Working up here in northwest Ethiopia this week with a group called ICRW – International Center for Research on Women. They are working with CARE Ethiopia on a project called TESFA, which means “Hope” in Amharic. Through TESFA, both agencies are working to educate 5,000 adolescent girls on issues relating to economic empowerment and sexual and reproductive health, much needed in a country where the average girl gets married at age 15, and bears her first child at age 18. My week is all photos, as ICRW has a writer here, and we’re spending each day interviewing and photographing child brides – girls promised for husbands when they were as young as two years old.
I’ve never really covered any child marriage projects before, so much of what we’re seeing is new to me. It’s not as black and white an issue as it might sound, difficult as it is for many in a Western culture to imagine marrying off your daughter just a few years after she is born. But poverty, and cultural norms, underlie it all. In Ethiopia, the legal age for marriage is 18, but many in the remote rural areas we’ve been visiting this week literally don’t know how old they or their own children are, so legalities mean little. Many we spoke with this week though said the same thing – that the education the TESFA project brings is a huge step towards changing some of the cultural and gender issues that have made child marriages accepted for so long here. Interesting work. Long days in the field, at fairly high altitude under clear skies. I’ll be taking a sunburn back home with me to a wintry Maryland this weekend.
January 21st, 2012 | by David in Travel
On my last night of two busy weeks here in Senegal, after my time in Malaysia. I’ve been to Senegal once before, but just two days in Dakar on an unplanned layover, so this was really my first chance to see the country. Spent this week with Counterpart International seeing projects of theirs up around the Matam area in the country’s northeast. Mostly they are focused on agriculture and education, as the area is heavily dependent on farming, as is most of Senegal in general, but farming is increasingly difficult as decades of environmental mismanagement have left many barely able to survive on what they grow. One main effort of Counterpart, through the USDA, is a program that provides food for schools, so they can in turn prepare healthy lunches for students. Before such meals were available, many kids were forced to leave school to help support their families, or to help with harvests when the seasons came around, missing classes in the process. The result is low literacy rates, which impacts Senegal’s future in a wide variety of ways. I’ve seen the program else ware in Africa and it really does have an impact. If kids can eat at school, they can stay in school.
Just over three weeks now of traveling so I’m about out of gas. Home for the
A woman learns improved farming techniques in Matam through a Counterpart International program
A student writes a lesson on the blackboard at a school supported by Counterpart International with school lunches
holidays and then off to Ethiopia next month.
December 16th, 2011 | by David in Travel
Spending the week here with the CDC Foundation to photograph a survey called the Global Adult Tobacco Survey, or GATS. It’s more interesting than it sounds, and it definitely gives you an appreciation for what exactly goes into gathering data for any kind of national or international campaign. The data collected will be used by the government here in Malaysia to design and create new anti-tobacco campaigns, much needed in a country where as many as half of all adult males are smokers.
Through the process, about 70 interviewers set out over an eight week period to interview more than 5,100 people, randomly selected to take part in the survey, about tobacco use. The interviewers use hand held electronic data recorders – sort of like Blackberry’s essentially – to ask as many as 117 standardized questions of those they interview, everything from their economic status to their knowledge about tobacco-related illnesses. They interview smokers and non-smokers – again, it’s all random. The interviews can take as little as 15 minutes or as long as maybe an hour, depending on who they are interviewing. And it’s hard work. Because they have to go to the homes of those being interviewed, the interviewers often have to return two, three, even four times to track the interviewee down, working sometimes late at night or very early in the morning.
After all of the
data is collected in a few more weeks, it will be aggregated and put into a report that will be given to the Government of Malaysia, which will in turn use it to design future anti-tobacco campaigns. Tiring work for these interviewers, but all pretty interesting stuff.
November 30th, 2011 | by David in Travel
I’m wrapping up five days here now in Ghor Province, which touches Afghanistan’s western border and stretches into the country’s rugged center. It is mountainous and dry, extremely dusty and stark, but also beautiful. Parts of it remind me of the US southwest, a vast open brown-scape – but most of it is uniquely Afghan.
It’s been such an interesting trip. We hear only the bad news about Afghanistan – casualty figures from the fighting further south and east of here, and suicide attacks like the one in Kabul a few days ago that killed the former president of the country. These are all too real for many here. The other day we passed a crater in the road just outside the city where an IED just missed a passing police car a week or so ago.
But there are also some signs of hope, even for a cynical traveler. I spent much of the week with an NGO client photographing their water and education projects around the province. Education is one of my favorite things to photograph in this kind of work – kids in a classroom full of maps or chalkboards is always a wonderfully visual environment. But seeing Afghan kids, particularly girls, learning to read and write is a powerful message of hope, and one I’m glad to have experienced while I’ve been here. It will help me balance the nightly news reports.
I’m here another week or so, down in Kabul for some other agencies. The work will be interesting, but I’m sad to be leaving this place. I feel in a way like I’ve been allowed some glimpse into the heart and soul of this country and it’s been tantalizing. The more we learn, the more we experience, the more we understand the world around us, and it’s been nice to have a reminder of that.
September 23rd, 2011 | by David in Travel
The village of Akhtakhana Chestiya in west-central Afghanistan
A boy looks on as CRS staff members meet with local villagers in the village of Akhtakhana Bala in Afghanistan's Ghor Province
A local boy looks on as CRS staff meet with local village elders in the village of Akhtakhana Bala
Got in today after a few days of traveling. My second trip now to Afghanistan but my first outside of Kabul, and it’s a different world. This is the Afghanistan I pictured in my mind, after so many years of seeing video clips on TV and nightly news clips. This is as rugged a land as you’ll find – dry and mountainous, and so black at night that stars seem to explode in the skies above. I only had time to get out to one project today, a water project by CRS that brought potable water from a spring to 1,800 villagers in the community of Akhtakhana Bala. Water projects can have huge impacts from what I’ve seen else ware in the world, and this one is no different. Women who used to spend much of their day collecting water from a nearby stream can now turn on any of 14 taps in the village and fill up their water jugs. The water, being spring fed, is also cleaner, and some elders I spoke with said they are already seeing improved health in the community.
I’m here all week, with a focus on education and water projects for CRS. After all of the bad news you see on TV about Afghanistan, this trip looks to offer a glimpse into the other side of this country that I am eager to see.
September 18th, 2011 | by David in Travel
My second full day here in Dira Dawa, in the lowlands of Eastern Ethiopia. I say lowlands because that’s important in the context of what’s going on here, which is a large-scale drought that has left 12 million Ethiopian’s in need of food aid.
This is probably my fifth or sixth trip to Ethiopia, and every time I come I am confronted with the unique nature of this country’s on-going plight. Heavily deforested, extremely poor, and burdened with the second highest population of any country in Africa – more than 63 million people – Ethiopia is a country where people suffer even in the years of good rain. But this year has not been one of those times. The short season rains, called the belg rains, failed completely, leaving millions without a harvest in June. Worse, with no short season rains they could not plant for the main harvest to take place in October and November, and what you see here now is the impact of the short rain failure and the awful realization of what is to come next, with few crops in the ground and those that are planted withering across much of Ethiopia’s east. It’s not the full-scale famine you are seeing now in Somalia. But it’s a slow and painful hunger, coupled with the reality that in a few months, this will get much worse before it gets better.
July 26th, 2011 | by David in Travel
A pretty amazing day here, visiting with some migrant workers trapped in Jordan after they arrived on the promise of work. Hard to image being so vulnerable – lots of young Asian women, primarily, who came here looking for work promised them through recruitment agencies. When they arrive, they have their passports taken and are often forced to work extreme hours – 7 days a week in most cases – and are then not even paid the $150 a month minimum wage. Trapped, vulnerable, and helpless they become victims of the court system if they run away from their employers, who in many cases will file false legal cases saying the workers stole from them. With no passport and a pending legal case, they cannot lesave the country, and every day they stay past their expired visa brings a fine of almost $2, forcing many of the women into a hopeless situation.
I met several women today at a place called the Adaleh Center for Human Rights Studies in Amman. Through the center, Catholic Relief Services is supporting a legal unit which is dedicated entirely to the legal support of migrants. Five lawyers on the staff follow up with cases, representing women accused of crimes, negotiating with former employers, and working to shut down the unscrupulous recruitment agencies that exploit the women. It was a nice experience to see someone sticking up for the little guy, and threatening exploitative employers with legal action. I’m not usually a huge fan of lawyers, but in this case…
A Phillipine migrant worker shows off her passport, retrieved from legal limbo by lawyers of the Adaleh Center for Human Rights Studies
June 26th, 2011 | by David in Travel
The Old City, not far from sites in East Jerusalem being occupied by Jewish settlers.
I’ve never forgotten it since my first trip here maybe 12 years ago, but every time I come back to Jerusalem and the West Bank I’m reminded how toxic this place. Others may find the beauty in the remarkable history here, in the ancient buildings and Biblical stories. It’s always packed with tourists from all over the world seeking some connection to a past hat is part of their religious heritage. But I don’t personally take comfort from that history. I see so much, instead, of what religion has done to turn this place into a polarized, even hate-filled place. The other day I was out doing a story on volunteers in the West Bank who have been given video cameras to document Israeli human right abuses, committed both by the fanatical settlers who claim every inch of Jerusalem as their own, or by Israel security forces. I went to the home of twin 13-year-old kids – one boy and one girl – who have had the front of theirhouse taken over by settlers. If you have never been to this region it may be difficult to understand all of the politics involved in an event like this. But since the Israeli government doens’t want any inch of East Jerusalem to be occupied by Muslims, they won’t grant building permits for Muslims in almost any case. So, when this family of Muslims built an addition to their house because eight people were living in three rooms, the Israeli government refused to issue a permit. Then, they declared the addition illegal. So then, Jewish settler could come in and literally occupy that part of the house. They walked in and took over.
Now, they lead tours of other settlers or supporters, many of them American, who come to the site and congratulate each other on their success at claiming another spot of Jerusalem for Israel. Meanwhile, this family has to live as prisoners to these settlers, who on two occasions have allowed their dog to savagely bite family members and friends as they tried to walk past the addition to enter their door.
It’s an ugly place, full of ugly politics and layer upon layer of frustration, anger, and bitterness. If you want to see more of this, to try to understand more what I’m talking about, you can check out some of the footage these two kids shot of settlers invading their home at this clip:
June 22nd, 2011 | by David in Travel
My third day here now, and I have to say I’m really intrigued by this country. I can’t of course say I’ve seen any of the country, as this entire trip will take place within the confines of the Kabul city limits, but from my very narrow glimpse of it I can see so much richness here. Despite the fact that we are traveling in armored cars and have 24 hour armed escorts – the agency I’m working for is a USAID contractor and those are the rules – I had a chance today to at least duck out a few times with the staff and escorts and take a few quick photos. From what little I knew of Afghanistan’s famous hospitality, I can confirm it now with conviction. They are amazing people, and gracious beyond words. I’m here for so short a trip, but I would love to come back and spend some real time here. It’s a fascinating place.
June 14th, 2011 | by David in Travel
Got in to Kabul yesterday, working with a D.C. based aid agency. Though I used to do it often, it’s been a few years since I worked in an area of active conflict. Not that they are ever what people watching CNN think they are. We’ve been out to dinner both nights I’ve been here and had better food than I find around my house in suburban Baltimore. If you took out the armed security and armored cars, it’s not unlike just about anywhere I’ve been in south or central Asia. What strikes me most about such places, at such times, is the cast of characters attracted to work in such places. Aid workers – long haired, skinny, tee-shirted - mix with contractors, volunteers, missionaries (working quietly here I’m sure) and any number of don’t-ask-me-I-won’t-tell-you men – muscled, short haired and unsmiling. The flight in from Dubai looked like a John LaCarre novel.
But once you’re here, the layers separate, save for casual encounters at the few local restaurants popular with expatriates. Every social opportunity is seized with gusto – everything that’s not work is an absolutely necessary stress relief. The work, because it’s dangerous and unstructured and far from the eyes of office bosses in the US or Europe – attracts wildcatters from any profession that might have work here. They stress, they drink, they work themselves to exhaustion – and they carve out yoga classes, imported wine and terrace dinners. They get danger pay for being here – because it is dangerous, as compared to, well, lots of places – and they spend it easily. They work long days and can’t travel after 10 pm and burn out after 6 months or a year or 4 years, maybe – then move on to a softer post, or punch their ticket and take a promotion, or find another hot spot because they can’t get away from them. It’s an odd life and a bizarre and scary and wonderful experience.
June 12th, 2011 | by David in Travel
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