Friday January 14th, 2011 DAY SIX
RAE Daily update, posted bu Bill Palladino, Executive Director of On the Ground
It's likely that you've already figured out we have a group of family & friends who've just joined the expedition. These folks, left the U.S. on January 10th, and have just joined up with the runners in Shashemene. I've had a few questions about this so I want to be clear, all of these folks paid their own way to Ethiopia and travel under a separate expense system from the running team. The same thing goes for our two journalists, Jacob & Anne. On the Ground is only responsible for financing the running portion of the expedition, our two filmmakers, and the Team Tesfa runners.
At this point the caravan is about 30 souls strong, and will stay together - for the most part - until the end of the run in Afursa Waru. At this writing I haven't yet heard about the rendezvous and how it went, but I'm assuming there are four children and several significant counterparts very happy to see the men in their lives again.
Before the family group left Addis Ababa yesterday they were busy visiting schools, music clubs, and clinics. Along with them was northern Michigan resident and environmental education activist Amalia Fernand. Amalia specializes in teaching environmental issues using art as a medium. She blogged for us today and here's a snippet for you.
AMALIA FERNAND
I am traveling with 3 other women and 4 children and today we go South, to meet up with Run Across Ethiopia. 10 runners from the U.S. and 8 Ethiopian runners are running 260 miles in 10 days across a coffee growing region of the Great Rift Valley. Each runner from the states raised $15,000 before they came and the non-profit, On The Ground, has raised over $150,000 for building schools and improving the quality of education in a region where so much of our coffee comes from, yet the people are too poor to feed their families.
I have been working directly with an organization that embodies the compassion of this country through the spread of education. Tesfa was founded by Dana Roskey 7 years ago after his Ethiopian-American fiancee, Leeza, passed away (http://www.tesfa.org/). Her dream had been to return to Ethiopia to educate her people and Dana founded Tesfa in her memory to carry out that dream. He has built 7 pre-schools in Ethiopia and I spent the last 2 days working with the children at the Markato school. (On the Ground is building a brand new addition to one of these schools through our RAE program. We also funded a year-long school lunch program at the Mercato School.) There are fifty 4-6 year olds whom the government deemed in dire need of free schooling. Along with musicians, Seth Bernard and May Erlewine, I worked with these beautiful and loving children at their simple and functional school set amidst a backdrop of poverty. Today we leave this bustling capital, full of memories of cultural experiences such as shopping in the colorful markets, listening to live Ethiopian music in the evenings, and visiting the National Museum of Ethiopia. We saw the bones of ancient human evolution and the cast replica of the 3.3 million year old Austrolopithicus aferensis, "Lucy" and the 4.4 million year old child, Salem, both excavated in Ethiopia.
At this point the caravan is about 30 souls strong, and will stay together - for the most part - until the end of the run in Afursa Waru. At this writing I haven't yet heard about the rendezvous and how it went, but I'm assuming there are four children and several significant counterparts very happy to see the men in their lives again.
Before the family group left Addis Ababa yesterday they were busy visiting schools, music clubs, and clinics. Along with them was northern Michigan resident and environmental education activist Amalia Fernand. Amalia specializes in teaching environmental issues using art as a medium. She blogged for us today and here's a snippet for you.
AMALIA FERNAND
I am traveling with 3 other women and 4 children and today we go South, to meet up with Run Across Ethiopia. 10 runners from the U.S. and 8 Ethiopian runners are running 260 miles in 10 days across a coffee growing region of the Great Rift Valley. Each runner from the states raised $15,000 before they came and the non-profit, On The Ground, has raised over $150,000 for building schools and improving the quality of education in a region where so much of our coffee comes from, yet the people are too poor to feed their families.
I have been working directly with an organization that embodies the compassion of this country through the spread of education. Tesfa was founded by Dana Roskey 7 years ago after his Ethiopian-American fiancee, Leeza, passed away (http://www.tesfa.org/). Her dream had been to return to Ethiopia to educate her people and Dana founded Tesfa in her memory to carry out that dream. He has built 7 pre-schools in Ethiopia and I spent the last 2 days working with the children at the Markato school. (On the Ground is building a brand new addition to one of these schools through our RAE program. We also funded a year-long school lunch program at the Mercato School.) There are fifty 4-6 year olds whom the government deemed in dire need of free schooling. Along with musicians, Seth Bernard and May Erlewine, I worked with these beautiful and loving children at their simple and functional school set amidst a backdrop of poverty. Today we leave this bustling capital, full of memories of cultural experiences such as shopping in the colorful markets, listening to live Ethiopian music in the evenings, and visiting the National Museum of Ethiopia. We saw the bones of ancient human evolution and the cast replica of the 3.3 million year old Austrolopithicus aferensis, "Lucy" and the 4.4 million year old child, Salem, both excavated in Ethiopia.
And Team leader Timothy Young sent us this update.
On day six that long straight-as-an-arrow piece of asphalt that's been pointing the way through the Ethiopian plains to Jirge Chefe has given way to some curves, rolling hills and lush green vegetation. The good news for Hans Voss, Chris Treter and myself is that our loved ones, along with Seth and May and the film crew, just left Addis Abbaba and are driving our way. We should see them in about 5 hours. We have a lot in store for everyone over the next few days. . Thanks to some quick organizing by our Tesfa Foundation support team we have a dinner planned at a small hotel on Hawassa Lake. I just came from there where I booked some rooms for the family visitors. I have no doubt my kids will love it since within a few minutes of arriving I was feeding monkeys out of my hand. Many of them had clinging babies. Too sweet. So the team will have dinner on the Lakeshore tonight and possibly even get to go out on paddleboats and mingle with hippos....at a safe distance of course. Then tonight, Seth and May have concert planned with other local musicians. I've been told by the organizer that they are already expecting close to 1000 people and the plan to do radio spots this afternoon, so the crowd will likely grow.
After running three consecutive 30 mile days the runners have put some miles in the bank so we can taper off a bit in the coming days and we begin to climb in elevation. Hopefully that will allow them to stay up a little later tonight to see the concert. Then after tomorrow's run, we have arranged to have a goat roasted over a fire on the shore of Hawassa Lake. This a traditional Ethiopian BBQ and should be a fun and rewarding way to bond as a team and prepare them for the final stretch. I met the goat moments ago and thank her for tomorrow contribution to our meal. I don't think she understood my English, but my intent was pure.
And Nigel, our U.K. representative, pitched in this little note:
"Ethiopia is an exceptionally beautiful country. We also ran through Shashamene today which is where the Jamaican Rastas set up their community when they returned from Africa in the 1950's. Couple of sheds, several Rastas (one of whom sang us a great solo tune) ...
And Jacob Wheeler posted this associated story to his Glen Arbor Sun blog late on Friday evening. http://65.161.179.184/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://onthegroundglobal.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e86f86882c25bcdcfe0bda552%26id=011fd67d64%26e=7b6f7ef5c1
How did 1,000 ganja-loving Jamaican Rastafarians show up in a rural village in southern Ethiopia? The Run Across Ethiopia harriers learned how on Day 6 of their 250-mile run to Yirgachefe.
Former Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie (“Negus Negusti”, the “king of kings”) gave land in the village of Shashomane, north of Hawassa, to 300 Jamaican Rastafarians in the 1950s. Rastafarians believed that Selassie was a prophet from God. This Jamaican enclave lives on today. The Run Across Ethiopia spoke with a second-generation Jamaican named Ibrahim about this unique history." Click the image below, or this link to watch the video on YouTube. http://65.161.179.184/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://onthegroundglobal.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e86f86882c25bcdcfe0bda552%26id=da662b86a1%26e=7b6f7ef5c1
And we'll just let Jamaican Bob take us out on the update. See you all tomorrow.
To read full-length stories posted by our RAE Team members please visit our blog pages at http://65.161.179.184/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://onthegroundglobal.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e86f86882c25bcdcfe0bda552%26id=867ce9689f%26e=7b6f7ef5c1
Remember too that you an follow us on Facebook and on Twitter where we post frequent, if short, snippets about the adventure.
If you want to see our stream of photos as they arrive you can go to the website (see below) or go right to our Flickr Photostream using the link below. http://65.161.179.184/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://onthegroundglobal.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e86f86882c25bcdcfe0bda552%26id=665308cae9%26e=7b6f7ef5c1
If you want to see our stream of photos as they arrive you can go to the website (see below) or go right to our Flickr Photostream using the link below. http://65.161.179.184/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://onthegroundglobal.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e86f86882c25bcdcfe0bda552%26id=665308cae9%26e=7b6f7ef5c1
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