Oxfam America Blog

Farmer Maria Lopez says she has lost most of her corn and beans this year due to lack of rain. Photo by Chris Hufstader/oxfam America

It is hard for visitors to fathom the depths of the tragedy Guatemala’s indigenous people continue to suffer, but a brief look at the museum in Rabinal will certainly get the process started. It commemorates those who died in some of the worst massacres of indigenous people during this country’s 36-year civil conflict.

Gloria Gonzalez, a young program officer at a non-governmental group working in the area, showed me the museum. It consists of two rooms filled with photos of the dead, one of whom was her grandfather, Camilo Mayor. The caption under his photo says “assassinated during the conflict in our community.”

The community of Rio Negro was particularly affected: when they objected to the terms of a forced relocation to make way for the Chixoy River hydroelectric dam, the military claimed they were allied with guerrilla forces and killed nearly every resident between February and March 1982, part of its scorched earth counter-insurgency policy. More than 250 were murdered, including 177 unarmed elderly, women, and children on one day. The Guatemala Truth Commission declared the incident a state-sponsored act of genocide.

Today, the Maya-Achi indigenous people who were pushed up the mountain slopes to make room for the Chixoy Dam are suffering a slow-motion type of disaster, no less deadly. The centuries of racism and discrimination that led to their precarious living conditions are now exacerbated by a long drought and high temperatures that have left most with little corn, beans, and other crops on which they depend. Read the rest of this entry »

Terraces around the village of Ashenge have been built to help conserve the soil. Photo by Marc Cohen/Oxfam America

Marc Cohen is Oxfam America’s senior researcher on humanitarian policy and climate change. Here’s his account of a recent visit to northern Ethiopia where famine struck a quarter century ago.

Twenty-five years ago, Michael Buerk’s dramatic BBC footage from Korem, in northern Ethiopia, brought a devastating famine to the world’s attention. Tens of thousands of people had sought refuge from war and drought in the town. Every 20 minutes, a camp resident died from hunger and related diseases. Buerk called Korem “the closest thing to hell on earth.”

Last year, I traveled to Korem while working on a research project about decentralization in Ethiopia and how that affects men and women farmers’ access to services. My colleagues and I arrived in the town just as the regional Orthodox Christian patriarch was inaugurating a large new church; hundreds of people had turned out for the colorful ceremony. This celebration was a big contrast with the grim images of 1984.

But it was a meeting with Merzeneb Firkado—her first name means “honey from heaven”—that made me realize how much has changed for people in the Korem area since that terrible period. Read the rest of this entry »

This week, campaigners dressed as the G20 world leaders took to the streets of Pittsburgh, dressed as — who else in that football-loving town — the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Oxfam asked that the G20 leaders protect poor countries, which have been struggling to respond to the global recession, high food prices, and the impacts of climate change.

I just got back from my first trip to Africa, where I learned how Oxfam and our partners are helping people overcome drought in southern Ethiopia. This post continues a series of blogs that I wrote along the way.

Today we drove to the place at the end of the road.

I’d tell you where we were, but I don’t know exactly. Somewhere in the Liben region of southern Ethiopia. But when I pull out the creased, dusty map to locate myself, I find only white space, the blank territory of the most remote place I’ve ever experienced.

I’d tell you the name of the road, but it doesn’t have one; those who live here just call it “the road”. The vision of community leaders, this road was hand-built by local people with support from Oxfam’s partner the Liben Pastoralist Development Association. Now that it exists, the 600 households in Malka Haloye—a remote community long cut off by its sheer distance across difficult terrain—can access services like schools, markets, and medical care.

Even in our Land Rover, it took two hours to travel these 45 kilometers. The drought-stricken landscape made me think of Mars, or maybe the moon:  red earth, gray stones, and the bent filaments of bare white trees. A choking hot dust swirled through the air, even with the windows rolled tight shut. Dry branches scraped the edges of the car with a snapping sound like breaking bones.

And the bouncing… let’s just say this road isn’t for those prone to motion sickness, as you can see from the above video.

But just when you think the road can’t get any steeper, or the terrain any more forbidding, you arrive at Malka Haloye. It’s a cluster of plowed fields and small earth huts along the banks of the Dawa River, surrounded by leafy trees that draw an unexpected stripe of green across the harsh terrain. As we pulled over at last, I realized this was the first time all day that I’d seen living, flowing water.

It was a welcome sight. And it reminded me that, for those 600 households, this place is home—even if it’s a long road to get here.

I just got back from an incredible first trip to Africa, where Oxfam and our partners are helping people overcome drought in southern Ethiopia. This post continues a series of blogs that I wrote along the way.

This morning I sat in on a great interview with Terefua Bagajo, one of the data collectors for Oxfam’s drought early warning system (DEWS). I was happy to hear her say that DEWS  is not only helping local people predict and prepare for droughts, but also improving women’s standing in the community.  “Women speak more now, and women are listened to in meetings,” she said.

Borena women from Gutu Dobi.

Although, after meeting Terefua—and many other confident, charismatic Borena women—I wonder how anyone could not respect what they have to say.

Women, even young girls, do a lot of the heavy lifting here. They care for children, prepare food, and walk for miles to collect each day’s drinking water.

And with the last three years’ decrease in rainfall, times are not easy for them and their families. There’s sometimes only enough food for one meal a day. The dried-up corn withers away in the fields. The majestic, humped Borena cattle, which traditionally form the wealth of the people, are growing skinnier by the day. But the women carry on, undaunted by obstacles beyond anything I’ve ever had to face.

And despite what we’d consider a lack of material comforts, this is also a place of real beauty, where people take pride in their culture and their community.

Women and girls glimmer with elaborate jewelry and patterned shawls that bloom, flower-bright, against the washed-out blue sky. Traditional incense perfumes the warm air with a sweet-smoky scent. Recently, people started painting their earth-walled houses in colors made of clay—brick red, dove-gray, soft pink—trying to outdo each other with graceful, swirling patterns.

Read the rest of this entry »

Huka Balambal checks the water in an irrigation ditch he built along the Dawa River. Photo by Eva-Lotta Jansson

I have a new name, and I’m thrilled with it. It’s Loko—a Borena name that means tall and thin.

The sobriquet was a gift, bestowed on a starlit night over the coals of a dwindling bonfire, by our Ethiopian partners with the Liben Pastoralist Development Association, or LPDA. Several colleagues and I had just spent two days with them trekking to some of the hardest-to-reach places I’ve ever been on any Oxfam story-gathering trip. The mission was to see some of the work LPDA has undertaken since last year’s drought and food crisis left so many people in this region near the Kenyan border facing hunger and hardship. Read the rest of this entry »