Walmara

Korra’s laughter. Sena’s sweetness. Dassi’s hot buns. The wind that blows at nightfall. The stars that fall at night. Gemechu’s cheerfulness. Adugna’s kindness. Bachu’s innocence. Abarash’s lentils with rice. Abarru’s eyes. Derebe’s curiosity. Birhanu’s smile. The perfume of Kuma’s house. Motuma’s songs. The drawing room at Bacho. Alemayehu’s shyness. Asnakets’ elegance. The sound of the well. The silence of the mountains. The everpresent smell of coffee… The hospitality of al the people of Walmara.
These are some of the reasons why once more I would like to go back and continue documenting life in Walmara and the Abay projects which are already consolidated and also those which have been implemented recently.
Thank you very much!

Lorena Oliver

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Marina, from Walmara

Seated in my wicker chair and by the light of the single candle that illuminates the nights in Walmara, I think of all that surrounds me and a smile lights up my face.

It’s my third time here and from the first time I set foot in this place I haven’t stopped dreaming that a better world is possible.

Since that November when I met a group of people in Addis and we set out on our way to Walmara, I’ve done so much. Each experience changes the life and view of each human being, some for better, some for worse, but they all make a change. Walmara was a paradise for me, a ‘bálsamo de esperanza’ in the heart of Ethiopia.

Five months in this country give you enough to write a book no less thick than Don Quixote but I could sum it all up in a few brief words: endless laughter, the full awareness of those yet uninfluenced by everything that in the ´first world’ we are familiar with as new technologies, friendliness, hospitality and music accompanying even the coldest of nights.

My first journey to Walmara was so different from the third, arriving here with my ‘Gari license’. Yes! Adunga and Motuma gave me the reins of the horse and I felt free as I never have before. My first days here were hard, we got up with the first rays of the sun and we didn’t stop until our eyes closed with tiredness.

Without a doubt, the work of so many people that have passed through here up to now and who have created all this is impressive. Thinking of this gave me the strength to add my grain of sand to this marvellous project. I felt real nostalgia as I left behind the Abay enclosure with much left to be done. But I was lucky enough to go back! And this journey without doubt has made me feel like I was in a film of my ancestors. I could visit the sponsored families, to know their culture, their life, their homes.

When you live these experiences and compare your life with that of other people you feel more strongly that we live in an artificial world created by a way of life in which hurries and pressure dominate from day to day. Here the most important thing is the present moment. There is no rush, no appointment to keep, all you need is here and now.

Tomorrow I leave for bustling Addis, but charged with energy. I feel fortunate to be part of this project, that fights for a better world right now, and those that are left have already brought many smiles of happiness.

To love life is to love music

“To love life is to love music”, is the subtitle of the After-School Music Club Project which is part of the Teacher Training Project and the Extracurricular Clubs that Abay has set in motion in Gaba Kemisa, in Walmara region, Ethiopia.

The aim of these projects is not only to improve the training of GabaKemisaElementary School teachers, but also to create alternative leisure spaces for children and adults… spaces where they can engage in sports, music, theatre, painting…

we went there to make music but instead learnt another way of appreciating life, a life for them complicated, difficult and hard.

We developed four workshops: with the children and the teachers of the nursery classrooms, with women who participate in the literacy programme as part of the Women´s Empowerment Project, with plenty of eager children who attended our classes, and finally with a group of a few women we selected to continue with the project once we had left.

We did percussion activities, coordination games, we sang, we practised body rhythms, we even took the plunge with easy notions of musical language. But most importantly, we enjoyed it by sharing such an enriching experience, by their great interest and willingness to learn and the love they gave to us. It seems incredible the amount of things you can do in a short space of time when there is real enthusiasm!

“If you get moved imagining it, just imagine doing it”. As the slogan of Abay says, the previous months we felt emotional imagining it, but the real emotion was doing it.

After caring for the animals, working in the fields, caring for their families and doing many other occupations, the children and women of Gaba Kemisa came daily to the AbayCenter to make music with us… without missing a single day. Everyday we had more and more, to such an extent that we couldn’t fit in the Library where we taught our classes.

In the videos you can see a small sample of this experience, but the real experience and all that we learned from the people of Walmara cannot be captured in images… it is in our memories and in our hearts.

Now the next step is to find an Ethiopian teacher to continue with this project until we go bac

This way our After-School Music Club Proyect will carry on and grow over the years anb it will become a reality.

 

I go to Walmara

What started off as a faraway dream in a matter of hours suddenly became reality. If you wish for them hard enough dreams come true. I went from reading other people’s whatsapp, preparing to go out to Walmara to being the one who was writing them. I was going to Walmara although it was still some months away and it seemed like the day would never arrive.

Those months were spent working hard, meeting up and getting to know each other. There were seven of us and we made a great team, not to mention those who wouldn’t be travelling but who were working flat out. We needed to get to know each other, to mould all our ideas into one that of setting up a school.

Would the classrooms be finished when we arrived? What would they be like? Would new children be able to go? What would the teachers be like? Would they be happy to have us there or would they think we were crazy? We even designed the benches for the dining room, the dresser for the kitchen storeroom, the children´s desks, coa thooks , things that we´d always taken for granted, or at worst had chosen from thousands of options in a catalogue. Here no, everything is hand crafted, it is ordered from some carpenters who belong to an association for disabled people in Addis Adeba.

Then getting them there is another adventure. The great dresser is still awaiting the dry season, halfway there in the house of a kindly farmer. Something that we found incredible once we were there was that the rest of the furniture got there at all. You try to fit together the pieces of the jigsaw, you imagine faces, jobs, names that you´ve heard a thousand times, descriptions that you´ve been told time and time again, but you aren´t able to put it all together in your head.With our suitcases fit to burst for the ´kanguritos´ and with our excess baggage of excitement the longawaited day finally arrived.

We got to Addis Adeba at 3am. and having got through customs with our 24 suitcases untouched and unopened (though we could hardly believe it) the adventure begins. Despite not having slept at all during the journey there were many things to do and we had to get going, a whirlwind of shopping with ´merkato´ included, arguing with the 4×4 drivers so that without really understanding the motives they would take us where we wanted to go, we passed through the finance department where after two attempts and a power cut they finally stamped our sponsorship and sports projects, negotiations, bartering …and finally we were on our way, late but on our way.

One group had already gone ahead and were advising us, you need to ring the garis. The first piece of the jigsaw, which until you are actually on it you can´t conceive. It´s night time and here we are the three of us with Eshetu (what would we do without Eshetu)… waiting for Adugna with the garis. Adugna is an essential part of Abay. Adugna is the centre manager, whenever you need anything you ring Adugna… you hear his name repeated time and time again like a song.

There´s no water Adugna, someone´s at the door Adugna, you need to contact a family. Adugna the names don´t correspond to the photos. Adugna the generator needs turning on, Adugna… and he always answers with a smile and a ´no problem´, then later like a good Ethiopian we´ll see if he´s understood or done it. But it´s just that life there isn´t like life here, there, there´s time for everything. Then like a hero with his barely 25 years of age he gets us out of there in the darkness, we load up the ´garis´and we set off.

We arrive and meet the welcoming committee. Abonesh, Motuma, Dejene.. Although our tiredness means that the jigsaw pieces are still not fitting together. However the following day everything starts to fit together smoothly.

Abonesh is always there wherever she´s needed, on occasions you talk to her in Spanish and without realizing it she´s so perceptive that she´s understood first go. She always knows what you want, what you need, what you are trying to say, and the poor thing is always putting up with our constant calls, to train the teachers, to light the kerosene, even for things like the salt and the sugar which are never where we left them, hahaha.

With a large dose of caffeine you begin to weigh up the centre. Now everything makes sense, the thousands of images that you had in your head of the classrooms, the dining room or the playground… everything is in place in your head. You still can´t believe that you´re here.

You have set foot in Gaba Kemisa. And that´s another thing… Walmara is the area which comprises Gaba Kemisa (where the centre and Bacho school are) , Dilu and Hidy. Paco has explained it to me many times but until you´re actually there you don´t get it into perspective in your head. These are things, details that you don´t give priority to from the comfort of your home but that when you´re there they become fundamental to an understanding of many things. And so standing there in the centre you turn around 360º.

The volunteers room, the storeroom to be a future textile workshop, the dining room and kitchen, one classroom, another, the third and the fourth classroom which from now on will be the link classroom (where the 7 of us have slept, Big Brother style), the library and social centre, where we eat, chat, dance..The front door and then back to the starting point. In the middle a big indoor playground and a smaller one. Great work by Eyob the builder who has also become part of Abay with his enthusiasm and perseverance, someone we also met.

The 7 teachers, who through language problems it is more difficult to get to know, gradually got their way into our hearts. All of them form a great team and give lots of affection to the children. At first it was difficult for them to take in everything that we had brought with us, the new timetable, new material and specific work for children with special educational needs ( above all this because out there these children are hidden by their own families), but finally it was these women who were the ones to teach us many things.

Dinnertime comes and things liven up. Motuma the nurse arrives with his cheeky smile, as the days went by he surprised us with his songs.

Alemayu, who is so discreet that you don´t even notice him until there´s a dance going on. Dejene, a future computer science teacher for the Abay staff. The vet, the Mayor and a multitude of people who appear day after day in the centre with their Ethiopian smiles.

All of them and we hope that many more make up the family of Abay, a great family to which I am very proud to belong.

Thank you Abay for giving me this opportunity

Motuma and Abay

In April 2012, at the request of the local authorities, and with the invaluable assistance of the NGOs, solidarity childhood; builds a new module of the health center and it rehabilitates which already exists.

In October of the same year, in the Center it starts working Motuma, nurse entitled, hired by Abay.

It tells us that it has been for him, the arrival of Abay to Gaba Kemisa and what it means for the population have a center where you can go and receive the health care they need:

 

“What I think about the work that he is doing Abay in Ethiopia, especially with the children who have no family or means to study or community is that you are doing great work. ”

Starting classroom Kangaroo has been very good for the neediest children. The children receive education, food and health care. Why I like Abay.

With respect to me; working for Abay has meant learning new techniques and protocols for working with children.

I am very happy because in the majority of cases has been brought Spain specific medication for the treatment of the most difficult cases.

Thanks to Abay the community has health coverage. Everyone is very happy of Abay began their projects here, in Walmara.

People tell me that Abay is being very positive in their lives.

Kangaroo classroom children have improved their power.

Abay is carrying out many projects that are improving the lives of Walmara.

So I say to Abay: thank you very much for helping my country.

Why Walmara?

We are often asked why we chose Walmara as the main destination of our projects and we state that it was the Ministry of Education which pointed out Bacho school as the most in need at that time.  As soon as we visited the place, we realized that Gaba Kemisa, the kebele of Walmara where we work, was in need of help in many other aspects, apart from the school.

These are the “words” of Ismael, a social worker who collaborated with us for some days mainly in the task of selecting beneficiaries of the child sponsorship programme.

“My short stay in Gaba Kemisa has come to an end.  I have been devoured by fleas, but I am happy because I have discovered the true meaning of Ethiopia (after spending 3 months in Addis Ababa).

The harshness of life in the rural area, the humanity of the people and the solidarity.  Thank you Abay (for many years)”.

Ismael Ribera.  June 2013

I´m going to Walmara

Since I was a crazy teenager I had the idea of “helping people away from home”.

But I had never time to do it.

I had to study, I had a boyfriend and it was a tragedy stop meet him during summer, I hadn`t enough money to undertake the adventure … Thousands of reasons to never realize the dream.

Probably was not the moment.

Then, came the wedding, looking for a job, have children, try to find stability …And so, nor find the moment.

Now I already have everything. A husband, a daughter, a job, stability … But now is not worth the discourse of “helping others” anymore.

I have everything but I have nothing.

I need to find the key of happiness, this one that comes from inside, the one that is not coming from the “I have”.

I need to know what extreme poverty is, when surviving is your only treasure.

I need to understand what really matters, what puts a smile on the face of those people I’m feeling sorry for, when it is really me who produce a lot of pity, with all my comfort.

And Ethiopia appears.

It came to me under the form of the absolute and unlimited love: as a daughter. And it dug deep on my heard.  It gave me the greatest thing as well as it took a piece of my heart, which remained there.

Abay came into our lives, it was the perfect link between Ethiopia and Spain, and that idea of crazy teenager returned.

I just needed a push.

Still wasn’t the moment. In our crazy life is never the moment. But sometimes it is necessary to do something crazy. Leave, even if it is only for a few days, your people and go on an adventure.

And the push arrived.  The right people arrived at the right time.

The unconditional support of those who remain here these days, taking care of my duties as mother was achieved.

And so, say no more…I’m going to Walmara!.

But not with the feeling of a heroine who helps the others, but with the intention to bring infinitely more than what I take.

I promise to tell you everything when back.

Mercedes Romero