Feeling at Home in Ethiopia

Ottawa, Canada is such a crowded place, crowded with well-educated, professional people. I have been part of that society, a top IT management consultant to the Federal Government, but now I find myself feeling more at home in Ethiopia or Ghana than I do in Canada. In the developing world, there is such a need for senior people of good will to participate with them in the building up of their society. But in the past, people like myself have mainly been present through religious charities and Non-governmental organizations (NGOs), it has been a trying to help out or rescue people in trouble. Now, the way I and my colleagues are participating is through doing business, but business oriented not only to being profitable, not only a good ethical business, but also one that purely does good. Gone for us are the days of making money being some kind of virtue in and of itself, the means that justifies any ends. Now instead we are purposefully choosing ways of engaging in business that benefit the wider society, not just in terms of jobs, but in building capacity in a society based largely on subsistence farming and trading to one that participates meaningfully in the 21^st century internet economy.

So, when we plan to bring tourists trekking across mountains and plateaus, we do not go through community backyards so to speak (almost everywhere in Ethiopia is inhabited or grazed by someone) as we see fit so that our tourists get a view of this or that. Rather we will work with each community, organizing them so that they are able to appropriately welcome tourists into their communities, so that both they and the tourists end up with a good experience, and, income for the community. When we build a hotel or a resort, we will share the land with Alchemy World Projects and the One Village Foundation who respectively provide an entrepreneurship centre for young adults and an internet-connected community center for those lacking accessibility, resources and skills. Thus, the communities in which we situate a hotel will benefit in many ways from the many and diverse impacts of our partnerships in the region.

So now as my time here in Ethiopia winds down and I prepare to return to Ottawa, we already have a plan for my return for a much longer time the next time, as I find my place supporting the growth and development of this economy and these people with the many close friends and colleagues I am being blessed with. One of my many agenda items while back in Ottawa will be to prepare the way for friends and colleagues from around the world who may want to join in with us in supporting a dynamically growing economy with the experience, expertise and capital they have acquired in our lives to this point. Those who do choose to join in with us will share our common vision of not only seeking out profitable investments, but meaningful ones. I happily anticipate being able to look back with the community of friends who have joined in over the next decade or two with us, looking back and seeing just how many people have benefitted in so many ways from our choosing to join in with them in their life here in Ethiopia.

Counting down in Addis

Your brother Daniel

Ethiopian night life & sex trade workers

There is no such thing as a singles bar in Ethiopian society: what they have instead are bars where sex trade workers get friendly with patrons, perhaps getting drinks bought for them, perhaps a little something more like dancing together at the bar, or perhaps going "home for coffee" and an all night gig for the equivalent of $20 - $30. I found myself into the world when sitting in a bar with my friends, wanting to start something I invited an attractive young woman I took to be our server to come over and chat. So she sat down beside me and with translation assistance from my friends we chatted. Our driver, Ziguy (we often affectionately called him ``the guy``) was VERY good at chatting up the women and could easily make them comfortable and so was soon engaged with her teasing and joking with both of us. After a while I realized that she was in fact a sex trade worker and why there were so many good looking young women taking turns standing on the other side of the room waiting for something to do.

So the three of us had an enjoyable time as we continued the teasing, joking, interplay with her of course trying to warm me up for something else having already invited me to her house for coffee. J I asked her through Ziguy what it was she had planned for her life, and she said she would like to get married someday. Finally I told her that I really was not into getting laid tonight, but that I would be coming back in 4 months, that she should work on her English, and that will look her up when I get back to Woldiya. I also tipped her the equivalent of $10 for her time with us, my generosity bemusing my friends.

Afterwards in discussing the sex trade with my friend Derebew, (he has been an international development researcher and project manager in his own country for 14 years) he explained that these girls work for themselves, and that there is not the same stigma to being a sex trade worker, neither is it criminalized. As such these women represent an available pool of talent for a hotel which will want to provide western levels of service to their clients as they are more client-centred than the staff in the hotels we visited in small town Ethiopia, where levels of service are often nowhere near where they need to be. The hotel likewise can be for them a way of transitioning into a less risky line of work that can still give decent remuneration.

A couple of nights later in Bahir-Dar, we were again in a bar that soon filled with over a dozen attractive women, focused on the prospect provided by a couple of white guys. On my last night there I invited over the most attractive of the women and ended up with an amazingly wonderful evening of dancing, joking, talking with this mature, intelligent, gracious, gorgeous and oh, so sexy young woman. We both really like singing and dancing and so had a wonderful evening enjoying the music together, with me being absolutely blown away by her dancing, and telling her so often. She told me that she planned to continue in the business for another couple of years until she had saved up enough money to open her own business. I promised her I would look her up when I got back to Ethiopia, she said she would be happy to come and see our new hotel in Woldiya, and like with the first woman I ended up with her phone number, real name and working name. She also got tipped, the equivalent of $18. J

 

The Proposal

Doing good business, doing good is taking form for us here in Ethiopia as the One Village Ethiopia project: it combines developing a hotel, a tour service, a school for poor young high-school drop outs that produces young entrepreneurs and our very own Digital Village – a community internet center that provides access, training and consulting to the surrounding community. Woldiya has tourist potential that is as yet largely undeveloped, yet with the tourist business worldwide predicted to peak and plateau in the next decade it is one of Woldiya's most sustainable ways of gaining income as well as emerging into the 21^st century internet economy.

My original plans for Woldiya involved a drilling business or NGO, because ½ of the countries 70 million or so inhabitants still don't have reliable access to fresh water, but in fact our expertise and "guidance" has ended up bringing us to support Woldiya's emergence as a modern town, still well rooted in their rich and diverse cultural traditions. Thus we have submitted a proposal to both the Town and Region received with resounding support (including the gift of land!)

This proposal is intended to support Woldiya's successful emergence into the 21^st century internet economy. We will be working with local communities to who will welcome and host our tourists on their hiking trips up or across mountains, or trekking across highland plateaus to the breath-taking vistas that await them at cliff's edge. We have forests with monkeys, baboons, gorillas and tigers, lakes with hippopotami, camels all over the place in the lowlands, donkeys in the highlands, most of this within a few hours drive from Woldiya depending on which direction you head out. These communities will welcome our tourists as members of their families, all of us being One Village, giving themselves and the tourists a lovely sense of belonging as they share their food and cultural dances, songs and crafts with their guests. At the same time we will be connecting many sectors of the Woldiya region with the internet, giving them lessons in English, computer skills, and entrepreneurship so that they can with our support build Woldiya's new relationship to the world.

We have one more week here, a week that will be spent setting up the new Ethiopian company that will develop this hotel and touring business, that will host these charities. But tonight, we are off to have some fun, as it is Greg's birthday and so we will be having a good time with our Ethiopian friends, as only they can have fun!! J

Ethiopia Day 7

We are now in Woldiya a little past Dese heading North but not as far as Lalibela. We have surveyed the potential sites for our new hotel, which will include our Digital Village and an Alchemy World school as well as a bar and restaurant, having chosen a nice one on the road between Woldia and Bahiothr-Dar; but far enough from the traffic that a nice fresh breeze sweeps across the land as it slopes gently down towards the river bed (during the rainy season there is water but it's mostly mud and stones now).

As you can see the setting is spectacular, Africa at its finest!! The grain is Teff, an ancient grain endemic to Ethiopia, the first grain to be cultivated, the grain that is used in making Enjera.

This evening I sat down to write the proposal to present to the mayor of Woldia, a really nice, wise 40ish man who is really pleased at what we want to do: in his words, "he will not let this opportunity pass him by." This sitting ended up being on a white plastic patio chair I pulled out of the Internet Café to sit on the Marble walkway alongside the Hotel and Café, tapping away at the laptop in my lap. Within minutes an enterprising 10 year old boy had me agreeing to let him shine my shoes for 10 Birr ($1 CDN). As he worked away others walked by, stopped to stand behind me and watch for a bit, or tried to find some way to engage me beyond the smile and nod I'd give. Then a large truck carrying a load of sheep pulled up and 20 or so were loaded off the top section of this truck into the waiting hands of the a catcher who then passed them along a chain of people into the bowels of the restaurant. They believe in fresh meat! Later as I was sitting with some of my colleagues and new associates in the quadrangle restaurant of this 2 year old hotel, (2 years going on 50) they were released from where they had been penned up and ended up pouring into the restaurant section before they were finally herded outside. In Ethiopia there is a marked tendency to do everything yourself from scratch and so just as this hotel restaurant clearly butchers its own meat, so too, the building contractor we visited today has his own cement blocks made on site, his own gravel crushed, etc.

This hotel is as good an example of developing world as compared with what I'm used to. It is cheap we've got rooms for 5 of us averaging out to $4 each per evening. It has a nice design with an open quadrangle and three stories, but despite being only two years old, well designed and built with nice materials, everywhere you look the actual construction, finishing and maintenance are very poor. The stairs are not all the same size and have a slope downwards so that slipping is easy; the water is not working in much of the building and in my room where there is supposed to be a wall outlet there are only wires protruding. The window to the outside in the bathroom is permanently open with the result I killed 4 mosquitoes, three of whom got me first. There is a TV running permanently in the open quadrangle which resounds effectively into all the rooms whether the door is open or not, which has been going since 6 am this morning! J

Day 8

Having finished the letter of intent, in the late morning we headed up one of Woldiya's mountains to see the Church on top. These drives up the mountains in a good strong 4x4 are nonetheless often hair-raising as we repeatedly seem to come within inches of the edge, and even just looking out my passenger front seat window, I experience some vertigo looking down the sheer drop into the valley below. We went past many subsistence farms where they've managed to create a plot of corn or teff and/or keep a few head of goats or cattle. These are certainly highland peasants: according to Zinabu highlanders share more cultural commonalities across the tribes with other highlanders than they do with the lowlanders of their own tribe. So we made it to the top without incident, were greeted by a couple of young men in their early teens who at Zinabu's request brought us leafy twigs (Olive tree) with which to brush our teeth. We simply peeled back the bark, crushed the wood with our teeth and ended up with a nice set of bristles for brushing: very effective! We were not allowed into the Church because it turns out that western visitors used to talk their guides into selling them the holy hardware so to speak, so that valuable ancient cultural items of great significance to the local community ended up gracing someone's wall or desk with the guide pocketing the equivalent of perhaps $100.00! We each did the available obeisance, respectfully leaving a 10 Birr note in the collection box.

Zinabu then suggested we walk down the mountain rather than driving back down!! What a great suggestion that turned out to be as Greg, Zinabu, our young guide and myself took the next 2 hours walking down the mountain in the bright early afternoon sunshine (no sun-stroke or sun-burn to speak of and I was not wearing sun glasses a hat or any other special protection. We enjoyed the most spectacular views and increasingly were convinced of what a wonderful tourist experience hiking in these mountains could be. Oh, and part way down we shared the path with a small herd of 15 goats ably managed by a 10 or 11 year old boy. He had a makeshift bullwhip – a wooden handle about a foot long to which a 2 metre length of rope had been attached. Could he ever make that thing crack. Zinabu cracked it not far from my head almost deafening me with the gun shot! Greg got pretty close to a good snapping sound but I gave it up realizing I was to used to snapping towels, which it turns out is a different motion. I also made friends with one of the goats who started nibbling on my olive branch, in the end, he got the whole thing but there were first several familiar, comfortable interactions as we made our way down the mountain together. We said goodbye to our guide sending him off with 30 Birr and the encouragement to pick up his schooling again – he had yet to finish grade 10 but was not in school. He is a potential student for our Alchemy World Projects school – but more about that in another post.

We then headed over to meet with the mayor, handed him our letter of intent and were sent back to make a detailed proposal, and that's what I'll be doing all afternoon and evening of Day 8. Over and out for now!

Ethiopia Day 5

We have made several important discoveries about Ethiopia, each of which are shaping our experiences here to date. First they are behind most countries in the development of the internet. There are 351 broadband customers in all of Ethiopia, but this broadband is a stepped down broadband, and many internet applications are reputedly banned or unavailable. The form of dial-up that is more present in internet cafés I'm told can take 5 minutes to send an email. Using the dial-up available through our friends in the construction business is faster than that, but is very buggy, hard to get on, and you often need to hit "send" multiple times in order for an email to go. Thus our ability to be actively involved in our business has been extremely limited, meaning our fourth partner has got a lot to manage on his own. Construction is continuing on a fibre optic ring but there is no official date of completion or when broadband will become more widely available. However, when it does, (probably within the year) there will be significant opportunities for a company like ours who handles all aspects of communications, especially if partnered with a good local company like the one with whom we're already in discussions.

Second, the banking system is also significantly behind so that the only Visa transactions are at a bank for withdrawing cash. Thus we are doing our best to avoid needing to tap that particular reserve putting quite a bit of stress on our cash supply. The third impacted on the second as in we've found that many of the people we meet here, in the words of a Ghanaian friend of mine, "see us as their bank from which they can withdraw money," and so we've found our cash supply getting stressed by "friends" we are meeting, who as it turns out have their own assumptions and plans for us! J

Anyhow enough griping, these are really comments about differences in expectations and functionality, differences I'm adjusting to. However this trip South to Awasa had many highlights, three of which I've included in photos for this blog. Suffice it to say that Greg and I did the tourist thing and very much enjoyed our confrontation with the majesty and beauty that is Africa:

Our guides kept a respectful distance and so this pod of 11 Hippos – two of whom left as we were arriving, tolerated our presence occasionally lifting themselves out of the water or cracking one of their trademark yawns. On this boat trip on Lake Awasa we also saw a kingfisher, cormorants and an eagle all fishing and enjoying their meals.

 

We all very much enjoyed our encounter with this wild Columbus monkey that was coaxed down out of the trees by our guides, and who patiently sat with us eating a peanut at a time from our hands.

 

The storks were huge and not at all shy if there was food around. In fact a human could get stampeded if the fish scraps were thrown out with him in between the birds and the scraps. There were huge numbers of these huge birds: again I am so taken by the virility, the powerful life force that throbs throughout Africa!! This trek we took to Lake Awasa and later to Emporer Haile Selassi's resort, shower and hot springs was a trek through the Rift Valley, an amazing geological, cultural, and natural feast of diversity, all somehow co-existing and thriving, despite our sensationalist news generated opinions of the hazards and difficulty of life in Ethiopia.

Ethiopia by the way is one of the world's oldest continuous civilizations dating its origins back to centuries before Christ. They have a remarkable religious and cultural tolerance sewn into the fabric of their daily life as they have been coexisting as Muslims, Christians and Traditional Religionists for more than 1500 years. More on that as we continue our quest to understand Ethiopia, to understand perhaps our place in Ethiopia, in contributing in some ways to the re-emergence an ancient civilization into the modern world.

Ethiopia Day 2

The endless day is over, (more than 50 hours between beds) I slept 8 hours last night and I am "on the new schedule. " We are over 2,000 ft above sea level which may account for the shakiness I'm feeling inside(effects of altitude), but overall I am well, and happy to be here. The weather is wonderful, it gets nice and cold at night – probably less than 15 degrees centigrade, and even when it is hot in the afternoon, the breeze is still cool. The air unfortunately is quite polluted but not as bad as either Beijing or Accra, and in general so far Addis is more affluent than Accra.

There are herds of sheep sometimes with a few cattle thrown in, bevies of donkeys carrying burdens that can be seen from time to time, making their way with haste down the side of the road, or even as part of the traffic; and this is right in the middle of down-town Addis, so pastureland is rather scarce! We have been feasted twice already by Limenew, Zinabu's cousin, at two different restaurants, with Enjerra and various delicious meat and vegetable concoctions: beef, lamb, goat green vegetables I don't recognize. So far the chillies have been on the side, which is a good thing, since their version of hot is pretty hot!

We are staying in what amounts to a very comfortable cottage: Greg is in the master bedroom under mosquito netting in a rather opulent white set-up; I am in the kids' room with perfectly comfortable bunkbeds and Zinabu is in the servant's bedroom which includes a small double bed and a sink. There are no screens on the windows, but then there aren't many mosquitoes either, given the altitude and cold nights. The windows themselves are a latched set of of glass windows on the outside and latched wooden panels on the inside. The grounds are well manicured with lovely hedges, trees and cacti, many colourful, musical birds and generally a quiet, restful atmosphere. The air is nice with the exception of when a neighbour's servant is burning some yard refuse.

 

Yesterday (the endless day) after arriving in Addis I had several intense, fruitful meetings as I began exploring the construction industry looking for gaps that Canadian manufacturing or services could fill, met with the Carlos, the founder of Alchemy World – an Ethiopian NGO, and his executive Director, Daniel a local. We found many synergies between our ideals, visions and approaches and are likely to, partner together with them (One Village Canada) on getting our first Digital Village up and running.

Carlos, like myself, comes from the software Industry, also on the marketing, sales & consulting side of things, but 5 years ago began to explore his roots (his Mom is Ethiopian, while his Dad is Italian). In coming to Ethiopia he was struck by the millions of people living in poverty but realized that they were hard-working people who just didn't have good jobs. So, he set about creating jobs by developing entrepreneurs. He is working with the poorest children who have not finished school but who are bright and show initiative and drive, 70% of whom were female, and supports them in finishing their high school. But he also trains them in the use of computers and in business. Each of his schools handles 25 children at a time and his programs take a year or two each. He already has 4 schools going and aims to have 100 someday, each churning out 100 graduates a year. They will end up pouring new entrepreneurs who will each become small to medium sized businesses, and therefore increasingly transform the Ethiopian economy. This is especially likely as so far Ethiopia has yet to embrace the computer age, having very limited internet (only as fast as our dial-up – and often very slow) so that businesses are not on the web, there is no online banking, etc. But by next year a fibre-optic ring will be completed linking in much of the country with hi-speed to the rest of the world and thus these entrepreneurs will have a competitive advantage when it comes to getting businesses online.

Alchemy World is a natural fit with The One Village Foundation as we take a similar approach on the importance of access to the internet and basic computer training for the alleviation of poverty. Since they are already well established, including with the Amhara (the ethnic group we will be working with in Woldia) we will be able to leverage that reputation but also add to their program elements that will increase the good being achieved, and, even produce trained Open Source developers who will themselves be contributing to the Ethiopia's emergence in the 21st century knowledge economy.

I also visited the Caterpillar Offices and Garage and was really impressed at the sophistication and scale of these multi-million dollar heavy equipment sales and maintenance facilities. It has been in operation for fourteen years, is owned by a Frenchman, but totally manned and operated by Ethiopians exhibiting Caterpillar best practices in every aspect of their business. The construction industry is booming as Ethiopia industrializes and modernizes at a tremendous pace. In keeping with our doing good business and doing good philosophy, we are hoping to play matchmaker between a Canadian manufacturer or services company, who knowledge will be a boost to the Ethiopian economy, just as opening another market would be a boost to them.

Day 1 - The Three Amigoes hit London

Something interesting is happening with several 40 – 50 something guys, who first ended up on a soccer (football) team together, then became business partners, http://www.glsdezign.com/, started a charity and now are in Heathrow airport on their way to Ethiopia.

Two years ago Zinabu and Daniel were on the same soccer team and began talking together about developing Canada-Ethiopia charity and business activities. This year, Gregory and Harrison joined the team. Daniel and Gregory got talking, with synchronicities popping up like Gregory already being convinced he was going to Africa before we started talking. Then Daniel and Gregory invited Harrison, who's also in the design business and an entrepreneur to join in. Once Zinabu saw what was happening with Daniel, Gregory and Harrison, then he wanted in. What he contributed to this business were his contacts and investments in Ethiopia, and Gregory's company GLS dezign took on some new partners and a new mission: to do good business but also to simply do good, inspired by David Berman's vision as enunciated by example in Do Good Design. In fact David Berman Communications is one of the new GLS dezign business partners.

Harrison is running the Ottawa arm of GLS dezign for his partners while they go to Ethiopia for 3 weeks. So today, day 1, Gregory (behind the camera) Daniel and Zinabu went and explored Pickadilly Circus, taking advantage of our 15 hours between flights at Heathrow. Greg had never seen London before so after arriving at 1 am Ottawa time and grabbing a hour or so of sleep on airport benches we included our sortie in this admittedly low energy day. We will eventually fly out by 4:30pm Ottawa time (22 hrs so far) and arriving in Addis at 7:20am Perhaps exhaustion will make us better sleepers on the 2nd flight!! :) All told it will be 28 hours of travel and more than 2 days without getting to bed.

I will be posting pretty regularly, and also putting pics up on Facebook. So over and out for now for these "it's time to do something really different" trip, guys who are remaking themselves, remaking their company, and looking to do their bit to make the world a better place.

Daniel Berg

Being, Doing Good, Being in Business

Being: Being happy in your own skin, content and grateful for whatever comes your way

Doing Good: working for the betterment of those given to you, those who choose to work with you, making yourself available to those with needs

Being in Business: doing good business with a preference for providing services to those who also in their own way are doing good

Thus is GLS dezign transforming itself, becoming a company that not only does good work, but it does good! Thus we have started the One Village Foundation Canada Trust, a non-profit organization, in order to raise money for bridging the digital divide in the developing world. We are beginning with Ethiopia: while we are there we will be doing our facts-finding, establishing the level of need, the cost of setting up a digital village (a Wi-Fi connected community centre) so that we can establish the plan for our first project.

But while in Ethiopia, we will also be researching and engaging in various business opportunities, each of which will be designed to strengthen Ethiopia in some way:

1. Researching how Web design, development and hosting is currently offered in Ethiopia, looking for how we can partner for mutual benefit with anything from outsourcing web development work through to designing and hosting websites for Ethiopian businesses looking for direct access to western consumers;
   
2. Researching the construction industry looking for what new manufacturing or service capabilities could do well in (and thus strengthen) the Ethiopian economy, so that we might ask selected successful Canadian businesses to consider setting up a branch in Ethiopia with Canadian government support and our consulting services;
   
3. Researching the current state of tourism in Ethiopia as we explore how to strengthen cultural tourism and eco-tourism in Ethiopia through partnerships with InterCulture of the University of Ottawa and Addis Abeba University;
   
4. Begin developing a hotel in Woldia, a small city situated at a major crossroads, accessible to many important and attractive tourist destinations in Ethiopia;
   
5. Import/Export opportunities we discover as Ethiopia can export to Canada duty free, and needs to develop its export markets.
   

So follow us to Ethiopia and perhaps in some way join with us in our path: being happy, doing good, doing good business.

Daniel F. Berg, PhD

Web 3.0 Imagineer

GLS dezign.com