Day 39: Knowledge is 🔑

Hello everyone!

Today was a nice day here in Debre Birhan. We spent the morning at a large farm that had poultry, a few oxen, sheep, and bees. They also had apple trees and olive trees. It was so beautiful to be high up in the hills (mountains) and see the beautiful landscape. It was a bit colder because of the wind but otherwise it was so gorgeous. I could've spent all day up there. Once we finished up at the large farm we went to a nearby village and visited a lady who owned 1 Holstein Friesian milking cow and 1 Holstein Friesian calf as well as a few indigenous chickens. I talked to her about her cows and Hannah talked to her about her chickens. It's always interesting to compare farms from all over. This lady was housing the cows underneath her home. The house part was raised tall enough for a small barn to be made below. When asking her questions, some of her answers were somewhat confusing or did not line up. For example I asked how much she had bought the pair of cattle for and she told us 45,000 birr. In America that's about $1,900 which is not a bad price but for here, it is expensive. Our translator and driver both explained that she simply did not know what she was really getting when she paid for the cattle due to lack of knowledge.

We stopped for lunch at the hotel restaurant and Hannah and I shared a BBQ pizza. It was really good but I have to stay I miss Casey's and Hy-Vee pizza! We met back up with the translator again and took off to visit a poultry farm. While we were there a mass of children came up to see what we were doing. They stayed there the whole time we were and when we left, they all dispersed. We travelled to another farmer's home. This farmer was actually a veterinarian who owned one dairy cow. He and his family consumed the milk as well as sold part of it. Eventually, we got on the topic of how to better the nutrition of the people here in the country as well as why the country is facing the problems they are. Turns out, that people (especially rural areas) are selling their meat, milk, eggs, etc. for alcohol. Because it gets very cold in these highlands, the alcohol warms them up. But, the people do not know that this is poor nutrition or in a sense a waste of products they could be using themselves. Its lack of knowledge again. Another big problem for the country is the holidays celebrated in the Ethiopian Orthodox religion. Because they have several holidays a year the farmers of that religion are not working on those days. The priests actually tell them that a higher power will come and destroy their crops if they choose to work on these holidays. So because these farmers are not working they are getting less time into their crop. The less time put in the less they will reap. So this becomes a problem even though Ethiopia has great climates to grow and produce crops. These are all questions that I want to help work on so that this country and others like it can be lifted from poverty.

I can't resist baby goats...

The kids that were enthralled with us visiting the poultry farmer. 

 

Tomorrow, we have more farm visits. I hope they all be as insightful as the ones we went to today were. Through Debre Birhan is cold, I absolutely love this scenery. Have a great rest of your day!