I just finished working on a video with our video producer Rob Baker here at Oxfam. It’s about a type of well used by the Borena in Ethiopia. As I was coming to work on the train this morning, whooshing past the grey, frozen salt marshes north of Boston, I was thinking back on the brief days I spent in southern Oromiya.
Outside the village of Olladida there is a huge pile of cow dung. My Ethiopian colleagues tell me that here in southern Ethiopia a big dung pile is a status symbol. In a place where no one will tell you flat out how many cows they own (any more than an American would tell a stranger how much money is in their checking account), the size of your dung pile speaks for itself. I have to wonder if my colleagues are yanking my chain.
I once owned a small house. This dung pile is a lot bigger.
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