Eighteen days in Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia were too long and not long enough. On the one hand, it was a stressful trip--hot, busy, and crowded with many meetings with NEF staff, the poor and displaced, US and local government officials. On the other hand, there was so much to learn and see.

Although we fully expected to travel to Darfur when in Sudan, to assess conditions in the areas where we hope to work--that proved impossible for security reasons. Our local staff adamantly counseled against it, given weeks of tribal rivalries and killings in addition to the Chadian rebels on the Sudan side of the border obscuring the original fighting between the rebels and government proxies. Now the main goal seemed to be capturing vehicles from foreign agencies in order to continue fighting. I learned a new term--"technicals"--land rovers or SUVs which have been carjacked, their tops cut off, and machine guns welded to their floors....

DISPLACED SUDANESE

What we did see in the areas around Khartoum was difficult enough. NEF works in an Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Camp called Dar es Salaam el Rabwa. About 15,000 refugees from both the southern and Darfur wars have settled on a large plot of desert land given to them by the Sudanese government. They have virtually no services: no paved roads, only one well for the whole community, no building materials, few schools, no equipment, no public transport, and, of course, no work. Even if the people were not cattle or sheep herders without skills and education, there is no way for them to make the trip to Khartoum for employment. To say the least, the settlement is desolate; nothing green grows there.

NEF is helping support a number of schools in Dar es Salaam. Except where we have helped, schools consist of a simple shade over a dirt floor with no books, chairs, desks. We bought blackboards and chalk for one school as well as a few desks and chairs, but most students sit on the dirt floor, or if they have one, bring a chair from home. Teachers are unpaid and with minimal education themselves.

In Salamah, another IDP camp, NEF works with three small associations--a women's microcredit group and two groups of the disabled, who generously formed to help both disabled and non-disabled in the camp. They have started a school, a microfinance program and have ambitions to do more. Tragically, there is a disproportionate number of disabled in these camps, a result of birth defects, malnutrition, accidents and war.

A non-work highlight--and as a retired archeologist of particular interest to me--was a visit to Meroe, a third-century BCE Nubian site four hours north of Khartoum, which boasts a large complex of pyramids, a royal city, and several other settlements of the same era. Also, a day at the Souk in Omdurman was notable for its outstanding selection of beads, and followed by a most hospitable lunch at the home of our Khartoum administrator, Mohamed Ali, giving me the opportunity to meet his charming, impressive wife and three children.

ETHIOPIAN IMPRESSIONS

My first visit to Ethiopia was a surprise. It is a country with some of the worst endemic problems in my experience through the years: perpetual semi starvation in rural areas--particularly in women and children; gross examples of patriarchy--abduction and rape as a form of marriage negotiation, regular and unpunished abuse of women and children, female genital mutilation; alcoholism; rampant illiteracy; extreme urban slums and terrible poverty everywhere.

Ethiopia lost access to the sea when it lost Eritrea in 1993, so the country may be in worse shape than previously. Once we ventured from the paved road into the countryside, the "picturesque"-- thatched round houses surrounded by groves of false banana and the narcotic cash crop called chat--quickly gave way to the reality of the starkest poverty. Everyone, especially the women and children, looked undernourished and having no available water to wash themselves during the dry months.

I made a memorable visit to the National Museum in Addas Ababa and encountered 2.2 million-year-old "Lucy," an ancestor of us all discovered in the country's Rift Valley. We also wandered around the capital's market, considered the largest in all of Africa, where my traveling companion, NEF VP for Program Development Roger Hardister, bought frankincense.

And had occasion to sample "injira," a national dish made from the root of a plant called "false banana" since it looks like a banana root but bears no fruit. The women scrape the wood of the root, pulverize it, boil it, form it into large rubbery loaves, and preserve it by burying it in the ground for up to 20 years. It has the consequent taste and texture, but injira lasts through droughts and floods, and therefore is an Ethiopian staple.

HOPEFUL COLLABORATION

NEF's partner, "The Voice of Justice for Women" or "Zema" for short, is working on many of the problems we witnessed firsthand. Netsanet Mengistu, the founder of the organization, is an energetic, smart, creative thinker, who spent many years as a high-level official in the Ethiopian government. Now she is particularly interested in alleviating the problems of women and girls in her country.

On January 15, Zema will inaugurate a new school and a clinic in a remote area--and 2,000 people are expected to attend the celebration! About 500 of them will make the difficult trip from Addis Ababa on roads that are either non-existent or washed out, and many will spend the night on the floors of village huts. The villagers themselves will provide the food, drink and entertainment.

How Zema's founder and prime mover has convinced these city-folk to undergo this ordeal is a mystery to me. But Netsanet Mengistu can, it seems, work miracles...why NEF has hopes for many joint accomplishments ahead.

YOU CAN HELP NOW!

Online: www.nefdev.org Phone: +1 (212) 425-2205

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