery fills a temporal and geographical gap in the evolutionary record and provides new evidence for the "out-of-Africa" theory, which holds that modern humans evolved as a single species and not as the result of interbreeding with human precursors -- especially the European Neanderthals. "This is a big, robust individual," said paleoanthropologist Tim D. White in describing the most complete of the three skulls. "I can't tell you [how tall he is], but we're not talking about a little man. This is a very large, muscular adult male. If you had a rugby team, you'd want this guy." White, from the University of California at Berkeley, led a multinational team that discovered the remains in the rich fossil beds near Herto village in Ethiopia's Middle Awash region, about 140 miles northeast of the capital of Addis Ababa. The team's findings were reported today in the journal Nature. "The new discovery clearly lends more support to the out-of-Africa hypothesis," said Harvard University paleoarchaeologist Ofer Bar-Yosef, who noted that genetic studies over the past decade have also generally supported that theory. "But whether or not it provides closure of the debate, it is an extremely important discovery because it closes a geographical gap." Before the latest discoveries, remains of what appeared to be modern humans from approximately the same period had been found in Africa, Bar-Yosef said. "But if the dates were good, the morphological evidence [defining the fossil as a modern human] was not. When the physical evidence was good, the dating was not." The Herto fossils help fill in the time sequence and may reflect the actual movement of early humans heading north out of Africa to the Middle East and the rest of the world. Scientists have found modern human fossils 100,000 years old in Israel. White described the Herto skulls as "near-modern" but sharing characteristics of pre-human species: "The brow ridges are very strong, and the area of the neck muscle attachment is very robust," giving the individuals a very powerful aspect, even though the facial features are generally recognizable as modern. "When you add these new fossils to past discoveries and genetics, the weight of evidence that modern humans basically came from Africa is very large," White said. "There will always be skeptics, but their arguments are becoming increasingly lawyerlike." However, some of those who believe in the multiple-origins, interbreeding hypothesis, known as "multi-regionalists," argued that White's team has not proven anything. "He gave us a nice piece of evidence that places the fossils in a nice sequence in Africa," said University of Michigan anthropologist ******* Wolpoff, a leading multi-regionalist. "But then he makes a jump -- saying that since this fits into a sequence, then this is the origin of all humans." The weakness of the out-of-Africa school, Wolpoff said, is that it depends on the idea that all earlier species went extinct and were replaced, without interbreeding, by a single new modern human from Africa. In this debate, the Herto find is "not new information," Wolpoff said. "It's just another fossil." The Middle Awash team, which included American, Ethiopian, French and Japanese scientists, found the Herto site in 1997, when White spotted the fossil skull of a butchered hippopotamus and stone tools in sandy sediment. The Middle Awash region, which is dotted with exposed rock strata dating back millions of years, has been the source of several path-breaking discoveries, including Ardipithecus ramidus, which, at 4.4 million to 5.8 million years old, is the oldest apelike human ancestor yet found. After years of careful excavation, cleaning, assembly and dating, the Herto team had the nearly complete skulls -- without jawbones -- of one male adult and a child between 6 and 7 years old, as well as the brain pan -- the portion of the skull that holds the brain -- of a second adult. The team also found bone fragments or teeth from seven other individuals. In what White described as "a fascinating twist to the story," the excavators found no bones from any part of the body except the head, "and we don't miss bones." White said the team suspected that the heads had been removed before they came to rest in Herto. White also suggested that the brain pan -- apparently scored with a stone tool -- and the child's skull, "polished" as though it had been handled by many hands, had ritual significance. The skull of the robust adult male had been cut twice with a tool, White said. White said the team used a combination of chemical tests and geological analysis to fix the age of the finds to between 154,000 and 160,000 years old. The tools recovered from the site included both crude, early Stone Age hand axes and sharper stone flakes identified with the Middle Stone Age. Hippopotamus and buffalo bones near the site showed signs of pounding to remove the marrow, White said. The team said it could find no evidence of any anatomical linkage between the Herto fossils and Neanderthals. Instead, White said, the new discoveries appeared to represent a transitional phase between earlier human ancestors and modern humans: "These people are separated from us by 10,000 generations," White said. "Yet, in their faces, we see many of the features that we see in our own."

Another article...
 

World Briefing: Africa

June 19, 2003

ETHIOPIA: U.S. INCREASES FOOD AID The United States plans to give an additional 63,800 tons of food to Ethiopia to cope with a severe drought that Washington has warned could lead to more famine. The American ambassador to the Rome-based United Nations food agency said this week that Ethiopians' hunger had been largely ignored and that a huge mobilization of relief aid was needed. __ (Reuters)

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/19/in...14b3359da1ef01

Another article...
 

ADDIS TRIBUNE
June 20, 2003

"U.S. Announces Additional Food Assistance Contribution"

Ambassador Aurelia E. Brazeal on Tuesday announced an additional United States pledge of 63,800 MT of food assistance to meet emergency requirements in Ethiopia. The announcement was made at a signing ceremony attended by Ambassador Brazeal, DPPC Commissioner Simone Mechale, the World Food Programme Country Director, and USAID Director.

At the ceremony, Ambassador Brazeal stated that the situation was extremely critical in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region, particularly for children under-five years of age who are suffering from inadequate blended food and special medical assistance.

"We all must do more to meet the most urgent needs of the affected children in Sidama and Welayta," she declared, adding that the U.S. will continue its commitment to mitigate the effects of the current drought crisis in Ethiopia.

This latest contribution of 63,800 MT is valued at 27.4 million dollars, or 235.4 million birr. Since the beginning of the emergency, in July of 2002, the US has been working with Ethiopia and all partners to tackle the crisis. The US has, to date, provided 878,070 MT of food aid assistance, valued at approximately 403 million dollars, or 3.5 billion birr, to meet emergency food needs.

The US assistance has been distributed through a variety of partners. This latest contribution is made up of 60,000 MT wheat and 3,800 MT nutritious corn soya blend. It will be provided to the DPPC through the World Food Program (WFP) in Ethiopia. Commodities will be shipped as emergency food relief under United States Public Law 480, Title II, a program administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

In addition, the USG has provided 28 million dollars, or 238 million birr, to a variety of organizations to provide non-food assistance, meeting needs such as water and sanitation, seeds and agriculture rehabilitation, and primary health care and nutrition.

Well.....
 

Sorors, Frat, Sisterfriends, and Brotherfriends:

I am going to try and make this my last post before leaving for Ethiopia. We all know I suffer from a serious addiction to GC, but a sista is not packed, ok? I should not have time to read GC today or Monday, let alone post (but watch me have to eat these words, lol).

ANYWAY, I'll miss y'all. :( I will take notes of stuff that I see to post when I get back. I'll also have pictures to post, too! :) I'm so excited and can't believe it's finally time to go!!!! *sigh* A dream come true! I'll be back on July 12, 2003. Y'all know the first thing I'm going to do is get my pictures developed, then I'll be on the computer reading and updating and posting and emailing and stuh! :)

Much love,

Monique :)

Ideal08:

Congratulations!!!

I just read your thread and it really hit home to me. Stepping out on faith and being honest with God and yourself about what you want in life and what you TRULY desire can bring the most wonderful of blessings.

I am glad you are going to Ethiopia to do meaningful work.

I am currently in South Africa conducting AIDS research for the Human Science Research Council, which is funded by the nelson Mandela Fdn., and the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund. It is absolutely beautiful. Yesterday (Saturday) I climbed Table Mountain in Cape Town.

http://www.tropicalisland.de/travel_south-africa.html

How long will you be here? Give me your information when you get here (Africa). I will be traveling to Northeast Africa while here. Or you can keep in touch via e-mail.

Enjoy your journey...I am!

:( :( :( :( :( I really thought your trip was SHORTER!! LOL

You know I am going to miss you soooooooooooo much. Have fun, take pics, be open to new experiences, be aware of strange noises. You know I never did state a souvenir request, but you know what I like. **coughcoughafricanelephantscoughcough**

**hand clapping**
Me & You must never part
my tiaga (or whatever they said):p

Be blessed on your physical and spiritual journey. I know you have packed your journal. You will have a wonderful scrapbook.


**going to corner to weep right now** :( :o

Re: Well.....
 

Ideal08, I remember when you were stressing over moving to DC and leaving OH. I remember how you said you were stepping out on faith. Well, girlie, look where the LAWD done brought you!! :-) Just think, if you had not taken that step, youwould not be taking this one!! I'm soooooo excited for you and I know you will have a wonderful time. Soak up everything you can and know that God put you in that postion for a reason!!

I can wait to here from you when you get back!!

Wow time goes by fast!
 

Truly, you will be missed. Please have a fun and safe trip.

A Prayer for You
 

Soror Ideal, I will keep you in prayer during your journey. May God Bless and Keep you.

Have a good time Ideal08!!!:D

You will be truly missed, and I'll pray for your safe return.

Have fun Monique and take LOTS of pictures, i'll miss you answering all of my silly questions;) !!!
We'll miss you!

Have an EXTRAORDINARY time! Take in all that you can and enjoy this opportunity. Have a safe trip and many prayers will be with you!

Ideal08,
First of all, have a wonderful trip!. Secondly, I too, work in the nonprofit sector and have worked for three different foundations. When you get back drop me a PM and we can talk about my experiences and how they may help you.

Safe travels to you Ideal08
 

Have a wonderful trip Soror! I just want to share with you, what I wish someone said to me before my trip to W. Africa.
Because... of all the things peolpe told me and shared with me about traveling abroad...nothing could have prepared me for the except: Take in, enjoy, and savor every moment you are there, because you will forvever be a changed person because of this experience.

Well, if Ideal kept her word...she won't be reading this post anyway, but I just wanted to say that I am sending up prayers as well. I am going to miss your presence around here :(, but I know that you will have a wonderful experience. I would love to go someday...a friend of mine went a couple of years ago, and he brought me back a set of carved wooden 'see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil' monkeys! Well, anyway, Have a great time!!! :D

And I didn't, lol. I couldn't help it, ok?! I'm all packed, but still have paperwork to do for school that I haven't completed. Such a procrastinator. Thank you all for the well wishes!! :) I feel so loved!! :D

Now, this really should be my last post. :p Whatever, lol. :)

Enjoy your journey to the Motherland!!!!! Will look forward to looking at the pictures. Gonna miss ya girlie!!!

I don't know how I missed this thread yesterday. Since Ideal08 is either in the friendly skies or in the unfriendly airport I know shes not reading this. However, I wish her much fun and safe travels. Chat with you when you return!

Safe travels...
 

Soror:

Safe travels to the Motherland. Be open and warm to all the teachings of life that you will encounter. Take plenty of pictures, get plenty of rest, and mind your manners :)

I want to hear all about your trip when you get back, including pictures. BTW, you never told me how your other "trip" went? I'm still waiting for that report too...

May the Lord be with you on your journey to and fro.

Have a wondeful & blessed experience. This oppurtunity you have is one that many dream of and you're living it! Remember to be open minded & responsive to the culture. And if all goes well the people & the place will have a wonderful & long tasting impression on your life! Have a safe trip & come back to GC with all the details!

God Bless You!

Message from Ideal08
 

Joy in the Motherland...
 

That is so beautiful! This letter was so descriptive that I feel like I was there. I am sure that seeing so much poverty, you feel like you're on an emotiona rollercoaster. Then at the same time, to see the joy that God gives them, even though they are in some of the worst conditions must be wonderful. I know that I would love to have that kind of opportunity to experience life there. I will plan to take a trip somewhere during my lifetime.

I pray that Ideal continues to have a blessed trip and a safe return! 9 more days until she's back!

What a beautiful post!! Thanks for sharing that with us CT4!! I pray that Ideal08 will continue to be blessed and a blessing while on her trip!!

awesome
 

Thank you for sharing! I'm so glad she is having a wonderful and fulfilling time in Ethiopia. I pray for her safe return.

Thanks for posting this for all to read. I can only imagine what kind of experience she is having, as words on a screen can only say so much. I wish we could all take the time out to participate in such a rewarding opportunity.
Can't wait for her to come back on here and tell us more!

Thank you CT4 for sharing that wonderful letter!!

I'm glad she's having a powerful experience in Ethiopia and the surrounding areas. The letter is truly an eye opener as to how BLESSED we really are. Regardless of our struggles, strains, or strife, they compare NONE to the suffering that is going on over there.

Yet, those so and so's on Making the band complained about walking 3 hours JUST to get a piece of cheesecake. Taking that walk with 110 pounds on your back.... :eek: I can't even fathom.

BTW: I got my copy too. :D :p

Thanks for sharing Ideal's letter CT4. It is great to hear what she has seen. Can't wait for her return so we can hear more.

Yeah I saw that, but was unsure if you were online so I came over here to share with the GC crew to let them know how one of the Awesome Foursome is doing over in the Motherland.

Not online at the time
 

I was out doing my last minute Essence preparation errands, which was cut short due to this continuing rain. :rolleyes:

Re: Not online at the time
 

No one out washing their cars, were they? :o
Have fun shaking yo groove thang and keyhain swinging. :eek: